RUN, LITTLE GIRL.

KELEIGH’S POV

My father’s claws gleamed in the light of the overhead lamp of the room as he raised his hand in the air, preparing to swipe. My breath caught in my throat as I pressed against the wall  he had roughly pushed me into in a rage after he had caught I and Jake in the act of canoodling. He roared in fury as he bore down on Jake.

I could understand why he was so enraged. Jake was the Alpha of the Moonlight pack, and my father was the Alpha of our pack, the Wesselton Pack. Both our packs have been in a bloody feud for so long that no one even remembered how it started in the first place. Countless wolves from both packs had died for generations over this feud.

And Jake was about to be the next person.

“My daughter!” My father growled at him. "How dare you!"

My heart galloped with panic as I stared at the scene in front of me. My father in a state of half-shift, his clothes already partly torn from it. Jake, pinned below him, his eyes filled with so much fear and shock as he struggled to get out of my father’s grasp. But it was pointless; my father had him pinned down effectively.

His raised claws began to fall down in the makings of a lethal swipe, and suddenly, something entered me. A rush, maybe adrenaline. I don’t know what it was but it spurred me on immediately and I sprang over to my father faster than I had ever done in my life. I caught his hand in both of mine just as his claws were about to sink into Jake’s chest.

My father looked at me with slight surprise. “Keleigh, let go of me,” he grunted.

“Dad, please,” I said, my voice trembling both from the tears in my eyes and the effort of holding his hand back. “Please, Dad. I love him.”

He growled at this. “You don’t know a thing about love. He’s using you. He’s the goddamn Alpha of the Moonlight pack. How can you even trust him?”

I wasn’t going to be cowed by him screaming at me. My heart was palpitating with fear, for myself and for Jake. And for the news I was about to break to him.

“I’m pregnant. For him.”

This took the wind out of my father’s sails.

“What?” he said softly. I felt his hand go slack in my arms and I slowly let go of it.

“We fell in love to overcome this stupid feud that has been going on for far longer than it should and has caused a lot of damage and very little good. We want to be united, Dad. Let’s stop all these savagery. Please.”

The look on my dad’s face was sad, broken, betrayed. Without a word, he got up from where he had pinned Jake under him. It broke my heart.

Jake grunted as he got up to his feet. I was moving to his side to ask him about how he was when he burst out laughing.

I stopped in my tracks, my blood running cold. In all my years of my secret relationship with Jake, I had never heard him sound so sinister. It was…unnerving.

“Jake,” I called him, hesitance creeping into my tone. “Why are you laughing?”

“Keleigh, stay back,” my father warned. I wasn’t paying attention. All my focus was on Jake. Jake, who suddenly seemed like a different person than the man I fell in love with.

No, no. This can’t be happening. Let it not be what I think it is.

“You speak about how we’re in love,” Jake said his voice turning very steely. “But I was never in love with you. That’s right, Keleigh. It was all a facade. I needed a pawn, and you were pathetically easy to manipulate.”

My blood rushed in my ears as my head pounded. I felt like the warehouse was closing in on me, tightening my lungs and stopping me from breathing. Everything sounded like an echo to me.

My father was right. And I had been played.

“Oh you need to know how long I had planned for this day to come. The day that I’d finally have revenge on the one who killed my father.” He stared directly at my father as he spoke through gritted teeth. “I planned for you to catch us so I could lure you to this warehouse.”

“You son of a bitch,” my father growled.

He leaped at Jake, but the fearful and terrified Jake was gone. He caught my father by the neck and tossed him aside, sending him slamming into some crates.

“Guards!” I screamed, tears blurting my vision as the gravity of my actions hit me.

The guards came rushing in, alerted by my scream. It took them about two seconds to take in the whole scene before they rushed at Jake. But Jake gave a high pitched whistle. From nowhere, several unfamiliar wolves swarmed into the warehouse, sparking a short and fierce battle.

I backed up against the wall, my limbs frozen with terror. I watched in horror as the guards were outnumbered and torn apart by the feral looking wolves. Blood and gore splattered onto my face and clothes. The stench of death was strong.

I turned my head towards Jake just in time to see him slash wicked looking claws against my father’s throat. He looked at me, pain and shock in his eyes as blood spurted from the deep gash. Then the other wolves pounced. I could only hear the sounds of bones snapping and flesh tearing and a distant continuous scream. It took me a few seconds to realize that the scream was mine.

And as soon as they came, the wolves left the warehouse, leaving me alone with Jake who was grinning wickedly at me.

A tempest of emotions swirled in me as I stared back at Jake, paralyzed from fear, hatred, betrayal, hurt. Tears streamed down my cheeks in a never ending flow. Jake was covered in blood and gore and he stepped over my father’s lifeless body and walked towards me.

“Oh you poor thing,” he said to me in mock sympathy as he stopped a few feet in front of me. If I could I would have melted into the wall behind me.

“Don’t cry. This is just how it is in the game of war. I mean, it totally is your fault for being so gullible, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up too much. It won’t bring back your dead dad.” He gave a short bark of laughter.

My dead dad. My dad was dead. He was on the floor, torn to shreds by the man I had once called my lover.

“You helped me achieve this, my dear Keleigh. I wouldn’t have done it without you. Which I why I’m giving you a chance to go away far away from here. Never return here or let me catch up with you, because if I do, I’ll kill you. And the baby. A baby of the daughter of a traitor is no baby of mine.”

My sobs intensified. How could my life had taken such a drastic change in direction in such a short span of time? How could I have never foreseen that this would happen?

“Run girl!” Jake shouted into my face. “Run before my leniency runs out.”

And then he licked my father’s blood from his lips, the cruel smile twisting his face into a grotesque mask.