The pack is almost set up like a suburb with the vast number of wolves that they have in such a small area, complete with streets, shops, and even a playground that we pass. I could have easily caught Naomi, neither of us running completely full out. But I can tell that both of our wolves are enjoying the chase. I get closer to her, pinching her ass or grabbing at her hand. She laughs and puts on a burst of speed each time. Goddess, I love that sound. I love this girl. That realization nearly stops me in my tracks, but we’ve had the link wide open since it was established and Naomi hears it through the link. I love you, too, she links. Four words. Four simple words. And they rock my world for the second time tonight. Not just because she’s the first wolf to say them to me. Even my parents never said them. But because of the depth of feeling I can sense through the matebond that come with them. She truly means it. My steps falter a bit, an
I call Monica, Nathan’s counselor, soon after Slade and I crawl out of bed around 1:00 the next afternoon. Slade is sporting some of my bitemarks, though they’re healing quickly. I don’t know what it is with him and biting, but it really gets him going. And fuck! It’s really hot! Seeing him let go of the reserved air that always seems to surround him and lose himself in the pleasure that I’m giving him. It makes me wet again just thinking about the face that he makes when he slides into me, or I grip some of his flesh between my teeth, or he cums. I’ve gotta stop thinking about Slade. Monica just picked up the phone. Clearing my throat, I say, “Hey, Monica. It’s Naomi.” “Hey Naomi. What’s going on?” Monica’s chipper voice comes through the phone. The woman is perfect for working with children. Empathetic, happy, motherly, and caring. A little much for me, but she’s great with Nathan. “I need your help with talking to Nathan about something.” I know how uncertain my voi
I wake Zak and Charlie at 12:30 when I wiggle out from between them. I want to shower and get to Dad’s house as soon as possible. I still have trouble calling Dev’s parents mine, even though they’re mated to him. We’ve just known each other for so long by different titles and roles. I’m glad that Dad’s happy and I really do like Lauren and Richard, but I can’t say that I think of them as parents. At least, not yet. “Why are you up so early?” Charlie whines groggily. Hurrying into the bathroom, I call over my shoulder, “I want to see Christy and Jerry.” I hear Zak’s deep chuckle and Charlie’s irritated growl of “Well now I feel bad if I don’t want to get out of bed.” Sticking my head out of the doorway of our en suite bathroom, I say “I’m sure that I can motivate you to get out of bed quickly.” I duck back into the bathroom and turn on the shower, hearing both of my mates’ hurried footfalls as they basically run into the bathroom. I turn around to see Charlie pulling off the
I don’t even wake up my mates when I climb off of where I’m sprawled across Gael’s chest. Though it is a near thing when I have to extricate myself from Hakeem’s hold around my waist. But I had kept my mates busy when we arrived home, not just in the kitchen, but in the shower and the bedroom after. So, they both stay asleep. I hurriedly brush my teeth and hair, get dressed, and head to the kitchen to start making breakfast. Well, it’s more like a mid-afternoon meal, since my phone says 2:30 when I pick it up. Either way, I’m craving waffles, so that’s what I’m making. I send a quick text to Gael’s mom, who was scheduled to have the girls last night, to let her know she could bring them home.By the time I’ve gotten the bacon out of the oven and am pulling the last waffle from the waffle iron, I hear stirring from the bedroom.I know that Gael can smell the food cooking, but he still calls out “Mi reina?” when he finds that I’m not in bed next to him and Hakeem.“In the kitchen
I wake up in the covendom’s infirmary to the sounds of a monitor beeping and the soft murmuring of nurses. It takes me a second to realize where I am, the bright lights blinding me as soon as I open my eyes. Sounds and sight came back to me in bits and pieces. Our infirmary is set up much like that of an old war hospital: rows of metal framed beds lined up against the walls with attachments and apparatuses to hang various medical equipment hanging from the frames or the ceiling. All of the equipment is state of the art, but there is little to no privacy. I attempt to swallow, my mouth feeling like a desert with the breathing mask that was covering it. I groan as I bring my hand to my head, a pounding headache making itself known. “Bella? Baby girl, are you awake?” I turn to the side and see my father, the High Priest of the coven, sitting next to the bed. I pull at the mask on my face so that I can speak to him, but he stops me. “Wait! Let’s get someone to check you out f
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Brandon says, a faraway look in his eyes. “You’ve been saying that for two hours now,” I say, adjusting Christine to my shoulder so that I can burp her. “Yeah, well, we still can’t fucking believe it,” Devin says, a whine coming through his words. “They’re like, old! How could this happen?” He takes a long pull on the beer bottle in his hand before his head flops on his arm on the table. “For one, your parents aren’t that old. Carl and Richard are both 43 and Lauren is 42. And for two, I would think that you would know how babies are made, especially since we have two on the way,” Arya teases, running her hand through Devin’s hair. “Ach! Don’t remind me! I don’t want to think that my parents had sex. Blech!” Devin’s overdramatic despair has both me and Zak laughing as I hand Christine to Brandon and take Jared from Zak.“Feeding time, little man,” I say, waking him up. The twins had been sleeping since Brandon got them and they realized that h
“You ready for this shit?” Kesha asks me as we start putting our shoes on to head to the Alpha Council meeting. Devin and Arya are supposed to be here any minute to pick us up. “Oh, hell no? You really think I’m ready to meet my new mates? I just hope they aren’t at the meeting. Maybe it’ll give me a chance to acclimate to just being in a new pack and deal with the judgment we’re sure to get from them,” I say on a sigh. Looking up at Kesha, I ask, “What about you?” “Shit, I don’t know. This is just a lot to deal with - “ She’s cut off by a sharp knock at the door. “Looks like we have no choice, now doesn’t it?” I say. I wipe my suddenly sweaty hands on my pants and go to open the door. On the other side are two drop-dead gorgeous males. Fuck! If all the guys here look like supermodels, finding my new mates isn’t going to be a hardship. They both are close to my age, one guy black, the other Middle Eastern. The black guy has skin so dark that it’s nearly ebony. His eyes
“What the fuck just happened?” Jamal asks me. “Bitch got hers is what just happened!” I cackle next to him. “But the twins…For one, they’re not 21 yet and for two, they’re twins! They can’t be each other’s mates!” Gregory says. I cock my head and squint at him. “Obviously. They’re both her mate, not each other’s.” “How do you know this?” Jamal asks, squinting right back at me. “I told them,” Meredith’s voice says, her crescent glowing. “Ah, ok. Gonna leave that one alone then,” Jamal says, turning back to his mate with a shrug. “Wait, what about you? You got a mate in our pack too?” Gregory asks, leaning towards me. “Yeah,” I say, a bored look crossing my face. “He’s running around here somewhere. Goddess, I hope I only have one. I don’t think I could put up with more than one man cold at a time.” Jamal snorts some of the drink he just took a sip of. Gregory laughs loudly while clapping his mate on the back. “Oh, I like you,” Gregory said. “We’re gonna keep you arou
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