The next morning, I’m checked by the doctors and released from the hospital. Marcus tries to insist that I go home with him, as does Arthur, but I need time to myself. I need to process everything that’s been going on. Grieve. Commune with Hecate. Worry. And just let myself miss my friend. I do allow Marcus and Arthur to drive me back to my house in one of the coven’s golf carts. They insisted that I relax and I was too consumed with my own emotions to really protest. The ride through the covendom is heartbreaking. Scorched earth. Rubble from fallen walls. Craters in the ground. Fallen trees. Our beautiful home destroyed. But my people are out. They are clearing roads and sidewalks so that we could accommodate Liv’s entire coven for the night before we move to the Meteoric Rise territory. They are passing out food to the workers and loading luggage into trucks and trailers. They are caring for each other in the wake of destruction. And it’s amazing. My people call ou
After dropping Bella off at her house, Arthur and I head over to my sister’s house to pick up my daughters. They stayed with my sister and her husband while I’ve been with Bella. I came home last night after the impromptu council meeting in Bella’s hospital suite. I don’t believe in keeping things from children. Information needs to be given at their level, but I think they need to know. So, I told them all about Bella being in the hospital, Iris’s kidnapping, and Talon’s death. They would find out anyway. It’s better that I tell them, in words that I can control and they can understand. Isla, at age 11, and Ivy, at age 9, can deal with a lot more information than their five year old sister, Indigo can. So, I told Isla and Ivy together, making sure to answer their questions as best I could. They know that we’re moving to try and keep ourselves safe from the Riding Hoods. They know that the wolves are helping us. That we are doing everything that we can to find Iris. I al
I push away from Hecate, anger covering my features. “What do you mean that you told him? He killed himself because of something you told him?” “No, he didn’t. He sacrificed himself to make sure that you and the entire coven were safe,” Hecate says, her voice firm but caring. “He sacrificed himself because he loved you and he wanted you to live out your fate.” “And what is this fate that’s so important that my best friend died to save me?” I nearly scream in the face of my goddess. Hecate stares at me, silent for a moment in the face of my rage. “Do you really want to know?” There is a gravity in her voice, a meaning that I should pay attention to. But I don’t, too consumed by my grief, pain, and anger. “Yes!” I insist. The astral plane changes around us, the stars extinguishing, taking all the light with them. In the blackness, I feel the bed beneath me drop away and I am left on what feels like a cold, hard stone floor. From the darkness, I hear the sound of three wome
I awake to find the left side of the bed cold. Sandra is still sleeping on the other side of me, but Bhakti is gone. Rubbing my eyes, I gently extricate myself from Sandra’s arms and reach over to the side table to grab my phone off of the charger. There’s a text message from Bhakti: Got called in for an early meeting to talk with the head surgeon about my workload while I’m on maternity leave. *eye roll emoji* I’ll be back by 9:30. I love you both! Looking at my phone, I see that it’s 9:15. We never sleep this late. But given all of the craziness that’s been going on and us staying up for the new year last night, I guess we deserved a little lie in. I put the phone down and lay back down on the bed. Still asleep, Sandra rolls into me, her arm going around me, her face nuzzling into my neck. Her scent rolls over me and I can’t help but feel an erection growing at her touch and smell. Goddess, the things my she-wolves do to me. Her body moves against me and her breasts near
I’m always the first one awake in our house. I think it comes from doing my residency when I mostly worked overnights or early mornings. It’s really hard for me to actually sleep at night. I tend to wake up a bunch of times, so I go to bed early and wake up early. Liam typically gets up not long after me, Sandra being the night owl in our trio. At least I know that we’ll naturally have someone up at all times with the pups. It’s nice, too, because we each get alone time with each other. Liam and I usually make breakfast together in the mornings, sitting and catching up on pack business, looking over the news, or just talking. Sandra and Liam have regular shows that they watch after I go to bed, like Late Night with Seth Meyers, Last Week Tonight, or SNL. And by the time that Liam goes to bed, I’m usually waking up and making my first lap around the house, so Sandra and I have a nightly tea ritual, just talking and spending time together. We’ve settled into a cozy routine that
When we finally get out of bed, are showered, and have gotten dressed, it’s time for lunch. Instead of going to the dining hall, we decide to make food at the cabin. Liam chops stuff for salad. Bhakti uses the air fryer to make french fries and prepares veggies and condiments for burgers. And I actually grill the burgers on our back patio. I love grilling. I used to be in charge of the big barbecues that we used to have at our pack. I had this huge slow cooker that took up an obnoxious amount of space in the backyard of the packhouse, a smoker, and a portable deep fryer because…America. Land of fried food, right? I miss it. But it’s nice to be out here in the cool Texas breeze, the smell of the cooking burgers and the charcoal mingling in the air. When the food is ready, we sit at the dining room table, figuring out everything that needs to be done for the day. We needed to meet with our pack leadership to prepare everyone for the move. Our pack will be leaving within th
I wake up to Naomi’s scent all around me. It makes sense when I open my eyes and see that her hair is all over my face. She’s nearly completely on top of me, her leg thrown over my entire lower body, her upper body pinning my arm to my chest, and her head directly under my chin, forcing my head at an odd angle. Not exactly the idyllic scene that I’d heard about when people talk about sleeping with their mate. But honestly, I wouldn’t change it at all. I love that she needs to touch me in her sleep. I love that I’m at the edge of the bed with barely any space to move because my mate needs to be near me in her sleep. I love everything about her. Pushing Naomi’s hair out of my face, I reach my hand out to grab my phone to check the time. 8:00. We have a meeting with Naomi’s pack leadership at 11:00. I look down at my mate who’s sleeping nearly on top of me, naked. Hmmmm. What should I do for the next couple of hours? My morning wood becomes even harder as I run my hand down
I’m mad at Mommy. She just got home AND has a new mate and she made me stay with Mariana and Carlos again last night. I like Mariana and Carlos, but I wanted to be with Mommy and Slade. He was nice and fun. He was pretty good at soccer, but I was better. I grab the red crayon and draw a big circle. Red is the color of mad. And I’m mad.I don’t like red. I like blue. My room is blue and my blankets are white. It makes me feel like I’m sleeping on clouds in the sky. But right now, I feel like red. I miss Mommy. And I want to hang out with Slade. Mariana told me that mates need time to themselves for the first couple of weeks and that I would be staying with them for a while. She told me that I’d see Mommy every day, but I want to go back home. I miss my room. And my toys. I scribble all over the circle, pressing the red crayon into it hard. Then I get the black crayon when Joanie is done with it. I make two big circles for the eyes and a big frowny face. Ms. Rose l
The tunnels twisted and turned in an endless labyrinth beneath the Hoia Baciu Forest. The scent of damp earth mixed with the faint metallic tang of blood and decay. The flickering torchlight cast eerie shadows along the stone walls as I strode through the corridor, my Thane, Sybil, walking briskly beside me.“How is she doing?” I asked without breaking my stride.“She is much more stubborn, much more resilient than we anticipated,” Sybil admitted. “But we believe we may have turned the corner, High Priestess.”“Oh?” I arched a brow, intrigued. Morgana’s torture had been… sluggish. Less satisfying than I had hoped.Torture, after all, is not simply about the body—it is about breaking the mind. True suffering comes when a victim loses their very sense of self, when they beg for death, only to have it denied over and over. And yet, Morgana had proven difficult to crack.Nine months. Nine months of relentless torment. We had shattered her bones and healed them daily, forced her to endure t
The ride from Texas to our packhouse should normally take 21 hours, but we’ve made it a one-week trip, sending our beta, Landry, ahead of us in our plane. He will help our people move in and settle while Brandon, our parents, and all of our pups take a little side trip for some downtime.Carl, Richard, and Lauren elected to move back to Artemis lands with us. It’s where they lived, where Carl and Richard grew up, and where they raised their older children. Now that they had a new set of pups, they wanted to come back. My mom and Charlie’s parents were also moving back with us. It was their way to see their grandpups grow but also to honor the lives of my father and Charlie.Carl, Richard, and Lauren were a little upset that Dev, Arya, Jakey, and the twins were remaining in Texas and that they wouldn’t be able to see them as much, but we’ve already got a couple of trips scheduled back and forth so that all the cousins could get together and we could see our best friends.Our side trip t
The past few months have been some of the most emotionally difficult of my life. Not only am I nearing the end of my pregnancy with our little boy, but we are also leaving Texas— all of us. Except for the old Diana pack and Arya and Dev’s pack, the rest of us will be gone by tomorrow.The last three months have been consumed with finalizing pack laws, succession rules, and building the new packhouses for each territory. We've been moving everything from our old homes, figuring out pack logistics, and ensuring every wolf is accounted for. It’s been exhausting, but necessary.We also had to choose our new betas, gammas, and deltas. In a twist of fate, Donavon asked to be our beta so that Kesha could stay close to Slade and Chloe. Rin made the same request to serve under Case, Chloe, and Sev, so their families could stay together. That means Mike and Seth will also be moving up north. But the tech squad doesn’t need to be in the same room to work together, so at least that transition will
"Reports have been consistent from all of our sources. Other than one of the fae discovering what was left of Locasta’s body in the bayou, there hasn’t been a single sighting of any Riding Hoods on American soil,” Hawk says.We’re in one of our combined council meetings, with all the alphas from every pack in the U.S., as well as the heads and representatives of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone covens for Hecate. There’s also a representative from the Seelie Fairy Court and an ambassador from the Unseelie Fairy Court. The sooner we can get all of us on the same side, the better we’ll be protected from groups like the Riding Hoods. We’re hoping to expand this into a global alliance—a kind of supernatural U.N.For now, the fae are willing to let the U.S. be the test subject. Convincing the other shifter groups, however, has been difficult. Many remain elusive or outright resistant to the idea. Zak’s presence would have helped—his Goddess gifts have a way of swaying even the most stubborn mi
After the ceremony, Gregory and I help Jamal back to our cabin. Every time I see him in that damn wheelchair, I get livid all over again. Those witches. I can’t believe Locasta and Morgana got the drop on him.He freely admits he was distracted—he had taken a call from Seth and Mike about incoming witches. It turned out to be nothing, just the Crone coven sweeping through like they promised. Apparently, no one had thought to inform our tech team of that part of the plan. And no one but Jamal had their phone turned on.Morgana had woken up just before the call. While Jamal was preoccupied, she directed Locasta to retrieve a knife from her boot—silver and coated in wolfsbane. They cut themselves free, then stabbed Jamal in the back of the neck, severing part of his spinal cord. He collapsed immediately. The wolfsbane knocked him out, and the silver cauterized the damage. For a time, he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t even breathe on his own.Arya and Dev managed to purge the wolfsb
Zak and I have been in a fog since Charlie’s death yesterday. The one and only thing that has brought us any solace is our pups. It seems like, overnight, they began looking more and more like their mother. Though both of them have always had Charlie’s gray, raincloud eyes, their faces and bodies seem to have gotten leaner, their chins more pointed, their cheeks hollowing slightly to reveal high, sculpted cheekbones. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but others in the pack have noticed it, too.Our families are around us. Friends come in and out of our cabin. All of our mothers—Lauren, Danielle, and Clara—busy themselves with the pups, cooking, keeping things moving as if that will help. The house bustles with people, but I barely register them.The only things that ground me are Zak’s hand in mine, the weight of Christy’s sloppy kisses on my cheek, the warmth of Jerry’s small body as he curls into my chest.I know I eat. I shower. I dress. I might even respond to people. But it’s all
So many emotions. Thank the Goddess on High that I’ve been training on how to empty myself of other people’s feelings. If not, I’d be drowning in them, rocking in a corner with my thumb in my mouth. Despair. Pain. Rage. Dread. Determination. They flood over me like a tidal wave, crashing against my mental defenses. But using the techniques Meredith taught me, I let them wash over me and drain away, like waves receding from the shore.I have to keep my head on straight. My job is twofold. First, I need to help my friends process their grief without letting it consume them. Zak and Brandon’s pain is like a living thing, a force that threatens to unravel everything if I don’t keep it contained. I push their suffering to the back of their minds, tempering their anger to something useful. They don’t want this—but they need it.Then there’s Dev. His grief is just as raw, just as deep, but there’s a difference. Beneath his devastation, there’s acceptance. A flicker of hope. He knows that he’l
Zak and Brandon push through the door, Brandon almost immediately shoving Zak to the floor as a ball of lightning rushes through the air toward them. It slams into the door just above their heads before Gregory vaults over them, a shield of the same crackling energy covering us as we begin to move through the doorway.Gregory’s ability to mimic Morgana’s powers surprises her, giving Jamal the time to step into the room after his mate. His power fills the space, nullifying all the goddess gifts of those within a 100-foot radius (we checked). That includes all the witches’ powers. The only ones that won’t be affected by Jamal’s power are Arya and me. Our gifts aren’t Goddess-given but Goddess-like. He can’t take away what is part of the Goddess.The look on Morgana’s face as she drops like a fucking stone is almost enough to make me smile. Her scream echoes through the stairwell, the resounding thud as she lands and the breath whooshes out of her is immensely satisfying. Unfortunately, o
I don’t know what gave me the idea of the salt trail. Honestly, I haven’t been able to think of much since I’ve been here. The thought of us being so close to freedom seems unreal. I never thought that I would escape the Riding Hoods alive. It makes the frustration that Charlie is feeling about us going around in circles barely register to me. I’m still finding it hard to believe that we’re going to get out of here.But the salt sparks a memory of my favorite childhood fairytale. My mother hated it, the way that the witch was portrayed, but I loved the thought of children being able to outsmart an adult like that. I read every version I could find and acted it out with my toys all the time. I even made Mom, Dad, and Bella call me Gretel for about a year.So, I really shouldn’t be surprised that my old favorite story came to me in a time of need. The whole scenario was made better by the fact that Charlie called me Gretel. I feel like I’m getting some of me back. Like I’m starting to wa