“We’ve been working on rebuilding while you were gone,” Ewan told me. “But we were still living back at the hunting village. Even though we had a deal with the bloods, we didn’t want to press our luck.”
“Once we found out about the new spell, we moved back in,” said Sinead. “Everyone is so pleased that you’ve come back to us, and that we’re all going to be safe.”
My stomach turned over. I needed to tell them that they weren’t safe, not unless I could do something about this alpha bond. I didn’t even want to entertain the idea of mating to a human, but…
Vivia had tied this spell to my bond, and I needed to have a mate.
My options weren’t great.
“I know Judah wants to see you,” said Ewan. “So, we’ll take you straight home.”
“Home,” I said. Could I make a home with Judah? Could I somehow find a way to bond with him? In some ways, it seemed better than a new mate, another stranger. But in other ways, I knew it was impossible. “No,” I said decisively. “I can’t stay with Judah anymore.”
* * *
“What do you mean, you want to move out?” Judah was saying. “You just got here.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I can see Tempest’s toothbrush lying out on the sink in the bathroom.”
Judah flinched. He went past me and shut the door to the bathroom. “She only stays over sometimes, and now that you’re back—”
“Now, that I’m back, I’m moving out, and you guys are going to be together.” I took a deep breath. “I need to explain something to you about this spell that Vivia did for us.”
“What?” he said.
“It’s tied to my bond,” I said. “My bond with the pack. My bond with my mate. So, Vivia said that I could take another mate, one that wasn’t a werewolf, and it wouldn’t break our bond. We’d still both be alphas, but if I was tightly bonded to my mate, the spell would still stay strong.”
“Wait a second, you’re trusting Vivia on this?”
“Well, she didn’t lie about anything else.”
“That you know of. The spell seems to work now, but she’s not a werewolf. She doesn’t know if an alpha can mate with someone who’s not a werewolf.”
“So, who would know?” I said. “Is there someone you could ask?”
“You want to try to mate with that bloodhound, don’t you?”
“Well…” I looked down at my hands. “I don’t know.”
“You can’t,” he said. “It’s too dangerous, and if the spell is tied to you, then you can’t die.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay, I get it. I’m not saying… I don’t know what I’m saying. Landon doesn’t seem interested anyway.”
Judah raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“He…” My nostrils flared. “He’s kind of a dick sometimes.”
“Okay,” said Judah.
“Look, I guess I’ll be looking for a human mate,” I said. “But whatever the case, I’m not staying here with you.”
“We don’t even know if this other mating thing can work,” said Judah. “Until I talk to someone about it and confirm that it’s even possible, stay here. We’ll have separate bedrooms. It’ll be nice to have you close.” He cocked his head. “I missed you.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
He held out his arms to me.
I walked into them.
We hugged.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I slept late the next morning, and when I got up, there was a note from Judah that he’d made breakfast and it was keeping warm in the oven. The food was still good, even though the eggs were a little crusty. I ate it all with gusto, though. We hadn’t been well fed by the vampires. I was starving.
As I was finishing up, the door opened and someone came inside.
“Um, hello?” I called.
“Oh,” said a voice.
I recognized it. Tempest. I made a face. Not exactly who I wanted to see first thing in the morning.
“I’m sorry,” she called. “I forgot you were here. Judah told me you were staying here, of course, but it just slipped my mind.”
“Sure it did,” I said. I went into the hallway to intercept her.
“I was just bringing by some of his laundry,” she said, her arms full of clothes. “Sometimes when he sleeps over, he leaves clothes at my place. I know how much he likes this sweatshirt.”
I held out my hands for it. “Well, thanks so much. I’m sure he appreciates your domesticity.”
She clutched the bundle of clothes to her chest. “You know, the last time I talked to you, you said that you’d get the spell tied to my bond to Judah. And now, I hear you’ve somehow got it tied to your bond.”
“I tried,” I said. “She said she couldn’t do it.”
“But she can do it to your bond.”
“It’s because you and Judah can’t mate,” I said. “It’s impossible because you’re not an alpha. Maybe if you were human, she could have tied it to your bond. I don’t know.”
“I’m just saying it’s convenient.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “And what’s to stop you from finding some other male alpha and from mating this pack away from Judah?”
“I would never do that.”
“You can’t tell me you’re pleased with him being with me.”
“I couldn’t care less what he does with you,” I said. I touched my chest. “You had it right when I got here. I don’t love him. I mean, not like you do. Not romantically.”
“If you mate the pack away from him, I will kill you,” she said, lifting her chin. “I will tear you limb from limb. I will rip off your head.”
“Got it,” I said. “So glad we had this little talk. You going to surrender the sweatshirt, or do you want to put it on his bed for him yourself?”
She thrust the clothes at me with a huff.
* * *
I found out that evening that there was a big party planned to welcome me back to town. Sinead showed up with a dress that she said I should borrow. But I actually had a dress that I wanted to wear. It was one of the dresses that I had bought in order to wear to the barn dance when I had been trying to trick the town into thinking that there was something going on with Judah and me.
It was red, and it had bell sleeves and a scoop neck. I showed it to Sinead and she gave me a thumbs up, saying it was perfect.
I told her she should bring her dress over and we should get ready together.
“Ooh, fun!” she said. “I’ve never gotten ready for a party with a girlfriend before.”
“Me either,” I said. “It’s like a rite of passage for women, though, right? We need to do it, or we’re missing out.”
She giggled and promised to be back in a few hours.
Later, we were crammed into the guest bedroom at Judah’s house, both trying to use the mirror. I was curling my hair and she was straightening hers.
“It would be cool if we could just trade,” she said. “Like, instead of borrowing each other’s clothes, we should be able to borrow each other’s hair.”
“Totally,” I said. “That would be awesome. Or noses.”
She laughed, touching her nose. “You want my nose?”
“Not all the time,” I said. “I like my nose, but yours is cute. It would be nice to have a different nose once in a while.”
“Like a collection of noses, and you pick one, like you’d pick jewelry?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Or boobs,” she said.
I dissolved in giggles. “What?”
“Think about it,” she said. “Sometimes, you want sexy boobs, but other days you want job-interview boobs. And then, when you go jogging, you want no boobs at all.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. Tears were coming to my eyes, threatening to smudge my mascara.
She was laughing too. “Was that dumb? Have you never thought that?”
“Oh, I’ve definitely wanted different boobs,” I said.
“Well,” she said, making a face at her
self in the mirror. “We’re stuck with the way we look.”
“And you are gorgeous,” I told her.
She grinned at me. “You are gorgeous too.” She set down the curling iron she was using to straighten her hair. “I’m so glad we’re in the same pack.”
“Me too,” I said. “And I’m so glad you and Ewan are happy.”
“Oh, we are.” She shut her eyes and shivered a little. “He’s so great.”
“Well,” I said. “He must be great.”
She turned to me. “You know that conversation we had?”
“Um? Which one?”
“About whether or not sex would be better if it was with a wolf?”
“Oh, right,” I said. Except it hadn’t been, not for me. Sex with Judah had been pretty awful.
“Well, it’s amazing,” she said, blushing a little. “That word I used? Spiritual? It’s definitely that.”
My lips parted and I was suddenly hit by a wave of jealousy that nearly knocked me over. I didn’t want to be jealous. I wanted to be happy for my best friend. But all I felt was pain.
She cringed. “Oh, hell, why am I telling you this?”
“Because I’m your best friend, and we tell each other this stuff,” I said. “And I’m thrilled for you. I am so, so thrilled. I couldn’t be happier.”
“But you… you and Judah…” She picked up the curling iron again and sorted out a strand of her hair to begin straightening.
“Look, there isn’t going to be a me and Judah. I don’t want Judah.”
“You want Landon.”
“Well, that’s not happening either.”
“Because if he tried anything with you, he’d tear you into teensy, tiny pieces.”
“Because he… broke up with me.” I yanked the curling iron out of my hair, creating a perfect spiral curl. “I mean, he couldn’t break up with me. We weren’t together. But he said all these awful things to me, and then he drove off and didn’t even say goodbye. I think he did it because he was trying to do what’s best for me, and he doesn’t think there’s any future for us, but…”
“Is there a future?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Listen, I can mate with someone who isn’t Judah. It just can’t be a werewolf. If I have a bond to another man, that bond will keep the spell strong.”
“But that’s perfect! You and Landon.”
“Right,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know how we’d mate, exactly, but I saw him rage out when he was in silver chains, and he didn’t manage to get free, so I think if I chained him up, maybe I could make it work.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it’s too risky.”
“Well… I mean, he does have a point.”
“I know.” I sighed. “And I don’t know what kind of life we’d have. I mean, we’d never be able to do it again, so sex would be completely off the table. And that would mean no kids—or who knows if he can even have kids. And he does make me angry sometimes. Like so angry, I just want to strangle him. And… anyway, it doesn’t matter. He left. He’s gone. I’ve got to figure something else out.”
“Maybe you could… I don’t know, give him some kind of sedative,” said Sinead.
“Have sex with him while he was passed out? That’s so date rape.”
“Well, it’s not like he wouldn’t be willing.”
“The bond triggered when Judah climaxed,” I said. “So, he’d have to be alert enough to, you know, do that.”
“Right,” said Sinead, chewing on her lip. “Look, I’m sure there’s a way around it. If we get creative, we can figure something out.”
“Well, I’m never going to see him again,” I said. “Let’s stop talking about it. It’s just making me depressed.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She gave me a sympathetic look.
“None of that,” I scolded her. “No pity. I can’t take pity.”
“Got it,” she said, turning back to the mirror. “Your curls look great.”
“I am going to make tousled perfection,” I announced.
* * *
And I did.
When I arrived at the dance, I loved how I looked. In my red dress, with my hair gathered up on top of my head, careless tendrils and curls tumbling down to frame my face, I looked like an alpha. I was beautiful and commanding. And I was home.
The welcome from the pack traveled through my bond, enveloping me like an embrace. I had never felt so happy and so loved.
Everything was perfect.
The party was held in the main lodge, and there was a group of musicians set up in the corner, mandolins and guitars and flutes. They played songs that seemed to flit through the air like scampering deer, making it easy to dance and sway. It was happy music, and I loved it.
The decorations weren’t fancy. Bunches of pine branches tied with blue ribbons hanging on the walls were basically all that they were, but they were rustic and pretty and festive. The food was a mishmash of various dishes, since the party had been a potluck for the pack, and everyone had brought a little something. There was more of the fantastic hard cider brewed right there in the village.
I ate and I danced and I drank and I was happy.
At one point, Judah came and asked me if I wanted to dance, but I told him to dance with Tempest.
He said he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
I said that the sooner he got used to the idea that he and I were not going to be bonded, the better, and he left me alone. He didn’t dance with Tempest, though. I thought about going and telling her to drag him onto the dance floor, but I decided I didn’t care that much. If Judah wanted to act as though there was some hope for our doomed relationship, let him. And nothing on earth was worth voluntarily talking to Tempest.
Exhausted and happy, I settled down in a chair with a plate of food.
Neil Brightcoat, one of the council members, usually a grumpy sort, came and sat down next to me. “You and Judah aren’t dancing together. You’re not even talking to each other.”
“Hi, Neil,” I said. “Good to see you. I’ve been doing well, thanks for asking.”
“If I’m not mistaken, that new spell you got relies on your bond with Judah being strong, just like any other spell would,” said Neil. “I’ve had it tested, and it’s no different than the one we had before, except it seems to be anchored to you, not Judah.”
“All business, I guess, Neil.” I raised my cider glass to him. “Cheers.”
He rolled his eyes. “If you intended to mate to another alpha, why rescue Judah from the vampires?”
“I don’t intend to do that,” I said.
“Well, you obviously couldn’t get the spell anchored to Judah and Tempest.”
“No, I couldn’t,” I said. “But Vivia says that I can mate to someone who’s not a werewolf. My bond to Judah will remain, but I’ll create a new bond, and that will be the one that has to be strong and feed the spell.”
“What?” said Neil. “That’s insane. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“I know it’s unconventional,” I said. “But Judah and I are never going to bond, so we have to find some other option.”
“That will never work,” said Neil. “If you mate to someone else, you will be disconnected from Judah, and he will lose the pack.”
“Not if it’s not a werewolf,” I said.
“You can’t mate with someone who’s not a werewolf,” said Neil. “This idea of yours? It’s not possible.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Mmph,” said Henry Sharptooth, one of the council members, sipping his coffee. “Neil, this is why you called an emergency council meeting at ten in the morning the day after a party? Really?”
“The pack is in danger!” said Neil.
We were back in the main lodge the next morning, and everyone was nursing a hangover. I didn’t have a hangover, because I’d shifted into a wolf to go running in the woods, but the pack members couldn’t shift unless it was a full moon or I helped them.
I couldn’t believe that it had only been a few months since I’d become a werewolf. It seemed like a lifetime. This was only my third full moon as a wolf.
Judah was sitting at one end of the lodge, and I was sitting at the other end.
The other council members, all looking a bit worse for wear, were scattered through the room.
Neil was on his feet. “This will never work. There’s no possible way that she can be mated to two men.”
“Well,” said Judah, holding up a finger. “I actually got in touch with Simon Blackfoot from the Chesterwood pack.”
Neil’s eyebrows shot up. “B-but… he has a female alpha.”
“And she has a human mate,” said Judah.
“Yes, but she’s not… her bond isn’t powering their protection spell.”
“No,” said Judah. “But it seems that Simon’s bond with his partner is. His partner is also human.”
I wasn’t following this entirely, but the word partner clued me in a little. I was guessing that Simon Blackfoot might be gay.
Neil blinked. “Really?”
“Really,” said Judah. “You remember when Blackfoot took over that pack, and there was some discussion about whether or not he was going to be able to hold it because of his sexual preference. People thought there was no way he’d maintain a proper bond with a female alpha. And yet, they are strong and the pack thrives.”
Mary Jones, the head of the council, spread her hands, smiling. “So, it is possible, then? We can keep both you and Camber as our alphas, but you can have your own partners? You don’t have to give up Tempest?”
“I think it might be possible,” said Judah.
“Your obsession with that woman blinds you,” said Neil. “You’ve given up too much for her. And, to be honest, Judah, she doesn’t exactly have the sweetest disposition.” Well, Neil wasn’t wrong about that. I stifled a smirk.
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