Read Online The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) by May Ellis Daniels - Free Book Online Page A

den. The cry of an eagle surveying his territory, and suddenly I hear a multitude of animals, each calling to me, their voices rising so loud the cabin trembles. Dust cascades from the rafters overhead and still the calls and howls and cries and songs grow louder, the voices of the wild world merged into one, a vast, teeming cacophony, and the sound washes into me, knocks the breath from my lungs, sends me to my knees, because the animals are all calling a single name, my true wildborn name, and they are calling me—
    “The One We Answer To,” the girl says with a shy smile.
    The animal calls peak in a crashing crescendo, then slowly fade.  
    I look at my hands. They’re trembling. My claws have dropped. My animal is near, pacing, waiting to be summoned, more powerful than I ever imagined.  
    “No,” I say, pressing my fingers to my temples and and shaking my head. “It can’t be. You’re lying. It’s fucking madness! Me? It can’t be.”
    “What do you know of your lineage?”
    “My…fuck it. The less the better.”  
    “Your grandfather was the ancestral alpha of what are now called the Purebloods. He ruled the joined alpha and beta packs after the First Fallen’s Atrocity,” Anne’a says. “Your grandfather was The One Who Struggles. A proud warrior. He led the united packs into battle against the Fallen. He sired a single son, your father, who in turned sired two sons and a daughter. Two of those three children, your brother and sister, are now lost to us. Aaron of the Mountain River is the only still living among his bloodline. You. The last of a proud lineage with roots in the very beginning.”
    “You’re wrong,” I say, looking between Anne’a and her daughter, my eyes wide with horror. “My father was a useless sack of shit. A cruel bully. A shit leader. He failed as alpha. I watched my pack tear him apart. Now you’re telling me his father led the Purebloods against the First Fallen? It’s madness. A Skinwalker’s trick.”
    “Now do you remember?” the young girl says in her strange, hollow voice.  
    “I…fuck sakes!” I shout, rubbing my temples to ease the pounding in my head. “I remember…flashes. Blurry images. A single sound or scent or feeling. But nothing… whole . You fucking get it? Nothing…that helps…”
    “I am not wrong,” Anne’a says, kneeling before me. “And this is no cruel magic or snake-tongued deceit. I’ve waited for you for a hundred moons and more. The only one who could lift my curse with kindness and courage in spite of his despair. You are The One Who Struggle’s grandson. Aaron of the Mountain River. The One We Answer To.”  
    “My grandfather…kept the packs from scattering after the Atrocity? He fought the Fallen?”
    “And died doing so, according to legend,” Anne’a says. “Do you see? Do you see how wrong you were? Everything you do matters.”
    Lily. My bloodmate.
    It matters. Everything matters.  
    She still loathes me. Believes I murdered her mother.  
    She’s wrong. That motherfucker Connor Lerrick lied. I remember now—  
    I stagger to my feet, stumble to the door, lean heavily against the cabin wall and look out into the dry riverbed and dust track and glaring sunlight. I don’t know what to say to Anne’a and her child, so instead I take a long, committed stride out of the cabin and into the light.
    I don’t look back until I’m at the rim, and when I do the ravine is empty.  
    The cabin gone.  
    The open grave filled.  
    For a moment I think I’ve gone mad from hunger and thirst, then I feel something cool against my neck, reach down and lift the gleaming turquoise amulet until I see myself in the reflection. My eyes are wild and ringed with dark circles, my lips cracked and bleeding. I look like a fucking madman.
    The One We Answer To.
    I loose a long, pained laugh. Tear the amulet from my neck.
    Fucking Skinwalker.  
    I study the amulet.  
    I’m about to toss it in the dirt when I remember something