Hybrid Aria (Hybrid Series)

Book 4 Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ryker POV

Can't believe the Moon goddess my however many great grandmother would curse her own grandson to a life of misery. Blessings are what they say mates are, mine are a curse. Before I knew how badly mates could destroy you, tear apart your soul, I craved mine. Craved finding my other half, now I know better. Mate’s are a distraction one I couldn’t afford, yet here I am still searching for my little white wolf knowing I will be damned when I finally catch her, that I will once again have to tear off another piece of my soul when I am forced to kill this one too.

Mates are not blessings and the Moon Goddess? I've given up on her. As a pure hybrid and a direct descendant of the Moon goddess, my mother held the title of hybrid Queen until she passed it on to me when she stepped down. Now I am the cursed Alpha king. My father was a werewolf so the only good thing I got off my mother being a hybrid was being the ultimate predator, luckily I was also blessed with a wolf. My twin sisters were like my mother, just hybrid's, no wolf's, no shifting, my younger brothers were like me though, and tended to run on the female side with the hybrid genes. I only craved blood in wolf form, my sisters craved it all the time.

My family were the only hybrids except for the mutations made by Kade, a crazy scientist who was hellbent on revenge for a feud that had nothing to do with us, only my grandfather but that didn’t stop him from trying to destroy us. He used my grandfather's blood to become immortal. We thought after finally killing the bastard everything was going to be fine. Well until I found my first mate, she was a hunter and what a disaster that was. I was blinded by the mate bond and she was using me to get to my pack, my family. So knowing that it ended in her death.

Her betrayal and having to kill her destroyed me. However, now my grandmother is playing with the Fates again, and she has given me another dud as a mate. This second chance of mine has eluded me for months.

I first spotted her a few months ago when we noticed humans scouting my sister's pack, but something seemed off about her. Unnatural. I saw her only in her wolf form, but I knew she belonged to me. However, she fled and I have been hunting her ever since.

My instincts told me that she was helping the rogues and humans, another mate I was destined to kill. There was part of me that hoped I would never find her; I don't think my wolf could bear another loss like that. But no matter how much I tried. I always returned here in search of her, some intangible pull drawing me back. Her white wolf occupied my thoughts constantly.

I cannot recall how many times I have been to this part of the woods, but I have never detected her scent, yet always find myself here. Tate, one of my sister’s mates, yes she had two not one but two mates. We weren’t expecting to find anything here, we haven't in months, she was good at evading me, yet I always felt this strong urge to come back to this spot, like something was telling me she was close.

“We have been here so many times, maybe they have moved on” Tate says as we walk through the dense forest. “Last place then we will head home” I told him and he sighed. We stopped at the river looking up and down the stream where I first spotted her, nothing. Always f*****g nothing. How she was able to escape me I didn't understand. I am the Alpha king. Alpha of all Alpha's yet I can't catch one little she-wolf.

“Come let’s head back” Tate said, turning around to head the way we came.

“You go back, I will keep searching a little longer” I tell him and he nods before shifting and heading home to his mates. Deciding to go check out the caves I walked through the water coming out across the other side of the river. The only sounds that could be heard were owls high up in the trees and the crunch of rocks and twigs under my boots.

Some urge forced me in this direction, I decided to follow it for once, nothing much was out there besides caves. After moving through the dense forest I stopped at the cave's entrance, listening for any sounds when I heard the murmur of voices in the distance. The sound was barely audible; it was as if they were on the other side of the mountain. I could only just make out the noise transmitted to me by the draft of the cave in front of me.

Upon entering the cave, I could smell bat s**t, and the stench of stangment water made my nose wrinkle with disgust. My eyes adjust to the darkness as my vision changes, adapting to it. I followed the tunnels of the cave when it suddenly ended. The voices were a lot louder, I could almost hear what they were saying and I could smell the burning wood of a campfire as the moist logs burned, the smell of mildew covering the walls, every smell and my sensitive nose could smell it all. I look along the cave walls, finding a gap between the rocks. Too narrow for me to fit through.

Backtracking, I decided to climb over the mountain. Easily navigating the rocky terrain before jumping over the side to another entrance. My heart skipped a beat when I picked up the scent of rogues.

“She might be in there?” Brax my wolf says, urging me to enter, pressing beneath my skin and trying to force me forward. Though I couldn’t smell her scent, only the decaying scent of rogues and blood. I could tell one of them was injured.

Walking through the cave, the voices and chatter suddenly stopped, they knew someone was in their hiding spot, my scent definitely would have wafted to them by now. I see the glow of a fire on the cave walls as I draw closer, smell the wood burning and the smell of burning flesh like they were cooking something. Turning a corner in the cave, I come across their campsite. I smiled when I recognized the rogue sitting closest to me, frozen in place as he stared with his one eye wide.

I had pulled his other eye out when the hunters and rogues attacked my sister’s pack, he was supposed to be my eyes and ears and let me know of any future attacks which I had no doubt would come. They wanted revenge for me killing Danika, my first mate. Her parents were high up in the hunters organisation. I had slowly been disabling them, they didn’t particularly like it when I erased her entire bloodline bar her grandfather, made her watch each of them die before I finished her off, no one betrays me not even my mate and gets to live. I show no mercy for traitors no matter who they are.

“Well what do we have here?” I asked, stepping into the small space. I see a man and a woman in their forties in one corner huddled close.