* * * Eve’s POV * * * “He’s dead because he saved me,” I cry as I hold Allan’s head. “Eve drop the barrier, call the fire back, please,” Alexander requests.I hadn’t realised that my barrier was still blazing. I reach within for the connection and call the fire to rest within me. The land is scorched where the fire had stood, but I’ve been able to contain it and prevent it spreading to the rest of the forest. I still continue to cry for Allan. “Eve, you saved hundreds, Allan will be fine. His pride and ego may be a little bruised. But a severed head doesn’t kill a vampire, only setting fire to the severed limbs can kill us,” Alexander reassures me. “You mean he’s not dead?” I ask, wanting to make sure. “No, he’s not dead,” Alexander smiles.“What do we do?” I ask.“We return home and make sure the others have arrived safely. We protect those who need our aid, and we stop those who threaten the peace,” Alexander tells me.“But what about Jasper?” I fret, I can’t leave him. “He’s
* * * Eve’s POV * * * We carry Jasper’s dismembered body parts to Max’s and my home. Once he is laid on the bed and we have placed his body parts together, I pause to speak to him.‘You will be back together in no time, Jasper. We will use vampire venom to help speed up the healing process.’ “If we weren’t under threat of an attack, I would be tempted to place his body parts in the wrong place,” laughs Max.“He would kick your arse, and you know it. Now put his leg in the right place, the right way around and step back and let the vampires use their venom,” I scold him, but I can’t keep the laughter from my voice when he turns Jasper’s leg around with a sheepish expression on his face. “How does that work?” Max asks.“We bite his flesh where the limb was severed, and the venom will help the tissues knit back together. So to speak. I’ve never done this before.” Max and I watch, fascinated as the vampires' bite Jasper’s flesh, administering their venom. We stand waiting for five min
* * * Eve’s POV * * * “Jasper, once you have rested could you please tell us about the shadows and Richard?” Alpha Reece asks as we make our way to the door.“I will rest until after the prime ministers speech, and then we shall reconvene here. I don’t wish to speak about it more than once,” Jasper answers. “Of course. Rest well, and we shall meet again soon. Everybody please make sure you get breakfast, I will welcome the Lycans’ to New Moon and then prepare to continue the meeting,” Alpha Paul dismisses the group. Evolution built us to respond to disaster, yet not continuously so. We need to rest, to find peace within, to restore our health so that when called to action we are ready to move. And yet as I look at Jasper’s tired body, I realise that we may not get that chance to rest. “Thank you for helping me to get home,” Jasper says weakly.“It’s our pleasure. Please rest my friend. We all need a cosy place to hide at times, to feel safe and cocooned within, so that when the ne
* * * Eve’s POV * * * The alarms are still sounding as we rush from the meeting room and out of the packhouse. The pack grounds are in chaos, those with children are bickering about who will fight and who will stay with the pups, the young are scared and crying as they cling onto their parents and caregivers. Everyone, please do NOT panic. You are well protected and the safe house is just a precaution. Proceed calmly and quietly to your destination, we will protect you, Alpha Paul commands using his Alpha tone through the mind-link. The pack calms, only the young are frantic now and everybody goes about their business. “Are you worried?” I ask Alpha Paul. “I swallow my own fear to expand the safe zone of others, to become the stoic leader they deserve,” he tells me. “So, you have a safe house? We were only gone a short while,” I ask him. “I had planned to tell you on your return. We changed the doors and key codes to Charles’s underground hideout. We felt it would be a good pla
* * * Eve’s POV * * * “I REPEAT. BREACH. THE ENEMY IS WITHIN THE WALLS!” the voice cries out again. Down from the wall leaps Max with a fierce cry that echoes as he shifts into Nate’s angry form. His paws touch the Earth softly as he lands. He soon has his work cut out. Alexander looks down from atop the wall, hearing the great rumbling growl of Nate above all the chaos. “The enemy is in the pack!” he cries. “They are throwing their men over the wall and fence. Stand your ground and make them rue the day they challenged us,” he shouts as he leaps down the wall into the thick of the enemy with many men shifting into their wolf’s at his back. Their onset is fierce and sudden, and the enemy gives way before them. Alexander and those around him are fierce and all are slain or driven shrieking further into New Moon, only to fall before the gathered warriors. * * BOOOOM! * * A ground shaking explosion rings out around the pack grounds, so powerful it uproots some of the nearby trees a
* * * Eve’s POV * * * My heart rate spikes; my heart is sitting in my throat and my stomach is churning. “Release her,” Alpha Paul commands them.“You’re not our Alpha. You’re not our King. You do not command us,” the vampire spits at him.The wolves close ranks around the vampire, shielding him from the pack. My blood begins to simmer, how dare they willingly stand for one of their own kind to be slaughtered.“I am Evelyn Rose Jones, my wolf is Cora. We are the Moon Goddess’s own blood and we are the Alpha of all wolves. We are the Alpha Queen. You will submit and end this campaign. You will kneel,” I command. My tone merges with Cora’s to deliver an Alpha command that contains raw power. The wolves around me drop to their knees, perhaps we should have been a little clearer, Cora mutters.The wolves before me stand on shaking legs as their knees give way and their wolves force them to submit to me. The vampires are shocked to see such power, but it has no effect on them. “Release
* * * Eve’s POV * * * The night has stretched on and on, and sleep still evades me. ‘Calm your mind,’ Cora tells me. ‘I can’t. It won’t switch off. You rest. I’ll be OK’, I say. ‘I love you, Eve’, she says sweetly.‘I love you too’, my sister. Every dysfunction is a function if you look at it right, and this sleeplessness is an invitation to think deeply about my life and ask myself what isn’t working and how I can improve it for myself and others.One sleepless night is okay, I'd rather be dreaming, of course, yet this night becomes one extended moment of pondering. So I embrace it. I feel all the reasons why my soul is so perturbed and ask how I may navigate better.My mind is restless, and I can’t switch off from all that we have lost. All those innocent lives are gone. There are better and worse versions of loss. We are aiming for the better version because then we have the strongest base possible for rebuilding. That’s our victory, it’s the only one on the table, and it’s a p
* * * Eve’s POV * * * Horror—the crisis is here. The Beta has created and unleashed rabid wolves within the pack. We all hold a defensive position—half-crouched, our arms extended slightly. They are coming for us. ‘Why?’ I think to myself, wondering why he would do this. The words come through my mind in a snarl that’s louder than I expected. Too loud. ‘I’ve got him. He’s in the armoury,’ Cora growls as she passes this information on to me and the group I’m with. ‘It means that it’s far too late to sneak around now. Most of us need to take on the wolves, and a small group needs to stop the Beta before it’s too late,’ Alpha Paul growls as he assesses the movements of the rabid wolf. Alpha Paul’s body shifts, only infinitesimally, but it tells me where to look. I stare at the black shadows of the Hospital doorway. It’s like having my nightmares walk forward to greet me. Six wolves emerge, eyeing up their prey. My heart beats furiously, loudly, as if to make their target more obvio