EMMA I nodded and walked over to take the babe from her arms. She watched every movement I made as if I was going to attack her. There was no telling what she had been through since Ezekiel was involved. I stepped back and peered down at Xander’s baby brother. Oh, he was such a handsome babe. He had copper eyes just like his big brother and a full head of hair. His mouth was sucking hard on a binkie, and his eyes were locked onto mine. “Tell the truth. Were you willingly working with Ezekiel?” Papa asked her as I stepped over towards the crib. “Absolutely not. He killed our pack. Only me and Suzie were kept to watch over the pups. I swear that we tried to fight against his commands so that we could get help, but we were powerless. Please believe me,” she pleaded with Papa. Papa looked to me for my opinion. He wanted to know what I felt we should do with her and Suzie because this directly involved my family. He was also looking to me as a leader. I did believe her because she was
KAI “Doll. Stay with me. Can you hear me? Doll,” I shouted, trying to get her to focus on me. Her eyes glossed over, and her breathing grew shallow. I got the veins to recede like normal, but she was not responding to me. I even tried striking her face to snap her back, but it did nothing. My Doll was not responding. “Save her, Zane. Please save her,” I begged him as I held my unconscious mate in my arms. True panic and fear were what we all felt right now. I could see it as clearly in his eyes and face as it was in mine and Xander’s. I did not have the heart to look around because I knew the same would be etched on each face. Even our parents and Ethan’s parents had already grown attached to her because they could see how happy she made us. They were impressed as we took turns telling them all about her. Seeing how she took care of everything this morning reminded me how lucky we were to have her as our Luna. Doll was perfect to us and for us. Zane’s eyes glazed over as he sent o
EMMA The last thing I remembered was Handsome saying something before it all went black. Well, that was until I opened my eyes mere seconds ago and was in my old house at Blacktree. I had not seen this place since the night of Olly’s. It looked very different now. Everything was darker and a deathly silence filled the air. It felt off. It felt wrong. How was I even here? I trailed my fingers along the railing as I walked up the stairs. Not a speck of dust despite the fact that Brenda had not been here. Odd. I was not entirely certain what was going on, and that made me understandably anxious and worried. My bedroom door was slightly ajar. It opened to reveal a child laying on the bed crying. I moved closer, drawn inexplicably to the child. But the child did not seem to even notice me. I reached out a comforting hand but felt a huge shock the moment I touched with the child. There was no longer a child crying on the bed because it was me crying on the bed. The bedroom door banged a
XANDER Amaris looked at me and gestured for me to follow her. I recognized Ezekiel’s voice instantly, so I was afraid of what I was about to witness. Death was too good for the bastard. I wanted him to rot in that cell for centuries without any reprieve. Zane explained that they did not lift his command to not move or talk, and I doubted that Zane or Emma would do that any time soon. We entered her bedroom where Ezekiel was standing over a very much younger Emma. She looked like she could not be any older than nine or so. It must have been right after he took over the pack. “I won’t say Papa was a traitor because he wasn’t a traitor,” Emma said as she glared up at him, unflinching despite the angry Alpha aura rolling off him. He crouched down in front of her and sneered at her. There was a sick and twisted gleam in his eye at her challenge. Both she and Freya said that she never submitted no matter what they tried to or actually did to her. “Good because what I have in store for y
KAI “Talk to me,” I said softly to Xander. He had not spoken since he woke up from the trip into our mate’s mind except to whisper things to her about her incredible strength and how proud he was of her. He looked broken, and I had never seen him broken before. Not like this. He held onto our mate as he whispered words of affirmation to her. Whatever he saw had to have been devastating. He kissed her forehead and his mark before looking at me. “Ezekiel will die a very slow death. The first memory was not long after Ezekiel took over. She refused to tell the pack that Zane was a traitor. She stood up to him with so much fucking strength and determination that I never imagined was even possible. He swore that he would have fun breaking her and threw her with his full strength across the room where her spine collided with a desk. Yet, she repeated a mantra that she would not bow and would not break. Then the death of Millie where she got mauled by a fucking wolf and held down as they
EMMA It was finished. I never had to revisit the trip into the chaos that was my mind again like that. My mind was a place where nightmares loved to play. Many of those nightmares were actually just memories. People filtered in and out of the room for the past hour or so. They wanted to make sure that I was okay, so I did not say anything about it because I knew that they were fairly scared about the whole ordeal. My mates had been quiet since I woke up, but they had not left my side once. They both acted like they were afraid that I would disappear if they were not right beside me. I could not blame them at all. What we went through was a narrow escape. I did not ask about anything yet, but I would eventually. I knew that they had been in my mind, but I was not certain what all they saw. I really hoped it was not everything that I had to witness as well because that was a lot of horrible bullshit that I never wanted them to witness. Especially not the cells. Oh well. There was no g
EMMA It was amazing to have everyone together again. We were still at the castle since Macario insisted that I needed a little more observation. I figured it was more likely because he had been terrified of losing me, so he was just being overly cautious now. Nobody knew if I was going to pull through or not, so I could not fault anyone for being cautious. The black magic was completely gone from my body, and every single person of ours has now been warded against black magic. There was still a lot to do in the pack, but we were able to take some time here before we would head back there. We had not discussed reintroducing our family just yet because none of us wanted to put additional pressure on them. It would be something we needed to sit down and talk about soon though just so we are all on the same page with everything. I was getting to know everyone better. Jackson and Lilli were exactly like my boys told me they were. Lilli definitely fell in love with the Leflore Gardens, ju
XANDER “This is the private training facility for the Ancients,” Zane explained as we all filed into a room larger than any of our pack training fields. We all looked at the additional people in the room curiously. There were at least an extra fifty people than I was expecting. They all leaned against the walls, brimming with excitement, and not even trying to hide it. Someone must have spilled about today’s training session. Today was the first day for our people to see how Gaisreen fought. We had never seen it before except the little bit that Kai and I saw from her memories. That was not a great indication though. However, Emma had been very vocal on how brutal training was for them. If they stood up against Nokaura then they must be excellent. “Do not mind us, Princess. We are just here for the show,” Commander Frost chuckled and waved her on. Emma rolled her eyes and turned away from him to hide her smirk. She was excited already and had not even begun yet. We all gathered i