~~

Carter

~~

There had been so many changes recently, ever since my cousin had mated with the alpha. Her life had been turned upside down, and try as I might to stick by her side to protect her, I just wasn't able to.

I had immediately joined the pack warriors with hopes of being one of her personal guards so I knew that she was safe. But I was assigned elsewhere. I don't know if that was done on purpose, out of spite, or if it was just the way things were.

No, I was assigned to be a scout. A spy as it were. My job was to infiltrate other packs and find out if they were involved in the attacks on my cousin. So, I guess in a way I was helping her, just not directly.

I had been at this job for nearly two months and I was already in the third enemy pack. The packs I was being sent to were not close. They were the packs on the very fringe of our territory.

Our pack, the Red Springs Pack, was the largest in the entire country. But most people didn't know that. Most other packs didn't pay attention to what happened that far beyond their borders so they just didn't care.

But our pack has apparently been very prosperous over the last several generations and we have acquired more fealty packs and treaty packs than any other werewolf pack had ever done in our species' history.

I didn't care for our current alpha though. He claimed my cousin, my little sister of sorts, and he proceeded to force her to move into his house immediately. And that had happened on the day of the first attack.

That first attack had been from a rogue, or so they say, but I didn't trust him at all. Reece, the alpha, just seemed like an asshole to me. He was someone that I needed to protect my innocent little cousin from.

I was just two years older than Trinity, and my parents raised her since she was three months old. There isn't a part of my memory that doesn't have her there like the little sister my parents never had. They didn't need to since Trinity was my sister. I had always thought of her that way anyway. And now my little sister was in danger.

This pack I was spying on now was about six hours or so away from home. The Black Canyons Pack, run by a mean son of a bitch named Bryce. Or at least everyone said he was mean. I had only met him once and all he did was grunt at me.

My story was that I was a nomad, a drifter, that hadn't felt at home in my family pack. I wasn't a threat to them so as long as I didn't do anything wrong or try to hurt anyone I was allowed to be here.

I had always been good at blending into the people around me and I was even better at people pleasing. That was one reason I was so good at my job. No one suspected anything from me, most of the time they often just forgot that I was even there to begin with.

Out of all the pack I had been to so far, this one had the most potential for being behind those unfounded attacks. Bryce, the alpha, hated every other pack in the country. That was common knowledge. Also, this was the second largest pack in our area and the fifth largest pack in the country. If they were going to try and take over they were the one with the most chance at succeeding.

Another anomaly with this pack was that they were the only one to give me a job right away. I was put on perimeter patrol. Apparently, they had had some problems with people, other shadow worlders, sneaking around in the past and Bryce didn't like to share his land.

It was during one of these perimeter patrols, one really close to the alpha's estate, that I smelled the most amazing scent in the world. It was like sweet flowers, a bunch of them. Daisies, jasmine, lilies, roses, and so many more I couldn't place. It smelled like a greenhouse.

I just smiled with a dazed look on my face while I patrolled the area. I was moving closer and closer to the house, weaving in and out of the trees. The scent would get stronger the closer I was to the house, but it would fade the farther away I went.

I would catch the slightest trace of the scent on my path, like whoever it belonged to had gone on a run in the area. I almost felt like a cartoon character, ready to be lifted off the ground only to start being dragged around by my nose as it followed the trail.

I knew what this scent meant. This was my nose telling me that I had found my mate. This was going to be the best day of my life. I would find her, convince her to run away from her pack and join my pack. We would live together in eternal bliss, growing older as we watched our children grow up around us. It was the life every wolf wanted.

I couldn't take it anymore. I started following the trail for real. I needed to find this girl now. I needed to see her, to know who she was.

The scent trail was leading me closer and closer to the alpha's house. This alpha house looked so much like the one back home. It was shaped the same but made of slightly different materials and was different colors. Other than that, it was the exact same house.

As I looked at the pack house, comparing it to the one my cousin was now living in, I wondered if my new mate was a maid in the house. Was she here at work right now? Was today her day off and I was just following an old trail of hers? I needed to find her though. Perhaps she would like the idea of someone rescuing her from her life of being a maid to an assholish brute of an alpha.

I was running different fantasies and scenarios through my head. Different visions of how I would sweep her off her feet, profess my undying love to her, and we'd ride off together into the sunset. All these thoughts had me utterly distracted so when I heard the most musical voice ever I froze in my tracks.

"Katie, Jordan, you two are so mean." The words she was speaking didn't seem too happy but her voice was full of glee. "I'm going to get the two of you for not helping me. It's almost my birthday you know, can't you help your sister out a little bit?"

"But if we start helping you now, we will never be able to rest until you've worked us all to the bone." A man about my brother Noah's age was responding to her.

"Don't worry, Ems, I will help you in a few minutes. Just let me put all this stuff away." That was from a younger girl, perhaps in the last year of middle school, if she was even that old.

"Thank you Katie." The musical voice was cheering now.

I saw her through the trees then. She seemed to be bouncing up and down, a happy smile dominating her beautiful, perfectly sculpted face. She had a light tan still and her hair was a beautiful shade of blonde. And I could see her pretty green eyes from here. She looked so angelic, and sexy.

Her body seemed to be sculpted by the gods. Perfect hips, perfectly long legs, perfectly perky and ample breasts. She was maybe five feet nine inches tall, maybe a little more or less, it was hard to tell from a couple hundred yards away.

All my dreams and fantasies were already morphing to something more, adding her beautiful visage to the details. I started to walk forward, intent on talking to her and introducing myself.

I took step after step, slowly closing the distance between us. That was until I saw the alpha, Bryce, walk out of the house behind her.

"Daddy!" She leapt with joy and jumped right into his arms. "I'm so happy you're letting me plan all of this."

"Well, I know how much you love parties." Bryce smiled sweetly at his daughter as he hugged her to him.

All of my fantasies and dreams for the future shattered in an instant.

My new mate, my one and only mate in this life, was the daughter of an enemy alpha. This couldn't be happening. How could this be real. Why did the moon goddess hate me?

I turned around and stopped myself from walking toward her. I couldn't let her see me, I couldn't let her smell me. I had to get away.

"What's that?" I heard her voice in the distance and that was when I started running.

I shifted and ran as far and for as long as I could. My life was over.