Today, Kevin decided to grace me with his presence. Apparently, Sam and Ethan had gotten in a heated argument and it made the pack house insufferable. Ethan couldn’t leave because he was dealing with issues in the new college town he was building on his territory. They had multiple inspectors and construction crews coming in and out. Building the entire city from scratch sounded intense. I couldn’t even imagine how much that cost.
Still, Sam and him had gotten into it about something in the city. They now argued every time they were within eye-line of each other. Kevin escaped in his very modest Toyota Sequoia. The only thing that wasn’t modest was the color. It was in what was called a Supersonic Red and I didn’t think that large of a car needed to be supersonic. That was not the point, but far be it from me to point it out.
Since there wasn’t anything planned to come in today in t
Raine was laughing at me. I was sitting up in bed looking at the clock as the seconds ticked by. It was dark and I was waiting for it to turn midnight. Not for me. It would be an hour difference.‘You know, he is going to be so mad.’I rolled my eyes. ‘It’s nowhere near as crazy as I usually do it! A phone call is the least I could do.’She wagged her tail. ‘Remember the year we poured a bucket of red Jello over him.’‘There was also the time that we managed to get him outside so he woke up by us throwing him in the river.’‘That year he was really mad. Caleb had to help with that one.’I smiled. Emmett and I had an unhinged way of celebrating each others birthdays. Usually involved surprise, pain, shock, and ingenuity. I’d already planned out this year but I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. At least not this year
“You know, you’re starting to piss me off now.”I was leaning over the hood of my new project in the garage. Really it was Emmett’s birthday gift but I’d finally had it pulled out of storage and sent to the shop. I’d been lucky that the engine was still in good shape. Most of it just needed to be cleaned, a few rusted parts replaced, and then of course throwing in a turbo for good measure. Emmett wasn’t one for a pure classic build. Which was fun but also the wires were infuriating.“I know. I’m irritating everyone it seems.”Chuckling, I pulled the wires of the new headlights that I was installing through a custom cut I had to make. I was starting to rethink giving the 1969 Corvette Stingray a modern set up. I’d need to build an entire board by hand and somehow have it fit into the body of this beauty without destroying it completely.Looking at it now, it was pretty destroyed. I’d finished the engine and made sure it would run first. But before even that, I’d stripped the entirety of
The drive wasn’t something I would rank up in my top ten experiences. I had full faith in the engine. I’d taken my time, been meticulous, and set up the turbo with a level of love that I had for all beautiful classic cars. However, everything else was the issue. The frame was basically just that, the frame. The sun shone through the places where the door met the main body and everywhere else. The tires were an entirely different story. Those I hadn’t changed out from when they brought the car in.‘Arbella.’‘What’s that?’I growled, the shifter sticking again before I was able to shift up. ‘Her name. It’s Arbella.’‘Why the hell…?’ Raine was growling back at me.‘Because we are going to need a fucking prayer to get there and back in this thing.’Raine laughed but it was manic. We both were completely unhinged. The thought that someone tried to attack the pack while Ethan was gone was infuriating. However, the amount of rogues and the fact that it was organized was driving me insane.‘T
It took three tries to get Arbella up and running again but once she was, I was ready to murder some more things. This wouldn’t take me as long and I didn’t need to go past a hundred but I didn’t mosey over to the city either. Pulling up the the entrance, I pulled up to a stop about a block into the main downtown. Getting out, I grabbed my two weapons.There was a mess of wolves just chilling on the steps and in the street like they owned the fucking place. As I looked over the area, I counted how many wolves that were out here looking like the crew from West Side Story. There were definitely a leader, he was sitting in the center where I could see Sam, on her knees, tied up. She looked like she took a hell of a beating.A few of their wolves had made a bit of a red-rover line ahead of me. I cocked my head to the side, trying to see if they wanted to link arms and start singing.“What do you want, rogue? You don’t belong here.”I cackled. “You know…I don’t. I don’t belong here. But nei
I took a deep breath. It smelled like metal and blood and death. The red tint that was threatening the edges of my vision had fully taken over. Everything was a rose tinted masterpiece. Around me were bodies of my carnage. They dropped like flies in the path of flamethrower. It felt so good. All of them were dead. The threat was over. Looking up from the massacre, I saw a few wolves starting to make their way out of the buildings.Utterly useless. All of them. They didn’t even know how to help themselves. Yes. They couldn’t do a thing. They didn’t have any power. Not like I did. They didn’t bathe in the blood. They weren’t enshrouded in shadows. They were nothing. Meant nothing to me. Stepping forward, I smirked as my boot cracked a bone. They didn’t cry out though. They were lost. They returned to the hell they came from.“C-Commander.”My head cocked to the side, looking at a wolf stepping towards me.“W-we have it from here. If you want to head back to the pack house.”Was this thin
*** Ethan’s POV ***I’d never seen my dad this on edge. Even as Alpha, watching him in battles for the territory, he was never this stressed. His Alpha wasn’t just leaking out, it was full blown wild in the car. If I wasn’t an Alpha myself, I would be baring my neck. It was his anger and fear that made me draw back. Sometimes, my dad still had the ability to scare me. Now was one of those time.Was I worried about my pack? Of course, but right now, we were breaking about every law in the book to get back to them as fast as we could. At this point, we were driving faster than what we could run as wolves. Otherwise we would have dumped the car and ran ourselves. The benefit of driving was also that if there was a fight to be had when we got there, we wouldn’t be too tired from all-out sprinting to fight properly.“I swear to the Moon Goddess herself, if Katerina has even a scratch on her, I will summon the hellhounds and hunt those rogues to the end of the earth. Then I’ll carry them to
‘We have to hurry. We have to get to her.’ Niru was pacing until he finally took over and pushed us to go faster.‘I thought you would be mad that I didn’t go to the pack first.’He huffed. ‘The pack is okay. Our Mother confirmed it. Our mate wiped out the enemy. Now, our mate needs us. Not the pack. Pack will come later. As will a lot of training.’I nodded in agreement. ‘A lot of training.’We lapsed into silence because it was far to run to Skylar’s; especially from this road. It would have been worse the closer we got to the pack but that didn’t make it easy. Every so often I broached the subject of her coming to the pack. She wouldn’t move and I understood where she was coming from but at times like these I wish she was living in or around the pack.Finally, we could see our goal and Niru jumped over the road barrier. As we ran up to the door, Niru handed over control and I shifted. My right hand slammed into the door as I stopped our momentum and jammed in the numbers on the secu
‘What do you mean?’Niru shook his head. ‘I don’t know. These shadows, the weight of it, is what is hurting her. We need to take some of it, take her burden.’Part of me wanted to think he was crazy. The other part of me knew this might not be Niru’s mind but more instinct. Justin and I were supposed to balance out Sky. That was what Sophie and Fiona said. Sky said she would be too much for one person to handle. Did that mean we could take some of the darkness from her? Whatever the Blood Witches had twisted, whatever grew inside of her that turn her into a monster, was that something we could help pull out?‘How?’ I finally asked Niru after coming up with nothing on my own.‘I…I don’t know. It’s frustrating. I know we have to do something. We have to save her. I…feel like she’s slipping away, Ethan. I just…I don’t know how to help.’I nodded. Her writhing hadn’t been as bad but that was necessarily a good thing. It meant she’d stopped being able to fight. Otherwise, I’m sure she would