Without removing so much as his shoes, Aidan shifted and ran into the depths of the forest, torn pieces of clothes littering his wake. His enormous midnight black wolf thundered through the trees, pushing himself to create as much distance as he could between him and the scene he had left behind.

The wolf wanted to return to his mate, to comfort her and take back the distress he had caused her but Aidan remained in control and forced the wolf to keep going.

How could this be his fate? To be mated to such a notoriously powerful female. His mind raced and he was suddenly brought back to the worst memories of his life.

He thought of Lunar Ridge and the outdated way his father, William, had run the pack. The women had been torn from education once they could read and write, being forced to take on duties in the home or menial work without any hope of furthering careers or gaining independence from their fathers or mates. Women and girls were not represented in any way in the pack and his father had ruled with this archaic mindset for too long.

Aidan had grown up watching his mother suffer at the hands of his father and like-minded pack members, despite her being the Luna of the pack. His father had no respect for her and degraded her frequently and as publicly as he could to remind everyone of the place of females in society.

Despite this being the norm, it never sat well with Aidan how he was treated so differently to his mother and older sister. Aidan attended warrior training alongside receiving an elite education. Meanwhile, his sister Layla, worked each day in the kitchen of the pack house for little wages and no thanks. Despite her difficult life, Layla was fun and energetic and a true joy to be around. She was Aidan's favourite person on the entire earth and his fondest memories of his childhood centred around her.

Layla was pale like their mother, with strawberry blonde hair and a freckled face which consistently bore a mischievous grin. She would make up games for Aidan, telling him stories, bringing him on adventures in the woods and spending all of their free time together.

Aidan took it upon himself to teach Layla anything useful he learned in school, as well as some self defence training. She never complained about her life or about the fact that Aidan was being provided with opportunities that she could only dream of. As he grew older, Aidan started to notice the treatment of women in his pack more and more and he found that his father's values did not resonate with him. Women were viewed as a commodity, as something that was owned by their father's and then their mates just as a car or a piece of furniture might be.

When Aidan was nineteen years old, he lost all respect for his father, the Alpha. Layla, who had never had the opportunity to find her true mate, was bartered away to another pack as part of a deal over territory. The Beta in a neighbouring pack needed a mate and Layla was added into the deal as a gesture of goodwill. Aidan raised hell over the sale of his sister and attacked his father in the middle of lunch in the pack dining room. It took the Beta, Gamma and six warriors to prise Aidan from his battered father and lock him in a cell in the prison block. Layla, her face red and blotchy, cried her goodbyes to her little brother through the bars of the cell before being whisked away to her new pack. He wasn't even allowed out to hug her. Aidan had been kept in the cell for a month after the assault on his father.

That was the last time he saw his sister. Her chosen mate, the Beta of the pack, had murdered her one night after an evening of heavy drinking, less than three weeks after her arrival to her new home.

Aidan's mother had broken the terrible news to her son through the bars of his cage, her frail body convulsing with sorrow, her face wet with tears. Her voice had been low and hollow. Aidan remembered the feeling of her petite, soft hand in his. She had squeezed his fingers tight, planted a wet kiss on the back of his hand and given him a weak smile before turning to leave. He had been told later that his mother had walked straight from the cells, deep into the forest where she had hung herself. Her life with William had been incredibly hard and the loss of her daughter was a step too far for the broken woman to take.

If Aidan had thought that the loss of his daughter and mate would change his father's mindset and encourage him to question the way he ruled, he had been woefully misguided. Aidan went straight to his father's boardroom upon his release from the cells. His heart was broken and painful as it beat against his chest; every step saw his breathing grow harsher and louder; he was sweating excessively as the fury broke from beneath his skin like a poison literally trying to expel itself from his body. Each step sent a wave of rage through his body but also steadied his resolve.

And then he laid eyes on the man himself. The man who had lain waste to Aidan's life; who had carelessly cast aside his mother and who had sold his sister to her death. A man who should surely, himself, be broken and shattered from the miseries that had befallen him in the previous days. And yet, William stood there, at the top of the boardroom table, laughing and joking with his minions. Not at all like a man who had locked his son away for a month while his daughter was murdered and his wife had taken her own life.

Bile rose in Aidan's throat as he smashed the door closed behind him and roared for his father. The room silenced immediately. Aidan was outnumbered twenty to one. He quelled his fury to clear his mind. He had one opportunity to best his father and to do that, he had to follow the rules.

'I challenge Alpha William Jackson for the Alpha title' Aidan locked eyes with his father and spat the words loudly so the entire room heard them clearly. A challenge by one alpha to another could not be refused. And Aidan had an audience to ensure his father could not back out. He was certainly weaker from his month in a cell but he knew his rage would arm him with the strength he needed to slay the man who destroyed his home and his life.

Aidan's father had been slow to acknowledge him. He had taken his time in answering Aidan, slowly licking his lips; clearing his throat; shuffling the papers in front of him unnecessarily. The man would never show fear; he was constantly and aggressively arrogant but Aidan could see Willilam's eyes moving swiftly from side to side, trying to think of any reason not to fight his son. Eventually, when the silence had started buzzing with whispers from around the table, William could linger no longer.

'We fight at sunset at the river' was all William had said as he strode confidently from the room, brushing past Aidan.

Back in the present, Aidan's wolf had reached the river bank in Black Mountain. He took a long slow drink from the cold water and sat for a few moments, still caught in his reverie. The water here ran faster than the river back in Lunar Ridge. He could hear a drop of water or rapids nearby, the water rushing and cascading against rocks and moving onwards. The trees were thick and tall, and it was darker and felt later in the day, even though it was still early afternoon. It was peaceful.

Aidan had felt at total peace once before in his life. On that fateful day, eight years ago, when he had ripped the throat from his father's body and taken the title of Alpha of the Lunar Ridge pack.