Rogue Rage

Chapter 8

“What do you mean a predator in the pack? Stop mincing words, Amara.”

“I’m just saying, I was doing more than reporting to Damian. Believe it or not, I was making your pack a better place.” I stretched my back as best I could in my new seated position on the ground. Samuel had plopped me down when I insinuated that a certain pack member was preying on young girls.

I knew it would hit home for Samuel. He had reunited with his daughters, and they were living safely now, but I was one of the few who knew why he had been exiled and why he became a rogue. It was the very reason I both feared and respected him. If he knew that his daughters—or any young girl—could be harmed, he would walk into hell to stop it.

“If you’re trying to save your own skin—”

“I already know the names of a few girls he’s preyed on. I could tell you.” He scowled, unsure what to think. I didn’t blame him. The way I revealed the information was far too convenient. “Look, all I’m asking is that you let me stay undercover a little longer, until I can draw him out. You can even be there for it, and then you’ll see for yourself.”

He gave a humorless grin. “You expect me to release you and then watch you run off to Damian? I don’t think so.”

“Fine. Live with the monster. Let him prey on the pack’s children for all I care.” He growled and stepped toward me. I flinched. “I’m not lying, okay!”

“Tell me who it is, and I’ll inform Alpha Gabriel. He will launch a discreet investigation and make an impartial judgment.”

“Impossible.” I shook my head. He stared at me, clearly annoyed. “He can’t be impartial about someone that close to him,” I said matter-of-factly. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Before, it could have been anyone, but now I had narrowed it down just enough for faces to pass through his mind. I felt a little guilty, but not as guilty as I would feel if I allowed that man to touch another young girl. “Look, if you walk me through those gates as a prisoner, Keith will inform Damian by morning. Then he’ll send someone who actually believes in him. Someone who won’t hesitate to give him everything I’ve held back.”

Samuel started pacing again. For one reckless second, I had been ready to die. I had almost convinced myself it would be easier than begging for one more chance to keep breathing. But the truth clawed its way up my throat—I wasn’t done. Not yet. I couldn’t let my life end as one more tool Damian had used and discarded. I needed it to mean something, even if all I had left was this one terrible, desperate choice. Samuel’s anxiety rolled off him in waves, feeding my own until my hands trembled. I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet his eyes. One more push. One honest plea. If there was anything left in him that remembered me as more than Damian’s spy, I had to reach it now.

“Do you remember when I first came to Marcus’s pack?” He said nothing. “Marcus kept preaching about the New World Damian was going to build. You knew I was being sent from pack to pack, and you asked me to watch for your daughters. I warned you not to tell Marcus where they might be. I told you that if Damian found them first, he would use them against you. He would invite them in and turn them into leverage.” He stared hard at me. “You know me well enough to know I’m no zealot. Damian never had my heart. He only held my fear. I tried to help you then, and I’m trying to help you now. Please believe me.”

I saw it in his eyes, the moment he made his decision. “We’ll head back separately. First, you’ll go through the gates. I’ll follow later. I’ll be hunting Keith tonight. Tomorrow, you will tell me everything about the male you’ve been tracking. And I will help you when you can prove his guilt.”

I exhaled from the bottom of my gut. I nodded my agreement.

“Do you have any idea where Keith might be now?”

I was still in a state of overwhelming relief but focused myself enough to respond. “Uh—We agreed to meet in the gathering area once a week. That would be tomorrow.”

“Meet how?” he asked, watching for any hesitation in my answer.

“I stumble in front of the main kitchen window, drop something, and he graciously picks it up. I thank him, and he tells me that he dropped something just last week at a certain place. That becomes the next location.”

“Clever. Did he think of that?” Samuel tipped his chin toward an imaginary Keith. Nope, the only thing on that man’s mind was Jace. I shook my head. Samuel nodded. “You’re too damn smart to be one of Damian’s pawns.”

“I didn’t choose this, Sam,” I muttered. “I didn’t have anyone looking out for me.” I pushed myself off the ground and dusted off my hands. I could feel the scornful sympathy Samuel was giving me. I exhaled and crossed my arms. “Can we go now?”

Samuel nodded and gestured for me to walk ahead of him. I did. I knew there was very little trust between us, if any at all.

We were within sight of the stronghold. The gentle glow of the village peeked over and through the fence as people headed to their homes for the night. I turned when Samuel called my name. “If you run, I will catch you.” I assumed he was talking about tonight. He may have agreed not to turn me in just yet, but that didn’t mean he trusted me to stay within the fence. I got in, so he knew I could get out.

I nodded and smirked. “How far would I get? I told you about the guards, didn’t I? Besides, patrol shifts only change in the morning.”

He nodded towards the stronghold, “Go.”

I walked ahead and realized he had stopped following. He was truly going through with it. Not that it changed anything; I could never outrun him. Even Keith had understood my limits well enough to stay in human form when we traveled together. The memory pricked at me, sharper than I wanted to admit. For all his loyalty to Damian, Keith had not always been cruel. But kindness did not make him innocent, and guilt would not undo what he was willing to do. Samuel was right. Keith would endanger every person in this pack if it meant securing Jace’s future. And Jace—Jace would never choose freedom if it meant loosening Damian’s grip. She was too far under his thumb to see the chain.

I wondered where this new path would lead me. Was it naïve to hope the Alpha might show mercy? Did one decent act erase a lifetime of filth? The thought was almost laughable. Greedy, too. Greedy to imagine a future outside the shadows when darkness had been the only thing that ever claimed me. My whole life had been twisted by it—raised in it, shaped by it, taught to breathe where no light could reach. There was no tunnel. No distant glow. Only an endless road buried in black, and I had always known there was no way out. The inevitable could not wound me if I stopped pretending it might change. All I could hope for now was a quick death at the end of it.