After we had shifted, showered, and dressed, we went to check on the wounded at the healing center to check on all the wounded. Bethany is completely healed, though on an IV to help with dehydration caused by the accelerated healing. Paul’s arm had started to heal itself while still damaged, the bone reknitting itself together facing the wrong way. This is a common occurrence in weres who break bones. Unfortunately, the only thing to do is rebreak and reset the limb. Poor guy was in a sling, but the healers said that he would be completely fine by morning. Arthur and Winne were a different story. As Bella had worried about, Arthur was under some kind of influence spell. The weird part was that it needed to be ingested. All of the witches and sometimes us wolves ate the same thing from the same cooking pots. Though Winnie and Nissa took care of him most of the time, all of us gave him food or tended to the cookfires and food. The only thing that only he took were his heart a
Two weeks later… “I don’t know what else we can do. We’ve tried every antifibrinolytic known to man and even did two plasma transfers. Things work for a bit, maximum a day or two, and then they just stop working. I don’t know how else to help her,” Healer Peony says in the pack hospital meeting. For the past two weeks after the Riding Hood attack on our camp, my mates and I have been at the main pack hospital in Abilene. I was called in as a surgeon to consult on Winnie’s case. She made it through her initial surgery to attempt stop the internal bleeding, but her clotting factors were still causing her to bleed everywhere, new spots showing up all the time. Nothing is working and it doesn’t help that her body is still trying to fight the infection that is ravaging her system as we speak. She hasn’t woken up since she was hit with whatever spell that she was and her tiny frame has already started to waste away. Her features have sunken into her skin, all access body fat gone.
I’m pacing the room where my mates always show up. I had followed some of the Riding Hoods, the ones that had been tracking one of our groups. I had information for them, but when I came back to check on them, I had found out what had happened to Winnie and Arthur. I had gone back to where Arya and Dev were in Texas, only to find the difficulty they were having with Winnie’s condition. So, I went in search of answers, hoping against hope that she would either pull through the spell or survive until I saw my mates again to tell them what I’d found. And I did it! I found the answer! About a week ago, I caught up to the witches that I’d been stalking before. I found them preparing spells for fights with our wolves and allies, a different group than the one that attacked Jamal and his team, obviously since they were dead. But the biggest thing is that I got to see how they prepared their spells. They mixed their potions with Belladonna, what we know as Deadly Nightshade, as well
Winnie’s death sent the witches into a tailspin. I mean, all of us had some difficulty. Winnie was well liked among many of the wolves. She was easy to be around, funny, and friendly. Liv, her mother, became nearly catatonic. She hadn’t been doing well in the first place with Winnie’s long descent into illness. But her unceremonious death? A death that, had Dev and Arya come back just a few hours earlier, could have been stopped? Well…it was understandably too much for her to handle.Leo, her father, spent most of his time in the Astral Plane. He came out to eat and care for his basic hygiene needs, but he barely even slept in this realm. He seemed to prefer to let his grief out to the empty field of stars, where only his goddess could hear his cries.Arthur spent his time between caring for Liv and screaming at anyone who was even remotely involved in Winnie’s care. He seemed to think that if we had reached out to the crones, Winnie would still be alive. It didn’t matter
“I need this pup out now!” Lily cries, her usual sweet demeanor gone as the weight of Sebastián pushes on her lower body. Our OB/GYN, Dr. Prim, cleans the gel off of Lily’s belly and tosses her gloves away. “I know that this is really hard Lily - “ “Do you?! You’re like the quintessential A****n queen! You have no idea how hard it is for me to carry a 21 inch, 12 pound bowling ball of pup and fluid and other crap stuffed in a space that is normally 15 inches in length! I can’t breathe, and I constantly have to pee! My back hurts, and I can’t walk without my hips feeling like they are going to break from the weight!” Lily screams. Neither Diego nor I know what to help her. She’s so uncomfortable and her normal even keeled humor has been replaced by this snark. “Lily, baby, I know that you’re really uncomfortable and in pain, but Dr. Prim is just trying to help,” Diego tries to soothe her, pushing her hair behind her ears. His efforts are met with a growl and an eye roll. She sm
Kare’s hand dives under the water, her fingers immediately finding my clit.“Shit! Kare! Don’t stop,” I whisper, my head falling back on her shoulder. She hums into my ear as her other hand moves up to cup my breast. Her fingers pinch and twist my nipple as her mouth skims over my matemark. Kare’s breath is heavy, sending goosebumps all over my skin.“Lily,” she breathes along my neck, trailing kisses from my jaw to my matemark and back up again. Her hand reaches further down my body, two of her fingers dipping into my pussy as the heel of her hand rubs at my clit.I can’t help but open my legs wider, giving Kare easier access to my body. Whispering in my ear, she says, “I can’t wait until I can have you sitting on my face again. I want to taste you. To feel your weight on my face and shoulders while I fuck your pussy with my tongue.” Her fingers speed up inside of me as she continues to whisper in my ear.“I want to have you on top of me, licking and sucking my pussy while
I pull Lily into my arms, my dick rubbing against her stomach. Carefully, I pick her up and lay her on the edge of the bed. Kare puts a pillow beneath the small of her back and another under her head. Kare then does the same for herself. Now both of my mates have their asses on the edge of the bed, their legs spread so that they look like a feast in front of me. A growl rumbles up from deep within my chest as I look at the beautiful she-wolves in front of me. The sound causes Lily to let out a small moan, her pussy glistening already with her arousal. Kare chuckles. “You like what you see, baby?” I growl again, attacking her pussy with my mouth and tongue. My lips latch around her clit, sucking the sensitive flesh into my mouth before my tongue flicks back and forth over it in a circular motion. At the same time, I run my hand up Lily’s leg until I can part her pussy lips and use my finger to mimic the motions of my tongue. Lily’s arousal coats my fingers while Kare’s juic
Several days after we found Nissa, my mates and I gather a group of two other wolves and five witches to continue our search for the Riding Hoods.Jamal and Gregory had elected to stay behind to help Bella, and with most of the wolves cleared, we felt that we could be of better use out in the field.We choose different witches to come with us this time. Part of that was obviously because Nissa and Arthur were too messed up after Winnie’s death to be of much help to us. But, those witches also needed a break after being in the field for over a month and we needed to see if them being out of the field had anything to do with the Riding Hoods finding our people.So far, over the three weeks we’d been back in the packs, the other two groups had found the witches that had been tailing them and taken them out. This was huge, since the Riding Hoods had seemed to be completely surprised by this. We had gotten some valuable information about drop off points and supply pickups from their ca
6 months later…Somewhere south of the Hoia Baciu Forest, Romania “How is she doing?” I ask as I follow the tunnel through the twisting and turning passageways. “She is much more stubborn, much more resilient than we would have thought. But, we believe that we may have turned the corner, High Priestess,” my Thane, Sybil, explains. “Oh?” This is an interesting turn of events. Morgana’s torture has been so slow, so…unsatisfying. She has been so hard to break. You see, torture has very little to do with the actual physical punishment. It is about psychologically breaking your victim, making them lose their very sense of self. And then making your victim wish they were dead, pray for death, and denying it over and over. Until they no longer breathe, no longer blink, no longer eat, without your say so. But Morgana has proven very stubborn. It’s been nine months. Nine months of us breaking her body and healing her on a daily basis. Of allowing rogues to use her however they w
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 had raised their older children. Now that they had a new set of pups on their own, 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 are remaining in Texas and that they won’t be able to see them as much, but we’ve already got a couple trips scheduled back and forth so that all the cousins could get together and we could see our best friend
3 months later… This has probably been some of the most emotionally difficult months for me. Not only am I nearing the end of my pregnancy with our little male, 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 are leaving tomorrow. The past three months have been about coming to a consensus about pack laws and succession rules, building the packhouses for each of the seats, moving all the things from everyone’s old homes to wherever they are going, and figuring out who is where in terms of pack members and how we will keep track of them. We also had to figure out who would be our betas, gammas, and deltas. In a surprise twist of fate, Donavon asked if he could be our beta so that Kesha would be close to Slade and Chloe. Rin also asked to be beta for Case, Chloe and Sev, so they could all be together. This means that Mike and Seth will also be moving up north. But the cool thing about the tech squad is that they
1 month later… “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 Hood’s on American soil,” Hawk says. We’re in one of our combined council meetings, 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. We also have 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 all of those groups, like the Riding Hoods. We’re hoping that we can make it a global thing. Sort of like a U.N. of supernatural beings. Right now, we’ve got to prove to the fae that it can work. They are more than willing to make the U.S. the guinea pig for the experiment. We’re trying to get some of the other shifters to participate, but they are proving to be fair
After the ceremony, Gregory and I help Jamal back to our cabin. Every time that I see him in this fucking wheelchair, I get livid all over again. Those stupid bitches. I can’t believe that Locasta and Morgana got the drop on Jamal. He freely admits that he was distracted, having gotten a phone call from Seth and Mike about incoming witches. Turns out it was just the Crone coven sweeping up like they said they would. Apparently no one had gotten in touch with our techies about that part of the plan. Likewise, no one but Jamal had their phone turned on. Morgana had woken up shortly before Jamal had taken the call. While he was distracted, she directed Locasta to get a knife out of her boot. It was silver and coated in wolfsbane. Once they cut themselves free, they stabbed Jamal in the back of his neck, severing part of his spinal cord. He can’t walk. The wolfsbane had rendered him unconscious and the silver cauterized the two ends of his spinal column. For a while, he co
Zak and I have been in a fog since Charlie’s death yesterday. The one and only thing that has brought us any solace are 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, both of their chins coming to more of a point, their cheeks seeming to hollow some showing high sculpted cheekbones. Granted, it could have all just been wishful thinking, but many of our pack and those that saw the pups commented on it. Our families are around us and friends keep coming in and out of our cabin. All of our mothers, Lauren, Danielle, and Clara, busy themselves with the pups and cooking. People bustle around us, but I don’t really remember. The only things that really make impressions on me are Zak’s hand in mine, a sloppy kiss on the cheek from Christy, or the heat from Jerry’s body as he lays on my chest. I know I ate. I showered. I dre
So many emotions. Thank the Goddess on High that I’ve been training how to empty myself of other people’s feelings. If not, I would be drowning in these feelings and rocking in the corner with my thumb in my mouth. Despair. Pain. Rage. Dread. Determination. All of them flood over me like a tidal wave. Using the imagery that Meredith taught me, I let the feelings wash over my body and flow back out, like a wave on the beach. I have to keep my head on straight throughout all of this. I’m obviously going to need to help my friends deal with their pain at the loss of their mate, putting their pain to the back of their minds, cooling their anger to rational levels, calming their desperation so that they can focus on the task at hand. And get out of here alive and back to their pups. Right now, I know it’s not what they want, but it’s what they need. I can feel Dev’s pain, too. It’s nearly as deep as the pain that Zak and Brandon feel. Understandably so. Charlie was like a
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 surprise her, giving Jamal the time to walk into the room after his mate. His power fills the room, nullifying all the goddess gifts of those within 100 feet (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 quite satisfying. Unfortunately for
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 have read every version that I could find of the story 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