Wolf Queen - Book 1 of The Nightfall Series

Eleven

The world was cruel as well as it was kind. It gave, and it took. A heave and a push.

A true creature of tragedy. Life was a swirling vortex of emotion. There was pain in every aspect of life as well as there was joy. They came hand in hand, like old friends.

There was pain in growth but joy in accomplishment. Pain in death but joy at new life. A push and a pull that was as old as time.

There had been a lot of take in Adelaide's lifetime with hardly any give. She had experienced little joy since her adolescence. The Pack Wars had begun as she was young and her service as the Conduit had been vital throughout the wars that came. The Moon's Will had to constantly be reinforced.

But the pain. The pain and the grief that had centred into her very bones, it was crippling. Without the presence of the Goddess she was reverted back to her old self. The beast raged within her mind, pushed against the constraints of her mind to be set free. Clawing tooth and nail at the chance to wreak its bloodthirsty fangs on unsuspecting prey.

She felt the rippling stretches of her skin as she writhed on the ground in pain. Flat on her back she could see the blood on her hands, floods that flowed through her fingers. All of the lives taken and lost. She howled wails of pain that stretched high into the sky, stretching across miles, echoing off of the trees and mountains.

The Goddess had left her to the cataclysm of her own mind. There was nothing to find that was already lost. Instinct made her push everything to the side. Emotion spread weakness and there could be none in her world.

Warm hands touched her skin as she began to claw at her arms in an attempt to wash away the blood. Her red eyes could see nothing past the blurs of her memories. She missed the silver needle heading for her skin, clear liquid sloshing in its holder before it was plunged into her arm. She saw nothing but the disappearing image of her mother with open arms as she fell into darkness.

Her roar of pain had been heard far and wide. The Alpha's lifted their heads at the sound as panic seized their bodies. They felt the change in the valley, the loss of power. The change in dominant power.

Lady Adelaide had always been a force to reckoned with, even from a young age. The second born of a High Alpha. High Alpha children always carried the strength of their parents as well as their own, it was a rare trait within the werewolf community.

High Alpha Jonah was the only High Alpha to survive the Pack Wars but not without scars that would shape the rest of his life. The Alpha's respected him highly. The Moon Fang pack were the finest warriors of the world because of their following of the old ways.

The Alphas stood, forgetting about their morning meal as Jonah appeared from the depths of the forest. Alpha Norman stood amongst the Alphas, shoulders pushed back and eyes calculating the new scenario they were now in. His skin felt as if it was on fire under the surface, the acrid smell of decaying flesh constantly wafted to his nose from his neck. The pain he felt within his soul was held at bay by a thin piece of thread, he couldn't show any ounce of weakness to the pack of Alpha's around him. War spread greed and any of them would take a chance to end his reign.

He watched Jonah as he left the treeline and headed for Leonidas. He walked with such strength and power, no sign of the crippling pain that marked his own soul. Norman didn't understand how Jonah did it so well.

How he survived for so long?

He'd experienced so much loss, loss identical to his own but the only signs of weakness were the now greying lines along his temples.

Others had died from the loss of a life-mate, yet Jonah lived on, far longer than any other widowed werewolf in history. As an Alpha the bond forged between their life partner is unbreakable. To kill one is for the other to die. Two souls intertwined as one cannot live as a half but here he was. Almost twenty years and still as powerful as when they were children.