Fate Will Have It

XIII

Kenzie Hope

I've done a lot of hard things in my life. I sat there as my mother died and watched my father whither to pieces. I watched my father being lowered into the ground while my brother cried. I then dropped out of school to raise my little brother and work full-time. I would say that those are all considerably hard things. I had experienced heartbreak

Nothing was as hard leaving my pack, leaving Kaden.

My heart ached and my wolf howled in sorrow, both breaking at the seams. This heartbreak felt cold. It felt like concrete drying in my chest. This heartbreak was unexpected, as they always are- top of the world one minute and cut down the next. Why is that? Is there something about me that makes me destined for misery?

Brady and I arrived at an old broken down motel around midnight. Running for hours and hours, both in wolf and human form, had exhausted us and we needed a rest. We were far enough ahead of the trackers, that I'm sure Kaden sent, and far enough away from the border that I was sure no one would find us. Also, the scent of rouge filth masked any scent that we produced, making hiding that much easier.

Being old, the motel was run down and falling apart. The mustard yellow paint turned mud brown was peeling off the rusted concrete. Half of the doors were swinging open and closed, too broken to properly close. To make it even worse, there were dead wolves lying throughout the property.

In the center of the abandoned parking lot was a circle of wolves sitting around a small fire. They were laughing until they caught my scent, now they were watching me wearily and occasionally growling. The glares they produced were almost enough to make me want to turn back and run into Kaden's arms, but I knew better than that now.

I only had me to protect what was mine.

I walked up to the men with my head held high; if they smelt the fear on me, they'd kill us. I told Brady to stay back, that I would deal with this, and he listened. The wolves were both amused and threatened by my presence. Amused because what the hell was a she-wolf doing next to their claimed land, threatened because what was an alpha-omega-human blood mix doing. Needless to say they were utterly confused.

"Boys," I started in my most lax authority voice. A couple of them chuckled, while a few growled and the rest stood silent.

"What?" One of the shorter ones asked.

"My brother and I need a place to stay tonight," I stated, not bothering with formalities. A few more laughed this time.

"Oh really?" Another chuckled stalking up on me, obviously eye-raping my body. "It's going to cost you somethin', honey."

I scoffed at his attempted to buy sex from me and waved him off. His buddies laughed at my blatant rejection, but he didn't stop there.

"Oh, c'mon, sweetheart. You know daddy's got the goods." He touched my lower back with his left hand and trailed down to my butt. That's when I lost it.

I grabbed his hand that was getting every closer to my ass, effectively keeping him still, as I brought my knee up to hit him where the sun doesn't shine. While he was bent over in pain, I brought my hands to the back of his head and my knee up the front of his face. After hearing the loud crack of his nose, I swung my foot and swept him off of his feet.

He landed with a thud and immediately the rest of the rouges growled and stalked towards me. I hurt their buddy; they wanted me to pay for it. When it came to fighting, rouges never played by "the rules". They aimed to kill and would do anything to do it.

That's why I wasn't surprised when two rouges held both my arms in place while a few others stalked towards me. The shorted dude who spoke earlier took the first punch at me- right in the sternum. It knocked the wind out of me for a second while I braced for the next one.