Free Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) by Tarrah Betts

too angry and filled with too much sadness to care. Maybe I would be lucky and the Alpha would kill me and put me out of my misery.
    He walked up to me, his dark eyes never leaving my face. And although I should have, I would not submit and look away from him.
    Stubborn to the end, I refused to bow my head or avert my gaze.
    When he finally stood in front of me, he said, “I know I’m not your father, Roan. No one can ever replace him. He was a good man and a good father and I’m sorry he died. He loved you very much but he would not want you to suffer this way for him though. He would want you, his only child, to live. Not to be filled with such rage and despair at his passing. I know I am not your father, Roan but you are a child of the pack and I am its Alpha. I will not give up on you. Not ever.”
    He put his arms around me and held me in a firm hug but I didn’t want him to hug me; I wanted to continue to rage and scream because I felt safer with those emotions.
    They were familiar to me.
    I squirmed to get away from the Alpha but he held on tightly without speaking. I fought against him but as a full grown, male Were, he was strong, so much stronger than I could ever hope to be.
    My resolve began to weaken as I fought against him and struggled until I had nothing left…except the sadness that always filled me.
    And then, physically and emotionally exhausted, I slumped into the Alpha’s embrace and started to cry.
    I had not cried once since my father’s death. Since I was now the man of the house, it was my duty to be stoic and hold it all inside. Besides, my mother did enough crying for the both of us and if I allowed myself to fall apart too, who was going to take care of the both of us?
    But at that moment, standing in the woods embraced by the Alpha’s hug, I knew the answer to that question and great heaving sobs wrenched out of my throat and strangled me. My body shook as I cried into his chest and wailed like a baby. My father was gone. Gone.
    He had gone and left me behind with no one to love and care for me the way he did. “Who would call me Roaney Baloney? Who would teach me how to be a responsible Were and a good man? Who would love me now?”
    Certainly not my mother.
    She had left Spruce Hollow for good once she had unceremoniously dropped me off on the Alpha’s doorstep with a curt “I can’t deal with him anymore, he’s your problem now.”
    The sense of loss I felt was enormous. It was bad enough that I had lost my father but I had also lost my mother too.
    I was truly alone in the world. I had no family and I cried into the Alpha’s hug until my stomach hurt.
    I snapped out of my reverie from the sound of Caver bursting up the driveway and onto the front lawn.
    Laughing, I watched as he phased and made his way up the stone walkway. Griff was right behind him, followed by the rest of my brothers.
    “Don’t you stand there and look at me with that smug look on your face, you bastard!” he called at me. 
    “Caver, you’re such a sore loser,” I laughed as I got up and walked down to meet them.
    I knew I’d never hear the end of it, so I clasped his hand and gave him a shoulder bump as I offered words of encouragement.
    “Next time. You’ll catch me next time, I know it.” I said laughing, as I clapped him on the back. 
    “Yeah right Mr. “I phased at twelve years old”. No one will ever be able to outrun you,” he said sulkily.
    I didn’t say it, as he was upset enough and I didn’t want to rub it in, but he was right.
    Because I had phased at such an early age, I had years of extra growth on almost every single Were in the pack and even though we were all roughly the same height and weight in our human form, as a Were, I was enormous and intimidating.
    What this translated into was that I was faster and stronger in my wolf form than any of them would ever be and it burned Caver to death to know this, as he was just as competitive in his wolf form as he was as a