So desperate to get on the road to Cragstone I hadn’t been able to wait in Rising Star much longer. Not with the truth about Gustav, the treacherous human side and Leona burning away in my mind. It needs shouting from the fucking rooftops. Humans are the danger. We’re searching inside when the enemy is over the fence. Dancing over the border with their landmines and wolfsbane. Thinking of the war, the massacres, the men sacrificed to Alpha Phillipe’s insane plans I am more than happy to be hurled by catapult into their territory. Then shift and start tearing people up. It’s what I’m made for after all.But my men were missing. Nothing can move until the truth is spoken.I walked the castle ramparts, muttering “Come on, come on, come on,” until my patience wore out. Finally, with sunset approaching, Hayden and I set off looking for them. I tried to convince myself we would just run into them on the way and they’d laugh at my eagerness. But the route they were meant to travel back on
He looks so sad, a wounded lion. Powerfully strong but reduced somehow. /You should have told him your bond can survive anything. That you love him!/ Impes reprimands. Well I’ve got to tell him Fate has plans for Rami to be an orphan first. But I have no idea who or what will cause it. Only that everyone around me seems to think instead of trusting Finn, I should be heading for the hills. What do they all see that I can't? Those grey eyes have a direct connection to my soul, his pain radiating outwards. Squeezing my arms a little tighter around his shoulders, my confession escapes. “You don’t want to know how many nights I’ve sat in this kitchen and hoped you’d appear.” His eyes light up, just a little, showering my skin with goose pimples. “You don’t know how many nights I sat on the quad and weighed it up. Wren think I’ve lost my mind.” I smile and stroke his strong jawline. His huge neck and shoulder muscles are at odds with the gentle, loving nature of his fe
Together with the still-healing Sawyer, we start knocking on the doors of the people assigned to set up the stages for tomorrow's Ceremony. By sunrise, the whole pack will know. Alpha Nikolai and Luna Genevieve of White Forest plus Luna Freya and Alpha Zeke of Rising Star will be here, too. Sketching out ideas for an attack. Dawdling, talking, wondering. It’s not quick enough. The humans torched a fucking Rising Star village. Invaded our fucking packhouse. They're mocking us. “I didn’t see anything! I just fetched the wood from the storage shed for the stage. Same as every month!” quivered a young trainee Beta. “Why are you asking this?” “We can’t say,” Sawyer answered firmly, looking a complete villain with that scabbed cuts to his face and bloodied shirt shirt. “But did you see anybody walking around? Anything unusual?” "Nothing. We brought out the wood, left it for the construction guys, and came home. We were done hours ago.” With that, we left. “Fuck’s sake. This i
I’m grateful my lookout spot is focused on the packhouse because right now that’s the only place my eyes are drawn to. I saw Finn and Sawyer talking before, Tucker taking his leave across the huge market square. Now Finn is inside talking with Cillian. My women are placed across the outskirts of the town, the furthest perimeters are under safe surveillance. He’s going to tell him about Zena. The vision he was given. Finn is going to know I didn’t tell him everything. What will he think of me keeping such a secret? Shit. Would it have really been so hard to just explain? I knock my head against the wooden rafter and beg Impes to change the record. During the war, I spent months cooped up in this small roof space. I look up to the night sky and wonder all over again just what was going through Leona’s mind those few days we spent together at Rising Star. The quiet of the night allows me to think too much. That was one of the reasons it was so hard during the war. Too much sit
Lyon looked at me like I was insane. “Now? Right now we need to go to the stores?” “I want to get out of Cragstone before sunrise.” Lyon raised his eyebrow, his face showing off a dozen different wrinkles. In fairness, I do sound like a lunatic asking to raid his weapons store. “Come on then lad,” as together we set off running. The main weapons and explosives store is outside the town centre for obvious reasons. As a younger man, he had once sported dark, shaggy locks like Zeke. Now they had silvered, only his olive skin and dark eyes remaining from his wilder days under Cillians' father. His lumber mill and land held dozens of pack-supporting buildings, including the weapons store. “How much are you wanting to blow up, and how?” “The human borders landmines. I want them to disturb the earth enough that all a load of landmines go off. Even if it just clears a slim path wide enough for me to cross.” "Bloody hell." Lyon opens up two huge metal barn doors and wanders inside
We fought quickly, hand to hand. Insanity gave his strength an extra level of venom. Riley’s punches sent me flying into bookcases. I threw a vase in his face, anything I could grab my hands on. A lantern behind the curtain smashed into my thigh after Riley threw me off his back. The still-burning fuel immediately lit up the heavy dark green drapes The heat and smoke were building, but there was no way either of us could leave now. He needs me dead to claim his story. I need him dead for my vengeance. “Poor Rami," he grins. "I wonder if he's scared?" “He’s not here,” I snap back. Riley smirked and tilted his head, blood now pouring freely into his blonde twists. “Do you think I saw you walk in here and didn't get myself some insurance first?” "You fucking monster where is he!” /Finn, Finn please I need you!/ but Impes was busy working on fixing my bleeding thigh to enable many more efforts at communication. “Don’t worry, I’ll save him after you’re dead. I am the hero,
After endless crying, hugging, and celebrating, other matters eventually came to the fore. Like Alpha Cillian’s smouldering packhouse bordering on collapse. That in a few hours, the Alpha’s of both Rising Star and White Forest were arriving. That we are to go to war with the humans, killing King Lanfear. Easton and Rhett are still murdered. The goddess tree did not save them. Rami has a wolf, Naomi and I are marked. Plus, waiting for me back at Lyon’s workshop is a trailer full of explosives and a scheme to sneak over the human side solo. “Take a few days. Seriously, it’s an order. I will tell you when I need you. Stay home. Recover,” Cillian urged before planting a kiss on Naomi’s cheek and ruffling Rami’s blonde head. His own clothes are littered with black scorchmarks, his face grimy with soot. “Sawyer, Tucker, Dash, Diane, Jane, Bianca!” he shouts, firing out commands and instructions. Water, find spare beds, clothes, and medical attention, and send scouts ahead to cat
Finn quickly wrapped his other arm around me. Resembling the finale of a dance, he dramatically lunged us both downwards to place the basket down on the stone floor. /Very fancy/ I link, his lips curving up so sweetly as I continued to kiss him. Refusing to break away, he links back, his tongue gently finding mine, my hands fisted in his ashy brown curls. /I have more moves than just fighting, you know Kharkov/ and whatever he is thinking of now just made every nerve in my body tighten with excitement. I gasp as my skin heats and goose pimples, nipples harden and pussy clenches to. Immediately hungry for his body to be even closer to mine. Yet he’s holding me light as a feather, draped almost parallel to the ground, his forearm cradling the length of my spine. A cry of “MAMA!” breaks the spell. We both look to the empty doorway and then back again. Finn kisses me quickly on the lips before effortlessly lifting me back up to standing, picnic basket already in his free hand. I c