Thomas sat there after disconnecting the call with Damon. This was a mess. He’d offered so much to get this contract through quickly. If he needed to back out the contract, he’d look like a fool and all the favours he used would have gone for nothing. Now he didn’t know what he’d do if push came to shove, and his pack needed help.
There was one call he could make but thinking of placing this call proved to him he’d hit rock bottom. Calling Asia meant he’d failed as alpha, and she’d won. She’d predicted he’d come crawling back when he chose his pack over mating with her while she ran her pack. Her pack structure differed completely from any other pack he’d encountered. She inherited it from her mother. They didn’t have an alpha. Only a Luna and as far as Thomas could t
Asia awoke from a dead sleep to her cell phone ringing. Very few knew the number to it. Her elite staff and a select few possess knowledge of it in case of emergency. Now it rang on the bedside table. This better is good because she’d just gotten to sleep a little over an hour ago. Asia growled something into the phone. She didn’t know exactly what she said. But they greeted it with a pause before a voice she thought never to hear again said her name. Thomas Reyden. The wolf that got away. A very drunk wolf, by the sounds of his words, as he spoke. There wasn’t enough caffeine in the world that would help her make sense of his rambling words. After a bit of
Eva’s eye cracked open just a little. She couldn’t believe what they’d done, and they weren’t in Los Vegas, so there wasn’t any of that what stays in Vegas mentality. Resisting groaning in regret, she slipped out from under Damon’s arm and the bed they’d found at some point in the night. She groaned after she locked the bathroom door. But it was a relief. She didn’t remember biting him and she didn’t see or feel any bites on her. Eva thought she might have gotten out of this without needing to tell Emily that she betrayed her with her future mate. Eva couldn’t think straight even now she knew how twisted this was. Damon was her fated life-mate, not Emily’s, but an unsigned contract said otherwise. Men and their need to complicate life. A hundred years ago, this wouldn’t have h
James got no chance to speak with Emily privately on the way back. This made it much more difficult than he thought. As his mother decided that Emily could drive the other SUV home with Haden beside her. He tried to put up a fight. He didn’t like the idea of his mate driving with another man. It didn’t make it any easier that, that man was interested in his mother. In fact, that might have made it worse. This drive needed to end soon. The silent treatment from his mother was beyond horrid and into gruelling agony. Janine tried no less than three times to say what was on her mind to her son, but every time she spoke, words failed her. It was getting uncomfortable sitting beside him in silence.“Alright, mother, you want to say something? Please, just say it and put me out of my misery.”“I&
Emily was extremely aware of the wolf sitting beside her. She couldn’t fathom what he was thinking, and this disturbed her more because she couldn’t think of a response to what he’d say. So, it was silent much of the way back.“Do you think Janine might have left the keys deliberately in the car to strand us there last night?” That wasn’t what Emily thought he’d lead off with, but it was something she guessed.“She does that every so often. Mostly when her mind’s tied up with worrying about something important. I wouldn’t see anything more than that in her actions.” Emily would not tell him that Janine used her flighty nature as smoke and mirrors for her true motives. Now Emily questioned what Janine said to her. This was exhausting.“I hope the boy straightens out and does right by you and your pack.”“It won’t be my pack much longer. I’m stuck between a rock
It was nearly lunchtime where Thomas lived. He should be awake by now. He’ll also be well and truly hungover. Asia would not allow this to stop her, and he’d learn not to repeat this later in their relationship. The phone rang, and she heard Thomas’ annoyed and pained growl. “What?!”With a satisfied smile on her face, she looked out into the early evening. “Well, hello to you too, future mate. Glad to see you made it through the night.” She was ready with a copy of the phone call, all set to email to him. Just in case he didn’t remember what he agreed to. “What...? Who...? Asia, is that you? What are you talking about?” “Dear, check your email and play the audio clip attached to th
Haden waited for the others to come down for dinner. However, no one else came down tonight for dinner but Janine. For Haden, this tied in perfectly with his plans. He’d spoken with James earlier and they’d agreed if they could save the old packhouse and build a proper road into it. They’d take it further and go into the private resort business. This would be a location for only wolf shifters. It’d be a project that would take years to get off the ground, but he needed to know where Janine stood on it. For she must be her pack’s representative. “Well, it’s just the two of us here for dinner. Eva and Damon are eating alone tonight to come to an agreement about their possible mating. James and Emily aren’t speaking currently. That I don’t see lasting long.” 
Emily and James finally pulled into the front yard of the packhouse. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a more welcome place than this. Ugh. Was James correct? Was this still her home? “Okay, we’re back. I’ll promise to think about what you said if we don’t talk about it again. This is hard enough and humiliating.” “It doesn’t have to be. Everyone’s made mistakes. It’s just time for everyone to take ownership of their part of it. You can do it.” Haden climbed out of the SUV, leaving Emily sitting there, and went to talk with Janine. Emily snatched the keys from the SUV and got out. Looking back, she watched James stalk to her. “We need to talk now. I just got a call from Alpha Th
Thomas struggled to plan. His mind, however, made other plans. It decidedly wanted to stay firmly in the past and run rings around the memories of the last meeting with Asia. It was a frustrating struggle. He now ran through these memories, but this time he struggled with second guessing himself and his life choices. Yes, they were mates, however, they’d not spent enough time together to go beyond recognizing it. He’d run from it and now, looking back, he wondered if he’d taken the cowardly way out. Using the pack as an excuse not to negotiate a better deal with Asia. Something they could both live with. Right now, he understood he survived rather than living. He rarely found enjoyment in anything, and it all started after walking away from Asia and any chance at a real mating. He’d never found an interest in a contract mating either. So here he sat alone in his office, regretting everyt
Happy EndingsJames and EmilyEmily and James have come so far from the stunted, messy, immature, and abusive relationship of their early years, overcome medical disaster, and so much more. Now, as parents and on the verge of a successful resort business, they deserve a little peace and quiet to enjoy their second chance. Their highlight success was with the rogue wolves that came to them. All but two survived the trip and the great adjustment into pack life. They had such success that eventually both twins had their own packs when they were old enough.Janine and HadenThey have both found a second chance with each other and a new lease on life managing the resort. Life won’t be quiet for them, but that’s the life they chose. So we leave off with the weapons, passing to the Largest Ontario Wolf Shifter Pack and the political power of the Wolf Shifters. Now they can settle into their twilight years together, chasing Duck Shifters from the front fountain, and keeping bear shif
The candle and a long stem lighter, so Gwenda chose to use the lighter without the candle and she heated the back of the paper. “Here goes nothing.” It took several minutes, but something appeared. “No one knows we used this trick. I had to have written it. There’s no other way this could have worked. Now what do we have? GPS coordinates, wait. There’s another set. Maybe I went back to get the coordinates?” As she move about the page, a set of seven coordinates appeared. She took the flame away, but gasped. “There’s something else here. Hold, let me reveal it too.” Everyone moved in closer and watched an eighth GPS location appear. “Either location? Where’s does that lead to?” This stumped her for a moment. “We need to plug these into a GPS system and see where they all lead to. The first one isn’t anywhere near the others.” “Of course not. The first one is in Orion’s Forest Territory. They probably scattered the others around here. I recognize the general numbers f
Finally, Asia’s plan came to fruition. Today, they would have their mating ceremony. Janine helped so much, with all the plans. She’d gone above and beyond when it came to their unique needs. But Asia now saw that it was safer for their packs to stay where they were. Penny now scared Asia with little comments, and her track record of being accurate with those comments was the reason.Asia watched the internet as information leaked out. Much of the speculation came from disbelievers and conspiracy theorists. The government and law enforcement had little to say, which only fuelled the debate more. Asia knew there was nothing to be done but to stay quiet and let the ruling council deal with it.Today was her mating ceremony, and it would be a good time in her life. It took long enough to get this far with Thomas and her pack. She wasn’t going to fool herself. There would always be someone commenting on the changes in a negative way.Those witnessing in person were minimal and all, but Ap
Karl greets the Alphas as they file into the room he’s using as a study currently. Once they’re settled with tablets, notepads, etcetera, James opened the meeting. “Alright, I think we can skip the intro to the reason for this meeting. We all know why and who we are. Okay Karl, tell us what you have found.”“Thank you, Alpha De Marre. Yes, uh, this is extremely complicated, so please bear with me as I need to explain there’s far too much back story. First, I have received some upsetting news. The latest attack by the Fae was investigated by my life partner’s enforcement team. The entire team is missing. I want to leave and go help, but I have been told not to stay here to continue working. Second, there’s supposed to be a Fianna weapons expert coming, and they are now late. Now, what I found while translating the journal. Hold on, I missed a few disturbing facts.” Karl held up a smaller book. “All original surviving copies of the translation book for the Fae language at in the univers
Karl now turned his attention to contacting his life mate, Pat. Everyone should be home. It was early there.He kept trying with no luck to connect with Pat. Karl didn’t like the feelings of isolation. Or that he didn’t know where Pat was.After some time, it forced him to decide to stop trying. He couldn’t reach anyone at home. It was as if the location was empty of life and that was far from normal. He took a break and found himself a drink and lunch. He could eat before stopping by the front desk to request that they explain how to find the room he was using to study the books in. When he identified the weapons, he did it under the view of the local arms master who ran James’ armoury. They worked together with attempting to understand what weapons killed which creatures. Some were pretty famous while others were far front known. He needed a person who understood lore and creatures from it. He knew languages used for writing magic spells and rituals. He wasn’t truly a specialist an
“Morning Karl, I have a response from the council. The Fianna will send a representative out to assist you. I’m surprised they moved this quickly. They have requested we send them via a mage driven portal rather than flighting out there. You should see them after lunch. Let the front desk know where they will find you. We’ve arranged for their stay. Now, how is the translation coming? Those weapons can’t be handed over without an understanding of what their purpose and function is.” Mages were well ahead of the everyday man. Humans finally got video calling, mages always had that. They called it scrying and Karl used it now to contact his mentor. Who was within the grand walls of the great library? Mages had to have a mentor while they studied and proved themselves. “Thank you, that’s great news. I have most of it translated. Currently, I’m attempting to build a detailed catalogue. With entries about each weapon mentioned within the journal. After that, I must identi
Asia met with Janine the next morning to organize her mating ceremony. Thomas and Haden couldn’t help with it since they needed them to help with the latest discovery. “So here we are. I think I have everything ready for you to look through. There’s even a checklist, so as we fill the binder, we know we haven’t missed anything. Now, so I can help direct you in the right direction. What did you have in mind?” Janine tried to give off a professional air. She ended her words and held her breath, waiting for Asia’s response. “Oh, well, I don’t want anything too complicated. Actually, Thomas and I have been talking about it and we realized that there’s no way we can get everyone we want here without going over the budget.” Asia peaked at Janine, unsure how she would react. Asia watched Janine’s face fall. “Oh, we still want a simple mating ceremony, but we want to live stream it to both territories. We’ll have two receptions later on. But it makes everything a hu
“Okay, now you have to tell me who pushed you to do that. I want to thank them. It was perfect.” Emily sat in the bath with James and a glass of wine. She couldn’t see her official mate as she sat between his thighs with her back leaning against his chest. “I’ll start getting offended if you won’t believe me. It was my idea and others just helped. I didn’t like how much you were doing with the pups, pack, resort, and trying to get the mating ceremony setup. It was too much for anyone. I wanted you to relax and enjoy this time.” “You really have changed. A year ago, you wouldn’t have cared if I collapsed from exhaustion.” Emily was a little beyond tipsy now after the refreshments at the reception and drinks at the spa. She’d been careful, but they added up. James, too, was nicely mellowed out. They handed their pups off with a pack caregiver on duty for the night. “Yes, I would have. I relied on you far too much. I think if things hadn’t gotten to the extreme, thi
You’d think mages would write everything down on paper and there would be hundreds if not thousands of people employed to look it up at the university. But that wasn’t the case. Computers hold their own kind of logical magic. People just accept that it’s a science. But Karl was aware of the rare instance when some sort of information made it into the hands and minds of those that needed to information to change the world.Here, Karl had the name of a mage, but no time period. They had an app for that. He sent the information about the approximate dates from the journal. Then he hoped for the best. If the name was in the database, he would receive that information soon enough. If it wasn’t, then he could proceed to a physical look up within the older written documents that had yet to be transferred into their version of a computer. Now he continued to translate the stories within the book. That’s what they were, stories. Each weapon had a story. No facts or statistics were t