Ashley watched Hector pace in the gloom. She contemplated what she could say to save her skin. “Blame your sister, Jessie, and Alrick too. We’re trapped here because of them. Think about what they’ve done.” Ashley needed him distracted away from her. Her safety hinged on distracting Hector.
“You can’t keep your mouth shut. Can you?” His voice was more growl than words. She bet his teeth were closer to a wolf’s than a human’s.
“Jessie’s screwed up everything. She conned your father to get everything. Then she wouldn’t share with you.” The Gods only knew what ‘everything,’ was. “Then she stole Alrick from me. Just because she could. You can’t let her have this. It’s wrong. What’s your plan? Alrick owns everything. He’s got what’s you
Jessie sat at Alrick’s desk and watched him shuffle papers, talk to people on the phone. This was her future. Ashley might change Alrick’s mind. She knew mates were just that. Forever and permanent. But her parents taught her that mates could still regret their choice in mates. Just because of great sex. Didn’t mean your partner was. Alrick confirmed moments ago that Hector was in fact her half-brother. The Iron Hill Pack wasn’t his but Jessie’s and whoever she mated. So her parents experienced traumatic events of which the other couldn’t forgive or forget. Would that happen to Alrick and her? She was useless to him because she was an uneducated bumpkin. Why did her father believe girls were useless? “Jessie, we’ve got confirmation. Your father put the mines into y
Ashley slunk through the darkness. This was the basement, but not a section she’d explored. Now she stumbled her way through by her phone’s faint light.She wondered if they threw anything away. She couldn’t find a path through the trash and abandoned things. The few items she’d looked at show damage and wouldn’t be useable. Moving through, Ashley prayed her phone’s battery would survive. She’d never seen so many old-fashioned phones in one place. Glancing around to find a new place to stop, she’d seen no less than seven shattered telephones. Either they were accident prone, or someone needed anger management. She’d not hear of it for shifters. Some animals lay closer to the surface of the person’s nature. Those often were the ones who’d become rogue. Rogue was a polite word for becoming a feral. Where the animal nature became domin
“Jessie, can you meet me in the office? We need to talk about several things with Craig. Before we announce anything to the pack.” Alrick said into his cellphone when his mate accepted his call. She still wasn’t good at using it. But at least she could answer and make a call.“Yes, sure. I’m finishing up here with the volunteers. Give me ten to fifteen minutes.” Jessie looked around as everyone snacked. She’d dropped a bombshell on them. Many didn’t have a chance yet to react to her words. Jessie hated doing this. She felt she was mean to them. How could she cope with everything? She needed the support of the pack. “Now I need to know where I stand with everyone. Things will change and I understand that not everyone will like it. There’re things coming from outside the pack. It’ll change the dynamic. I can’t explain it yet, but we’re able to help others survive something horrible coming. I need to k
Craig disconnected the call to Charles. Happily informing him Ashley was fine and Sal would bring her home. He avoided informing Charles of Sal’s mate declaration. Craig would not deal with that mess. Next on the hit list was informing Alrick. They’d discovered two more of Hector’s missing men. Sure enough, they saw his lost sanity. Add that to the fact they’re now on the losing side. They’d used it as a reason to cut and run. However, without their bikes, they didn’t get very far. The unusual amount of snow made the bike unusable. So they’d holed up in a couple of hiding spots. The caveat was Hector, being in custody. Rachel informed Craig they’re calling the hunt now. They’d needed additional information from the new prisoners. No point in searching for non
Miss Mabel sat across the dinner table from Doc. J.J. He’d brought dinner like he did most nights when his work didn’t require his attention. The man’s heart was golden. She admired how he kept up with it as old as he was. “So, tell me again. Jessie is good? She’s happy? That girl’s been holding things together for too long for everyone else. The Alpha’s learnt to treat her better?” She’d lived so long. All she could do was live vicariously through other’s stories. Many of those stories were repeats of generations past. It was better than television. Most of the time, anyway. “I’m not sure yet. I see her tomorrow for the first tim
Ashley talked herself into what she’d expect would happen when Sal talked to her father. They’d never talked about her finding a mate or how their relationship would change. He’d told her many times that he lived for her, and she was his life. Even thinking about this, sent Ashley’s world into cataclysmic shock. The guilt of her father’s perceived reaction was too much. She wasn’t ready to take a mate. It’s happening all too quickly. Sal is far too forceful. Ashley felt many confusing feelings toward many within the pack. Every decision she looked at didn’t make her happy. She kept running back to the safer options that she knew. She knew nothing about Sal. He could be a monster. She didn’t know. Sal sat there, trying not to grind his teeth. He
Jessie sat listening to the two men talk. They discussed the situation and sweeping changes to the current pack formation. She couldn’t predict how the pack would react to this. They’d not settled from taking in the Iron Hill Pack. But what else could they do? They needed more members to expand. There were people looking for homes. Albeit not the people Alrick would choose. Could they get the pack to band together for this? It could benefit them. Or spectacularly fail. “So you have this part vaguely sketched out. You’ve started the process for housing. We’ll need to know housing placement. There’s also demolishing the buildings there now. Finishing the clean up the horror show. Then we’ll see about adding space for them to add sheep and free-range chickens. They can come in and
Ashley watched the cottages and cabins passed the SUV moved through the community. They’re headed to the visitor’s cabins. “You’re quiet. What are you thinking?” “I’m wondering whether you’re wrong and what I'll do when you get fed up and leave.” “Have you experienced many people become fed up and walk away?” Ashley didn’t respond. Sal now understood her attitude. This would be harder to fix. But she didn’t know Sal enjoyed her resistance. Sal’s convinced he’s a patient man most of the time.
Three months since the mine returned to the Silver Ridge Pack’s control. It’d been out of their hands for almost six months in total. The miners could finally return to the mine safely. Oddly, the Fae never returned to the region. Perhaps the Fae thought better of returning for some unknown reason? Either way, the pack now settled into their new way of life. Everyone lived more closely together and now grew closer to each other every day. Kelly and Kyle focused on themselves and the things going on in the tavern. Making changes where needed to make life easier for the suddenly overflowing pack living and working under the tavern’s roof. Not everyone initially was a pack member, which meant there were strangers among them, but they were in the same position as the pack. They would come to find their places in the pack. It wasn’t smo
Kyle left Craig’s office and went back to the tavern. The changes around here didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t know how he’d tell Kelly the truth about him. He’d told Alpha Alrick when he approached him to ask for membership, and they both agreed that they would take it easy and not tell anyone about it. He entered the warmth of the tavern and went in search of Kelly. There were more people staying here. Kyle would need to get used to it. On a good note, someone started preparing the bar for tonight. He wondered who that was. He’d need to find out and see what he could arrange. It would be nice to have someone else behind the bar a few nights per week. He’d have time to focus on Kelly and Eddie. Here’s hoping it wasn’t Kelly. She would have so much on her hands right now. He w
In the Chamber, Dean found his people working hard to document everything they could. He thought of the worst-case scenario. His mind worked out vague plans on how they’d evacuate the entire pack or packs. He didn’t know where the blast radius would be. If they could use this magical leak to their advantage, they could use it to attract the magically starved Fae here. Because they’d attacked several wells of power in Europe. Well, ancient wells, wells that ran dry over a thousand years ago of their magic. “Sir! I think you need to see this.” One of the portal experts brought in to review what they’d found. “I need to show you what we have. Though I think we just might have a weapon on our hands that we can use.&r
Dean left the Alpha’s office and moved towards the vehicle that would take him to the mine. His heart sank. Because of the lies he must tell these shifters. But the mage’s council ordered the information with a need to know thing. Those runes weren’t the mystery. It’s the placement of them. Dates and times didn’t add up for them. The meaning of the runes was what they wanted, kept quiet. Mages or even druids opened these portals. It’d been the humans, but that wasn’t the shocking thing. Humans didn’t possess magic, meaning someone was powering them. Someone supernatural, and the traces of power he’d found at the other site told him far too much. It took him several weeks to discover what supern
Alrick sat back in his chair as he watched Jessie walk from the room. He hated doing that, but the future didn’t look like it would be any easier. If Kelly and Kyle possessed any chance at happiness, they must work things out by themselves. Interfering with any part of the process would cause complications and all involved would suffer for it. He couldn’t stand for that. Now he needed to focus on the issues at hand and put out as many of the dumpster fires as possible. Craig found three incidents already where he’d forced wolves into time out, meaning they’d locked them away for a time to cool off. To wolves, this was like putting a drunk into a drunk tank to sober up. Territorial instinct still lingered within wolf shifter’s minds.&nbs
Jessie now sat in Alrick’s office again. Alrick returned to the office and instantly went to his computer and copying something to everyone. There were two mages in there with them and they were watching a video Alrick took of the portal. “Well, it’s definitely not natural, and whatever is trapped inside the crystal isn’t as secure as we hoped. Look at this crack here. When the wall came down, it must have damaged it. We’ll get it secured as soon as we’re done here. But the runes are fascinating. I’ve not seen anything similar to this. We need to get copies of them. Then we’ll get people in translating them. But I know these aren’t from the local area. They didn’t have a written language when these runes appeared, that’s for sure. Someone came here and did this long
Kyle couldn’t believe this. It took him several attempts to discover why this summons came so suddenly. When the enforcers first entered the tavern, he thought they were there to take him away from everything and everyone that he’d grown to love within the last few years. Now, with Kelly so close all the time, he didn’t want to deal with this. He just wanted to live a quiet life. Thank the gods he didn’t go off on them. Because what they called them in for was far more unbelievable. The Fae were back. Gods, the Fae. Now here they were setting up people to stay above the tavern. Several would stay in the restaurant, studying the human media for mentions of their actions. Others looked after the cattle. The mine would one day return to the pack, and only the gods knew when it would happen. NARC sent a motley cr
Kelly couldn’t believe what was going on. Her heart pounded as they escorted everyone to the Audience Chamber. Her confusion increased when she saw everyone entering at the same time. Was there something wrong with the refugees? Before entering she asked several people but all she learnt was, it was an emergency. Once inside, though, she learnt quickly about some very unbelievable things. The Fae were back and roaming the world again. How could that happen? No one was aware of that. They could only find out that one enforcer on duty at the mine experienced an attack by an unknown Fae. Where and why were both great mysteries? Kelly quickly found Petra and retriev
Alrick sent the first force back to the Audience Chamber to help with organizing nearly three hundred shifters. They would fan out throughout the emergency land. When this pack first settled here, they laid out the main buildings in such a way that they could guard them easier, and the pack could monitor each others’ safety. The issue with this is it didn’t take into the changes within fighting over time. With machine flight, and now Fae using the Dream Realm as their public transit. They literally popped in and out at will. But at least it gave protection from physical attack and a false belief that everything would be okay. He prepared to go with his second set of forces for a short time. He needed to assess what truly was there. Not that he didn’t believe Herald. If Herald said he saw this, then Alrick believed