Ilifted the shot glass and downed it as Torque moved to Cillian’s side and gave him a hearty pat on the back. “Look,” Torque said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I was a bit of an ass back at the house, and I’m sorry. But you know how it is when you have people’s lives under your command.” Everyone’s eyes shifted to Cillian, and I felt his wolf puffing up. It was almost like filling a balloon to maximum capacity. Cillian glanced over to me for a moment before he wrapped his arm around Torque and gave him a brotherly hug. “We all do crazy things sometimes in the heat of the moment,” Cillian said. “I’m just glad nothing serious happened to Blue.” “As if there were any doubt about Kenzie’s mad skills,” AP said. “I hate to say it, buddy, but I think Kenzie might even have surpassed Lourdes. We all saw how she handled Blue in his most savage state. She held her own.” “Who’s that?” Blue asked as Sam poured another round of drinks. “Cillian’s grandmother,” Kenzie said. “She
CILLIAN The tension in the bar gave me a headache. It pulsed between my shoulder blades and ran up my neck. I rubbed my temples, trying to rub the pain away, but I knew it wasn’t going anywhere—not with so much going on. In the far reaches of my mind, I felt Ciara. She wasn’t trying to poke or prod me, nor was she trying to soothe me. I didn’t want her to. The fact that she’d directly disobeyed my order to stand down irked me. She was at the far end of the bar, coddling Colleen with Ella and Sam as Torque and Hatchett sat at the other end, closer to the door. It was strange to know that only last night our two packs had been united, now the rift between us strained the plans. How could I trust them if they didn’t respect us? “What else do you know about the compound in the woods?” I heard Ciara asking Colleen as I moved to the booth to sit next to Ciara while keeping an eye on the Steel Lycans. “You okay?” I asked Colleen. She shrugged. “It’s been a long day.” “Don’t worry about
“AP, adjust your camera down a bit,” Holden said. I hovered over his shoulder, staring at the computer screen, chewing my lower lip as the cameras came online. “Good, down just a bit more… there. Perfect,” Holden said as he tested the various settings. My heart pounded as I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest. This wasn’t the first time I’d joined in on a mission, but it was the first time I had so much at stake. I tried to push out my emotions and focus on the tasks at hand, but it was hard watching my friends and family put on Argentum gear and know they were the ones going out there. “Aiden,” I called. My brother’s head whipped up, and Melody looked over at me. Aiden gave Melody a quick peck on the cheek and walked over to me. I studied him. It seemed like just yesterday he was a boy, running around our parents’ living room in a diaper. “Keep your head on a swivel,” I told him. I grabbed one of the filtration devices off the table and handed it to him. He glanced at
CILLIAN “Cillian!” Ciara’s voice crackled through the speaker of the walkie as I stared at the line of men and women marching toward my town. My heart pounded in my chest, and it felt as if time slowed to the crawl of a snail. “Cillian!” Ciara continued to scream. “Please, whatever it is you’re thinking about doing—” I clicked to a different frequency. She’d be pissed as all hell, but I needed to concentrate. Members of the Greyclaw pack stood side by side with the Moon Valley police force. But I knew just by the sheer size of the Raze’s numbers that we were outnumbered one to twelve. Even at my best, I could only handle five at a time. Ciara’s presence in the back of my mind rattled me as I rushed to the convenience store and took cover around the building. I needed to get my thoughts together. Rubbing my temples to ease the headache mounting behind my eyes, I tried to think. Pushing Ciara out of my head and blocking her off was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life. Th
Terror ripped through the thin fibers of my being. I didn’t know what to do as I stared at the computer, watching in horror at the scene before me. There was no where I could look that didn’t show chaos and destruction. My beloved town of Moon Valley was being pummeled by the Raze. “Holden, where did Cillian go?” I asked as I scanned each of the screens, searching for his wolf. I could barely feel him on the edges of my mind. He seemed to be slipping away from me, but not so much that he was dead and gone, but that he was hiding. “Near the school,” Holden answered. “Let me readjust the drone to get a better view.” I couldn’t tame the frantic beating of my heart as I watched the screen. The drone flying high gave me the perfect view of Moon Valley and everything going on down on the ground. My heart went out to the Greyclaw pack as I watched them drop one by one under the Corpse Lily fog. I wished with all my might that Kenzie had made more of the lotion so we could protect more peo
CILLIAN “How are your hands?” Ciara asked when she knelt at my side. “I’ll be fine.” I winced as I tried moving my wrist to prove I could. Pain shot from my wrist to my elbow as if all the nerves in my arm were fired. “Just need a few more minutes and I’ll be as good as new.” Ciara cupped her hands to my face and pressed her forehead to mine. The weight fell from my shoulders when I looked at the woman’s lifeless form. Pride and anger warred inside me. I pulled back from Ciara and glared at her. “I told you to stay put.” “You’re seriously mad at me right now? For saving you?” Ciara snapped, her expression changing from loving and relieved to shocked and outraged. “You defied my order. You could have been killed. I saw how much was left of Kenzie’s lotion. You came down here with no protection, no backup. What’s the first rule of pack training?” I growled at her, curling my fingers around her wrist. My heart fluttered as I studied her beautiful, slim face. The way the wisps of he
Rain battered against the window, but I found it soothing. After everything that had happened, being able to sit and listen to it was a welcome reprieve. The bed sank under Cillian’s weight as he got into the empty spot beside me. Instinctively, I snuggled into the nook of his arm and breathed in his scent as he curled his arm around me. I felt so safe, it felt as if the world had ended, and we were the only two remaining souls. “What are you thinking about?” Cillian asked, brushing the hair away from my face. I looked at him from under my lashes and shook my head. “Not a damn thing.” “Well, mind if I don’t think, either? It’s been a long day. I just wanna relax with you.” “Sounds like a plan,” I said as I lowered my ear to his chest and let the sound of his beating heart sync with the rhythm of mine. It was peaceful, and because it was so peaceful, I wondered how long it would last. It seemed that every time we were able to get an ounce of time alone, some sort of catastrophe was
CILLIAN The tension in my shoulders that had only just vanished returned in an instant, bringing with it a hellish headache. Just when I thought we were in the clear… I should have known something was going to happen. The echo in my bones rattled my consciousness. Ciara and I couldn’t get a moment’s respite. “What’s going on, Sam?” I asked into the walkie. “It’d be best if you came to the Crescent Falls Motel,” Sam said in a grave voice. “We’ll be there in five,” I answered and clicked the button three times before setting it down. “Well? How do you feel about checking this out?” All the color had drained out of Ciara’s face. The worry etched on her brow filled me with a murderous rage, but it was the devastation in her gaze that really ripped me to shreds. “I promised Colleen nothing would happen to her. I put her in the most secure room we have,” Ciara said. “How did this happen?” “The only way to get answers to that question is by going to the motel,” I answered as I grabbe