Sacrifice

Prologue

Prologue

                Sophia maintained her usual calm exterior, not letting her emotions show. It wouldn’t be befitting of an alpha wolf to show signs of nervousness. That was something she left to her subordinates, although at least some of them seemed relatively calm.

                Her cousin, Lukas, was the most at ease with the situation, which was what Sophia had expected. He was used to being around hunters and had even befriended some. She glanced at Blake, Lukas’ friend and former hunter, who also happened to be the mate of her beta, Jason. She would have expected Blake to be calm, but he and Jason both seemed quite nervous.

                Surprisingly, her brother’s mate, a normally shy young wolf, seemed perfectly calm. Melanie was talking to three hunters who had already arrived at the park. They were the ones who had raised her, and somehow, Melanie seemed to be friendly with them. Sophia knew she’d never be able to refrain from tearing them apart if she’d been treated the way they had treated Melanie.

                Her brother was the exact opposite of Melanie. Talon was fidgeting and pacing, and couldn’t hold still, constantly looking around. That was exactly as Sophia had expected – ever since Melanie became pregnant, he’d grown extremely overprotective and the current situation was stressing him out. Melanie was about six months pregnant, although with her small size, Sophia thought she looked further along than that.

                The two other pack members present, Amber and Oliver, were apart from the group, the official lookouts for any signs of trouble. They had no idea what the hunters looked like, but they were there to make sure that nothing happened when they did arrive. Oliver appeared nervous, while Amber only looked angry.

                “You sure they’re going to show up?” Lukas asked with a quick glance around.

                “They’d damn well better,” Sophia responded with a growl. “It was too damn hard to set up and I’ve got plenty of other things I need to deal with. If they don’t show, I will personally hunt them all down.”

                “What happened to being busy?” Lukas asked.

                “Shut up.” Before anyone could say anything else, Sophia caught sight of a group of six people. They were looking towards her and the rest of the group. Sophia caught Blake’s attention. “That them?”

                “Yeah,” Blake said, squinting in their direction. “Is that…?” Blake didn’t finish the question and started walking towards the group.

                “Blake!” Sophia shouted at him, not wanting him to meet the hunters on his own. Had he been a wolf, she would have ran after him and pulled him back, but he was a human and had only been part of the pack for a few months – she felt like she had to cut him a little slack. But when Jason tried to follow him, Sophia grabbed him by the arm and held him back.

                “What?” Jason asked, looking at Sophia. “I can’t let him go there on his own.”

                “You don’t want to spook them,” Sophia said. “Stay here like we discussed. Blake’s sorta one of them, so he’ll be okay. Look.”

                As Sophia spoke, they could see that one of hunters had broken away from the group and had thrown her arms around Blake. Sophia let go of Jason, almost ready to tell him to go to his mate, but Blake was already on his way back, the female hunter following him.