Chapter 2
Enya
My world has fallen apart. My parents are dead. We were attacked. We won. Everything was fine. My father was injured but he’s been injured before. He should have healed, but he didn’t. Two days after the battle he went into the pack hospital with a fever. A fever. That never happens. The doctors said it was an infection. His wolf was too weak to heal him.
He never left the hospital. My mother stayed by his side. We were all there with him when he died. I’ll never forget the horrible sound that my mother made when my father left this life. It was the most horrible, heart–wrenching sound I’ve ever heard. I felt like my heart was breaking, but the sound my mother made was like her heart was being ripped from her chest.
She ended up in her own hospital bed and two days later, she joined my father in the Moon Goddess‘ realm.
Now, there’s only me and Shane. We’re both underage, both woefully unprepared to take over this pack. My father has been working with Shane, but he’s only sixteen and like me, he’s devastated.
I’m the oldest. so I try to be strong for him. He can’t show weakness, neither ofan. The moment we do, the pack will turn on us. We know that. I nere are already rumblings in the pack that Shane is too young to take over. I thought our Beta would squash those rumblings but from what I can tell, he’s encouraging them.
I’m struggling to hold on to my own sanity, my grief nearly
overwhelming me at all times of the day and night. I hold it together in
front of the pack, even though I feel like a zombie going through the motions. But at night… at night when I’m all alone, I grab my blanket, sit at my window in the dark and sob.
How could they have left us? We’re too young to be on our own like
this.
No matter how little I sleep, I’m up every morning for warrior training, as is Shane. We haven’t missed a day since we lit the pyres to send our parents to the Moon Goddess‘ realm. We can’t. If we do, the pack will see it as a weakness.
Shane and I both fight hard during warrior training, both of us
instinctively knowing that we are fighting for Shane’s position in the pack. But it no longer feels like a pack. It no longer feels like we’re the beloved children of their Alpha.
It’s not everyone, but there are enough warriors rumbling in the pack to let me know that we’re going to have a problem very soon.
“Did you call the Council?” I ask Shane quietly as we walk in to breakfast.
“I did several days ago. I told him that I needed help. They said they’d send someone.”
“Did they say who or when?” I ask.
“No, just that they would send someone as soon as they could.”
I look around, feeling the tension in the air. “It’s not going to be soon enough.”
“I know. Will you stand beside me if we have to fight?” he asks.
“You never have to ask that, Shane. I’m your sister. We’re the only
family the other has. I’m with you, always.”
It starts the moment we sit down for breakfast. We don’t even get to take a bite of food when Warrior Corey opens his mouth.
“What’s the financial situation of this pack, Alpha Shane?”
I turn and look at him. “Do you have a specific concern, warrior?” I ask
him.
He shrugs. “I’m just making sure our pack isn’t going to go bankrupt.”
“If our pack was going to go bankrupt days after my father died, warrior, there would have been signs long before now,” Shane says calmly. He’s much better at remaining calm than I am.
“What’s your problem, Corey?” Gamma Braden asks.
“I want to make sure I’m not living in a pack that is going to go belly up,” he says.
“Then maybe you should eating so much food, Corey, so you can save the pack money,” he says.
Where Beta Dorian stays silent, Gamma Braden stands up for us.
“We’re all in mourning, asshole. Shut up and let the children of our Alpha and Luna grieve without being harassed,” another warrior says.
“Children ou mean pups, right?” another warrior asks.
“Do you have a problem, Dexter? Or do you have a problem with authority?” Shane asks him.
“I don’t have a problem with authority… when there is one,” he says, smirking at Shane.
My chair goes flying across the room as I stand. I realize that Gamma
Braden’s did as well.
“Do you have a problem, Dexter?” I growl.
