Chapter 2

GABRIEL

I was working on the final touches to my project for school that had been assigned over the summer. This one was for my leadership training program. It used to just be Alpha training, but it was changed to all leadership when the academic curriculum for the academies that were being designed years ago.

My proposal was an exchange program where those within a future leadership position would spend a month shadowing someone from the same rank from another pack. Each pack’s structure was designed by the Alpha in charge. My proposal would immerse future leadership amongst different ways of doing things, potentially opening them up to important collaborations.

I twirled the pen I had in my hand while I checked the time. It was well past eight, and I had not seen my brother since earlier.

As if I had summoned him, Grant walked into the suite, slamming the door behind him. It was a good fucking thing that we lived at the packhouse instead of with our parents or else he would have just got bitched at for how hard he slammed the door.

Well, fuck. He did not look pleased at all. The dead giveaway, besides the furious expression on his face, was that he was currently pacing from one side of the room to the other. It was a habit that we both inherited from Mom.

I did catch Angel’s vanilla rose scent coming off of him. That scent was fucking divine. I could bathe in it every day and still want more.

We grew up hearing the stories about our connection with Angel even when we were in the womb. Then it continued on as we grew up. It was always the three of us. My brother and I were always found around her, wanting to protect her, and make her happy.

I would not say that the feelings remained the same over the years because they evolved and deepened. However, we just never expressed them to her because we never wanted to pressure her. That would be the last thing that we would ever want to do.

What would she think if she knew how much we both loved her?

It had always been Angel who captured our attention. It was thoughts of her that could either calm us or create a storm strong enough to leave nothing in its wake of destruction.

“Care to share what’s wrong?” I asked after letting him pace for the past ten minutes.

I was a patient person for the most part but even I had limits, especially because I had no idea what caused his mood.

He shrugged off his jacket and flopped down on couch. Thankfully, he did not have laser vision because the glare that he aimed at the ceiling would have been our painful downfall.

“Angel had her link off, so I went to find her just to make sure everything was okay.”

Most of the time, it was not something she did intentionally but happened because she was trying to put all of her focus into something in particular.

He explained to me about there being the block in her mind and what they both witnessed when he was able to push through it. That would explain why he had been so fucking furious because it made me feel the same exact way. 

Angel was very capable of taking care of herself. That much had been proven time and again growing up.

She could physically hold her own with us, had some serious next-level intellect, and was also gifted. There was her intuition but also her siphoning ability. It did not give her the full-range of someone’s ability, but it did temporarily give her a portion of it. The stronger the ability, the quicker it exhausted her to utilize.

However, that did nothing to calm either of us down. It was different to witness something, even if it had not occurred yet, compared to considering that it might be a possibility one day.

We knew enough people who had visions to know the difference between an active imagination and being given a heads up. If this was her getting a heads up… fuck. I did not even want to venture down that rabbit hole.

“Neither of us are going to be able to sleep tonight or relax at all unless we get an outside opinion on this,” I said, knowing that he would agree with me.

This was about Angel’s safety, and that was something that we would never slack on.

Everyone assumed that she would turn out to be our Luna. We would not know until our birthday if she was fated to us, but as long as she agreed then she would stand beside us even if fate, in turn, got itself fucked up.

“Mom or Aunt Ziyah?” he asked me.

“Aunty because she’s the one who’s experienced with visions.”

I pocketed my phone and keys before grabbing a stash of candy that we always kept on hand when needing to bribe our aunt. Honestly, it worked when needing to bribe a few different family members. Therefore, we always kept some for whenever the situation arose.

Aunt Ziyah was awesome as hell. She came into our lives when we were only six months old. We did not remember it, but we heard all about it growing up. See, the cool thing was that she was Light Fae. Ziyah Trelinin was so fucking badass. She hailed from a long line of Protector Fae. They were literal warrior Fae. She was also the most talented magic wielder that we knew of and could destroy her enemies with ease. Only idiots with a death wish would underestimate her.

My brother and I were not Fae, but we did have some Fae abilities because of their light being infused in Mom’s womb while we were in it. Fae light was their life force and what gave them their abilities.

 Aunt Ziyah had helped to teach us everything that we knew in relation to wielding the light.

One of the best abilities that we got as a result of the light was the ability to pop. Instant transportation really did cut down the hassle of moving from place to place. One moment we were standing in our suite at Nightshade, and the next we were outside of our Aunt’s house in the Shadow Falls pack.

The door swung open not even a minute after I rang the doorbell. Callum, our ten-year-old cousin, answered it.

Callum was a replica of what Uncle Byron looked like when he separated into his own body on the full moons. Every other day of the month, he was a large ass white wolf. His being able to separate from Uncle Dante was a gift from the Fae Gods because it was his duty to protect Aunt Imeela when she was fighting against the tyrant who had destroyed her original coven.

While my brother and I had some Fae abilities, we were not hybrids like our cousins.

His older siblings had full access to their magic and also had wolves, which had been surprising since wolf hybrids had a fifty-fifty chance of having a wolf or not. Everyone figured it was because they were from very powerful lineages on both sides of the equation. Being descended from the Goddess on our side of things and from the Trelinin Protector Fae on the other side made for a powerful combination.

“I swear that you grew like two inches since last week,” I told him, eyeing that he came up past my chest now.

“Three actually. Luckily, I seem to take after Uncle Cai instead of Mom in the height department,” he said, snickering. Callum moved aside so that we could enter.

Caiathus was Aunt Ziyah’s cousin but was really more like a brother to her. Thus, he became Uncle Cai. He did have about two feet or so on her. He was tall even for Fae standards. Aunt Ziyah was just on the short side of things. That was okay because she certainly made up for it in being a badass that could kick your ass either physically, with magic, or with her intellect. It just depended on how much fun she wanted to have first.

A throat cleared directly behind Callum, making him turn around with an innocent expression on his face.

The glare that she was aiming at him was the furthest thing from scary, but he still played along and ran off. His mother chuckled and shook her head.

She opened her arms up, raising an eyebrow, silently challenging us to deny her a hug. We never would because she was the absolute best. We became her proteges, learning all that we knew when it came to our magic, abilities, and a whole slew of other important lessons.

We followed her into the living room where there were already some refreshments waiting.

Her eyes lit up when I tossed her the bag of candy. See? We spoke people’s love languages. Her’s just happened to include her favorite candy.

“It must be serious if you brought me a bribe,” she mused. “Drink up and tell me what’s going on.”

She tucked her legs underneath her and grabbed her steaming mug of hot chocolate. It was her secret recipe that tasted fucking amazing but not a recipe that anyone was allowed to have.

Grant took a sip of his drink before he explained everything that happened. She listened patiently as he spoke. My fists clenched when he got to the part about the three flashes. There was not enough to go on to form any type of concrete conclusions of what it all meant.

I was watching her for any type of reactions, but she wore her leader mask. It was the one that was used when needing to conceal one’s emotions.

“Hmm. Can I access your memory of what you had seen? It would help me if I could experience it too,” she said once he was finished explaining everything.

“Of course.”

He went to sit next to her on the couch and grabbed her hand before holding the other one out to me as well so that I was privy to it all.

There was such deep foreboding attached to every bit of it. From the thunder to the fear that was threaded within each flash.

Seeing Angel sporting a black eye royally pissed me the fuck off. I would destroy anyone who dared to lay a hand on her. Nobody was allowed to hurt her. They would pay a painful fucking price if they ever did.

The bodies were mangled messes. There was no indication of who or what they were. There were clearly not enough details to sort all of this out, and that gutted me because I did not want this to come to fruition. I would lay down my life if it meant saving hers.

Aunt Ziyah pulled her magic back and stared off into space for a few minutes as she digested what she had just seen.

“It’s curious that her mind had blocked this out, requiring your magic to bypass the block,” she murmured.

She excused herself, saying she would be right back and popped away.

I knew that it was the right call to come here, but I was almost as afraid of the answer than I was to see what Angel had stashed in her mind.

Grant nudged my shoulder with his. It was our silent signal that we were here for each other. We were not just twins or brothers. We were each other’s best friends. He knew the inner-workings of what made up Gabriel, just like I knew the inner-workings of what made up Grant.

Aunt Ziyah returned with a notebook and a pen. She was furiously writing shit down.

“There are a few different reasons why her mind might have that block. One, it could be that it was her mind’s way of protecting her against a potential traumatic event until it was time to unveil it. Two, it might be a mutation of her intuition. That would tie back into option one. Three, whomever is involved might be responsible for placing the barrier. This would require someone with powerful magic, typically black magic. Hypothetically, the block might be in place and activate anytime something like this occurs. It would block their identity and anything that could lead back to them.”

One and two were the ones that I could deal with. Three. I was definitely not very fond of three.

“The only flash that we have anything to off of was the first one. The depth of that betrayal was really fucking deep. That means that it would be someone that she would never have guessed. Unfortunately, Angel is friendly with everyone and is such a social butterfly.”

I scratched my nails against the stubble along my jaw even though I would rather punch someone, preferably whomever would betray her.

Angel was a pure soul. She already truly embodied everything that a Luna should be. She cared deeply about everyone, wanting them to feel like they belonged, and doing everything that she could to ensure that they had someone to lean onto.

Grant and I locked eyes. We nodded and squared our shoulders.

Nobody would touch her. We would destroy them first.