With smoke still emitting from the end of the rifle he held, his striking green eyes—crowned with russet-colored hair—were locked onto me, smiling like Luna might have smiled right before Aurora Cursed her. It was a snake’s smile, laced with arrogance and cocky provocation.

I quickly checked myself for any bullet wounds, but I didn’t find any on me, nor on any of the other stunned werewolves around me, who were all also now staring at the Outsiders’ Alpha, I realized. There was no mistaking it. The powerful build and bearing of unadulterated confidence were a dead giveaway—which only made the violation of our safety more of an atrocity.

His smile only widened as I felt primal rage taking over every rational thought I might have had. Come and get me if you can then, pup, he seemed to say.

You’re as good as carrion, I glared back at him.

“Yes, I think ‘Murderous Calm’ is what I’ll call it,” Archer’s voice penetrated our quiet communion from beside me. I didn’t have to look to see the anticipatory smirk he bore.

The rogue Alpha had the wisdom to let fear flicker across his features, but it was gone before he turned and sprinted for the safety of the dense forest beyond—leaving his pack behind.

“Blade,” Dexter said, her melodious voice edged with warning, coming up on my other side. “I don’t think you should—”

I took off after the coward and violator, ignoring her calls as the forest swept past me in a blur.

I was like a bloodhound on a scent. The hunt for it overrode all my senses and training.

The hunt consumed me—I became the hunt.

Chapter 2 Blade

I

reined in the burst of rage riding my temper so hard I nearly choked on it. I couldn’t believe it—I was being interrogated by my own people!

“Like I said,” I ground out, my voice intoned with an impatient growl. “I was ambushed. Drugged. Taken to an abandoned shack about ten klicks east of here. They then roughed me up.” I pointed to my almost healed swollen eye and split lip, in case they hadn’t noticed, “And left me tied to a chair. The tranquilizer they gave me wore off. I broke my bounds and escaped.”

“Just like that?” Ace said as if it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard, pacing like a self-satisfied jungle cat beside Ysunra, who’d been quietly watching me in that contemplative way of his since I’d arrived back at Paladin Headquarters. “Do you really expect us to believe that they didn’t even try to get any information from you? For all we know,” he continued, coming around the oak desk to stand toe-to-toe with me, “you spilled your guts the first chance you got, and they then let you go with a few cuts and bruises to make it look like you put up a fight at least.”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides, itching to grab Ace by the throat and squeeze the look of delighted disdain from his pockmarked face. I had my strength back now. All I needed to do was reach out and—

“Thank you, Commander Soal,” Ysunra said calmly, still watching me closely. “I will take it from here.”

Ace ignored the Captain of the City Guard, leaning in closer, his breath hot on my face. “We won’t let this stand.” We, meaning him and the other Paladins. “You might be our best warrior, but the weakness of betrayal is in your blood—”

“Commander Soal,” Ysunra reprimanded quietly, but with a near-lethal edge to his voice, even the sudden roar in my veins stumbled. He must have seen how my look of forced boredom had been about to snap into something far more deadly—and since Ace wasn’t Blessed with resilience, it would have been over quickly. And the captain knew it. “You are excused.”

Ace lingered for only a second longer, his icy gaze filled with accusation and hatred as he gave me one final look before he stalked from Ysunra’s study. Even he wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the captain’s order for a second time.

This whole mess of getting myself caught by the Outsiders—not to mention my quick return under questionable circumstances—was exactly the sort of thing he’d been honing his canines for. A single inconsistency, anything suspicious, was all he needed to sink his teeth into. He wouldn’t rest until he had me stripped of my title and saw the Breyten name tarnished even further.

As if all the other Paladins’ perpetual wary glances and whispers behind my back hadn’t been enough to endure for the past decade, Ace had made it his life mission to cast a spotlight of cynicism on everything I did—or didn’t do.

The male didn’t care we had nothing to do with whatever had happened between our fathers all those cycles ago. We hadn’t even been old enough to take our Oaths yet, for Aurora’s sake! His need for revenge was too all-consuming. There was no reasoning with him.

And as much as I hated to admit it, he might have found the spark he needed to burn down everything I’d done and worked so hard for. All it took was one reckless chase through the forest, and I stood trial for betrayal as if that was the only possible outcome.

Like father, like son, I thought as something collapsed within me.

Ysunra’s look of quiet studiousness wavered, as if I’d said it out loud, the lament in his yellow eyes deepening with concern as he rose from his chair. His medium-length hair, the color and texture of liquid night, was smoothed back from his face, but some strands fell out of place as he moved around his desk.

The captain was shorter than me, shorter than most males—and un-Gifted—but potency and authority leaked from every pore as he crossed his arms and leveled a look at me that would have made most werewolves squirm. “If you say that is all that happened, Commander, I believe you.”

My chest felt raw—as if something had clawed and torn at it from the inside. Such simple words, but coming from Ysunra, they were as serious as they come. Guilt tasted sulfuric in my mouth, yet my head bowed in appreciation.

Though the account I’d given was mostly true, I might have omitted some of the details. Details which didn’t make much sense to me—not to mention some of it might’ve made me out as a rogue accomplice. A recruit even. With all the rumors and suspicion looming over my family’s name, I couldn’t risk revealing everything exactly the way it’d happened last night.