The Crystal Moon Curse: Book 2: TAMED

10. Past

DANTE

I cannot fucking believe this is happening. How much more fucked up can my life get?

I stagger naked through the woods before slumping against a large oak tree, taking in the familiar clearing where Hades has brought me.

The old dilapidated tree house where Kaison, Carlton and I used to hide out as pups perches precariously between thick branches above me. Wolves are terrible climbers but we three loved this tree house.

For the life of me, I can never understand why Hades brings me here time and time again. It's like he wants me to see something, remember something. If only he would fucking talk to me, tell me what the fuck he wants me to do here I would just do it instead of looking at my past in damn confusion.

I lean my head against the oak tugging on the old rope ladder. It's been almost ten years since I climbed up, I was just a pup, sixteen, half the size I am now, there's no way the old ladder would support my weight now.

Looking up at the underside of the ramshackle shingle floorboards above me I can almost hear Carlton laughing at some stupid prank he had just pulled on Kaison, always his favorite target.

Carlton was the best of us three. Joyful, full of life, and the toughest wolf I knew. He was the one that dragged our asses to training every morning before school and every evening after. He kept us accountable and despite his playful ways, he was the one who reminded us that we were the future of the pack. He would take us to the edge of rebellion, let us taste the excitement then pull us back and set us to work. He would have been the best Gamma ever. I miss him like fucking mad, but I'm glad he's not around to see how far I've fallen. That would fucking kill him all over again.

Familiar rage, guilt, and pain storm my brain, and with a growl, I smash my fist into the tree trunk relishing the pain as my knuckles split and bleed. They heal almost instantly, the relief momentary.

"Hades!" I call into the clearing.

Silence mocks me as usual.

"What the fuck did you do Hades!"

The very notion of what Eva revealed at the Council Chamber has been burning acid in my guts for hours. I can barely think straight.

How the fuck did Hades hide this from me? Why would he mate and claim Eva's wolf and hide it from me? Does he hate me that much? Didn't he see what I would do to her, what I was doing?

I struggle to search the pieces of my memory of that night but it's all a blur. Just like every other time Hades shifts me.

I see nothing, I remember nothing.

I've always trusted Hades to take me where we need to go and do right by me. He always has. Until now. Right now my trust in him has flown out the fucking window. What else has he hidden from me?

"Why the fuck Hades?" I call out again.

I remember very little about the Sunset run, the year I rejected Eva.

I didn't even want to be there. I had told Bryan I wasn't ready, but I was twenty -one, my father was ill and I had to step up as Alpha heir.

I remember sitting in my tent after sending my runners off for the Sunset Run. Then a scent so intoxicating wafted in and had me on my knees enslaved by its sweetness and purity. Exactly what I didn't want happening.

Then I remember nothing.

Hades took over and the next thing I knew I was standing in the woods in front of a naked Goddess.

She was everything I ever dreamed of. Stunning gold blonde hair falling in silky sheets over her shoulders barely round perky breasts. Her waist was impossibly tiny flaring into gentle hips and endless shapely legs.