Semua Bab Marked for Betrayal: Bab 1 - Bab 5

Zero POVI could smell it before I had even shoved my way through the swing doors — not just liquor, but a symphony of human emotions, of sweat and fear. My new heightened senses made The Den a sensory overload, yet it was just the sort of hunting ground I was used to.I stopped, surveying my turf. All the mammal life was just sitting there in the chairs and dancing and didn’t know that there was a predator among them. Some chatted in their blissful ignorance, while others swayed to the pulsing beats from the live band on stage.The bar existed in a different dimension. Men in stools crowded around it, laughing and squabbling over alcohol like animals fighting over the last bones of meat. They drank whiskey and beer with the desperation of the dying.A field of battle with liquor as a prize. No survivors necessary.My lips turned in a smile that showed the tip of a fang. Stampede night — always the night to blend in. Every stool around the bar was occupied, but I needed to get close t

Alex's POVI stretched in the back of my Lincoln Navigator, exhaustion clinging to my bones, my wolf restless beneath my skin. Even in human form, my senses remained heightened, pulsing with an eerie intensity as the full moon loomed closer. I tried to catch some sleep, just ten minutes—ten minutes was all I needed to keep going.But as soon as my eyes shut, the visions came.Aretha.My mate. My soulmate. My everything.Suffering.She writhed in bed, her body curled into itself, clutching her belly as though she could physically tear away the pain. Low, wolf-like moans escaped her lips, the sound slicing through my soul like a silver blade. Her fever had spiked beyond werewolf standards, her skin burning to the touch, despite the healer's strongest medicines. She could barely speak, barely breathe, and there was nothing—absolutely nothing—I could do to save her.I had sat by her bedside all night, watching helplessly as she trembled, her body failing her. The healer whispered the trut

Alex POVThe moon was blood red as I raced through the hospital halls. My wolf senses had already confirmed what the doctor’s call would tell me — Aretha was fading fast. I could tell right away she wouldn’t be there in the morning.Her smell had changed — the surest sign of a werewolf’s curtain call. The disease had ravaged her once-mighty body, and her wolf spirit was hanging on by the slightest of threads. My Alpha instincts roared against this enemy I couldn’t conquer as I stalked to her bedside.I knelt and touched her face. Her eyes, abruptly, popped open, as bright as day.“I love you, Alex, my Alpha,” she whispered, the mate-bond between us thrummed one last time.And then it happened — her eyes closed as the bond broke with a psychic agony that almost brought me to my knees. Her wolf had gone home to the Moon Goddess."No!" I growled, my cry guttural as I held her form. "You can't leave the pack. You can't leave me." My wolf scratched under my skin, wanting out to howl its mi