Reluctantly Mated
Betrayal of the Pack
It was a good night to hunt a witch.
His pack had just finished rounding up the traitorous wolves who’d been harboring his latest target. And Kieran Gallagher was more than ready to end another evil mistress of the dark arts.
Witches should have been wiped from the planet long ago.
During his centuries-long mission to eradicate them, he’d accrued one of the largest and most ferocious packs in America, the Havenwood Pack.
He’d recruited those who had lost their way because of witches, demons, vampires, and other forces of evil.
The only drawback to waging this long vendetta was that the more he killed, the darker the stain on his soul became, until he’d begun to feel nothing at all.
Even his wolf lay near dormant, its presence dimming more and more each year. He knew what that meant.
He was slowly dying.
And he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
But tonight was going well.
No one expected an attack on a full moon, and his plan had been perfect. He had taken over the treacherous Rainstorm Pack without so much as a scratch on his own wolves.
Not only that, but they’d scented and chased off the notorious dark witch, Beonca.
They hadn’t caught her. But that was okay. They weren’t hunting her today. Her time would come.
Today was for the witchling who’d escaped the cleanup of the Bloodroot Coven.
Rumors had flown for twenty years that a child had somehow slithered out alive. He’d heard that Beonca was hunting the orphan too, for her own nefarious reasons.
Well, Beonca wasn’t going to recruit her into her foul ranks. The filthy witchling was his. And he would snap her neck and end her tonight, for once and for all.
Kieran stepped from his SUV and called out to his beta. The jackass turned toward him, smiling slightly before sauntering in his direction.
Tyler Ward was his best friend and a pain in his ass. Younger than Kieran by a few hundred years, Tyler had a liveliness to him that Kieran knew had long died out in himself.
Aside from the pleasures of vengeance, Kieran lived a bleak existence.
If he gave a shit about himself, he might even admit he was lonely. Not that males like him deserved to be happy.
His hands were stained with so much damned blood sometimes he swore all he could see was red.
“What’s the status on our witch?”
Tyler shook his head. “The wolves we’ve rounded up aren’t telling us anything. They’re loyal to a fault.”
Both males were of similar height, their shoulders brushing as they stared off at the captured shifters.
Kieran raised his eyebrows. “Seems they think a dark witch deserves protection. Perhaps a bit of torture will set them right.” The words tasted foul but were necessary.
As a rule, his pack didn’t dole out torture to fellow wolves unless there was no way around it. But a pack harboring a dark witch? That was justification for whatever torture Tyler could come up with.
“That’s just it, Alpha. The only thing Alpha Taylor will say is that she’s a light witch. Non-practicing.”
“Then why hide her?”
Tyler shrugged. “They feared you’d back out of the alliance, maybe? Their pack isn’t exactly known for its formidability.
“So, they thought to hide her and still use our name for protection?”
It hardly mattered what their motives had been. Kieran had received word that the hidden witch was performing dark rituals on Rainstorm land.
Now it was his job to take her out and sort out the mess this pack had created.
Patting his friend on the back, Kieran turned away, leaving Tyler to handle the questioning however he saw fit.
The Rainstorm Pack was knowingly harboring a witch, shielding her from the justice she deserved.
And unless it could be proven that they were under the coercion of dark magic, then they were in breach of the alliance, and Kieran was well within his rights to declare war.
He felt a frisson of unease, questioning his own judgment for the first time in years.
Hadn’t a witch cursed him once to believe anything her foul lips spewed? The Rainstorm witch might have been doing the same to this pack.
Maybe he should rethink harming these people until he had his target in his clutches.
You are the villain because you need to be as evil as those you hunt. How else will you protect others from the wretchedness of these creatures?
No excuses for the Rainstorm Pack.
He unclenched his fists to wipe nonexistent blood from his palms. The gesture was a habit by now.
A scream tore through the air, faint, but his ears twitched all the same.
His beast stirred at the sound, stretching for the first time in ages, causing Kieran’s skin to itch as he was driven by the almost forgotten urge to shift.
Kieran paused, breath catching. He’d not felt that inclination in a decade, at least.
Tyler approached from the south. “Did you hear—”
“KIERAN!” That voice… It resonated through him like a plucked string.
His wolf howled, awakening, and Kieran’s own answering howl tore from his throat as he lifted his head to the sky.
“Gods,” said Tyler, stepping away from him in utter astonishment. “Is that—your wolf?”
Several other howls echoed after, compelled by his hungry call.
“Kieran?” Tyler’s face was full of disbelief—and joy.
Kieran ignored his beta. His wolf’s instinct, long dormant, reverberated through his mind. “Find her,” it demanded. “Protect her.”
Without another thought, he was sprinting through the woods, muscles bunching as he leapt over rocks, fallen logs, whatever was in his way.
He nearly felled a tree, slamming into it hard in his haste to get to that voice.
The urgency in her call echoed through him. He had to reach her before something terrible happened.
He wasn’t even sure who “she” was, only that everything inside him compelled him to move faster, to be quicker. Time was of the essence.
After what felt like an eternity, Kieran stumbled across one of his wolves, Joe, straddling an unconscious woman, one hand holding her face into the dirt and the other grabbing at himself through his pants.
Her sweater appeared to be torn, and she was covered in filth, the signs of her struggle evident. Kieran’s breath lodged in his throat at her still form, a visceral instinct propelling him forward.
His wolf howled again, the noise ringing in Kieran’s head.
Kieran snarled low in his throat. The noise startled Joe, who quickly dropped his hands, eyes popping open.
The smell of Joe’s fear permeated Kieran’s senses. Not an unusual scent when he was around weaker wolves.
Joe staggered backward, landing on his ass, his eyes shifting to a bright blue as his wolf came to the forefront, no doubt sensing he had just become Kieran’s prey.
Kieran could also smell the sweet tang of the stranger’s blood, though he didn’t see any liquid spilling onto the forest floor.
But the scent of her fear hit him hardest, mixed with a heady scent of lavender and vanilla.
And under it all, an earthy but not unpleasant smell of witch.
The pungent mixture pissed Kieran the fuck off and had his newly awakened wolf slamming into him to break through and take over, snapping and snarling in rage.
All at once, he felt strangely aroused, protective, and ready to kill his own fucking pack member for touching her.
For harming a witch?
Kieran shook his head to clear his warring thoughts, but the insistence of his wolf grew louder.
“Protect her. Protect what’s ours.”
The witch. His witch.
The thought alone provoked him further into madness, the need to kill and maim causing his body to enlarge, the urge to shift nearly overtaking him.
He struggled to control his wolf, determined to get a hold of himself, but it was impossible.
The fight within him ended when Joe moved.
Kieran’s eyes locked onto the shifter as he allowed his wolf to the forefront, not to shift, but to guide his next steps.
A snarl ripped from his throat. His hands clenched into fists at his sides as he slowly stalked toward the pathetic piece of shit who’d been holding her down.
She was his. His prize, his witch, his to deal with however he wanted. And the things he wanted to do to her…
He nearly groaned at the thought, his lungs taking in more of her scent until he felt both grounded and murderous.
Joe thought to harm what didn’t belong to him?
Red filled Kieran’s vision as a blind rage took over, his wolf begging to be released fully so it could tear the flesh from Joe’s body.
“Ours.” His wolf repeated it like a mantra.
Wait. Had his beast woken because of the witch?
“Ours.”
His kill? His witch? Kieran didn’t give a fuck as he closed the space between him and his prey.
He lifted his pack mate effortlessly and threw him to the ground, not allowing Joe the time to shift as he kicked him repeatedly, relishing in the bones snapping beneath his booted foot.
Joe cried out in anguish, the pitch high and grating.
What a sweet sound.
A sort of haze filled him as more blood scented the air. His mind was consumed with one thought.
Protect her by whatever means necessary.
Continue to the next chapter of Reluctantly Mated