Chapter 43

29 – Ryker

As much as it bugs me that my Beta, Gamma and Delta are all shacked up with girls and shirking their responsibilities, I am enjoying the peace of running by myself through my pack. The damp earth in my paws feels amazing and the stretch and pull of my muscles this early releases any tension I was holding.

Running like this allows me to clear my head and think. I have to get Claude under control and I’m afraid the only way is for him to return to the Moon Goddess. But if he has his claws in too many people in his area, that might start an uprising and get innocent people hurt or killed. I hope Robin will be able to help me flush out the key players so we can either turn them to our side or handle them as a group and make a very messy example of what it looks like to go after me and my pack.

I also have to figure out this mate thing. I really need to talk to Jeremiah and get some background on her. She didn’t appear to have any kind of pack mark or brand. So I don’t know if she can link with the pack or not. But I also wasn’t really focused on looking for those features last night, so I could have completely missed them.

And that begs the question. If she isn’t an official member of the pack, how and why is she a warrior? If something happened, she wouldn’t be able to call for help. She obviously can’t shift which is a disadvantage too. How did she make it in his pack and get so high up that she is a warrior and friends with the future Alpha?

I thought about that too. She seems to be very close with Jeremiah, but no one is phased by it, not even my sister who is his mate. Most mates, especially females, are very territorial and would rip the hair off of another woman for approaching her mate. And the jealousy behavior is really strong until they mark each other. It’s the ultimate commitment. Once marked, you can track them anywhere and your mate can feel any infidelity and it’s supposed to be excruciating.

If I can’t be marked by Kennedy, what does that mean for us? I wouldn’t really have a claim on her. Would she just use me for the title and be worthless otherwise? I have seen too many weak Lunas that had a wolf. I don’t know why the Goddess chose them in the first place, but they couldn’t handle the intense job of leading and caring for a pack with their Alpha. One pack I took over, the pack was torn apart because the Luna was cheating and the Alpha literally lost his mind. If I can’t mark her, could Kennedy cheat and I wouldn’t know it? Just that thought makes me sick to my stomach and furious all at the same time. I pump my legs harder, a new source of fuel for my muscles. Speaking of blind jealousy, I’m going to have to tame this new creature.

I take a few moments each time I get to a double pack border. I like to stop and take the time to look down between two packs and check for things that might have changed. Border disputes are the worst and most irritating considering all the land is mine, not theirs. I need to start putting a school and a hospital right on the old border lines and make it accessible to both packs, just to make my point. Not all the packs I have obtained are bad though. There are three that have started to coexist and with the expanded territory many more people are finding their fated mates and the communities are thriving. I just have to get more of these assholes on board.