Darren Things hadn’t gone exactly as expected. Not only had Elly managed to resist the pull of two bonds but the Eternal Flame coven turned out to be a bigger pain in the ass than he predicted. The boundary spell they put around Dane’s territory was nothing short of impressive. And annoying. Going to the Silver Moon Coven was a gamble that he wasn’t sure would pay out. For the time being it did. The high priestess, Kara, sent people to come and break the spell. Helpful, but still untrustworthy. He knew she was only after one thing. The same thing she had been after for over twenty years. Elly. But he wasn’t about to let her get her hands on his mate. Not while she was still useful. Darren pushed himself off the ground and stretched his muscles. The astral projection spell took forever to cast. Channeling that much energy with none of the adverse side effects was intoxicating. He didn’t think it would be so difficult to break her. Who would have thought that idiot Rowan would help?
RowanWitches can’t be trusted! How many times had Rowan said that and yet he still let his guard down? It took every ounce of self-control he had not to let Eris loose on Cecily and her witches in the woods. He was risking war with multiple packs that used to be allies. For what? For them to prove the other alphas right? Whether they were working with the vampires or they were trying to use them for another purpose, this was hard to overlook.There was barely any time for Rowan to pull himself together before Elly came running into his room. She did it. The one thing he believed she wouldn’t do. Rowan saw the look on her face when she was marked. How she couldn’t even make eye contact with him after…By the time his rage subsided, the entire room was in pieces. The down blankets were shredded along with the matching pillows. Feathers lingered in the air like snowflakes. The heavy wooden desk was only fit to be firewood. The witches would be upset but it would be nothing compared to h
Walking out of the house was a blur. The faint sound of people talking came and went quickly as Elly ran. Her feet moved one after the other on auto pilot. It wasn’t clear that she was leaving the safety of the boundary until she felt the magic pull away from leaving her exposed. The longer she walked the more numb she became. What exactly was she expecting to happen? For once in her life, she thought she would be able to choose. To have the tiniest choice of what happened in her life. It was ridiculous and she knew it. Her life wasn’t hers. All this trouble and drama happened because she hadn’t accepted that sooner.The sun was high in the sky by the time Elly reached a familiar patch of trees. A crumpled-up blanket was surrounded by the hardened remains of dozens of melted candles. Bile rose in Elly’s throat. Any last threads of hope she had that it wasn’t real were torn to shreds. She stepped over the blanket and kept walking. Any other time she would have loved walking through t
The onslaught of teeth snapping at her neck only grew worse with each passing second. After Rowan missed his pack began to throw their selves at her. The way Dane switched between running and dodging was nothing short of impressive. At one point he shifted mid-air back to his human form to avoid two wolves hurdling toward them from opposite directions. His fur disappeared and his long arms wrapped around her holding her to his chest. The claws of one of the wolves scraped across her back. The second they were in the clear Dane was already tossing her onto his back and shifting back to his wolf form. An alpha command wasn’t necessary anymore. Elly held on for dear life. Very few times in her life she felt fear so deeply it shut down her brain. Everyone knew that when you got scared, you went into fight or flight. At that moment Elly unlocked a new option: freeze. There was no other way to describe it. She was perpetually frozen in a state of terror. The only thing she could do was h
“What did you do?” The shrill shrieking voice morphed into a deep angry tone. Elly blinked as Rebekah’s reddened face got closer to hers. The fluorescent kitchens’ lights hummed louder until they were a high-pitched ringing in her ears. They shined so bright behind Rebekah’s head their rays cut across her pointed face until Elly had to blink and look away. “What did you do?” Firm hands grasped her chin. When she opened her eyes again, she looked into Dane’s furious eyes instead of Rebekah’s. She frowned at him trying to piece together where she was.“Why on earth would you lift your head? There are low branches all over the place! Are you okay? Do you have a concussion?” His voice was quiet but Elly knew better than to mistake it for gentleness. The thing about their mate bond is it went both ways. The heavy annoyance was barely masked by his concern. She took a shaky breath, unnerved by the way his touch eased her pain.“You know I can feel that right? My mate not wanting to feel
RowanSomething deep inside Rowan was officially broken. He pursued Elly in such a blind rage he couldn’t identify if it was his or his wolf’s. He charged after without a second thought. Hell, he charged after her without a single thought at all. It was stupid. It was the least Alpha thing he could have done. That mutt Dane led them right into a trap. Rowan stood seething as he realized that his warriors were immobilized by the same spell Cecily and her witches used to immobilize Dane’s pack. Choosing to let Dane and Elly get away was a harder decision than it should have been. With his pack members, his family, and sitting ducks in the forest. Especially knowing there were vampires around.With a sigh, he turned and began the work of pulling them away from the area. Being immune to magic had its perks. It was just too bad he couldn’t extend that to his pack. What good was it if he couldn’t share it? He moved as quickly as he could pulling each of the wolves out by their tails. To t
After a few more texts on what to do next, they determined they would meet just outside the territory. There was neutral ground there for these types of discussions. Well, not exactly these types of discussions. To Rowan’s knowledge, no one had used the area for talking over the next steps after witches cursed a pack and murdered the alpha’s mother and now they needed to know if they would be killed on sight once they stepped back into the territory. This all seemed pretty unique to him.The sun already set leaving behind a streak of red and orange against the dark blue sky. It made the darkened water of the lake look as though it were on fire. Rowan sat leaning against the trunk of a tree and watched his wolves. All of them seemed off and the feeling in the bond had his stomach in knots. Initially, he was so distracted by what Luke was going through with Amber he didn’t even notice a few others were showing the same signs. Rowan plucked a small flower from the ground beside him and
EllyEating was a huge mistake. Every bite sat like a rock in Elly’s stomach. It had been a while since the demonic she-wolf made her dramatic exit, and Elly still had not gotten up from the table. She was offered dessert several times and couldn’t bring herself to even look at it.Rain drummed against the metal roof pushing her further into a daze of thought and anxiety. she wished she had her book. Every time she felt the need to escape or protect herself or even worry about the future she would open her family’s grimoire and look for answers. More often than not she was met with blank pages. It still calmed her down to hold the book in her arms. Her heart sank just realizing she had no idea where the book was at that moment. The final nail in the coffin for her mood was when Elly realized that without her book for comfort her mind drifted toward Dane and wondered when he would return. As if summoned by her thoughts Dane came walking in a few seconds later.The short uneven fingern