Defiance: The Hybrid's Tale (MxM)

Chapter 21: Just my Luck. [Edited]

Adam Wick.

I stood there drowning in my father's words. My heart clenched at the thought of my old man killing Nathan, but I knew why he was reacting this way. Ten years ago, a Grayback stole into our territory and kidnapped my mother while she was out grocery shopping. The Grayback then challenged my father to a duel for the Alpha title and used my mother as an insurance policy. When the Grayback lost the fight, my father demanded he return my mother to us. The defeated mongrel gave us an address to a far-off destination deep into no-man's land. My father then imprisoned the challenger until he could retrieve my mother. But as they neared the destination given, it came apparent that the Grayback had already killed her. In a blood rage, my father burst into the dungeons, ready to slaughter the man, but he had already escaped. The Grayback had used magic to escape his imprisonment. How? We never found out. However, the killer left a letter for my father as the last insult.

'I wouldn't have left her alive, anyway.'

Those words fueled not only my father's hatred but mine as well. For a long time after my mother's death, I wanted to hunt the sick bastard down and kill him with my bare hands. Why not? I hated every Grayback and thought they were the scum of the earth. But a fateful meeting with another Grayback changed my opinion about them. Not all of them were evil. Alpha and beta wolves who weren't part of a pack turned into Graybacks because they needed to survive alone. So judging all of them on the actions of my mother's killer would have led me to kill an innocent person for a crime they didn't commit. However, my father didn't get the memo, and he hated them with a burning passion.

Before I could pull myself out of my stupor, my sister slapped me across the face.

With watering eyes and a burning patch of skin, I glared at her as if she had gone crazy. "Why did she just slap me?"

"Because you're standing around, zoning out and ignoring your sister," Bane snickered.

The room fell quiet as the grave. People stared, wide-eyed and with gaping mouths. In the eyes of the pack, she disrespected me, her future alpha, but I didn't see it that way. She would always stomp my ass if I acted like an idiot. This was one of these moments, and I was grateful for her. She kept me levelheaded when she saw me cave under pressure.

"Was that necessary?" I asked, rubbing the burn out of my right cheek.

She pulled down her pink hoodie and glared at me. "Of course it was! What are you waiting for? Get your head in the game and go save your future mate before dad kills him. You know dad doesn't think straight when Graybacks are involved. He will exact vengeance on Nathan's body for what happened to mom. So go, you dumbass!" She shoved me toward the front door.

"But dad said—"

She slapped me again on the back of my head and hissed, "It doesn't matter what dad said. I'll stay here and see that everything is hunky-dory while you and your betas prevent a war from breaking out."

Goddess, I loved my sister. I rushed up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I then sped out of the mansion with my friends hot on my heels. In mid-sprint, I began tearing apart the costume I wore. I focused on my wolf form, forcing my bones and muscles to shift and break. After a few painful seconds, my black paws hit the asphalt with tremendous speed.

It was much faster running through the forest than wasting our time speeding down the streets in a car. As we rushed through the thick underbrush of the forest, I zoned into the pack link and followed my father's aura.

"Do you think my father and his enforcers have already caught up with Nathan?" The words I sent through the mind link toward Maisie burned my throat. Bile slowly bubbled to the surface.