When I was a young boy, my father began taking me aside and instructing me about being the Alpha -- what it meant, what my responsibilities were to the pack, to my Howl, to myself. He told me about the decrees, the strength I would have, the abilities. Once I was older and could understand the importance of keeping a secret known only by alphas and their Howls, he told me about Alpha Dreams sent to us by the Forces.

Only alphas received these dreams: they were warnings, they were advice, they were directions on how to act or the decisions to make as Alpha. Whatever their purpose was, one thing was certain...an Alpha Dream must never be ignored.

"Our dreams are given to us by the generosity of the Forces," he told me as we skipped stones on Howl Lake, one of the many lakes on Aibek pack lands. "They are gifts to us, and you must never ignore the gift they have given you, Night. Never. If you are told to act in a dream, you act. If you are told to hold back in a dream from some plans you've been making, you hold back. The dreams are never wrong. I've known some alphas of other packs who thought they knew better and ignored the warnings in a dream and it was always to their detriment."

For the last three years, I hadn't had any Alpha Dreams, and I had just chalked it up to things going well with the pack. Looking back, Lindsay Morgan had been fucking with me somehow -- the same way she'd been fucking with me to make me think I was in love with her, to make me challenge anyone who told me I shouldn't be getting so serious with someone who wasn't my Howl. The same way she'd taken over my body and caused me to reject my Howl in the worst possible way.

Since none of us knew that magic existed, we had no reason to think I was anything but in love with Lindsay Morgan, no reason to suspect I was being enchanted.

Looking back, every morning when she made me breakfast and my energy shake, she'd stroke my hair and whisper in my ear, You love me, Night, and I love you. And I'd agree.

But as soon as I separated myself from her, stopped eating the food she made me, the fog lifted from my brain, and I felt clearheaded for the first time in years. And immediately realized I had no feelings for Lindsay Morgan whatsoever.

And that was when my dreams began.

It was actually the same dream every night on repeat. I was in our family home, and four brightly wrapped boxes were brought in to me. Surrounded by the boxes, I opened the one that said OPEN ME FIRST. I ripped the paper off the box and, to my horror, inside was my mother's wolf's head, blood matting the fur where it had been ripped and torn from her body. The other boxes held the other parts of her wolf.

That had actually happened. The Luniere pack had sent first my mother and then my father back to me in pieces.

I'd thrown up, crying and shaking at the thought of my loving mother being tortured, then torn to pieces while she was still alive. My brother and I had gone berserk and had rallied our wolves to win the war between the two packs. We had been unstoppable in our fury and grief and pain.

Since then, I'd had to keep the memory pushed down inside me so I could function. The one and only Alpha Dream I'd had before Lindsay Morgan came into my life was a dream warning me not to take revenge on the Luniere pack and to keep the peace we had brokered. Originally, I'd made the pact to buy us time to find out who, specifically, was behind my parent's brutal deaths so I could exact revenge, but the Forces had spoken and I had learned the lessons well from my father. I obeyed. Unwillingly, reluctantly, but I obeyed.

But since the first time Neera had disappeared on me, the day I'd rejected her, I'd been having very vivid dreams of unwrapping my mother's butchered body. I looked into my mother's wolf's face, and her wolf head slowly morphed into Neera's human face. Neera's eyes popped open and her lips moved to whisper, over and over, Save me. Take my blood. Save me. Take my blood.

I awoke sweating and panting each night, realizing my Howl was out there and I had no idea where she was, which meant I couldn't protect her and we couldn't Take the Blood.

Every night that she was gone for those two weeks, the pain of being separated from her was magnified by my dreams. Night after night I opened those fucking boxes, and night after night, my mother's wolf's head turned to Neera's human head and night after night she begged me to save her and take her blood.

Take her blood, the Forces were telling me.

Take her blood.

Take her blood so she didn't end up like my mother. I would protect Neera better than my father had protected my mother. For as much as he loved her, and there was no doubt about that, I always felt he had failed to protect his Howl. When I unwrapped those "gifts" containing my mother, I had resolved to do two things: win and end the war and someday, protect my Howl at all costs.

When Neera had come back after two weeks away, my wolf and I had rejoiced. Our Howl had returned, unharmed and whole, and we went tearing over to her the moment we heard she was driving onto pack lands.

My mistake was in not taking her blood right that moment when her two loyal friends stood in front of her as my wolf came racing over. I'd thought it would go over better if she could see I wasn't rejecting her, if I made the announcement in front of the pack, hoping that would undo the hurt I'd inflicted on her. But pushing me on were the two weeks of dreams: Save me. Take my blood.

The sooner I could right the wrongs I'd committed against her, the sooner we could Take the Blood and the sooner I could protect Neera. My beautiful, vulnerable, feisty Howl.

But my next mistake was agreeing to give her the night by herself. But she'd slipped out before I had my guards in place and for three terrifying weeks, the dreams had come at me again every night. Only this time, instead of whispering her pleading words to me, she was screaming them to me.

Screaming.

SAVE ME! TAKE MY BLOOD! SAVE ME! TAKE MY BLOOD!

And I knew those dreams were both warning and admonishment from the Forces that I needed to take her blood immediately when I found Neera again. I had hesitated and it had allowed Neera to escape me, leaving her wide open to...whatever evil was gathering out there.

In those three weeks, events occurred that raised my hackles. Three of our patrol wolves were found dead on the border between Aibek pack lands and Luniere pack lands. They had been gutted and their throats had been ripped out.

Then three of the Luniere patrol wolves had been found killed the same way. I met secretly with the Luniere Alpha and explained to him that my pack had not killed his wolves, and I did not think that his pack had killed my wolves. When I told him about magic and magicks and what I suspected had been going on with both Lindsay Morgan and the Raevyn, he looked shocked but said he believed me, especially when I showed him pictures on my phone of the two surviving references to the magicks from the ancient texts. Fortunately, the Forces had sent him an Alpha Dream advising him not to break the peace between our two packs.

We agreed to keep the truce, to keep our conversation between us, but to watch carefully and double patrols and be alert.

When Neera's wolf began reaching out to me in dreams during those three weeks away, I felt relief that she was still alive and we slowly were able to track her down. Throwing her into my trunk was a necessary evil in my mind. I didn't trust her not to attempt to get away, and this was the only way to assure that she came back to pack lands safely and in one piece.

I'd tried to talk her into Taking the Blood. Tried to coax her, and no matter what I'd done to her, her instinct to Take the Blood with me should have overridden everything else. It should have been impossible, but she somehow found the strength to refuse me.

Stay away from me. I don't want your bite, not now, maybe not ever, Night. You have to trust your Destined One and I don't trust you.

I'm telling you not to do it. Not now, not like this.

Don't do this. I'm begging you! I will never forgive you if you bite me against my will, Night. Never.

Being that close to me, seeing my canines lengthen, knowing we were Destined Ones should have made me irresistible to her. Everything in her should have been reaching out to me despite her feelings of pain, anger and betrayal. The instinct toward your Destined One was a force like no other and almost nothing could stop it.

Except magic.

It would explain why she was fighting me so hard.

Magic seemed like the logical answer, now that we knew about it, now that we knew what had driven me to reject her.

Save me. Take my blood.

My father's words came back to me: If you are told to act in a dream, you act.

When it came down to it, I had no choice. I had already delayed Taking her Blood and the dreams had intensified until Neera was screaming at me to do it. The Forces were guiding me as to how I should act.

So I did.

I took her blood. But my Neera refused to bite me back.

Unheard of. Once the male took his female's blood, she would take his the very second his teeth left her skin. The very second. But Neera didn't bite me back, telling me in one short word that she would not.

So now, instead of the bond forming links between us, there was only the one-way bond flowing from Neera to me. I felt her hurt, her confusion, her anger in my soul. I felt her wolf howling sadly, not understanding the lack of a return bite.

Wiping Neera's blood from my mouth with the back of my hand, I approached my Howl and she shied away from me, tears pouring from her eyes, killing me with her sorrow that I felt right down to my bones. My body was vibrating with her emotions, and I felt sick at what I'd done -- what I'd had to do -- and wanting only to make it right.

Neera, back against the wall, slowly slid down it until she was sitting on the floor, knees up, her shoulder bleeding. Then she crossed her arms over her knees and put her head down on them. Sobs wracked her body, that little form shaking as if her world had ended.

My wolf whined several times, and I paced in front of Neera, unsure of how to proceed. How did I fix this? How did I make her understand why I'd bitten her against her will? I wanted to explain to her about the Alpha Dreams, about the wolves killed from the two packs, about the magic my brother, Aymeric and I feared was at play. Would she listen now? Should I wait for morning?

Save me. Take my blood. SAVE ME! TAKE MY BLOOD!

My wolf whined and whined, not liking the sight of Neera in tears, and I finally let him out when I realized I wasn't making any progress with her. After watching her for a long moment, he dropped to his belly and crawled over to her, desperate to stop her pain but not knowing how to. Whining softly, he eventually began lapping at her wound, cleaning her blood and helping to heal her mark.

She startled at the first pass of his tongue on her shoulder, but then dropped her head back on her arms. When her wound was cleaned, my wolf sat pressed beside her, keeping vigil as she cried.

We stayed like that almost the entire night. When Neera finally passed out from exhaustion, I shifted back, picked her up and held her in my arms until morning.