Page 33 of Ruthless Alpha Beast

“Yep,” I say, patting him on the back. “It’s all yours.”

I’m about to walk off to an inviting patch of fluffy grass when his voice stops me in my tracks.

“Did you see something?”

“No. Did you?”

“No,” he says. “But you seemed mesmerized by something or maybe just very deep in thought?”

“Strange,” I respond. “I wasn’t thinking about anything at all.”

***

“Alpha! You’ve got to come and see this,” one of my guys calls in a way that makes me think that whatever it is, it’s worse than your average area of blackened forest.

I’m there in seconds, and when I realize what it is, the first thing I feel is rage.

I’m a warrior, and so that means I’m pretty accustomed to seeing dead bodies. But even though I’ve become desensitized to the shock, that doesn’t take away my anger at seeing a fellow shifter killed and discarded so casually as though their life didn’t mean a thing.

The shifter, a male probably around my age, isn’t one of ours, but still, he is one of us nonetheless.

I know that his death has everything to do with this witch’s curse.

“We’ll take him back with us and bury him properly,” I tell my men. “I’m going to see if I can find anything further in this direction—if we’ve got nothing, we’ll head back.”

We’re close to the edge of the forest on our side of the land, and once we reach that edge, there’s nowhere further to look.

But the fact that the body is here must mean something. It might lead us to a clue.

I pace forward, more determined than ever before to figure out what the hell is going on. I know there has to be something here.

I sense it.

Rain begins to dribble down my back, the sky an abyss of swirling gray clouds. It’ll be storming soon, which doesn’t help, but it’s not like we haven’t braved storms before.

I instruct my guys to shift, and as we do, a deep, primal howl rolls through me. My limbs stretch as far as they’ll go, racing over the earth as I kick small rocks behind me.

All my senses are attuned to the environment. Aside from the wet sensation of rain dripping off my fur, I can smell everything and hear everything around me.

I’m growling now, my paws almost reaching the edge of the territory. I move forward full steam ahead.

And then—

The reality of the situation has already dawned on me.

There’s nothing here.

As I skid up to the edge, covered with trees, I hang my head. The land here is so blackened, it looks as though it’s covered with mold.

How did things get so bleak?

If there was something here, you’d find it, I tell myself. Whatever, whoever did this to the shifter and dared to even come close to our pack is gone.

At least for now.

I shift back to human, my regular vision returning to me.

Then I face my army.