Prologue

PROLOGUE

COLT

H e is the Alpha.

He's found his mate.

I should obey his every word.

But I won't.

I can't.

Wyatt has every fucking thing in the world, and here I am with nothing but shit in my hand.

I lean against the railing on the deck, staring at the acres of woods behind my cabin. I'm holding onto my coffee mug a little too tightly and I have to force myself to loosen my grip, for fear of shattering the ceramic.

I am tense, every bone in my body threatening to break, my wolf wanting to shift.

Staying in my animal form sounds like a good retreat, a safe haven from my torrential emotions.

I'm pissed. Really fucking angry if I am being honest. The shit with Wyatt only intensifies those emotions, bringing out the worst in me.

But our past isn't an easy one.

I push away from the railing and head back inside. My gaze instantly lands on the framed photo I have sitting on the mantle. I don't know why I keep the damn thing out, maybe a memory of everything I've lost.

I find myself walking up to that picture, taking hold of it and looking down at the four people smiling back at me.

It's an image of Wyatt and me when we were children, our fathers standing on either side of us, their hands on our shoulders. We're all smiling, brothers by bond, family by choice. Our fathers were best friends, his father the Alpha of the pack, mine next in line. We were training to take over, deciding to rule the pack together, as a team.

It was always the plan.

But everything changes with time, I suppose.

And right before Wyatt's father passed, he elevated Wyatt to Alpha, totally disregarding my father's rightful place in line. Then he passed away, and Wyatt became Alpha. There was a pull of power between him and my dad. It was one I never anticipated, but one that happened nonetheless.

It put a strain between us, this wedge that stripped friends apart, almost making us enemies. And then, when my father passed things got worse. There was no talk of us rolling together, the bitterness that had festered in both of us too much to smooth over, too deep to even repair.

And that is why I am thinking of leaving Unforgiven, just packing up my shit and starting over somewhere else. I am a lone wolf by nature anyway, so maybe this is what fate has always had in store for me.