Something big had just happened. No one told me anything, but I felt it. Gabriel’s presence was faint in the pack. He was still there but it was like he was small and very far away, fading into the distance.

This was what it felt like when a pack member was dying. I knew this from the many members we’d lost in my father’s pack while I was growing up.

Onan stopped running and turned his head back, circling towards the house and then towards Alpha Martin, trying to decide.

We had completely passed the armies at battle and were in an empty part of the woods only half a mile from my father’s location.

I mind-linked him, “Gabriel?”

There was no answer.

I tried again, “Avery?”

“Yes, boss,” came the instant reply.

“Have you seen Gabriel?”

“He was with the rogues just outside the forest when I got here. I’m in the fight now,” Avery linked back.

Ok. Next.

“Jane?” I linked.

“Tristan,” she answered, sounding sleepy even through the link.

“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” I asked becoming concerned as Onan loped in a circle between the two places I needed to go.

“Everything is fine, my Alpha. I’m just tired. Need to sleep...Emma. Talk to Emma...” and her voice faded.

I immediately linked Emma, “What’s happening?”

“It’s a long story,” Emma replied, sounding worn out.

“Summarize,” I demanded, my tone imparting more Alpha command than I intended.

“When Gabriel drained the witch Abigail, she was giving her blood for his power to supply her necromancy and an undead army of hundreds. The High Priestess Esperanza arrived and she and Amelia, Clovis’s witch, had to act fast to down the undead army. They’ve drained Gabriel of his and Abigail’s blood. His power is gone but it worked. The army has fallen.”

“Emma,” I growled.

“He’s going to be ok, Alpha. He’s just in a coma. Jane’s tired because she had to feed him more than usual. We’re replenishing her blood and feeding her well. She just needs to rest since she’ll be feeding him more often for a while.”

“She’s pregnant! She can’t do more!” I roared into the link.

“You knew?!”Emma sounded astonished.

“Of course I knew! What kind of Alpha can’t scent his own pup growing inside his mate! I was just waiting for her to tell me,” I snapped, Onan’s ears twitching in frustration.

Emma was cut off from the mind-link and a new voice sounded. It was feminine and warm, trilling with an accent, and so calm it bordered on casual.

“Alpha Tristan, High Priestess Esperanza here. Forgive the intrusion, but I felt you needed some reassurance in order to keep you on task.

“I assure you that your pup will be fine. It is because Jane is pregnant that we can save Gabriel. This is a process, and everyone will be a little tired, but your son has a great future ahead and a destiny in this world. He will fulfill it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Now it’s time to fulfill your destiny and stop Martin. He’s about to become aware of the rogues’ treachery. You don’t have much time left to save those families. Esperanza out.”

The link went silent again.

Onan stood still, torn between his mate, pup, Gabriel, and the mission. It didn’t take long for me to urge him; “Today Martin pays for his sins.”

Onan answered back, which was rare for him, “Yes, Alpha.”

He turned back towards my father and took off running again.

I felt touched and humbled by his response.

Alphas and their wolves are complex creatures. We are Alphas because of our wolves, because they are Alpha wolves and carry the mantle and power of authority. But we are also the ones who command those wolves, oversee them, and use their power. We keep their baser instincts under control where situations call for more subtlety than wolfing out and ripping a throat apart.

It’s a symbiotic relationship but a complex one as well. We are the same being, two sides of a coin, but we can still think independently of one another.

In my case, Onan and I had an entire previous lifetime together, but he had also had an afterlife long before he came to me. An experience he’d only given me glimpses of until now. He was old and wise and a being in his own right, becoming a willing part of me at my birth.

More than that, he was the reason I was not like my mother and father. Before I even understood it, he was teaching me, raising me, and correcting my course.

He would bleed his emotions into me to teach me right from wrong. When I would bully Jane as children, he would let his disappointment and guilt flow freely through my tiny body until it wasn’t worth it to do such a thing anymore. When I made a good choice, his pride wrapped around me like a warm blanket.

This great ancient wolf who had led me to manhood, had submitted his instincts under my command with a simple, “Yes, Alpha.”

I knew he could feel how touched I was, and he sent me an image of him licking my face and then his focus returned to the hunt.

I could see him now, my father’s wolf. He was standing next to a tree, alone, waiting for me.

I was fairly certain he thought I would pause before him, but Onan and I had decided long ago that this wolf, this man, wasn’t anything to us.

Right now, he was just the enemy with hundreds of mates and children held hostage.

Onan growled out his challenge only a split second before we made contact.

My larger body ramming into his slammed him against the nearby tree but he dropped low and slipped away underneath us, grazing my leg with his teeth. He wasn’t able to sink them into anything but made a long scratch up the side as he wriggled away.

I could practically taste the fury radiating from him. He always radiated anger when things didn’t go as he expected, and I was a much larger wolf than the last time he had seen me. Good. Angry wolves make foolish mistakes.

He circled around quickly and tried to latch onto my hindquarters, but Onan kicked out our back paws and clawed him across the face.

While he was reeling from the assault, I whirled around and bit into his belly, ripping it open. It wasn’t a large rip; he had pulled away at the last second. I hadn’t gotten as big a bite as I’d hoped, but he still had a gaping wound there that was soaking his fur in his own blood.

He began to snarl and growl, frothing at the mouth like an angry out-of-control dog.

He jumped forward, going for my neck, but I lowered my head and lunged at him, head-butting him in the mouth. The pain this caused him made him jerk backward and I continued aggressively and purposefully.

He backed away as quickly as he dared and then his nose twitched. He was learning something I didn’t want him to know. I took advantage of his distraction before he could link anyone holding the hostages and bit into his neck. He growled and snarled trying to yank his body away from me, but I clamped my jaws down tighter. He was trapped.

I pressed in forcing him to lie down at my feet, my mouth still around his neck. When he was on the ground, I tightened my grip to sink my teeth further into his neck before I crunched down completely, snapping his neck in two.

His neck was broken but he was still breathing, so I took hold of his throat and tore it out. Now he was dead.

Mind-links flooded my mind, ones that were meant for Alpha Martin. I was the new Alpha of the Moon Blood pack.

“Your orders regarding the hostages, Alpha?” I recognized the voice of my father’s Beta.

“Release them,” I ordered.

There was a pause and then, “Tristan?”

“That’s Alpha to you, Douglas,” I answered.

“Releasing the hostages, Alpha,” he replied.

I linked the entirety of my father’s pack, “Go home. Your new Alpha will meet you there soon.”

A chorus of “Yes, Alpha” followed.

Then another voice full of sorrow and pain permeated my mind, “Tristan.”

It was my mother.

“Rest now, mother. I’ll be back to sort things out soon.”

There were a few seconds of silence and then her broken voice replied, “Yes, Alpha.”

That settled, I turned towards home and ran as fast as Onan’s legs could carry me back to my mate.