Mateless and Home Bound (In Process Of Publication)

Chapter 4: A Hint of Danger

It had been fourteen years since she had truly been in a pack. It had been fourteen years since the other ten people that traveled with her had an Alpha to lead them. She had only been leading them for three years. She could barely remember what it was like to have a leader other than her father.

The mind link was still fairly new to her. None of them could use it before now. They all had to depend on their mannerisms and talking as humans to get by. When they had the ceremony that united them with the Crescent Moon pack, it was amazing. She had never known what belonging could truly feel like. It lifted a weight off from her shoulders, as she no longer had to decide on life-or-death situations.

"You were a great leader," Alpha Max told her. She told him much of her travels that she could remember. He told her that he wished to know as much about them as possible. "I'm glad to welcome you into the pack."

He was a nice man, which was not something that she expected from an Alpha. He respected all of them who came. They all told him what had happened throughout their journeys. Thankfully they remembered most landmarks. The more they told him, the calmer he got about them being here. Soon he absolutely loved them all. He talked about needing some more warriors too, which they easily helped with. She was already a decent warrior. They were training her a little bit, but they mainly wanted her to focus on her education.

As much as those words from the Alpha were nice, she didn't feel like she truly was as great as all of them thought she was. Even the ones from her group that were much older than her looked to her for most advice on things. She got them all used to the pack, even when she wasn't used to it herself.

But she wasn't that smart. She didn't know how to read or write like everyone else could. The rogues had come before she could even go to school. And they didn't have time to try and learn things like that when she was growing up. They traveled through forests looking for another safe spot, knowing that they could never look back.

Their mistake was that they had decided to run away from where the rogues were going. Her father had wanted to get revenge for the pack, but they had children that they needed to protect. He sacrificed his pride for the sake of the last survivors being freed from the rogue's torments. If they had known that it would have led them to this place all those years ago, though, she was sure that things would have been a lot different. But she couldn't blame her father for doing what he thought was right at the time.

She still remembered the first time she went to the three packs that occupied this forest, asking for even one to take them in. It didn't even matter if it was just a small amount of them. She just wanted to save even a few of her members from the dangers that lied ahead. She was going to beg if she had to, her pride was nowhere when it came to trying to save the little bit of family that she had.

She remembered seeing Eric for the first time, too. She had to try and stop herself from looking at him. There was a pull that she couldn't explain, but it made her want to be close with him. It wasn't until she looked into those eyes that she realized just who he was. Him showing the Alpha Symbol for the Goldshield pack was just for show at that point. She knew who he was from the moment she saw him.

He looked so much like his father. She always looked up to him. He would make all of them feel safe and protected no matter what. Eric was such a scared child when they were younger. But whenever she mentioned his father, he would look a little braver. They had been good friends when they were little.

It was shocking to think that he was her mate. She knew what a mate bond was. The pull towards him was too strong for her to not know that they belonged to each other, and her own wild instincts were telling her to mark him and let him mark her. She longed to belong to someone finally.