Preface

Preface

 

 

I stared in horror at the scene before me. The frightening and blood drenched scene of what had once been my family. They had been ripped to shreds. They were nearly unrecognizable. How could this be? How could he have betrayed me? He claimed to love me, yet he had killed my family! He would pay for this. I couldn’t let him get away with it. Even as the words sped through my confused mind I knew in my heart that I could never go through with it. I could never kill him. I loved him too much. I didn’t have it in me to destroy the only reason for my life. But why would he do this to me? He said he loved me, but how could that be true? If he would destroy my life, how much could he truly care?

Tears of pain and rage streamed down my face as I looked into the pain filled faces of my dead family. Their murders were bad enough, but to know that I had been betrayed by the one I thought I could trust, the only person I had ever really trusted with my life, outside of my family, was just too much. His scent was everywhere, all over them and everything around them. I hated him now. How could I have ever loved him? How could I have believed his lies?

I turned and started to run to the place I knew he’d be. The place we had spent so much time together. The place we had become allies for the second time, though we had hated each other. The place he had, told me he loved me so many times, even just this morning he had said those words to me. They meant nothing now. Nothing he’d ever said meant anything now. I should have known that only pain could ever have come from loving the one whose family had taken over what should be mine. My family should be the ruling family of the Wolflords, the werewolf pack of Jasper, Texas, the most powerful pack in existence, but his family had taken it from mine. I hated that. Strangely, I had changed my mind about wanting twice now. I had wanted to, then I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to lead the pack the way my grandfather had. I hated the idea. I didn’t want to lead them, I’d been told that I’d be a good leader, but that isn’t what I wanted. Not what I used to want, anyway. But now I did. I wanted to be a leader, to take that from him the way his family had taken it from mine.

I continued to run toward the park we always hung out at. I felt the icy pain racing through my veins. The pain that I knew would bring on the change. The shift into my wolf form. Wolf form almost felt more natural to me than my human form did. I couldn’t decide whether it would be more beneficial to me to shift or to remain as I was. Remaining in this form would hinder me, especially if it came to a fight. I needed the shift. Now.

I let the ice spread through my veins, let it take over and change me into the reddish-blonde wolf that was half myself. I loved this form and Mark had always told me he did as well. He had told me time and time again that I was the most beautiful wolf he’d ever seen, with the reddish-golden fur and pale, topaz blue eyes. I wanted to forget everything he’d ever told me. I wanted to forget him after I had destroyed his life as thoroughly as he had destroyed mine. I wanted to hurt him as much as I had been hurt. He had to pay. One way or another he would.