The Six Renegade Lunas

Chapter 1 - Him

ISABELLA

Looking at myself in the mirror, I wonder exactly why I'm doing this. I found myself in a little black dress, a face full of makeup and in heels I could not walk in. This was not a dinner that I was looking forward to. After all, this was the day where a powerful Alpha will come to visit. They are at the top of all the packs, the one who clawed their way to this position through violence and death.

My thoughts are interrupted by my sister's yell, "Izzy, hurry up! The Alpha is going to be here soon!" I groan out loud. I knew exactly how this dinner was going to go. My father who always wants to improve his way of life will attempt to negotiate with this asshole of an Alpha. As his oldest daughter, he will use me as bait. It's happened before and makes me sick.

"ISABELLA!" my mom is the one calling for me this time.

I answer quickly, "Coming!" My father is the Alpha of our pack, the Thunder Manes. We're considered to be the toughest 'weak' pack. Our warriors aren't strong enough to fight, so we're only better than other 'weaker' packs. That puts us as the seventh strongest or something like that.

I exit my room quickly. I couldn't afford to be late on a day like this. At 18 years old, I was still lacking a mate and that disappointed my parents. I couldn't say that I like my father. He considered women as only good for mating, though he never really said so. I think at this point he might be trying to hand me off to some wolf who isn't my true mate. It's been done before, but I never wanted that to be my situation.

DING DONG!

The sound of the doorbell practically echoes through the house. I have to run in order to make it to the front of the house on time. My family breathes a sigh of relief, realizing that I finally showed up. It could be disrespectful towards the visiting Alpha if I was not present. A lowly pack member opens the door and the Alpha walked in.

HE walks in at the same time as the delicious smell of melting chocolate floats into the house. I feel my animal instincts that come along with being a werewolf attempt to take over my current human behavior. I know exactly what this means, it's my mate. We've been told by our parents ever since we were pups how meeting your mate felt. Given that our animal instincts couldn't talk to us, we have to recognize the current signs.

Despite myself, excitement takes over. My mate is probably one of the guards of this Alpha, maybe even the Beta. Either way, I was going to be able to leave. There is also a part of me that's terrified. The stories about these violent packs are gory. Our pack heard about how their Alpha Carson killed a woman for claiming to be his mate. I pray with all I have that he's not my mate. I've heard how these packs hurt the females, how disrespect is harshly dealt with . . .

Suddenly, I am staring into a pair of dark brown eyes and my thoughts fade into obscurity. There is the sign of a barely concealed shift in my mate's eyes, how close his animal instincts are to overwhelming the human ones. This was my mate and I allowed myself a second to appreciate the pleasure

The first hint that something is wrong is the silence. When someone finds their mate, we usually cheer. However, now, there is no sound. I break the eye contact with my mate to look around. Everyone close to us looks to be in shock.

It takes me less than a second to understand when I don't see my mate's Alpha. He is the Alpha. Well, shit!

The Alpha is at my side in a second and looks around at everyone dangerously before turning back to me. There is a hint of barely hidden violence in his every move. I immediately stiffen in discomfort. Despite my baser instincts scream at me to get closer to my other half, my gut tells me that this is a wolf who won't hesitate to kill me if I do anything wrong. I know that he's willing to kill.