Chapter 27

It had surprised Netya to be woken with such news from the alpha. She thought she would have been pleased to hear that he had no intention of keeping her prisoner, but instead she left his den that morning with a strange hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“But know this, Netya,” he had said, his expression grave, a sadness in his eyes that she had never before seen. “If the day does come that you choose to leave our pack, you may never again return. And you may speak of this to no one, not even Fern. For your own sake as much as mine.”

She had only nodded in response, Khelt’s strange manner putting her on edge. She’d not considered that returning to her village might mean she never saw the Moon People again. It was not a decision she wanted to make. Living here with the pack, never seeing Layon or her sisters again...

Her heart ached terribly to think of it; the endless future stretching out before her, devoid of anything she had come to know and hold dear.