The Heart of the Wolf

Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

It had been one month.

Thirty days. Seven hundred and twenty hours. Forty-three thousand and two hundred minutes. Two million five hundred and ninety two thousand seconds.

One month since the love of my life was taken from me. One month since my heart shattered. One month since I had heard his voice.

One month since the fire started brewing in my soul. A soul that was ripped in half. A soul that was apparently the soul of Ivaylo.

And I swear on Ivaylo we wouldn't make it to two months.

"I don't have time today for screwing around, so let's get to it." I announced as I walked into the conference room. I took one of the two seats at the front. I made sure my eyes didn't make contact with the other chair; I also didn't have time to screw around with emotions today. "What progress has been made with the search?" I made eye contact with our head Tracker, Cassandra. She was new at her job. The last lead Tracker was killed during battle. I had appointed Cass to take over as leader of the Trackers after the battle. She wasn't great at her job yet, but I was being patient. Or, I was, but that was starting to run thin.

"We have no new leads, your Highness." She looked down, but not in respect. She was uncomfortable, scared even.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I exhaled in frustration. I ground my teeth together painfully, trying to rein in my temper. "What have you been doing all this time, Cass?" I demanded derisively. "You have five hundred Trackers. Have all of you been standing around twiddling your thumbs instead of doing your job? Because you have one job. Find your King. You've given me nothing except you caught his scent over three weeks ago two hours north of here. What am I supposed to do with that?"

"She doesn't have a lot to go on, Kendall." Selena spoke before Cass could. My sharp glance moved over to her.

"I'm sorry, is your name Cass now? She's my head Tracker, she should be able to speak for herself."

She gave me a dry, annoyed glance, but didn't say anything else. My gaze moved back to the woman in question.

"I'm sorry, your Highness. I'll try harder."

"You better."

She nodded before she sat back down, but I barely noticed before my eyes moved to Harrison.

"Harrison, how many new recruits do you have for the Royal Army?"

"In the last week, we've got three hundred and fourteen new wolves to join us." He answered after he stood up.

"Not enough. I want those numbers doubled by next week. We need more warriors and we need them trained now. We never know when the next attack will be. I'll be attending training camp one day as well to see the progress for myself."

I knew many of the new wolves were from my family's pack.  After everything happened, I convinced Brody to bring what was left of the Keating Pack - a little under 4,000 wolves - to live in the castle territory.  They weren't prepared for a battle before mom and dad, along with over 1,000 other wolves, died.  Ivaylo and Olga would have no problem exploiting that to try to get to me.  Brody had been against the request at first.  He wanted to rebuild the pack in the place they all called home.  Eventually, he was able to come around to my side, with the help of Lili.  

The Pack was understanding.  They were loyal to me.  The majority that were able had already joined our army.  With the Keating Pack members, our army was now the size it had been before everything happened.  But it wasn't enough.  We needed more bodies.