Toxic Love An Alpha’s Regret - Season 1 Episode 12

I’ve been hit with several revelations this week, and they all

leave me reeling.

This last one…

It just might be the secret that breaks me.

A baby.

It’s everything I wanted.

A child.

Family.

Home.

My hands shake and I shove them in my pockets to stop the shivering. Unable to bear my own thoughts anymore, I slip out of the kitchen and onto the back patio. From here, it’s a quarter mile to the edge of the woods and then there are miles and miles of packlands to explore. The perimeter guards on patrol don’t normally ha*sle me.

I see three of them, two males and a female at the edge of the perimeter. Everyone in this pack from the Alpha down to the lowest pack member must take a turn at patrolling the property. We’re in an isolated area and his pack owns hundreds of square

miles of property with the whole western side flanking a state park, but we can never be too sure. Humans are everywhere.

And so are enemy wolves.

I can’t shift and run the way the rest of the wolves here do, but I know the game trails well enough.

The fresh air fills my lungs carrying the scent of spring and fresh rain and lilacs. Those were my mother’s favorites, and I planted them all around the main house.

Before I cut onto the southern trail, I turn back to the mansion.

It sits like a behemoth on the hillside, and in the distance

are rows and rows of neat little houses and cabins. Some two hundred families live and work in this area and the surrounding countryside. I wasn’t born here, but it feels like home.

Most of the time.

Maybe.

I glance at my cell phone. My dad hasn’t called. Not to say thank you or to inquire after me. I turned over every dollar I’ve made and saved in my lifetime.

And I just got a confirmation of receipt.

My stomach sinks.

I really need to stop feeling sorry for myself.

I enter the forest and the scents change. I can only imagine how it must be to smell the pine and birch, the moist earth and fallen leaves. I always wanted my own wolf so I could sense things better. To see and smell and taste and feel with such a deeper connection to the world around me.

I used to run these trails. I’d run as fast and as far as I could until I was gasping for breath and my muscles shook.

I walk now.

Slowly.

Studying the smaller plants and wildflowers. Looking up at the breaks in the canopy where the sun shines through.

Every living thing around me is a circle of life that is both fleeting and so exquisitely perfect.

I’m maybe a mile from the mansion when I hear the rumble. It’s a heavy, fast beat of something big, pounding the earth.

I spin around instinctively, my body tensing and preparing to fight.