Hey friends! So CCS already have second chance mates out there. And there is no love lost between Citra and Celeste, like at all. Look for 12 comments for a special update. Leave me some love and let me know what you think. See you soon.
We finish breakfast before a young witch comes to collect us. He asks us to follow him to the conference room to meet the High Priestess and some of her minions - I mean the other coven leaders. Be nice, Charlie. Zak links me. Why? This bitch not only insulted us as werewolves, but she also insulted one of our friends. That and I just don’t like her. I link back. Not the biggest fan of her either, but we’ve gotta make nice for now. We’ve gotta get help about this Riding Hood situation. Fine. But she better keep her tongue civil. Karamea and Sandra have already come up with five different ways to shove her broomstick in a variety of orifices. Preferably with the broomstick on fire. Zak laughs aloud, breaking the silence as we follow the witch to the conference room and garnering several confused looks. As we walk up to the door, it opens without anyone touching it. Fairly impressive from our standpoint, but Bella looks almost bored. “Parlor tricks,” she whispers to
Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! What the hell did I just do? No! No, no, no, no, no, no. I DID NOT just throw myself at a mated wolf. I couldn’t have done that, right? And there’s no way that he was as turned on as I was, right? RIGHT!?!?! As soon as Sev and Meredith leave, I hurry to open the window and air out the room. Fanning the scent out, I hurriedly spray Lysol as well. I won’t be able to get rid of my arousal scent completely until I shower and change clothes, but this will cover it up enough until I can go sort myself out. Fucking hell! I can’t believe that I just did that. Did I really just get turned on by just Sev’s touch on my back? Of course I did. I’ve been in love with him and Case since we all escaped Black Night. Seeing them outside the other day just added fire to the lust I’ve been feeling for years. Shit! I quickly check to make sure that Brandon is ok, shut the window, and run to my room. Closing and locking the door, I nearly collapse against the do
Case asks me to meet Meredith out in the woods. He says that he and Sev will meet me at the edge of the property to show me where to go. Bring coffee. And a shovel? Is this the part where she gets rid of me? I ask through the link, only half joking. This sounds like the preamble to an ax murder scene. The Goddess has a message for us. She already talked with Sev and me. She’s gonna talk to you now. Then, we need to talk. Sev links. That sounds kinda heavy. I link back, grabbing two paper to=go containers and filling them with coffee. Not gonna lie, Fireball, it is. Case is trying to soften the blow with my Dad’s old nickname for me. Well, shit. This is gonna be bad. Ooookay. I’m walking out. See you guys in a minute? I grab a light jacket, stuffing my pockets with little creamers and sugar packets. Slade, Kesha, and Chloe drink a ton of coffee on the go it seems. Yeah. Sev’s voice is sad, nearly despondent. They both cut out the link after that. None of
I walk into the mud room to check my jacket pockets for a receipt from work when I see Chloe straightening up from putting some clothes in the washing machine. “Hey, bug. How ya doing?” I ask, calling her by the nickname I gave her when she was three and I found her lying under a tree in the backyard of the packhouse covered in ladybugs. She sniffs before answering, “Morning.” Immediately, I’m at her side. “Chloe, what’s wrong? What happened? Who am I killing?” She turns and wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. “Slade, I’m so stupid.” She cries silently, her body shaking. Oh, shit. I immediately wrap my arms around her and let her fall apart while I keep her together. Years of therapy individually and together have shown me that I need to just be here for her right now until she’s ready to talk. So, I pick her up and take her outside so that there aren’t any eavesdroppers. As I walk out, I see Case and Sev by the bonfire pit. They’re standing,
Once we’re outside of the ugly ass building where we met Celeste and her toadies, we make a quick plan with Bella. We’ll all make our way back to the motel, pack, and head to Bella’s covendom. There, we’ll nail down our alliance and look for another coven of the Mother that will enter into an alliance with us. Michael and Citra can also plan their handfasting ceremony that way. Bella assures us that she has plenty of room for all of us. We make sure to say that we wouldn’t be here long. As soon as Brandon is healed in two days time, we’re leaving. We luckily have enough vehicles for all of us to pack up our things and ride in. After an hour, we are all out of our cars and receiving a blessing from Bella to enter her covendom. We are met by her sister, Iris, who brings a bag with her. In front of each of us, Bella dips a finger into the bag and uses the powder within to draw a trinity knot on our forehead. As she draws the knot, she whispers something so low that even my en
Bella takes us to a beautiful ranch style house for lunch, informing us that this is where the majority of people in the coven eat on a daily basis. Sure, all the houses and cabins are equipped with fully functioning kitchens, but Bella treats her coven as more of a family than a group of people that she’s in charge of. Unless on dates or sick, the witches of Bella’s coven preferred to be together for each meal. It was similar to the way that we run our mealtimes in the pack and it’s a nice reminder of home. Bella introduces us to her sisters. Bella is the oldest of the five and we had already met Iris at the border of their territory. Isla, Ivy, and Indigo round out the group. Apparently there was a theme going on with the girls’ names. Bella’s mother died in childbirth with her youngest sister, Indigo, nine years ago. Her biological father, who had been handfasted to her mother for about 10 years, had been the High Priest until Bella reached the age of majority at 18. He
Oh, good. Now I can get every uncomfortable conversation done at once. Then I might go take a nap. I deserve it. Treat yo’self! I quickly but thoroughly explain the deal with Casen, Severen, and Rin and their second chance mates. I mean, I’ve given the spiel twice. I know how to efficiently get the information out there. I’ve just finished talking and am looking around to see what everyone is feeling. Starting on my left sit Chloe, Rin, Slade, Kesha, Severn, and Case ending up on my right. The looks of unadulterated shock on Chloe, Kesha, and Slade’s faces are only matched by the complete misery from Severn and Casen. The only one who seems at ease is Rin. Even I'm more anxious about this than she is. Chloe looks at me, but I can see her sneaking glances at Severn and Casen. “Why would the Goddess do this?” “This has nothing to do with Selene’s will, other than you knowing it early and her wanting you to be happy. This has to do with Rin, Casen, and Severn’s relatio
I have always feared finding my mate. Having had little to no control of my life for most of it, I didn’t want to think of someone else choosing who I was going to spend the rest of my time on Earth with. Even if that someone is our Mother Goddess. Like we told Meredith last night, she-wolves were seen as inferior. They were meant for few things, and each of those things were in service of their mate. Many were treated as slaves, created to cook and clean for their mate and to warm his bed at night. The matebond wasn’t even that sacred in our pack. Many of the men frequented the pack whorehouse, the place where all she-wolves from 16, when they got their wolf, until they found their mate were taught how to “please a male.” The only reason that I had escaped that particular cruelty is that Slade had made it known that Chloe and I were his favorites. His father allowed him to keep me for one year without having to share with the other wolves. Had we not left, I would still
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