be alone.”
“I know. Let’s go then.” Leticia walked beside him. When would she ever be safe again? Her life was getting better, but it was by no means normal. She still couldn’t quite get used to the fact her own father, who had guarded her so carefully, would be visiting with and talking to the rogue panthers.
He was, Leticia, I saw him.
Her head snapped round to look at Oliver. She could have sworn he’d spoken to her, but he was looking straight ahead and paying no attention to her. Well, that was weird.
Chapter Four
David was sitting with Sam beside the campfire in the clearing. Their booted feet were resting comfortably on the stones edging the fire pit. Being so close to the fire they were comfortably warm even though the sky was gray, the wind chilly, and winter was fast approaching.
David’s pack was in tatters. Well, actually it was more a case of “Pack? What pack?” He’d had a normal life as a child, growing up with his younger brother and sister in a small but happy pack way up in the Rocky Mountains. His father had been the Alpha’s second-in-command and their lives had been good. Then one of the younger panthers had challenged the Alpha. Although leadership contests these days were mostly won by words, in this case the younger man had kept confronting the Alpha until there was a fight, which left the Alpha badly wounded.
His own life had been a shit fest ever since. The new Alpha had told his family to leave the pack because they were half-breeds and the pack would no longer tolerate such mutants. In vain did their father point out that he was a full-blood and his children three-quarters. The new Alpha wasn’t listening, and when his mother told his father they should just leave because it wasn’t anything to do with her being half-human but rather that they’d supported the old Alpha, his father had turned on her, blaming her for all their troubles.
David had tried to support his mother only to have his father tell him he wasn’t his father. That David had been born before his parents had mated.
His mother and siblings had headed south, looking for another pack. David wasn’t wanted by any of them. Not his pack, not his family. Alone, he’d headed east and just kept going. In Indiana he’d met some other lone panthers, including some part humans, and he’d formed his own pack. By the time they’d reached Ohio some humans had joined them, looking for a tribe, a pack of their own.
At first David had been thrilled, planning to make his pack a force to be reckoned with. Then had come more trouble. Months ago Drew had come up with a clever idea for their success as a pack.
“We have to mate with pure-blood big cats or our shifting gene will die out. I know of a pack with cougars, panthers, and a puma,” said Drew, who was half-panther.
“But why would they accept us? Why would they let us join them just to marry their women?”
“We aren’t going to join them, David. We’ll steal the unmated women and mate them ourselves. Then we’ll be really powerful. You’ll be a real Alpha then with a pack that will last for generations.”
That’s what David had wanted, and he’d focused only on that. He’d worked so hard to steal a bride. But every time he was close to success his men either did something stupid or ran away in fear. All the humans had left him now, apart from a few who were in jail along with two panthers. He was almost certain the last two half-panthers, Drew and Charlie, had left as well. They hadn’t been back to the campsite for days, and this new panther, an older man who was part of the pack he’d attacked, was sleeping in their tent and using their things.
“Sam, I don’t understand why you’ve left your pack to join me. Once I had a pack, a good pack, but most of them have left now. Some in jail, and Drew and Charlie haven’t been back in a while. Likely they’ve left, too. So why are you still here? I have no pack, no power to help
Charlotte Hughes
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