"I'll be down in five minutes," I said from the bed. I still needed to find Ruffles before Mars found her. If he did, he'd probably throw her right out into the forest and let her get eaten by Hounds.

"Five minutes," he said, tugging on his shorts. "If you're not down stairs by then, I come get you, and you don't want me to come back up here angry."

Yes, we do. My wolf purred, and I swore at her. That woman needed to suppress her goddamn hormones; they were driving me crazy.

I gazed at the door, blinking as I waited for him to leave. "Okay, well... bye."

He paused for a few moments, then left the room. I sprinted over to my backpack, eyes wide when I realized that the bag was open and Ruffles was gone. Moon Goddess. She just had to get into everything, didn't she?

She meowed again, and I followed the noise out into the hallway. Since Mars was nowhere to be seen, I tiptoed around, peeking my head into each room. A spare room. Another spare room. The bathroom. A third spare room that had three open bags of chips inside of it.

I cocked an eyebrow and entered the room, closing the door behind me. Ruffles was lying on the bed, on her back. Eyes closed in pure delight. Whiskers coated in chip dust. Tail curled.

"Ruffles!" I whisper-yelled at her.

She opened one eye, annoyed that I woke her up, and meowed.

"What're you doing in here?! And how'd you open all of those bags of chips?" I picked up the bags and threw them in the garbage. "What if Mars found you?" She meowed again. "Don't give me that," I said. I plucked her off of the bed.

Her breath smelt of salt, and she didn't even protest when I moved her. I hurried down the hall to Mars's bedroom. It wasn't safe to keep her in there, in case he found out about her, but at least in there I knew where she was.

Moon Goddess only knew what kind of contraptions and what kind of people were roaming around Mars's packhouse. I suspect a few torture devices and a few warriors that liked to inflict torture.

Just as I walked into the room, Mars shouted upstairs for me. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. I slammed the door, told Ruffles not to escape again--that I'd find her a better place to sleep tonight--and left her inside the room.

I walked down the hall, expecting to see Mars waiting for me, but he wasn't there. Liam stood at the foot of the stairs and nodded to me. He didn't say a word, and I didn't know what to think of him yet. Hell, I didn't know what to think of Mars yet.

He led me outside to a lake where hundreds of people were gathered, talking to each other, and having a good time. From the looks of it, Mars wasn't here yet. I didn't know what the huge rush was. People didn't seem eager to meet me.

When I turned to Liam to ask him where Mars was so I could get this over with and get back to Ruffles, Liam had disappeared through the crowd.

I raised a brow and walked around by myself. Nobody dared talk to me. People were whispering to each other. Smirking in my direction. Laughing. I clenched my jaw. What was everyone's problem?

A group of men--warriors--gazed over at me from the rocks near the lake. When I looked at them, they didn't look away. Just kept staring like I was the most fascinating thing that they had ever seen.

"Can I help you?" I asked. All I could think about was Mars finding Ruffles and throwing her out. I really needed to find him to--

One of the younger men, with long silver locks and scars all over his body, stepped forward. "Just admiring the latest trophy Alpha Ares brought home," he said. The guys next to him chuckled. "An alpha this time."

"He always likes to go bigger and better," another one said.

"At least this one's hotter than the last few," one of the older men said.

I flared my nostrils and growled. No disrespect. That was one of the only demands I had of him and his pack. If one more word came out of their mouths, I was going to--

The silver-haired asshole stepped closer to me, drawing his finger up the column of my neck. "A feisty one, isn't she?"

I grabbed his finger, bending it backwards until it broke. "I don't care who you are, but you don't touch me like that."

He chuckled lower and stepped closer, as if his finger didn't even hurt him. "Trophies from war are everyone's property, darling, not just the alpha's."

"Well, I'm not a trophy of war," I said through clenched teeth. My wolf wanted me to tell him that I was his new luna, that whether he liked it or not he would have to respect me, but something was holding me back.

If we weren't here, I would've snapped this guy's neck already. But this was my first meeting with the pack, I wanted to make a good first impression, and I didn't want to draw attention to myself.

I wanted to blend in as much as possible, try to hide that alpha side of me. These fools were fiends for power. If one of them questioned my abilities and challenged me to a fight--because Ares's pack was known to hold battles and watch them for fun--and I couldn't shift... if someone looked into me and my history and found out that I did have part of the stone, they would try to kill me.

And if they succeeded, Ruffles would die here alone. Not going to happen.

"Really?" he asked, condescendingly. He gazed over into the woods, and I followed his gaze. Mars was walking toward us with that same blonde girl. She was hanging off his arm, hers looped around his. She grinned up at him, her bright blue eyes sparkling. I gazed at the two in shock, disgust, I didn't know what to feel. Then, she grabbed his jaw and placed a kiss on his cheek. He looked down at her with so much love. Moon Goddess, I was seconds away from ripping them both apart.

To me--someone who always had thought things through before I acted--I couldn't hold my wolf back from growling and I couldn't hold myself back from thinking irrationally. By the way he acted last night and even this morning, it didn't make sense that I would be just a trophy to him. But I didn't care.

The man next to me nudged my shoulder. "Didn't think you were his one and only, did you?"

I should've known that it was all too good to be true. I should've thought with my head instead of my heart. I shouldn't have trusted a man who used me to get into my pack and take me.

He chuckled under his breath, threw an arm around my shoulders, and pulled me in close, his striking silver hair brushing against the side of my face. "You're just an alpha, here as a trophy to add to his growing collection of whores."