Sacrifice

Chapter One

Chapter One

                Sophia read over an e-mail from one of her hunter acquaintances for the fourth time. It had been several months since she and other pack members had initially met the hunters and in that time working out all the problems they had with each other occupied much of Sophia’s time. Unfortunately, she still had to manage the rest of the pack. Not only did that include the normal things such as keeping in touch with the other alphas in the area and doing budgets, but she also had several other things going on, some good and some definitely not.

                On the good side of things, the Mile High Pack had recently welcomed its newest member and Sophia’s niece, Izabelle Luna Colton. Sophia hadn’t had the heart to tell her brother or his mate how much she hated her niece’s name, and now that their decision was made, she saw no point in saying anything about it. Of course, Sophia was still glad that the baby was healthy and Melanie was recovering well.

                The bad part about Izabelle’s birth had been that Sophia was out of an assistant for a while. When she had discovered that Melanie was excellent with numbers, she had immediately offered her a position working as her assistant. Sophia had loved being able to let Melanie take care of all the budgets and anything else that involved numbers. But Melanie hadn’t had the easiest of pregnancies and was very limited during the last few months of her pregnancy and she definitely didn’t have time after her baby arrived.

                It left Sophia with a difficult decision. She could either find a new assistant temporarily, which she didn’t want to do since she’d never liked any of her previous assistants, or she could simply go back to handling everything on her own. But there had been a third option – have Melanie come back as soon as she felt she was ready, but with the baby. Sophia really didn’t want a crying infant anywhere around her, but she also wanted Melanie back enough that she eventually broke down and told Melanie she could come back to work with Izabelle.

                Being without her assistant and then having to put up with the baby really was the least of Sophia’s worries. Even the hunters weren’t a threat anymore. The real problem was in the newest threat to the pack – the lions. Sophia still hadn’t learned much about them. All she knew was that they were taking their time doing whatever it was they had set out to do.

                She knew they had attacked groups of feral wolves several years ago. One wolf had escaped from them and was now living with the Mile High Pack. But the lions had grown bold and attacked a pack of nearly fifty wolves. Of course, Sophia wasn’t too upset over the loss of the Pueblo pack given that they’d been hostile and had a spy in her pack. But what worried her was the fact that the lions seemed to be attacking wolf packs and she couldn’t figure out why, no matter how much effort she put into it.

                Sophia growled as she started pacing around her office, her mind once again on the lion problem. The more she thought about it, the more she missed the Pueblo Pack. At least then she had known who her enemy was. And she had some assurance that they wouldn’t attack her pack without warning. But the lions were a different story. She knew next to nothing about lion shifters until they started attacking wolves.

                Her computer screen caught her eye as she paced, and she realized she hadn’t responded to the e-mail yet. Sometimes, it was just too hard to concentrate when there was a wailing infant in the house. Izabelle was silent at the moment, however, and Sophia knew she had no more excuse. Still standing, she typed out a quick reply to the hunter and sent it off, refocusing her mind on the issue with the lions.

                She didn’t have much time to think about it, because a knock on the door interrupted her. She growled low, and then told the person to come in. She knew that privacy was a rare thing as a member of a pack, and even more rare for the alpha.