Alpha's Calling

Prologue

Seven years ago…

Smoke filled Cassidy’s nose. The acrid burning scent had brought her upright in her bed, startling her and disrupting her peaceful dreams. The child blinked rapidly before rubbing her burning eyes and coughing as her sleep clouded mind cleared at the sound of Samuel, her older brother, came crashing through her bedroom door.

“Cassy!” he called out for her and with her responding frightened cry it was only seconds before Sam had found her on the floor next to her bed.

Cassidy had dropped off the side of her bed, going to the floor in an attempt to see through the thick gray smoke that filled her room. She heard her brother and let out a frightened sound as she tried to go towards his voice, only to be scooped up quickly into his arms.

“I got you sis…” was his comforting words as he rushed her through the double doors that led to the balcony outside of her room. They were three floors up and the Pack house of the Wildwoods pack was quickly going up in flames behind them and to the front on the ground a slaughter was taking place.

“Cassy, I'm going to jump and when we are on the ground I need you to run to the shelter. Just like we always practiced. Can you do that?” Samuel had asked and she stared up at him wide eyed with worry as fear was starting to fully sink in.

“Yes… But Sam…” Cass had started to ask, but her words were silenced when Samuel gave a small growl and squeezed her briefly in a hug before he took a running leap off the balcony. Sam had landed on his feet easily and almost instantaneously dropped her as a rogue wolf came at him from the side, digging his long claws into Sam’s flesh in an attempt to get to Cassidy.

~RUN CASSIDY!~ came the command to her mind over her family link with Sam. Cass had been standing in shock, frozen with a fearful expression on her face that was suddenly sprayed with dark crimson blood as the rogue received a killing blow from her older brother. The warmth of the liquid and the roar as her brother shifted into his wolf got her legs moving and she took off as fast as her legs could carry her without a second look over her shoulder.

Cassidy was a few years too young to shift, but she was fast. Faster than all the other pre-shifter boys in the pack and she used it to her advantage. She took off like a shot, weaving in and out of the carnage all around her. The rogue werewolves were ripping into men, women and children alike while leaving a bloodbath in their wake. Cassidy was too young to realize that this wasn't just some random attack on her fathers pack. That these rogues were too well organized, too in control and they had a plan.

Fear gripped the child as she darted in and out of the rocks and trees of the Appalachian timber that her family called home. Nearly every square inch was covered in the scent of rogues that had came in under the cover of darkness. Cassidy had never smelled a rogue before, and it would be a scent she was not going to forget for the rest of her life.

Stale filth, mold, rot and decay of unwashed bodies of wolves that had been banished from their packs for one reason or another. The young mind couldn't comprehend the significance of rogues attacking in such a well coordinated attack through the shock and adrenaline coursing through her.