"I may be your second chance, Wade, but I will not be your second choice."
Reeling from the death of his mate, Alpha Wade tried everything in his power to bring her back to life. So consumed with raising her from the dead, he almost missed his secon...
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SPENCER'S cousin was not the only pack member to fall prey to Lupoxia. Four other pack members were given the death sentence on the same day, a stark increase from the few and far between diagnoses of the past.
The day after those five pack members had been diagnosed, three more members surfaced with symptoms. Panic swept through the Training Grounds as everyone held the same fear: the fear Lupoxia would devour them next.
Most of our lives, we had been fighting off a greater evil—the Reapers. We never had to face a foe that could take hold of us no matter our defenses. No matter our precautions, Lupoxia was swift and unforgiving. It would blow its deathly kiss, and its victims would be none the wiser until the symptoms set in.
From there, the longest someone had endured the onset of symptoms was three days, most of which were spent unconscious.
It was a horrible disease, but at least the suffering was quick.
As my fellow pack members stirred up a storm of worry, I felt the isolation from my family seep into my bones. Word had arrived that a similar number of infections began to sprout around both the flatlands and the mountains.
Lupoxia knew no boundaries—except, of course, if that meant spreading past the Bluestrike community.
Reports of the disease did not make it past any of the four Bluestrike boundary lines. No other pack in the continental United States was enduring the agony our pack had grown accustomed to. Condolences were shared by a few allied Alphas, but there was not much for them to do besides watch as the illness ravished Bluestrike.
I wondered if Alpha Wade had a sense of what was causing the illness. But, if he knew anything of the sort, I would be the last person he'd tell.
He was still cold as ice. I had not heard or seen from him in the past couple of days.
But, in my book, that was good news.
He had yet to pin me for any of the allegations he had thrown my way, which meant he must have run into a dead end. From the little I knew of him, he'd have to take his time to grovel before he could admit he had been wrong—that he had been wrong about me.
I did not hold hope for Alpha Wade to come to his senses when it came to me. His scars bled deep, and nothing short of a miracle would be needed to mend those wounds. Even if most of my thoughts consisted of him, I had been determined to let my mind win the battle between head and heart.
"Is Alpha Wade not going to do anything?" Amira asked while she perched her legs on the coffee table. Her hair dangled over the side of the chair.
Amira and I gathered in our hall's lounge area. It was vacant except for the two of us. Everyone else, in their panic, had retreated to their dorm rooms after Beta Finn's announcement. Training and classes were to be scaled down for the next couple of days while they could investigate the uptick in those falling prey to Lupoxia.
