Her Shifter Kingdom (House of Wolves and Magic Book 5)

by Helen Scott

  "I still vote running as the best option," Tate said grumpily.

  "I can't. I can't abandon all these people to live under Jax's rule. I can't let all these women suffer every time they lose a child during their first shift. I can't let our species die out. Do I wish we could run and hide? Hell, yeah. But I can't just leave people to suffer, not when I can do something about it." I hoped my little speech was enough to convince him because I honestly wasn't sure if we'd make it with one of our pack doubting. We all needed to be strong, to fight with everything we had, and if Tate or Blake or any of them didn't think we could do it or didn't give it their all then we were walking to our deaths. It might not be today or tomorrow, but we wouldn't survive Jax if we were weak or doubting. I took a breath and my stomach tied itself into knots as I said the hardest thing I ever had in my entire life, "It wasn't like you guys were briefed on what was going on or how much shit was going to hit the fan when we consummated the mate bond, so if you want to go, I'll understand."

  Suddenly Tate was in front of me and his eyes were so wide I could see the entire circle of his irises. "That wasn't what I meant, gods Nina, I'm so sorry. I could never leave you, please, don't ever think otherwise."

  "I didn't, but I don't like that the mate bond has shackled you to me. If you don't want to do this, and this is for any of you, then I understand. I would never, ever force you to stay if you didn't want to."

  "Just the thought of leaving makes my heart ache with longing for you and this little family," Tate said as he took my hands into his own and kissed my knuckles.

  "None of us are leaving Nina, are we?" Roman asked.

  "Not right this very second, but I don't know, what if she gets annoying when she doesn't have a world ending problem in front of her?" Micah said as he winked at me. I knew he was just trying to lighten the mood and I appreciated it.

  "None of us are leaving," Blake said as he caught up with me and slipped his hand in mine.

  "It took you long enough to convince me to accept it, so I'm not going anywhere," Denver added.

  "You know how I stand on things, Nina, but if you need to hear it then I'm with you, by your side until we both fall." Roman as always stole my breath with the way he phrased things.

  "I hope you all know that if I thought there was another choice I'd take it. Putting us in danger isn't my kink or anything."

  "I think we are all intimately familiar with you enough to know that," Tate said with a knowing chuckle that went straight to my core.

  "Just so you know we're about a half mile out from the shadow pack house," Denver said quietly.

  I was shocked. "We are? How come we haven't seen or heard anyone?"

  "Well, you've been a bit distracted, but it's also been oddly quiet. Usually a patrol would have spotted us by now considering how long we've been on shadow pack land." Denver's words sent a chill down my spine.

  Was this actually a trap? Were they luring us deeper into shadow pack territory than ever before so they could surround us and destroy us once and for all?

  I pushed the thoughts away. No, I couldn't be the one to start doubting after the discussion we'd just had. Serenity wouldn't put us on this path if she thought shadow pack would just kill us outright.

  "The pack house is just at the top of the next hill," Denver said, his voice so soft I almost missed it.

  I briefly let my mind drift down the mate bond toward him, just to get a sense of how he was doing, after all this was his family home, but it was a family that had kicked him out because of me. What I found only made me more worried. He was nervous and knew something was very wrong with our current situation but he was also worried about the family he'd grown up with and was desperate to find out what had happened. All of which was completely understandable.

  We were as quiet as church mice while we hiked up the hill, and though I thought we were prepared for anything, none of us were prepared for the sight that met us.

  The whole place was destroyed. We stumbled to a stop as we took it all in. I couldn't believe what we were seeing.

  It looked like a war zone.

  Everything was in ashes, the pack house was nothing but burnt timber and rubble. In some places the ground was scorched like a bomb had gone off or something. Some of it was still smoking and as we slowly stepped forward we could see embers glowing in some places. The trees that surrounded the clearing were scorched and I was surprised that they hadn't completely burned down, hell, I was surprised there wasn't a forest fire raging.

  "What the fuck happened?" Micah whispered.

  I shook my head. I knew as much as he did about this situation. Maybe the pack had destroyed everything and moved on because they'd kicked Denver out and didn't want him to know where they were any more? Maybe someone was careless with a fire? Maybe it was something worse, something I didn't want to think about?

  "This is from human weapons," Denver said as he was walking toward scorch marks on the ground.

  As we got closer I realized that they weren't just scorch marks, but the ground was pock marked with distinct striations in the area around each mark.

  "Grenades," Roman said as he looked at the pock marks. "If this ground had been softer then there would be indentations, but it's too rocky and hard here."

  My stomach turned at his words. "Humans did this?" I asked in shock.

  "This is from a flamethrower or something similar," Roman continued as though I hadn't spoken.

  I felt like there was something else going on that I was missing, so I wrenched my gaze from the obvious and hunted for the subtle. As I paced around the outside of one of the remains of a building, one that was more intact than others I saw them.

  Bullet holes.

  No, humans hadn't done this. What reason would they have to attack a pack of shifters that no one knew existed? This was something else. Someone else.

  As soon as the thought entered my head my nose confirmed it. The whole area reeked of Jax's pack.

  Their scent had been mixed with that of the fires and smoke that had been burning until recently. Heat was still coming off some of the smoldering buildings, which had interfered as well. Now I had the scent though I was inundated with it.

  Oil.

  Grease.

  Gasoline.

  Rotting.

  Everything about their scent made me want to run away. It wasn't like oil, grease, and gas were unusual to me, after all I'd worked in an oil change shop for the last few years, if anything those smells should make me feel comforted, but it was the underlying rot that twisted them all into something I couldn't stand.

  "Jax," I said quietly, afraid to voice what I'd realized in case his men were still around somewhere. "It was him, his pack, that did this."

  Roman nodded sadly and I realized that he'd known well before I did. I wondered if the others had realized as well. In some ways I was glad they let me come to the conclusion on my own because this way I had no doubt. I was beyond sure that this was his handy work.

  "Denver, I'm so sorry," I said as I went to my fifth mate. I reached for him, wanting to touch him, to take his hand, to hold him while his heart broke for the pack he'd been part of and how their house had been destroyed, but I couldn't bring myself to complete the action. We all knew that at the core of it this was my fault. Why would he want comfort from me?

  My hesitation didn't go unnoticed though, and he turned to face me, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me into a hug. He buried his face in my neck and squeezed me tight. Moisture collected on my skin from the silent tears he was shedding at the loss of this place and probably more than a few people as well.

  "I'm so sorry," I whispered over and over again as I held him with one arm and stroked the back of his head with my free hand. Tears spilled from my own eyes at his pain, at the pain his people probably endured, the fear they went through. It was all too much.

  Now more than ever I wanted to destroy Jax, not just take him out but destroy him. Reduce him to less than ash. To break his p
ack apart and rebuild it in a better pack's image. I wanted nothing remaining on this earth that would cause anyone to remember him. Outside of our own memories I wanted his existence to be completely erased.

  And I was a stubborn bitch who didn't stop until she got what she wanted.

  Movement on the tree line had us jumping apart. Yes, I wanted to destroy Jax, but I needed to be prepared if we were going to accomplish that. And right now I was most definitely not prepared.

  25

  Nina

  Denver was the first to speak. "Nathan? What happened?" he asked, his words rushing out as he tried to reach this man that he knew.

  The rest of my mates closed around me protectively, almost to the point that I missed seeing Denver embrace his old friend or family member.

  Nathan said something so quiet that only Denver could hear him and my fifth mate turned and waved us forward. When we reached him, Denver said, "They have a secondary compound that they have retreated to, but it's not safe to talk openly here."

  I nodded, that made sense.

  We followed this man that could only be the alpha of the shadow forest pack, step for step, deeper into the woods. He was tall and strong and seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, plus he just exuded alpha energy. I knew if it came down to it then I'd have a hard time meeting his gaze and holding it. Thomas was an alpha as well, but not nearly as powerful as this guy, though that made sense given the different concentrations of magic between Thomas' pack and Nathan's.

  The path was long and arduous as we ducked under trees and around rock formations that seemed like something from a bygone era. It was all taking us further into the shadow forest than I think any of us had been before. I'd never even dreamed of going this deep into the woods, but we were here now and we needed to know what happened.

  When we saw a ramshackle building that looked half abandoned I knew I wasn't the only one that was concerned as to where we were actually going. There was no way the thing was big enough to house us, let alone the remains of the shadow pack. After all, it didn't look like it had been wholesale slaughter at their pack house.

  There had barely been any blood, let alone bodies. Which was strange come to think of it. Surely their whole pack hadn't made it out? No one had that kind of luck did they?

  "This can't be where your pack is, the place is tiny," I said as quietly as possible.

  "It's bigger on the inside," Nathan said with a grin.

  "Okay..." I said warily.

  Something about his words sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. We inched toward the shack and when Nathan opened the door I didn't hear or see anyone inside. It was starting to feel more and more like a trap and my heart was kicking into high gear at the thought, while my wolf braced for a fight.

  Suddenly Denver was there, his hand wrapping around my own and squeezing. When I looked at him he was staring at me intently and I knew he was trying to tell me something. As I focused a wave of calm came down the mate bond and I knew that whatever this was he was sure it wasn't a trap.

  I had to trust my mate. He knew these people better than I did and he knew their land. If this wasn't feeling like a trap to him then I had to believe that or risk making an enemy of the very people we came to ask for help. Judging from the state of their pack house and the buildings around it, I doubted they were in any shape to help us. I didn't know that for sure though and the only way to find out was to ask.

  As we entered the building Nathan closed the door behind us and made sure that no one was following us by watching out of a peep hole I hadn't even noticed as we approached. The door was wood so it would be easy to hide something like that in a knot or whorl in the wood itself.

  Once Nathan was confident that we were safe and this location hadn't been exposed he turned from the front door and went to what looked like a large closet. Inside were some winter coats and boots. When he grasped one of the sets of boots that covered the bottom I was starting to get impatient. I wasn't usually a fan of all this cloak and dagger stuff, I understood the need, but I just wanted to get down to business already. All this was making me antsy.

  As he pulled on the boots the entire floor of the closet came with them, revealing a tunnel going down. "Follow me and please pull the door shut behind you," Nathan said as he slipped down into the hole, clearly moving down a ladder of some kind.

  We all started climbing in one after the other, Denver first, then Micah, then me, then Blake, Tate, and finally Roman. Of course my overprotective mate was the last to follow.

  At the bottom of the ladder was a brick pathway that led down a long tunnel which was lit by lamp light. We followed and within a couple of minutes we were at a crossroads. Apparently there was a whole underground tunnel system that was in place.

  When we emerged from the tunnels we were in what amounted to an underground fortress. There were people everywhere and they all seemed to stop and stare at us as one. The room, or cave, or whatever they wanted to call it fell silent. All I could hear were the heartbeats of the people around me and a second later a baby crying in the distance.

  Nathan nodded, but didn't pause, as he went into one of the small structures that sat off to the side in the cave. It was a small area that gave the illusion of privacy without there actually being any since it was just some plywood knocked together. I knew anything that was said in here would basically be the same as saying it out there, but at least this way we didn't have to endure the stares.

  The alpha sat down on the ground, snagging a pillow from the wall as he did so and we all followed suit. The pillows were nothing more than burlap sacks with some kind of stuffing inside, but it was better than sitting on the rock floor. If they had these down here then they had to have more supplies, enough to keep them comfortable, certainly.

  "Okay, we can talk here. I know you want to know what happened," Nathan said as he looked directly at Denver. "Jax and his wolves came and tried to destroy us. Of course, we retreated so to them it looked like we vanished, but I know if they see any of us alive they'll try and hunt us down."

  "They attacked without provocation?" Denver demanded.

  "They claimed that we provoked them by denying them access to your mate when she was on our territory."

  "But we never did that!"

  "They found out that we warned Nina and the oracle about their impending arrival and that was the same as hiding her from them. We were given a choice, bow to Jax, and ally ourselves with him or be exterminated as a threat to shifters everywhere. We have never worked with a pack other than our own and we don't plan on doing so now. We won't bow to him or anyone," Nathan said, cutting a glance to me at the end.

  I wanted to tell him that I wasn't trying to rule anything, but I wasn't sure he'd listen. He, and I was sure the others as well, had already made up their minds about me and what I was trying to do. "Did everyone make it out okay? I mean before they destroyed everything?" I asked, trying to get Nathan to open up to all of us, not just Denver. Up until this point it felt a little like he hadn't even seen me since that first acknowledgement.

  Now he was watching me though, and I could see in his gaze that he was not my number one fan. "Yes, we are all practiced in getting to the escape routes we have prepared. While I and a few of my men spoke with Jax and his wolves, the others got out. It was only when I declined their so-called offer that they started the attack. They had brought human guns with them and I was shot twice, most of my men took a bullet as well, but fortunately they didn't plan far enough ahead to use silver bullets, and with our healing abilities we only had to shift a few times and we were fine."

  "I've been shot with a silver bullet before, and I don't recommend it. I'm glad you didn't have to go through that and that you were able to heal so quickly," I replied, trying to be as polite and caring as possible without overwhelming the guy. After all these were some of the most private wolves out there, I wasn't going to offend him by trying to be overly friendly.

  "We saved you
from them, against my orders I might add, and now we've paid the price," Nathan said, though the words were almost more for himself than for me. I could feel my mates bristle next to me. They weren't exactly tolerant of people being rude to me or anything like that, but I needed them to be now, needed to give Nathan and his pack the room to grieve and vent as much as they wanted about what they'd endured because of me. I sent a calming wave down the mate bonds and hoped it got to them before one of them said something we couldn't take back.

  When I felt them all stand down from jumping to my defense I said, "I'm eternally grateful for your warning and I'm sure the oracle is as well. She wants me to take Jax on, that was why we were meeting in the first place. Once this is over, provided I'm not dead, I'm more than happy to help you rebuild in any way I can even if it's just physical labor."

  "We don't need help. We just need peace, but every few hours one of Jax's men appears and tries to destroy our home a little more. They know we survived, and they expect us to return. No one knows about this place and if anyone finds out then we'll know who talked and we will remove the leak of information in whatever way we need."

  The threat was obvious, if we talked we died, and I understood that. If it came down to my mates and I running for our lives then anyone who gave us away would fall under our fangs and claws. "I understand," I replied, trying to communicate how much I really did get the sentiment with the seriousness I infused in my tone and my gaze. "That's precisely why we have to fight Jax. I want to stand up to him, to fight him if I have to, anything so he isn't a threat to shifters everywhere. He's dangerous, we all know that, and from what the oracle told me the only way to stop him is to put him down, which is what I intend to do, but I can't do it on my own."