Betrayal Under The Blood Moon

Chapter Three

DANTE

The quarry contracts spread across my desk like accusations. Thompson Industries wants double the limestone they're currently pulling, which means blasting closer to the sacred springs. The ones that have healed our pups for four centuries, where my grandmother scattered my grandfather's ashes, where the water runs silver under full moons.

Eight million dollars. That's their offer. Enough to fund the pack schools for a decade, fix the elder housing that's been patched together since the sixties, maybe even expand the medical center. All for a few acres of rock.

"They're holding on line three." Pete hovers in the doorway, whiskers twitching with anxiety. My were-raccoon secretary has worked for the pack since before I was born, survived three Alpha transitions with his filing system intact. "Also, Channel 7 wants a statement about the hikers."

"Tell Channel 7 to review the footage their own cameras captured. Twelve posted warnings. GPS coordinates sent to their phones. If humans can't read 'Sovereign Territory' in giant red letters, that's natural selection."

"Can't say that last part, Alpha."

"Then make something up. You're good at that."

"I resent the implication." His whiskers twitch faster. "I craft careful diplomatic responses that maintain pack sovereignty while avoiding federal intervention. Completely different from making things up."

"Sure it is." I sign another refusal for mineral rights, this one from a company that doesn't technically exist except in Delaware tax havens. "What else?"

"Mike's waiting in the conference room with the fishing collective. Eric's handling the situation at the high school—another mixed-blood kid getting hassled. And..." He pauses, black eyes going careful. "Senator Patterson's office called. Wants to know if you'll testify at next week's Integration Committee hearing."

"No."

"That's what I told them. They said to remind you about the Healthcare Inclusion Act. How your support—"

"Got us federal funding for the medical center. I remember." I push back from the desk, shoulders tight with too many hours of human bureaucracy. "Tell Patterson I'll send a written statement."

"She specifically requested—"

"Pete."

He knows that tone. Scurries back to his desk, muttering about impossible Alphas and thankless jobs. Through the door, I hear him typing—probably his memoir about working for four generations of Byrne wolves. He's been threatening to publish it for twenty years.

Mike enters without knocking, because betas don't knock, especially ones who've known you since you were both pups rolling in mud. His face carries that particular expression that means the fishing collective is being difficult again.

"Let me guess. The selkies want higher quotas."

"And exclusive rights to the spawning grounds." He drops into the chair across from me, all six-four of Sahaptin muscle and fae grace. "They're claiming ancient treaties that predate the pack agreement."

"Of course they are."

"Could let them have it. Might shut them up for a season."

"Give selkies an inch of river and they'll take the whole watershed." I stand, needing movement. "Set up a meeting for next week. Face to face, not their messenger seals."

"You sure? Last time—"

"Last time they served raw salmon as a power play. I ate it. Maintained eye contact. They'll respect direct negotiation."

"Or they'll drown you."

"They're welcome to try."

Eric enters as Mike laughs, my second beta carrying his tablet like a weapon. Where Mike runs hot, Eric operates at Scandinavian permafrost temperatures. Between them, they keep the pack functional and me marginally sane.

"Mixed-blood situation handled. Parents were grateful, kid's back in class." He scrolls through whatever crisis list he maintains. "Three more interview requests about the hikers. Commonwealth Bank wants to discuss expanding pack credit lines. And there's something else."

"There's always something else."

"Border patrol reported activity near the old Marchant place. Might be rogues."

The word settles in my chest like lead. Rogues—wolves who've lost themselves between forms, gone feral from isolation or trauma or just bad luck. We get maybe two or three a year, usually passing through to wilder territories. But this close to the full moon, with tourist season starting...

"How many?"

"Five, maybe six. Moving in a group."

"Rogues don't pack up." Mike frowns. "Not unless—"

"Unless someone's organizing them." I finish. "Double the border patrols. Armed with silver shot."

"That'll spook the civilians."

"Better spooked than slaughtered."

My phone buzzes. Thompson Industries, ready to negotiate. I let it ring, watching the quarry contracts curl at the edges like living things trying to escape. Eight million dollars. Enough to fix so many problems. All for a piece of our souls.

"I need to run."

Both betas look at me. They know what I mean—not a jog around the compound but a real run. Four legs and forest floor, the wolf taking control for a few hours of simple truth.

"The interviews—" Eric starts.

"Can wait."

"The selkies—"

"Will still be difficult tomorrow."

"The rogues—"

"Are why I need to check the borders myself."

They exchange glances, twenty years of friendship in a look. Mike shrugs. Eric sighs. Neither argues further because they know that tone, the one that says the Alpha has decided and the man needs to remember why.

I strip in the office, leaving clothes in the carved wooden box my father used for the same purpose. His father before him. Four centuries of Byrne Alphas, each carrying the weight of the territory until their backs broke or their hearts stopped. The shift comes fast—bones breaking and reforming, fur sprouting black as midnight, senses exploding into supernatural clarity.

Pete doesn't look up when I pad past his desk. "Try not to eat any hikers, Alpha. The paperwork is murder."

If I could laugh in wolf form, I would. Instead I bump his desk hard enough to scatter his carefully organized files, small revenge for thirty years of were-raccoon sass. His chittering curses follow me out.

The compound spreads below me—administrative buildings, pack housing, the school where pups learn math and history alongside hunting and pack law. My territory. My responsibility. My cage.

But out here, running the border paths my family has maintained since before white men dreamed of Oregon, the weight lifts. Just wolf and woods and the simple truth of territory. No contracts or committees, no careful balance between human law and pack necessity. Just the ancient arithmetic of predator and prey, land and blood, moon and bone.

I check the northern markers first, scenting for rogues. Find traces—male, unknown, definitely feral from the acid smell of madness. But fading, at least two days old. They passed through without stopping, heading east toward wilder lands. Good. The last thing we need is—

The wind shifts.

Blood. Terror. Pain.

But underneath, impossible—

Omega.

Not just any omega. The scent hits like lightning, pure and powerful and wrong. Suppressants taint it, chemical poison trying to mask what can't be hidden. But beneath that...

White wolf.

I'm running before the thought completes. The old legends slam through my mind—blessed ones, moon-touched, hunted to extinction. My grandmother spoke of them in whispers, wolves of pure bloodline who carried the Mother's own magic. Healers. Prophets. Sacred.

And dying. The blood smell too strong, too fresh.

I push harder, territory blurring past. The scent trail leads toward the old Marchant cabin, the one that sits just inside the buffer zone. Human property, technically, but close enough to blur the lines. Close enough for rogues to test boundaries.

More scents layer in—human females, five of them, all terrified. Rogues, the same ones from the northern border but doubled back, organized. Hunting. And her, the impossible omega, bleeding out while something inside her fights to surface through what smells like enough suppressants to kill a normal wolf.

I burst through the treeline into chaos.

Bodies scattered. Humans bleeding, crying, trying to defend against things their minds can't process. Five rogues, caught between forms in the worst way—just enough humanity left to be cruel, not enough to be reasoned with. They circle the humans, playing with their food.

But her—

She's on the ground, throat opened by claws, blood pooling fast. Dark hair splayed like ink, skin pale as moonlight even through the gore. The omega scent floods everything, heat-sweet beneath the copper. First heat, from the intensity. First and probably last if that wound keeps pumping.

The rogues don't hear me coming. Too focused on their prize, too lost in bloodlust to remember they're not apex predators. I take the first one's throat before he can turn, the second before he can scream. The third manages a yelp that alerts the others, but by then I'm between them and the omega.

*Mine*, the wolf snarls without words. *Mine to protect.*

They try to flank, basic pack tactics. But these aren't true pack, just ferals playing at coordination. I've been Alpha since twenty-three, trained since birth. They move like insane humans. I move like death given form.

The fourth goes down hard, spine snapped. The fifth tries to run—I let him. He'll spread word that this territory has teeth. That the omega is claimed, protected, off-limits to anyone who values their throat.

"Please." One of the humans kneels beside the dying omega, hands pressed uselessly to the wound. Asian features, doctor's precision even through panic. "Please, she's dying. Help her."

I shift without thinking, kneeling naked in the blood. The omega's face stops my heart.

I know her. Not personally, but from every news cycle about Senator Westbrook's family. The adopted Korean daughter, always standing perfectly positioned for cameras. Engaged to that Maine senator, the one who thinks we're animals that learned to vote. Works for Patterson—the only reason I pay attention to integration hearings.

Sadie Westbrook is a white wolf, and she's dying in my territory.

"She has a condition." The friend babbles through tears. "Autoimmune. She takes shots every week. The medication wasn't working right. We were trying to get to the hospital—"

Suppressants. Not medication. Someone's been systematically killing her wolf for twenty-six years, and from the cocktail I'm smelling, they knew exactly what they were suppressing. White wolf needs specific compounds, carefully balanced. This wasn't accidental.

My enforcers crash through the underbrush—seven of them in wolf form, drawn by the violence and my presence. They freeze when the omega scent hits them, every unmated male fighting instinct. Even dying, even blood-soaked, she calls to breeding urges older than civilization.

"Human forms. Now." Alpha voice, no room for argument. "Get the injured to medical. Call Dr. Reeves for the humans."

"The omega—" Garrett starts, youngest of my enforcers, still learning control.

"I'll handle her. Move."

They obey, though I see the effort. Within minutes they're loading the humans into pack vehicles, efficiency born of practice. We might be monsters to Senator Westbrook's constituency, but we maintain emergency services the human government can't be bothered to fund out here.

I gather Sadie carefully. She weighs nothing, body burning with fever as it tries to shift without understanding how. The suppressants have created a war inside her—wolf fighting to emerge, human form failing under the assault. Her blood covers my chest, my arms, marks me as surely as any claiming bite.

The medical center sits fifteen minutes by car.

Morgana's cottage is two minutes if I run.

Ancient healing versus modern medicine. The choice makes itself.

I run, cradling her against my chest, feeling her heartbeat flutter and fail and fight. The forest blurs past, familiar paths taken at speeds that would shatter human bones. She makes a sound—not quite human, not quite wolf. The noise of something caged trying to remember freedom.

"Hold on." Useless words. She can't hear me, too far gone. But I say them anyway. "You're mine now. Mine to protect. Hold on."

Because I've scented her, and the wolf has decided. She's white wolf, blessed and sacred and dying. But more than that—she's *mine*. The certainty settles in my bones like prophecy. I'll paint the forest red before I let her die. I'll burn the whole world.

The cottage appears between the oaks, smoke rising from the chimney. Morgana waits on the porch, blind eyes turned toward us with uncanny precision.

"White wolf." Her voice carries centuries. "Bring her. Quickly now. The Mother has plans for this one."

I carry Sadie Westbrook into the darkness of the healer's cottage, her blood marking my skin, her scent marking my soul. In fifteen minutes, everything has changed. The territory, the pack, the careful balance I've maintained for twelve years as Alpha.

All for a white wolf who shouldn't exist, bleeding out in my arms while her body fights a war against twenty-six years of lies.

Mine, the wolf insists.

Ours, I correct. Because she'll need more than possession. She'll need choice, freedom, the right to become what she was always meant to be.

If she survives the next hour.

If Morgana can break the chemical chains.

If the Mother really does have plans for Senator Westbrook's poisoned daughter.

Too many ifs. But I'm Alpha of the Portland Pack, heir to four centuries of blood and moon and territory. I've never lost anything I claimed as mine.

I won't start now.