Chapter 10
It was hard but not impossible to shake my duties as I padded toward the forest. I ignored two pack pings. Waved and turned away from the chief cook as she barreled toward me. Then, when the coast was clear for one split second, I slid down over the bank into the woods.
It felt strange to hide from my own clan, but this was the role of the Alpha. “Above and apart, always,” Father had warned me so many times I could still hear his voice in my head.
“I get it,” I whispered to the empty air, clutching the unstoppered glitter bottle as I toed off my shoes then pushed my way through dense brush and into the forest. Pack pings still tapped against my cranium, but I ignored them as I made my way through new growth and into old growth. Ground gave beneath my feet, soft and springy. W
