Rejected

Chapter 2

Tab's POV

This morning when I woke up I didn't think anything out of the ordinary would happen, just your normal day where I wouldn't have to do much. But when I was asked to run patrols on the West side of the territory I suspected something was up. We had gotten tips from other alphas about a rogue, traveling through territories without stopping and without permission. Being one of the two packs in Maine, and the other being the Councils pack, we had a lot of ground to cover and once the rogue got to our territory there would be nowhere else to run to.

I walked to where I knew my Beta, Myles, was stationed with the twins, Zack and Tyler; surely they would provide some entertainment until something happened. However I didn't come close to their station when I heard three wolves running straight for me.

It looks like the party's coming to me this time. I thought as I shifted. My thoughts vanished when I saw a woman running towards me. The young woman was covered from head to toe with dirt and mud, like she hadn't had a shower in weeks and painting as she pumped her legs to drive her forward. The woman was definitely a shifter, no human could sustain the kind of speed this woman had, and she didn't freeze with fear when she caught sight of our wolves. .

With no other option, I stood in front of her, head held high projecting authority. She skidded to a stop and tried to change directions quickly, only to lose her footing on the slick grass. Her shoulder length brown hair framed her face nicely, even if her face was covered with grime, her right eye was covered by her hair but her left showed no signs of confusion. She looked around at all four of us as we circled her, as if trying to calculate something. I figured out, as she took off between Tyler and Myles, that she was watching our movements to find an opening.

Damn, she's fast. I thought to myself as I ran after her, the view from behind her wasn't bad at all. It was more like a game of cat and mouse rather than a pack of wolves trying to catch a rogue, I quite enjoyed it. That is until she made the mistake of looking behind her to calculate how close we were. When she did, she tripped and fell down a hill that was covered with rocks, tree roots, and uneven ground down about forty feet. There's really no question as to why the kids called it "Busted Up Hill." Myles, Tyler, Zack and I all watched as the woman tumbled down the hill, hitting her head on several occasions on the way down. When she slid to a stop at the bottom and didn't get back up again I knew she was injured pretty severely.

When I reached her I noticed that she was still conscious, but had a pretty bad cut on her left temple. I quickly surveyed the rest of her - while Myles, Tyler and Zack shifted and dressed - trying to find something else, and found that her arms and legs were bruised with small cuts on them, but that was all I could see at the moment. I asked Myles for his shirt and pressed it to her temple to try and stop the bleeding. She didn't flinch or wince when I did, but continued staring up past me, unfocused and unresponsive, to our voices. Tyler started snapping his fingers in her face, but got no response from the woman who looked barely old enough to be on her own. After looking at her for several seconds I knew she would need medical attention and I didn't have time to get any information out of her before her eyes closed.

"Well now what?" Tyler asked as he sat back on his heels after watching the girl's eyes flutter closed.

"We take her to the infirmary." I answered as I scooped up the nameless woman in my arms bridal style. Her head lulled and rested on my shoulder and I was slightly concerned about her weight, she was light for a shifter.

"WHAT? Do you know what your father will say?" Myles put his hand on my shoulder to stop me briefly. "You know his policy on rogues." Kill on sight. My dad, the Alpha of Blood River pack and the most feared man out there - aside from any council members - did not like rogues, no one does, but my dad had a special kind of hate for them. With good reason too, rogues killed his mate, my mother, just because they wanted territory and my father wouldn't give it to them.