Aria
“Who are you?”
The questions comes to me through the mind-link as Ruby and I determine whether to run from the wolf standing on the hill next to the ruins of my previous home or if we can trust this person. Ruby takes a hesitant step forward, and as he steps further into the light of the moon, I see his face.
“Tomas?” I ask, shocked to see my father’s best friend standing before me.
His furry face softens as he recognizes my voice, and then, when he can see Ruby’s red fur, he is a wolf with a jovial grin on his face. He runs to me. “Ruby--Aria! It’s you!”
“It’s us,” I say back to him as Ruby puts all of her remaining stre
SebastianEventually, my escorts drop off, one by one, leaving me to return to their homes or whatever else they have to worry about. I am clearly not a threat, and as I cross into other pack lands, I likely fall out of their minds. With any luck, they will alert the other packs ahead of me that I seem to be just crossing through, and as I make my way closer to Aria, I will be unharassed.Flint runs as far as he can before he finally finds a place to settle, mid-afternoon of our second day. He is exhausted, and other than a few sips of water from fresh streams we’ve crossed and a rabbit that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we haven’t had water or food.I don’t care, though. I am more focused on finding Aria than anything else.
AriaMaria’s words stick me throughout the meal and as I try to sleep in a bed in the large pack house, surrounded by people I haven’t seen in months. I’ve learned that they’ve been surviving here on whatever they can find in the forest and the few supplies they were able to salvage from the village. It’s hard for me to think that anyone has had a tougher time than I did myself since our home was attacked, but it seems like I’ve been mistaken.Sleep isn’t coming, despite how exhausted I am. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to others in the room snore and shift around on the narrow beds. I didn’t ask where the supplies to build this place came from or the furnishings, but I imagine some of my packmates have taken jobs in one of the nearby human cities and are sending back money.
Aria I can’t believe Sebastian is here, that he came all of this way, for me. As soon as I see him standing there, exhausted, covered in dirt from the forest, but looking unbelievable in only a pair of shorts, I want to launch myself at him, to bury my head in his muscular chest and feel his strong arms around me. But I can’t do that. The fact that he’s here is touching, but it makes no sense. “What do you mean love isn’t enough?” Sebastian asks in response to my comment. “Of course it is. Aria, we will make this work. No matter what.” I am touched that he thinks that’s possible, but I am so confused. I have so many questions. “Why don’t you come back to the pack house, take a shower, get cleaned up, and then we’ll talk?” I ask him. “You’ve got to be exhausted.”
AriaI need to speak to the rest of my packmates. They need to know the importance of us standing up to Wilkes. As much as I’ve wanted to blame Kurts for the death of my parents, Sebastian has helped me to see that it wasn’t his family pack after all. Now, it’s time to make the true culprits pay for the barbaric acts they’ve committed and tried to blame on someone else.We go back to the pack house, Sebastian’s hand in mine. Expressions on the others’ faces tell me everything. It seems everyone’s awoken to see what’s going on, and the elders are looking at him leerily. The younger pack members look at him with wonder, like he is a unicorn or a rainbow, something they rarely see--the son of a rival Alpha.“Tomas,” I say, “this is
SebastianMy body wants to stay in bed, even though my mind is fully awake and ready to go as soon as the sun comes up, just hours after I collapsed on this cot. I look around the room, the light filtering through thin blinds revealing that most of the cots are still occupied. A few are empty, and I suppose those early risers have first patrol or are preparing breakfast for the pack, that sort of thing. I wonder how many of them were up when I came in last night. Are they as exhausted as I am?My eyes fall on Aria, who is still sleeping, but she has a V between her eyebrows, so I know she is not sleeping soundly. I imagine she’s dreaming, probably of something dark and tortuous. I wouldn’t be a very good boyfriend if I didn’t wake her.Tha
Sebastian“Mim?” I assumed it had to be Mim on the other side of the line, answering Dez’s phone, but her voice was so low, so evil, such a growl, I couldn’t even tell for sure that it was her.The fact that the woman was enraged was a pretty good clue that that was who I was talking to.“What the hell do you want, Sebastian?” she spat, not bothering to identify herself. I knew it was her, though. I locked eyes with Aria, who looked as panicked as I felt that Dez hadn’t answered his own phone.“Where’s Dez?” I asked her, trying to keep myself calm. There would be plenty of time to overreact if she was even more evil than I had thought she might be and was actually planning on hurting my co
Aria Being home, seeing it desolate and burned to the ground, is overwhelming. Feelings I’ve been pushing deep down inside of myself for months begin to resurface as Sebastian and I walk along, hand in hand, down streets I had run both in my human form and as a wolf for years as a child and strolled along with my friends as a teen and adult. None of the people I used to hang out with are at the village now. I know they had not all been killed, but some had found refuge in other packs. Others had lost their lives that night during the attack. If Wilkes is truly responsible for raiding my village that night, for destroying my home and killing my packmates, he will pay severely for all that he’s done. We came to the remains of a building that had meant a lot to me. Only a pile of bricks, charred black in many places, and other debris rema
SebastianBack in the olden days, it would’ve taken days for us to organize our packs and make it to Albert Wilks’s lands in order to free Dez and get vengeance for Aria’s parents. But now, thanks to technology and transportation advances, my father can send one of his large jets to pick us all up and fly us to an airport near his pack lands so that we can hopefully get there in time. I’ve tried calling Dez back, but his phone is out of service, and I have no idea what Mim’s number is.My father isn’t there as we load up the plane with members of Vargas and Wade, even a few from the rougher pack I ran through, Dark Forest Pack, have agreed to come because they love the taste of blood and owe a bit to Ward for their protection.There are already twenty