Prologue

Sophia maintained her usual calm exterior, not letting her emotions show. It wouldn't be befitting of an alpha wolf to show signs of nervousness. That was something she left to her subordinates, although at least some of them seemed relatively calm.

Her cousin, Lukas, was the most at ease with the situation, which was what Sophia had expected. He was used to being around hunters and had even befriended some. She glanced at Blake, Lukas' friend and former hunter, who also happened to be the mate of her beta, Jason. She would have expected Blake to be calm, but he and Jason both seemed quite nervous.

Surprisingly, her brother's mate, a normally shy young wolf, seemed perfectly calm. Melanie was talking to three hunters who had already arrived at the park. They were the ones who had raised her, and somehow, Melanie seemed to be friendly with them. Sophia knew she'd never be able to refrain from tearing them apart if she'd been treated the way they had treated Melanie.

Her brother was the exact opposite of Melanie. Talon was fidgeting and pacing, and couldn't hold still, constantly looking around. That was exactly as Melanie had expected – ever since Melanie became pregnant, he'd grown extremely overprotective and the current situation was stressing him out. Melanie was about six months pregnant, although with her small size, Sophia thought she looked further along than that.

The two other pack members present, Amber and Oliver, were apart from the group, the official lookouts for any signs of trouble. They had no idea what the hunters looked like, but they were there to make sure that nothing happened when they did arrive. Oliver appeared nervous, while Amber only looked angry.

"You sure they're going to show up?" Lukas asked with a quick glance around.

"They'd damn well better," Sophia responded with a growl. "It was too damn hard to set up and I've got plenty of other things I need to deal with. If they don't show, I will personally hunt them all down."

"What happened to being busy?" Lukas asked.

"Shut up." Before anyone could say anything else, Sophia caught sight of a group of six people. They were looking towards her and the rest of the group. Sophia caught Blake's attention. "That them?"

"Yeah," Blake said, squinting in their direction. "Is that…?" Blake didn't finish the question and started walking towards the group.

"Blake!" Sophia shouted at him, not wanting him to meet the hunters on his own. Had he been a wolf, she would have ran after him and pulled him back, but he was a human and had only been part of the pack for a few months – she felt like she had to cut him a little slack. But when Jason tried to follow him, Sophia grabbed him by the arm and held him back.

"What?" Jason asked, looking at Sophia. "I can't let him go there on his own."

"You don't want to spook them," Sophia said. "Stay here like we discussed. Blake's sorta one of them, so he'll be okay. Look."

As Sophia spoke, they could see that one of hunters had broken away from the group and had thrown her arms around Blake. Sophia let go of Jason, almost ready to tell him to go to his mate, but Blake was already on his way back, the female hunter following him.

"Hope that's not an ex-girlfriend of his," Sophia said.

"He's never had a girlfriend," Jason said. "I think that might be Paige."

"Paige?" Sophia questioned.

"Hey," Blake said, smiling as he came to stand in front of Sophia and Jason, with the woman next to him. She had brown hair a few shades lighter than Blake's, but very similar blue eyes. "This is Paige, my sister. Paige, this is Sophia, the pack alpha and this is Jason. He's my…. he's my mate."

"Mate?" Paige asked, looking between Jason and Blake. "Well, now everything makes sense! Why didn't you say you hooked up with a werewolf before?" Paige shoved her brother, not hard, but it was enough to make Jason take a step towards her, instinctively wanting to protect his mate.

"It's okay, Jason," Blake said, taking his hand.

"Knew I shouldn't have let mates come along," Sophia grumbled. She knew it was just asking for trouble letting the two pairs of mates be present since she knew they couldn't control themselves when it came to protecting their mates and that could easily create an incident. But she also knew it would be near impossible to keep them away. Lukas' mate, Emma, wasn't there only because she had to be at work, and even then, it had been hard for Sophia to convince her she didn't need to be there.

One thing that Sophia felt certain about was that when she found her mate – if she found her mate – she wouldn't go completely crazy over them. She would remain rational and she sure wouldn't abandon her pack over her mate. Having seen her closest friends all find their mates within the last few years, Sophia knew exactly how she didn't want to act when her own time came.

But it wasn't time for her to think about her future mate. Right now, she had to have a discussion with what she always thought of as a werewolf's greatest enemy. The hunters. She didn't like the idea, but she realized that if they could find a way to talk things out, then perhaps someday, wolves wouldn't have to worry about being hunted down. So she put her personal feelings aside and looked at the hunters who had just arrived.

"Hello," Sophia said. "I'm Sophia Colton, alpha of the Mile High Pack." She held her hand out, which the hunter in front of the group reluctantly took. Introductions were made, and then they sat down at a bench to finally talk things over.

As Sophia had expected, things did not go smoothly. She had expected them to prove they were regular, rational people who just happened to turn into wolves. But they already seemed convinced otherwise. Instead, the problems arose over things that Sophia had not expected.

The first problem was that the hunters didn't seem to really believe that she was the alpha. Anytime she spoke for the pack, they glanced over to Lukas or Talon. Finally, Sophia couldn't take it anymore. "Look," she said with a growl. "You're making it pretty damn obvious that you don't think a woman can be the alpha of a pack. But I assure you, I am. These two idiots you keep looking at are at the bottom of the hierarchy. And don't think I haven't noticed you ignoring Jason, either. As if you don't think a gay man could have a position of power."

For several moments, everyone remained silent. Sophia knew she should have simply tolerated it to make things simpler, but it had been driving her insane. She looked at the others, sensing that Jason wanted to apologize, but Sophia spoke up again before he could even try. "Fucking heteronormative patriarchal bullshit," she said. "Now if we can get back to the real issues, I'd damn well appreciate it."

Their attitude wasn't the only problem, however, and the next several hours were spent getting next to nowhere. One issue was that they simply couldn't trust each other. After such a long, bloody history, it was nearly impossible to do so, but Sophia was trying to listen to them and trying to understand. A bigger problem was the fact that no one in either group could speak for all of their kind. Sophia only represented her own pack, and the hunters represented only a small, but growing, group of hunters who wanted to stop hunting wolves.

In the end, they couldn't make any definitive plans about the future, but Sophia knew it was a step in the right direction. The hunters, having personally met and talked with a wolf, could now tell others the truth about wolves and bring more to their side. Sophia knew it would be a long process, but she also knew it would be worth it.

And once the hunters were no longer an issue, it would be one less thing Sophia had to deal with and she welcomed that.