Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Clint came to Ally’s side, resting his hands on the table. “You say that you headed for the pack house, looking for Matt, only to find that the place was empty. But, see, I don’t buy that, sweetheart.” His eyes drilled into her as his upper lip curled. “I think you knew that our Alpha would be of no help to you, knew that he would take Rachelle’s side over yours.”
Only one thing about his theory was true: Matt probably would take Rachelle’s side.
“So then you decided to take the matter into your own hands, didn’t you?” Clint’s voice turned harder, louder, browbeating. “You did exactly as Rachelle claims: you tracked her down and attacked her from behind, slashing her back, giving her no chance to defend herself.” He slowly stalked to Ally’s other side as he continued, “She quickly righted herself and whirled on you, didn’t she? That was when you sucker punched her, knocking her out, and ran like the coward you are.”
Her wolf growled, insulted by the “coward” comment. Ally wanted to snort. If she’d wanted to kill Rachelle, she’d have gone at her from the front. And she’d have made sure she finished the job. Since she’d joined the Collingwood Pack two years ago, Ally had only been involved in two duels. Both times, Ally had won. She fought hard and dirty, but she did not attack from behind. And she did not run off like a coward. No self-respecting dominant wolf would.
“You were jealous because you lost Zeke to her,” charged Clint with a taunting smirk, “and you thought that if she was out of the picture, you would get him back.”
Even if she had wanted Zeke back, killing Rachelle wouldn’t have achieved it. Since it was rare for shifters to survive the death of a mate, Zeke would most likely have died right along with her. As such, Clint’s allegation couldn’t be more pathetic. And because Ally had a terrible habit of accidentally speaking her thoughts aloud, she mocked, “Wow, you cracked this case wide open.”
Clint flushed from the neck up, but after a moment he gave a careless shrug. “It’s your word against Rachelle’s.” His tone made it clear that Ally’s word meant jack shit. Unfortunately, that was true.
The past few months had sucked big-time. It had been a blow when her boyfriend found his true mate, but Ally was happy for Zeke. She had been nothing but welcoming and respectful to his mate, but the female had loathed her from minute one. Ally had felt the hate pouring from her in waves—literally. Being highly empathetic came with the Seer package.
Her intuition had told her that Rachelle Lavin was going to be trouble . . . and it had been right. Despite Zeke not hesitating to claim Rachelle as his mate, the female had immediately embarked on a hate campaign with Ally as the target.
Ally had been shocked when Zeke berated her a few months ago for supposedly insulting his mate. Confused and riled, she’d sought out Rachelle . . . playing right into the woman’s hands, she later realized. Everyone had witnessed her yelling at her Beta female, who had remained calm and cool as she rebuked Ally and gave her pitying looks for her “jealousy.”
That was when the “Ally’s jealous” tripe had started. And she had quickly found that there wasn’t a good defense against that seventh-grade insult. If Ally ignored it, she was jealous. If she responded with a smart comeback, she was jealous. If she got pissed and told them to go eat shit, she was not only jealous but bitter too.
Shortly after that incident, Rachelle had claimed that Ally was sending her hateful text messages. Again, Zeke had freaked at Ally. So again, she’d sought out Rachelle, demanding that she produce these fictional messages. To her utter shock and dismay, Rachelle had. Ally had adamantly and loudly denied sending them, insisted that Rachelle must have at some point taken Ally’s cell phone and sent them to herself. Which, of course, sounded plain crazy—yet it was true. But no one other than Ally seemed to see that.
And so, her pack mates had slowly but surely pulled away from Ally. In the time she’d been part of the Collingwood Pack, she’d healed several of them and had twice saved the pack from conflict through her visions . . . but all of that had ceased to mean anything.
In their defense, Rachelle was a very convincing liar. She’d made Ally an outsider in her own pack. And thanks to the heifer’s latest stunt, Ally might be cast out.
“No one’s going to buy your story, Ally,” Clint growled into her ear. Her wolf snapped her teeth at him. The guy certainly had the Prick Factor going on. “No one’s going to believe you. We have a witness who claims they saw you attack Rachelle.”