Chapter 2 - Flynn

“Yes, Father, I understand,” I concede, my fingers tightening around the cell phone pressed to my ear as I stare at the group of men in the distance. “I’ll prepare the others and come home this weekend.”

My arm drops to my side as soon as my father, the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, ends the call. I haven’t stopped watching the group of male werewolves spread out around the fire, some playing poker while others take turns poking at the meat on the barbecue.

I bite my bottom lip as I contemplate how to give my soldiers the news that we’re meant to return to Zafra and rejoin the pack after two years out in the mountains. We’ve spent that time training religiously, learning all there is to know about werewolf laws according to the ancient rulings of the Blood Moon Pack that have been passed down for centuries. Most significantly, we’ve been bonding, the group of soldiers becoming a very tight-knit group of fierce warriors who would lay their lives down for the safety of the pack.

That’s the part I’m afraid of. Even though I knew that the moment would come when I would have to return to Zafra, where Father will pass the torch to me and I can take up the mantle of the Alpha title, I’m dreading it right now.

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Yet, now that it’s here, I don’t feel as eager as I thought I would.

A shiver courses down my spine, spreading through my fingers with an electric surge that vibrates the cell phone in my hands. I think it’s a powerful surge of the intensity of my dread until a message alert rings out.

Groaning, I lift the cellular device in front of my face when a pop-up notification on the screen shows that it’s a message from Cynthia. I look up at the heavens to give me the patience I need to reply to the she-wolf’s text.

The Moon Goddess hadn't shown me much mercy when it was discovered that we were able to get a signal out here in the Ouachita Mountains.

I heard you’re coming back! I’m excited to see you, honey! I’ve got a surprise for you when you get back!

Another agitated groan rumbles from deep within my chest as I fervently hit the screen with my thumbs to type out a response. A simple “Can’t wait!” will have to suffice.

However, there is no truth in that reply.

“Yo! Flynn!” Miles, my best friend and a trusted soldier, comes rushing across the hedge toward me. His arrival lifts my spirits momentarily, but his beaming smile reminds me that I’ll have to break the news to him.

“Food’s ready,” he informs me as he slows down, flicking a glance over his shoulder. When he nears, he notices the look of apprehension gripping my face and frowns. “Is everything okay, buddy? You look a bit tense.”

I grunt and gesture to the phone in my hand. “It’s Cynthia again.”

Miles chuckles, his frown turning confused as he cocks his head to one side. “Since when is that a bad thing? I thought you liked the attention.”

I scoff as I fling an arm over his shoulders and we both turn toward the others. “It was a nice distraction when it needed to be.”

“You mean when you needed to jack off?”

“Hey!” I throw a playful punch in his ribs. “You’d better watch what you say to me.”

“Why? ‘Cause you’re gonna be Alpha and all?” he snorts.

“Yeah…” I sigh discontentedly, the brief moment of lightheartedness lost to the qualms of the real matter at hand. “About that. Think you could spare a moment with me?”

“Are you not hungry?” he asks as I remove my arm from over his shoulder and turn toward the lush green canopies behind us.

“I’m famished. But that barbecue's gonna do me no good,” I say earnestly as I close my eyes in preparation for the shift into wolf form. With the news I just received from my father, I need more nutrients to strengthen my resolve than the cooked meat has to offer. “The others will understand soon enough.”

“Of course,” Miles vocalizes in human form just before I invoke my inner wolf and feel my limbs distend with the power I need right now.

The inner wolf comes out physically, rippling through my body as every inch of flesh spreads out with the soft caress of dark fur. When my arms hit the ground, the impact is absorbed by the large, cushioned paws of my wolf. A sense of calm washes over me then, freeing my mind from the shackles of what lies ahead for the Blood Moon Pack.

Behind me, Miles whimpers in wolf form, prompting me to turn around to face him. The chestnut fur of his wolf sways in time with the passing wind, and I nod toward the forest, beckoning for him to follow me.

“ What’s up, Flynn?” Miles asks through the mind link as our wolf paws crush the loose dry leaves in search of greener pastures.

“ My father called me,” I begin, slowing my steps when we near a row of fern bushes tall enough to hide the large frames of our wolves.

“The Alpha? Is everything alright in Zafra?”

I nod my wolf head, my sharp vision catching the sight of a deer’s antlers sticking out from behind a tree as it grazes richer grass a good few meters into a clearing. “ For now, yes. But Blood Moon has received word of an attack on the Blackmaw Pack. One of their own has been abducted.”

“Shit…” Miles brays, the flat nostrils on his pointed muzzle flaring. “ That’s very close to home.”

“Too close,” I concede, my mental voice sounding dreadfully wary. “ That’s why my father has requested that we return to Zafra this weekend.”

Miles nods slowly, the piercing beads of his wolf’s blue eyes glossing over with the sadness lurking behind his eyelids. It’s a sadness that envelops his aura, allowing me to feel the emotion deeper than my own sadness over our current situation.

These past two years have turned mere boys into matured men. Still, our boyhood thrived at the bottom of what we’d named “Zafra cliff”—a cliff edge that made the perfect plummeting point to dive into the Ouachita River below. The sounds of thrill would bounce off the mountain and pool at the bottom as we swam against the rapids whenever we weren’t training or studying.

I stare at the wolf in front of me, a pang of sadness gripping my heart as it’s folded in the warmth of my fuzzy chest. Miles’s friendship is something I cherish more than anything in the world, since it’s the one thing that filled the hole of losing my real brother.

Finch’s sudden death was something I could hardly make peace with at the young age of fifteen, long before I received my wolf. When my wolf came, it only amplified the deep grief I’d been trying to keep a lid on for three years. It was in that time of sorrow that Miles approached me in the woods, his wolf speaking to me without the use of words or a mind link.

We’d formed a bond as strong as the one I shared with my older brother. Not a blood relation, but one forged by the fresh catch we shared in the woods in Zafra. Miles understood my pain, having lost both his parents within the same year, and followed me into the woods for my first hunt as a fully formed wolf.

Having received his wolf a few months before I received mine, he showed me the ropes and helped me catch my first deer.

Right now, I feel obligated to let him catch our meal, nudging him in the neck with the tip of my muzzle.

“Go ahead, buddy,” I urge him as I glance at the deer. “It’s your catch.”

Miles turns to me, the skin between his eyes folded as if he’s frowning. Since I’d been tasked with leading the special forces operatives in training two years ago, it became a customary thing for me to lead every hunt. I always made the first pounce, so it came as a surprise to my best friend.

“ You sure? This might be our last hunt out here.”

I nod as I reply telepathically, “ Then make it count.”

Miles bares his teeth as his wolf smiles before turning to narrow his focus on the deer. When he lunges across the bush, the only sound is the whisper of the tips of the thickets as they sway with the wind.

My wolf lips curl into a smirk as I watch Miles tear the deer down. Within seconds, he has its lifeless body pinned on the ground, howling toward the sky victoriously. I prance forward coolly, joining him to latch onto large chunks of meat on the deer’s ribs.

We feast on the catch, filling our bellies with dripping red meat to curb our bestial appetite. When we’re done, we dig out a hole big enough to bury the carcass before shifting back into our human forms.

“That felt good,” Miles hoots with a lighthearted chuckle as he pats his tummy. “But I’ve gotta say…I’m looking forward to returning home.”

“Yeah…the deer on our side of the land is much sweeter,” I quip, a burp tumbling out from the depths of my chest.

“Nah,” Miles disagrees as we begin making our way back to the campsite. “I’ve missed my sister’s hearty meals.”

“Lila….” His sister’s name rolls off my tongue instinctively, pulled out from the deepest recesses of agonies I’ve kept buried in my mind. Saying the name out loud has me stopping in my tracks, to which Miles turns and throws me a frown.

“Yeah, Lila. Who else?” he chuckles. “It’s not like I have another sister.”

“Of course,” I say, quickly moving along so that he doesn’t notice the torment furrowing my brows. It’s not like he hasn’t mentioned her almost every day.

It’s just that before, I haven't been on the brink of returning to Zafra, where I’ll have to see her again. Now that going home is a reality, facing the guilt of what I did two years ago is on the horizon.

The guilt I’ve buried as far away as the incessant pull I felt toward her.

I chastise myself mentally when the thoughts resurface of when I rejected Lila in front of a group of Blood Moon she-wolves. Gulping when I glance at Miles, the guilt and remorse of that moment rise like bile in my throat.

He doesn’t know what happened that day. His sister didn’t tell him, and neither did I. How can I tell my best friend that his sister stared deeply into my eyes and spoke the single word “mate” to enchant me? How do I tell him that I could feel myself being reeled into the clutches of her magnetization? Or that I had to stop myself and face reality?

After all, Lila Hargis is just an Omega werewolf who doesn’t possess a wolf. I shouldn’t have been enchanted by her presence, since her presence is of no real value to the pack. I am the future Alpha of Blood Moon, and I couldn’t possibly be drawn to an Omega.

That’s the only reason I rejected her in front of the others. I couldn’t risk my future if the tug at my heartstrings meant something more. It's always been there, a residual pull toward Lila, the sense of being drawn to her against my better judgment. I know how important it is to my father that I lead the pack in his footsteps. I have to fulfill the duty that my older brother left behind when he died, and I’ve always had to deflect any feelings I might have had for Lila.

Being mated to an Omega isn’t a good look for a Lycoan. Not when I wasn’t the firstborn son to the Alpha-blood family of Blood Moon. Every foul word I ever uttered to Lila was only an attempt to ensure that I didn’t make any mistakes. What I hadn't expected was how I felt after rejecting her. The memory of that day has festered into the deepest regret of my life.

A regret I can’t even speak about to my best friend.

“H-how is she doing?” The question slips out as we near the campfire where the Blood Moon special ops soldiers are having their dinner. It’s a question I haven’t asked before, determined to forget all about her by burying even the thought of her.

“She’s fine,” Miles reveals with a wince. “She doesn’t talk much about it, but things were never easy for her, what with her condition.”

“Hm,” I hum in contemplation.

I can’t imagine how much worse things got for her ever since I publicly rejected her. I remember watching her rush off in a fit of tears, leaving me to wallow in the torment of being incapable of running after her when I realized the extent of what I’d done.

Cynthia and her friends had a ball mocking her even in her absence, while all I could do was pretend to find humor in their jokes. Truthfully, I wished I could make up for it, but I left Zafra without seeing Lila again.

While our time in training and preparation to serve the pack has turned us into true men, it’s fostered a profound change in how I will choose to lead the pack. The day I rejected Lila, I was still a boy in my mind. It was that foolish, immature boy that bullied her out of fear of tainting my image in the pack. Now, as a fully developed male werewolf ready to take leadership of the pack, I won’t stand for anyone’s ruination in Blood Moon.

Especially Lila’s. I might never be able to explore my true feelings to find out if there’s a real reason for being drawn to her—without a wolf, her claim that I was her mate holds no weight. A true Alpha-blood can’t be mated to a wolf-less werewolf. Still, the least I can do is stop Cynthia from bullying my best friend’s sister.

It’s only the regret of what I did to her that threatens to chew me up and spit me out, a feeling I can’t afford now that a threat to werewolves hangs over Blood Moon. If I’m meant to step into my role as Alpha, I can’t afford the distraction of an Omega that might ruin the image I’ve worked hard to uphold. Living in Finch’s shadow has taught me that mistakes can’t be made.

I am my pack’s future, and my family’s only hope to continue the Lycoan legacy.