The Alpha's Banished Mate

Amelia

They came without warning. As I glanced out the window, lightning streaked across the dark, furious sky revealing half a dozen silhouettes just a few feet from the window. Before the sky darkened again, they were in the hut.

My father grabbed me and hurled me toward them like a bowling ball before shifting into his wolf form and breaking through the back door. Two bodies went down under me. Shock turned to immobilizing fear.

Something pulled me back up. “Hold her.”

Those were the only two words spoken, but the sound of his voice caught my attention.

Confused, I snapped my head around, but he was already a wolf. Melting into the darkness, he was just a blur as he went after my father.

They dragged me outside. Rain pelted the ground, and I slipped on the mud. It wasn’t a move to escape, but I was punished for it. Claws pushed me to my back and raked down my shoulder before resting against my neck.

I stared into the dark eyes of the wolf and understood that this was the end. Fear melted away into nothingness. These weren’t allies. There was nothing to fear.

They were the enemy, and maybe now, it would finally be over.

The blow never came. I was pulled back to my feet as the other shifters started to turn. Two wolves tumbled back into the clearing. The large bloody gray wolf was my father. The slightly smaller black wolf was a stranger but packing an immense amount of power.

For the first time in a long time, the wolf inside me stirred with interest. Hesitantly, she rose inside me.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved her back down. Now was not the time to let her take over.

A ring formed around my father and his opponent. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that these would be the last few moments I saw my father alive.

He was a skilled fighter. Strength and intelligence were both on his side, not to mention a ruthless nature. It was how he’d survived for so long.

The black wolf was an alpha. He had the kind of natural power my father had killed again and again trying to obtain.

The black wolf also had rage on his side.

The fight was over in less than ten minutes. A victorious roar rose above the thunder from my captors as my father fell dead to the ground.

Thunder boomed as the storm blew even closer. The alpha shifted and dragged my father’s corpse in front of me. I immediately averted my eyes, not to avoid looking at my father, but to avoid looking at the alpha.

“I am Lucien West, alpha of the Black Diamond Wolves. Confirm that the dead wolf is Gary Holt.”

I didn’t raise my head. “It is.”

There wasn’t a single note of sadness in my voice. I didn’t expect there to be. There was no joy either. Or relief. I hadn’t