A couple of months after Anders and Calista take over the pack, we receive an invitation to celebrate the birth of Liam Holstin, Alpha Leander and Luna Estella’s child. Calista and I are excited to see Estella again and meet her new son, while Clint and Anders begin talking of the work they can accomplish while we are in Shadow Falls pack. I look at Cali and roll my eyes, making her giggle. We drive to Shadow Falls, leaving Charles in charge of our pack for the weekend. There are several milestones that are important in a pack, especially when it comes to ranked pack members. The birth of the future Alpha is one of them. Many packs have been invited to this momentous occasion. Alpha Leander asked us to come a day earlier than the others. When we arrive, he escorts us into his office, Luna Estella joining us. Because we are in an alliance, and have been friendly for many years, the feeling in the room is relaxed. We sit around a table together, Calista and I hugging Estella when she c
I felt Lily tense in my arms. I immediately come awake, listening to the sounds coming from the baby monitor. As Lily moves to get out of bed, I’m right behind her. Someone is in the nursery that shouldn’t be. I toss her a shirt as I put on a pair of shorts, and we quietly make our way to the door to our room. I mind link Anders but he’s asleep. I shout in the mind link, trying to wake him up before we sneak out of our room, quietly moving to Liam’s room. “You grab the baby, I’ll get the person that is trying to take him.’ I say to Lily in the mind link. She nods and we burst into the room. There is a figure in dark clothing, reaching into the crib. He snatches Liam up into his arms turning to face us. “Stand down, Guardians, or I kill the Alpha heir. This isn’t your fight.” “On the contrary, any fight against Shadow Falls is our fight. You’ve just waged war with not one, but two packs.” I say. He chuckles and as my eyes adjust to the nightlight in the room, I can see that this i
Clint and I work well together. Not only are we in tune as mates, but also having trained together for months. We trust each other and know that we’ve got each other’s back, so it frees us to be able to focus on the immediate battle in front of us. When Benjamin tells them to search for me, we realize we have an advantage. He still hasn’t realized that Clint is awake. We both know we’re about to be in the fight of our lives. There is no one else to help us. The fate of this pack and possibly our own, lies with us. “Stay together, Lily. We’re stronger together.” Clint says in our mind link. I nod. We continue to move around the packhouse, taking out warriors. We hear Benjamin roar from above us. We realize he has found the three warriors we left dead and most likely realized that we’ve barricaded the others in the Beta's room and our room. When he comes back down, he pulls his ace card. He knows I won’t stand by and let him kill someone while I hide. He grabs one of the omegas from
The next morning is chaotic. Lily and I took charge of the situation once Alpha Eric found his mate. While I understood that he just wanted to take her somewhere private and mark and mate her, he was recovering from wolfsbane, and she was needed to provide medical attention as people woke. We began pulling all of Benjamin’s dead pack members outside, away from the packhouse. More carefully, we began collecting and laying Alpha Leander’s dead inside the packhouse. We covered them with blankets that the omegas brought to us. As people woke, they began looking for their loved ones. Many felt the severed bond when they woke. While we couldn’t save everyone, Lily and I protecting Liam inadvertently helped to save many of the other pack members. If we hadn’t woken when we did, who knows how many pack members would have died. The ranked members wake up first. Anders and Leander must have realized what happened when they woke up in our bedroom, barricaded in. After checking their mates and
Several years go by. Life with Clint is everything he promised and everything I knew it would be when I fell in love with him. On the first anniversary of our mating, he took me back to Maine. This time, we were able to do a full-on white water rafting trip, just like he promised me. I didn’t know that he had planned to take me there, so I had gotten him a picture of us in Maine. I had it blown up so we could hang it on our wall. It was a picture of the two of us in front of the ocean. He was behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist. His eyes were watching me intently as I laughed. My hair was blowing in the wind and my head was turned toward him, listening to what he said in my ear. He remembered the moment, remembered that he was telling me he'd never love anyone the way he loves me, which made it that much more special. On our second anniversary, he took me to the Rocky Mountains. He made sure that where we were going still had snow. He got us a cabin removed from everyone a
Lily and I are finally ready to start a family. And while I’m excited, it also makes me nervous that Alpha Jerome is now very desperate. He no longer has a mate or an heir. He replaced his Beta, but we heard it was someone from Alpha Benjamin’s pack that joined theirs. That didn’t make any of us feel better. We were hoping that Calista would give birth to their son before Lily went into heat, but apparently everything with Guardians is faster. Three and a half months after stopping her birth control, one month before Calista’s due date, she went into heat. Anders and I are discussing some concerning patrol reports that had come in when the scent of orange and ginger hits my nose. The scent is so strong I can’t help the feral snarl that erupts from my lips as I leap to my feet. Anders takes one look at me and orders every unmated male out of the packhouse. He opens his mind link to me and Lily. “Lily, where are you?” All we get in return is a whimpering, wailing sound from Lily. “G
I was so excited to find out that I was carrying Clint’s child. We have waited until the time was right, or as right as it could be. We spent our time together, enjoying each other and doing the things in life that we wanted to do. While we may have wanted it to happen after Anders and Cali’s son’s birth, it didn’t. But we’ll make it work. My heat was intense but finding out that I’m pregnant was the second best day of my life. The first was when Andra smelled Clint and Donovan on my birthday and recognized them as our mates. Donovan might actually be cuter about us having a pup than Clint. Every night, he wants to sniff my stomach and he rumbles against me, telling me that he wants our pup to know he’s here. “I know we won’t know for another couple of weeks, but your scent is stronger than before. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re having a girl.” He tells me. “Would you be happy with that, Donovan?” “I’d be happy with a healthy pup, regardless of gender.” He tells me. I kiss Clin
We decided to run in wolf form to Alpha Jerome’s pack. From Canyon Ridge, it’s about four hours over rocky terrain. We leave early, Lily riding on Donovan’s back. Our plan is to stop in about three hours to regroup and send out scouts before walking to the Silver Dawn borders to make our stand. When we stop, I make sure Lily eats. Now that she’ pregnant, she eats small meals all day long. She hasn’t had any morning sickness, unlike Calista who doesn’t emerge from her bedroom until after 10am when her nausea finally settles. I have to assume it’s a Guardian thing. If anything, Lily looks even more beautiful pregnant. Her skin glows, her hair seems thicker, and her body moves with more grace than before. Or maybe it’s just me loving my mate being pregnant with our child. When the scouts return, we decide to run halfway in our human form, then move more slowly to Silver Dawn’s borders. Our pack is the largest in the country, so while we left a full contingent of warriors at home to pro