Claws

Chapter Thirty-Six

Zale looked down at Mae's beautiful sleeping face, sighing. He'd probably seen her sleeping face more than when she was awake. In any case, he was relieved she fell asleep so soon. He'd turned the oven off the moment he smelt her pheromones slowly release as they always did when she was asleep and made sure the stove was on low. He didn't want Mae to wake up to a fire alarm while he was gone, let alone know that he'd left at all.

He knew something like this was going to happen. A distraction was going to be sent his way to make sure he didn't leave the house so there wouldn't be the slightest chance he would come across the eastern and southern pack meeting.

They didn't want him to know about his lineage. They didn't want him to know that his father was still alive. Of course, they didn't know that Zale had known he was a half-Southerner for years now, so in reality, there was no need to hide anything. He'd always been the type of person who didn't really like letting people know what was going through his head, so he kept quiet when his father first contacted him a few years after he returned from the mainland. That was until he decided he would tell his mother, but even then, his father did things to keep him quiet. Threats, beatings, manipulation. You name it.

Everyone had been lying to him for so long. That's what hurt the most. Not when he remembered growing up while his mother was forced to say she missed her husband after his death or every time he was forced to meet his father with the eastern pack's safety on the line. It wasn't even when his father beat him to a bloody pulp every month just because he wouldn't return with him to the southern border. It was the moments when the ones he cared for most lied right to his face, feeding their lies one by one as the years went by. He sometimes wished he was like Robin. He would have probably turned out better if he had been an omega, clueless of what the truth was, unable to take responsibility for being next in line as the chief of the southern pack, ruling in such a merciless, strict way, just like his father. He genuinely hoped that Robin would never have to find out that his father was such a horrible person.

Looking at the clock on the stand beside his couch where Mae lay sleeping, he sighed, running his fingers through his hair, and quickly slipped out of his house. Twenty minutes. He would listen in for twenty minutes just to see what was going on. Then, he would come back, finish making the food, and wake Mae up just in time to eat dinner with her, all while pretending to be oblivious to the secrets the ones closest to him thought were hidden.

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Zale didn't know the exact place the meeting was going to be held, but he had a good idea of what area it would be in, so thankfully, he didn't think he would have to spend a lot of time searching. All he had to do after that was let his other senses do the job, tracking their exact location down. Then he would hide somewhere close enough to where he could see or at least hear. Zale figured the meeting would consist of the chiefs, obviously, the council, and maybe a few other high-ranking alphas, so he would have to be extra careful of where he hid.

As Zale ran through the vast, heavily snowed-down forest, he kept his senses on full alert. The air outside was even more nippy than usual, frosting the tips of his black fur that blended in with the darkness. Clouds blanketed the moon like a weak shield, defending the light from the darkness, allowing little illumination to hit the earth's surface. There were more noise than usual, the wind gruesomely harsh, while the animals living in the trees and burrowed in the ground seemed to panic in the cruel weather conditions. It was obvious a snowstorm was coming. It was definitely the right day for a border meeting. It would be easy to hide in the shadows with all this noise but slightly harder see with all the snow whirling around. Zale had the advantage, though, so it didn't really matter as long as he was able to listen in on their conversation.