by J. L. Wilder
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Have you seen Lily?” Donovan asked him.
“Lily?” Samuel frowned. “I thought she was with you and the other alphas.”
“She was,” Donovan said. “She was supposed to be. We can’t find her. Will you get the others out looking?”
“Sure, of course,” Samuel said. He hesitated. “Do you think...”
“Do I think what?”
Samuel looked as if he didn’t want to say what he was thinking.
“Spit it out,” Donovan said.
“It’s just...do you think the Arctic Wolves know we’re here?” he asked. “Is it possible they kidnapped her back?”
Donovan felt as if he’d been punched him the gut. “They couldn’t have,” he said. “We’d have known if they were here. We’d have smelled them.”
Samuel nodded. “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “I’ll get the others to start looking for her.”
But Donovan wasn’t at all confident that he was right in what he had said.
What if the Arctic Wolves had found them? What if they’d kidnapped Lily and were punishing her for daring to mate with their enemies?
They should have smelled their rivals. But if the Arctic Wolves had come in their human form, the scent would be much weaker.
Was it possible that they had disguised their scent? They could have moved through water. They could have covered their bodies in the aromas of the woods.
He might have simply overlooked a smell he should have noticed.
The more the thought about it, the more convinced he became. It was the only thing that made sense. They must have come. They must have taken Lily.
An anger like nothing he had ever felt before surged through him.
If they hurt her, I’ll tear their hearts out.
He raced around the woods, hoping desperately that he would find her, or at the very least pick up her scent, but at last, he was forced to concede that she was no longer in the area. He could only assume that Samuel was right. She must be with the Arctic Wolves now.
He felt as if his skin was bristling. It was the same sensation he got when, in wolf form, his hackles raised. He felt defensive and ready to lash out at the first person he saw.
He would have to control that impulse, at least for the time being. Everyone around him right now belonged to his own pack. He couldn’t allow himself to take his rage out on them.
Instead, he hurried back to the campsite he had set up with Victor and Pax, hoping against hope that they had some good news.
He could tell as soon as he laid eyes on them that they didn’t. Victor was pacing back and forth furiously, looking as if he was about to break into a run. Pax sat on a fallen log, hunched over, his hands fisted so tightly in his hair that Donovan worried he was about to rip it out at the roots.
“The betas are looking for her,” he told them. “But...I don’t know. It doesn’t look promising.”
“How could I have taken my eyes off her?” Victor snarled. His voice was barely human. “I knew we were close to their territory! I should have kept her by my side!”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Donovan said. “You can’t do that. It isn’t your fault.”
“This wouldn’t have happened if I had never agreed to come north!”
“We all wanted to come north,” Pax said. In complete opposition to Victor’s inhuman snarl, his voice was so low and soft that Donovan could barely make out what he was saying. He sounded like he was speaking from underwater. “We decided together. It’s not any one person’s fault.”
“We need to go,” Donovan said. His muscles were twitching, aching with the need to protect his omega. “We need to go north right now. We need to find the Arctic Wolves and get her back.”
Pax nodded. “They wouldn’t hurt her, would they?” he asked. “They’re her family. They couldn’t possibly want anything bad to happen to her.”
“We don’t know them,” Donovan said. “Lily thought highly of them, but we don’t know anything. I don’t know about either of you, but I don’t trust them at this point.”
“I never trusted them,” Victor growled. “Why do you think I was so anxious to get her out of here in the first place? God, I knew we shouldn’t have brought her along. Fuck!”
“Stay calm,” Pax said.
“How the fuck am I supposed to stay calm, Pax?”
Donovan agreed with Victor for once. He felt like tearing down trees with his bare hands. The idea of having a calm and rational discussion felt almost like sacrilege.
“We have to think through this,” Pax said, his voice growing a bit stronger as he spoke. “We can’t just charge north and attack them.”
“You want to bet I can’t?” Victor asked.
“We want to get Lily back unscathed,” Pax said. “We need to do this smart.”
“I swear to God,” Donovan said, “if you’re about to say we should go up there and negotiate to get our omega back—”
“I didn’t say anything like that, all right?” Pax said. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go charging off half-cocked. I think we need to go in with a plan. I mean...” He drew a breath. “What if they’d rather see her dead than back with us, Donovan?”
Donovan felt as if his heart had been frozen solid and struck with a hammer.
He clenched his fists so hard that he could feel his nails puncturing the skin of his palms.
He didn’t care.
Soon, it will be their skin I’ll be tearing into.
“We’ve got to go in quietly,” Pax insisted. “The three of us will take point. And we’ll have the betas behind us, for backup. When the fighting starts, they’ll be able to come in and give us the element of surprise. And hopefully the numbers as well.”
Donovan had to admit that the plan made sense. “That might work,” he said grudgingly.
“Do you have any better ideas?” Pax asked.
Donovan looked at Victor.
“I think it’s the best we can do,” Victor conceded.
“There’s always a chance that they’ll give her back to us when we ask,” Pax said. “We might not need to fight at all.” He didn’t sound convinced of what he was saying.
“At this point,” Donovan said, “I don’t give a fuck what they do. They could greet us with a turkey dinner and I’d still want to tear them apart. They took our omega, and we’re not even on their land yet. That’s an act of war.”
Victor nodded. “I agree,” he said. “They made the first move against us. I have no intention of parting peacefully now.” He shook his head. “And to think I almost allowed myself to be convinced that they were harmless!”
“Lily wouldn’t have lied to us,” Pax said.
“I don’t think she was lying,” Donovan agreed. “I think she was brainwashed. She was raised by those savages. She never knew any other way of life until she came to us. Of course, she didn’t want to see their darker side.” He sighed. “I hate to put it this way, Victor, but it’s just like you and Josh.”
“You’re right,” Victor said. “I didn’t want to see my father’s darkness. But it was there. He was abusive to my mother.” He gritted his teeth. “I should have realized that Lily would be just as reluctant to see anything unpleasant about the people who raised her. I shouldn’t have put my faith in the things she said about them. If I’d just been more cautious—”
“We all should have been more cautious,” Donovan said. “No one thought there was any reason to worry until we reached the Arctic. But we should have been aware. They’ve probably been watching us for miles.”
“Let’s not keep them waiting, then,” Victor said. “It’s war between the north and the south.”
Donovan couldn’t have agreed more. He turned to Pax. “You’re with us, aren’t you?”
“To the end,” Pax said grimly. “I wish it hadn’t come to this. But you know I’m on your side.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, they were running no
rth.
Donovan relished the feeling of the earth beneath his paws, the way the wind raked through his fur and carried the scents of the woods around him to his nose. He inhaled deeply, determined to pick up on some trace of his lost omega. If they could find the route along which she had been taken, they would be able to follow. They would make their way to her that much more quickly.
Please let her be all right, he thought desperately.
He wanted to believe that her family wouldn’t have hurt her. He wanted to trust that it would be enough for them to take her back into their custody, to get her out of the reach of the southern alphas. And maybe it would be.
But maybe not.
If they know she’s pregnant, they might do something drastic. They won’t like her carrying the babies of their enemies.
Would that be enough to prompt them to kill her?
The thought was enough to spur him to run faster.
He had been such a fool. He had been so willing to believe he’d been wrong about the northern wolves. He had judged Victor so harshly for hanging onto his old prejudices.
Now he wished he had listened to his friend.
They should have kept Lily in the south, away from the Arctic. If they had, this would never have happened to her. She wouldn’t be at risk, and their babies wouldn’t be at risk.
He couldn’t stand the way his mind was working, running around and around in circles as though trying to destroy his sanity. Ordinarily, being in his animal form would have helped to quiet his mind. But his fear today was so strong, so overpowering, that even as a wolf, it was all he could process.
How had the Arctic Wolves managed to get their hands on Lily? She had only been alone for a few moments. It seemed surreal. Surely Donovan would have noticed if there had been hostile wolves nearby?
But he couldn’t deny the fact that he just hadn’t noticed it. He must not have been paying close enough attention to his surroundings. He had gotten too confident, too relaxed, and Lily had paid the price.
To his left, he could see Pax, keeping pace with him almost exactly. He could almost feel his friend’s paws striking the earth in rhythm with his own. Victor was on his right side, also running along in tandem. Donovan had never felt so unified with the other alphas.
If only it hadn’t taken a disaster of this magnitude.
But he was unspeakably glad that his relationship with Lily was structured the way it was. He was so thankful to have two other men in this with him, ready to help him protect her, to fight by his side.
He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to face this alone.
A familiar scent caught his attention. His ears perked up and he leaned into it, following his nose—
Yes. It was her.
He wanted to let out a howl of triumph, to alert Pax and Victor to the fact that he’d finally caught her trail, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t let the Arctic Wolves know that they were on their way.
Though there’s a chance they know already. If they kidnapped Lily from us, who’s to say they didn’t leave a spy behind?
He hadn’t caught wind of any unfamiliar scents. But then, he hadn’t known anyone was in the area when they’d come to take Lily either. He couldn’t trust the accuracy of his own senses.
But he knew for sure that it was her he was smelling now. He would have recognized that scent anywhere.
As he began to follow it, he observed that Victor and Pax were staying with him, taking up flanking positions on either side of him. Either they had smelled it too or they were simply trusting him to lead.
Either way, Lily wasn’t far now. The battle was soon to be fought.
Donovan lowered his head and ran harder.
Chapter Seventeen
LILY
“Incoming!”
Caleb’s yell was loud enough to carry through the woods and into the cave where Lily sat with her mother and several of her sisters. Though she knew she didn’t have a hope of pushing her way through them, she jumped to her feet at the sound anyway.
Carolyn caught her by the arm and held her back. “You know we can’t let you go out there, Lily,” she said, her voice gentle. “You could get hurt.”
“I don’t care!” Lily cried. “How can any of you stay in here? That’s your family out there.”
“They’re going to win,” Carolyn said. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear. But our fighters are so strong. There’s no way they could be defeated by a bunch of southerners.”
“Why?” Lily asked. “Because they couldn’t beat us twenty years ago? It’s not even the same group of people! Don’t tell me you can’t see that there’s a difference between the pack we fought back then and the pack we’re fighting now.”
“Not a significant difference,” Carolyn insisted. “They were raised the same way, weren’t they? They live by the same traditions. They believe the same things. It’s a mistake to fear them.”
Lily turned to her mother. “Mom,” she said. “You’re really fine with this? Those are your sons and daughters out there fighting.”
Her mother was white-faced and trembling, and Lily immediately regretted asking the question. Of course, she wasn’t okay. As a mother-to-be herself, she couldn’t imagine what it might feel like to know that her children were in harm’s way without her.
But her mother steeled herself and replied. “It’s their job,” she said. “I don’t like it. Of course, I don’t. But the alphas and betas have got to protect the pack. I would be doing them a disservice if I tried to stop them from fighting in our defense. I have to let them become the people they’re meant to be, Lily.”
“You never wanted to let me become the person I was meant to be,” Lily pointed out. “You tried to keep me in the cave. You wanted to keep me from meeting an alpha.”
“I did,” her mother said. “I wanted to control that situation, to make sure that we waited until we found the perfect person for you. And just look how that turned out. You took matters into your own hands. You ran away...” She shook her head and turned away from Lily.
Caleb’s mate, Whitney, spoke up. “I don’t know how you can complain about the fact that the others have to go to battle,” she said, her voice flinty, her eyes cold. “It’s all your fault that this is happening. You’re the one who threw your lot in with a bunch of southerners. And you’re the one who brought them up here into our territory. If it hadn’t been for you, none of this would be happening. If anyone dies today, it’s on you.”
Lily felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
“Whitney,” her mother said. “Stop that.”
But her voice lacked all of its usual power and authority, and Lily couldn’t help wondering whether her mother agreed with what Whitney was saying.
If someone was hurt, would it be her fault?
It seemed inevitable that it would be the outcome. Lily knew how strong her brothers were. She knew how strong her alphas were. They were all going to bring their full strength to bear on this fight. How could anyone hope to escape without injury? It didn’t seem possible.
She retreated into the shadows of the cave.
Her mother turned to Carolyn. “Let’s make something to eat,” she said quietly. “And Whitney, I need you to organize the medical supplies. Just—just in case we have to treat any wounds.”
Lily expected further jabs from Whitney, but she turned to the work at hand without a word. Carolyn glanced Lily’s way briefly, then went to the side of the cave where food rations were stored and began to sort through them.
“We don’t have any water,” she reported.
Lily’s mother cursed under her breath. “We’re really going to need some,” she said. “I’ll go to the river. Everyone, stay here.”
“Mom, you can’t go out there,” Carolyn protested. “It isn’t safe. Especially for omegas.”
“I’ll be all right,” her mother assured her. “I know these woods well. I can get to the river and back without being seen, and I know how t
o move quietly. I’m not going to have any more of my children putting themselves in harm’s way. All of you should stay here. Understand?”
A murmur of assent went around the cave.
“I’ll be back in just a few moments,” Lily’s mother said. She grabbed one of the water baskets and ducked out of the cave, staying low to the ground as she ran in the direction of the river.
Carolyn watched her go for a moment, looking anxious. “She should have let me go,” she murmured. “I can run faster.”
“She’d never let anybody else go out there in her place,” Whitney said. “She’d die to protect us.” She glanced at Lily. “And she might have to now.”
“It isn’t Lily’s fault this is happening,” Carolyn said.
“It wouldn’t be happening if she hadn’t betrayed us for the southerners,” Whitney said. “It is her fault.”
Lily shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s not.”
“You don’t think so?” Whitney sneered.
Lily got to her feet. “There is so much more behind all this than anything I did,” she said. “Think about it, Whitney. The rivalry between the northerners and the southerners goes back to before I was born. That isn’t my fault. Our pack and the southern packs have hated one another for decades. That isn’t my fault.”
“You’re the one who ran away to them!”
“I didn’t run to them,” Lily said. “I ran from this pack. This pack that wasn’t allowing me to grow into myself, to be who I needed to become. And that’s not my fault either. If I’d been allowed the freedom to find a mate while living at home, I would have done it.”
“You shouldn’t have run away,” Whitney said.
“Maybe not,” Lily allowed. “But I can’t regret that I did it, because —” She hesitated. She didn’t want to tell them that she was pregnant. Not with this battle going on. Not while she had no clear idea of how it would impact the fight. “Because I fell in love,” she finished.
“In love with southerners! You might as well be in love with criminals!”
“They haven’t committed any crimes,” Lily said. “You’re judging them by who their ancestors were. And I understand that that’s all you have to go on. But that’s why I was bringing them here to meet you all. I wanted you to see what I saw. And it’s not my fault that Caleb decided that meant he needed to go to war!”