The Scarred Prince (The Wolf's Pet Book One) by Aubrey Rose Page B

to remember that my brother was spending the night downstairs on the couch. I pulled on my clothes and went down. Every step made me more nervous.
    The doctor was there, watching over him. And my parents too, sitting across from Blaise. Mara and Dee were there, too. I could hear their voices arguing. When I came downstairs, they all looked at me. A lump rose in my throat.
    “How’s your leg?” I asked. My voice was a whisper.
    “It’s fine. No thanks to you,” Blaise said.
    I choked on my tears. I’d messed up before, but never like this. This was all my fault. I turned to my parents.
    “What about the prisoner?”
    I didn’t know what I hoped for. My heart thudded as I listened to my dad speak.
    “Max did the best he could. He tracked him as far as he could to the edge of the territory. The trail was messy there, and, well… Max isn’t our best tracker, you know. He lost the scent.”
    My heart fell. My fault. My fault. The thought beat over and over again in my chest. Guilt flooded me as I sat down on the stairs.
    “What do we do now?” I asked.
    Dee came into the room and sat next to me on the stairs. She put her arm around me, and I broke down into tears. She was so kind, even when I had messed up everything.
    “We’ve moved before. We can move again,” she said.
    “The plan is to fight,” Blaise said. “The council decided—”
    “The council decided before the prisoner escaped. He knows the true strength of the pack now, if they didn’t already. He knows the entry points. We need to leave.”
    I sobbed quietly into Dee’s shoulder.
    “We can stand against them,” Blaise said.
    “Stand? You can’t stand. How can you fight with a bad leg?” Dee asked.
    “It’ll heal. It’s not deep. I want to fight!”
    “You know nothing of death,” Dee said quietly. “Damien, you must reconsider.”
    Everyone waited for my father’s response. He sighed.
    “I trust you, Dee,” he said. “The pack has always trusted you. If you think it’s wise to leave—”
    “Dad!” Blaise cried. “You can’t do this.”
    “We can’t stay here. Not anymore,” Dad said. “Let’s pull back. We can come back later to see if they’ve come into the territory. We’ll fight, but only on our own terms. Right now, we are at a severe disadvantage.”
    My tears burned hot on my cheeks. It was me. I had put us all at a disadvantage. I had weakened the pack’s position.
    “We’ll find another home,” my mom said. It took me a moment to realize why her voice sounded so strange. She was holding back her own tears.
    “Julia,” my dad murmured. He took her hand.
    “I can’t believe you did this, Kinaya,” Blaise hissed at me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
    Of course I knew. I stared around the room. Nobody met my eyes, nobody except Blaise, and there was only hatred in his face.
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
    “Thanks for your fucking apology,” Blaise spat.
    “Blaise, don’t!” Mom said. She was perilously close to tears.
    “Then it’s decided,” Dad said. He stood up. “Let’s tell the rest of the pack to get ready. Dee, pull back the scouts from the outer edges. We’ll leave tonight and move into the city for a day, then decide where to go from there. If they invade, they’ll find this territory empty.”
    “Great. Thanks,” Blaise said, pointing his sarcasm directly at me.
    “I’ll go tell the pack,” Mara said.
    “I’ll come with you,” I said, standing up.
    “It’s alright, Kinaya,” Dee said, hugging me tightly. I let her arms hold me, but I wanted no sympathy from any of them. I didn’t deserve it. I left the house, following Mara, leaving my family behind. I had failed them. For all my stupid arrogant blustering, I had failed them completely.
    After telling the third family that we were leaving, my heart was deadened. And then I knocked on the last cabin. Ana answered the door.
    “Kinaya!”
    “Ana?” I knelt down and gave her a hug. “What are you doing here? All