“We will,” I said as Anubis squirted shampoo on his hands and looked at me inquisitively. I nodded and he came up behind me, lathering my hair from roots to tips with sweet smelling soap. “Just not now.”
My right hand slide down Nic's chest as Tidus picked up a loofah and offered it up to his Ebon Red pack mate.
“Thanks, man,” Nic said, taking the soapy sponge and lifting it up to what was left of his wound, the skin shiny and pink, but closed up … healed. A mortal wound, erased like it'd never been. Nic stared at it for a moment before reaching a hand down and prodding at the wound. He didn't flinch or cry out … my guess was that his missing rib bone was healed, too.
“Why later?” Che choked out, standing in the water with raven dark strands of hair dripping across his violet eyes. “He died Zara Wolf, and he came back to life. I … I fucking … how is that possible?”
“Anything is possible,” I said, remembering the quiet, peaceful stare of the giant stag. “Some things are just … improbable.”
“But necromancy?” Jax asked, and I flicked my gaze to his, even as I was taking the loofah from Nic and scrubbing my guard's chest and belly for him.
There were a lot of penises in that shower and not a one of them was erect. The mood was somber and sad, and I understood that Nic had just gone through something … something transcendent. But this wasn't a cause for mourning or fear, this was triumphant. We had gone in, rescued those wolves, saved a pup's life … and we were all still here to talk about it.
By the hair on our chiny-chin-chin, I thought, but I didn't say that aloud. I'd had a huge dose of reality shoved down my throat tonight, and I would not soon forget it.
“It wasn't necromancy,” I said, looking over at Silas and catching his golden gaze. “It was … of the earth, as wild and natural as any of us.” I bit my lower lip as I thought of the demons I'd just unleashed on the world … The price I'd paid for Virtue's life had been high. I had no idea what those two were going to do with a whole week to wander our world. But my choices had been limited and given the same set of options again, I'd have done it all over again.
“The Earth Mother is speaking to us again,” Anubis said, and this time, nobody dared make fun of him. How could they? Even if they hadn't seen exactly what Nic and I had gone through, they'd felt it through our bond, that was for sure. “Mother Nature,” Anubis repeated softly.
“That's right,” I said as I put the loofah aside and rinsed Nic off with a removable showerhead at the same time Anubis rinsed my hair for me. “That's why this isn't a somber occasion. We accomplished something today, something … miraculous.” I huffed out a long breath and my eyes caught on the strange green-black rose tattoo on my wrist. When I lifted it up to examine it, Nic lifted his own wrist and I saw that he had a matching symbol etched into his skin that I hadn't noticed before.
“This isn't a sober occasion,” I repeated, even as I stared at Nic and tried to puzzle out what the hell had just happened. “So let's clean off and climb into bed. In the morning, we'll figure out what to do next.”
Now that Nikolina was involved, things would be a little different. But I knew she'd trust my words about the traitor. I was her Alpha-Heir and she'd trained me well. She might not treat me the way other mothers treated their daughters, but she knew she could trust me. Right now, Nikolina and her betas as well as Lana and Leslie, would be hiding the rescued wolves in a safe location, a spot that none of us even knew about.
And somewhere out there, there was a witch who was no longer the Maiden, returning bloody and tired to her coven, stripped of her title but twice as powerful as she'd been before. There was a faerie girl sharing a hotel room with a vampire princess … and there was a girl named Zara Wolf, standing in a hot shower with her seven mates.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Silas said softly, and we finished our shower in quiet companionship, the mood lifting … just a little.
Afterwards, Anubis and Tidus grabbed snacks and beers from the kitchen and met the rest of us upstairs. I put on a movie, and we all snuggled up close together, one big puppy pile of pack that didn't care that we were naked, that sex was now a part of our relationship, that there were tensions between the boys.
For that one night, we slept together in peace and harmony, cleaned of blood, our dreams taking us to a world where our wolves ran wild and free through the forest, where our souls were emptied of pain.
Tomorrow, we'd pick up our swords, our knives, shift our claws, and we'd see what Majka could teach me, what Julian would say, if there was war in our future.
But for now, we slept, and we held each other, and we dreamed like werewolves.
Not human, not wolf, neither and both.
Werewolf.
To Be Continued …
Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading Pack Violet Shadow! When I wrote book one of this series, I fell completely in love with it. But honestly, after finishing book two, I am head over heels! I cannot wait for you to see what's in store for Zara and her seven mates. I'm also intrigued by some of the side characters (Harlem, Whitney, and Aeron in particular) so if you might be interested in reading a stand-alone spin-off series about Harlem or an all-girl reverse harem with Whitney and Aeron, please let me know by emailing me, dropping me a message on Facebook, or tagging me on Instagram.
In the next book, Pack Obsidian Gold, which releases December, 2017, we'll see Zara claim her last two males, ferret out a traitor, and start a vampire-witch war.
We'll also see more steamy scenes, big and ancient magics, and learn more about the mysterious white stag.
Thank you again for reading, and I'll see you next time!
P.S. If you enjoyed this book, will you please consider leaving a review? It's reviews from people like you that make books like this happen. Also, if you enjoyed Pack Violet Shadow, you might want to check out some of my other young adult fantasy or reverse harem reads. Just keep turning the pages for more info.
Kisses.
C.M.
The Sequel to "Pack Violet Shadow".
We're all mad for you here.
Epic Kitsune Urban Fantasy.
Four dangerous motorcycle club men, all hers.
An academy dedicated to magic; a girl with six ghostly lovers.
Flip the page for an excerpt of chapter one.
Chapter One
Brynn
The instrument of my own destruction loomed above me, casting a long shadow in the bloodred rays of a dying sun. Its crumbling facade was decorated with a morbid metaphor of a face—soulless eyes, a gaping mouth, tangled green locks. Okay, so I was exaggerating the broken windows, the front entrance with its missing doors, and the cluster of wild blackberries that had morphed into a monster of their own making, but come on: the former Grandberg Manor was bust.
“This is the place?” I asked, hoisting my equipment up on one shoulder and eyeing the crumbling old house with a raised brow. “It looks half-ready to collapse. You know me—if there's an even the slightest opportunity that I might trip, I will. Just be honest: am I going to fall straight through the floor?”
“Probably,” Jasinda said, moving around me and over the twisted, rusted remains of the front gate. Once upon a time, this place was crawling with nobility from around the world, and its gardens … even the drawings were enough to make my mother's green thumb well, green with envy. “Air and I have a bet going on whether or not you'll make it out of here alive.”
She thew a smirk over her shoulder at me and I pursed my lips.
Jasinda and Air were always making bets about me despite the fact that Air was the flubbing prince and shouldn't be making bets with anyone, let alone my handler. I had to admit though: if there was anyone around that was worth betting on, it was me.
First off, I was a half-angel which meant I could see spirits. And second, I was a half-human which meant those spirits actually deigned to communicate with me. A full-blooded angel was too haughty and highbrow to give any g
host the time of day, and a full-blooded human couldn't see one if they tried.
This special ability of mine did end up getting me into heaps of trouble. For example, there was that one time I followed a ghost straight into the queen's chambers and found her, um, indisposed with the head of the royal guard who, you know, also just happened to be my mother.
Then of course, there was the fact that I had the small, slight frame of my mother's desert dwelling ancestors but the wide, heavy span of wings from my father's side. Let's just be frank and say I toppled over a lot. Oh, and I ended up having long, in-depth conversations with people who weren't really people but were, in fact, very tricky ghosts. Even my first kiss had been with a spirit.
I took a deep breath of the cool, lavender scented air and followed after Jas, tripping and cursing in my own made up language.
“Go flub yourself,” I growled at a thick tangle of blackberry that had gotten wrapped around my ankle. “You bleeding blatherer.”
“Are you making words up again?” Jas said, parking her hands on her hips and sighing at me. “Can't you just say you bleeding bastard like everyone else? And don't even get me started on you using the work flub instead of fuc—”
“Hey!” I snapped, putting my palm over her lips with one hand and pointing at myself with the other. “Half-angel over here. Just hearing somebody use a word with an extreme negative connotation makes me lose a feather.”
“Oh, please,” Jas said, pushing my hand away from her full red lips and smirking at me as I tried to rub her makeup off on my breeches. “That's a myth and you know it. Air told me that when you were kids, he used to chase you around the castle saying damn and bastard and the like, just to see if you'd lose any feathers—you didn't.”
I narrowed my eyes on her as she turned and headed up what was once an impressive flight of marble steps, now cracked and chipped like an old beggar's teeth. I shivered and followed after her, examining the red stain on my palm that stunk like copperberries. A lot of women painted their mouths with the stuff, but to me that fragrant floral scent was tinged with a metallic sting, like copper. Like blood. Thus, the name—copperberries.
As I hurried up the steps, I kept my eyes on the decaying black facade of the manor, all its intricate moldings and details stripped away by time and rain, the harsh winds that curled across this part of the kingdom in summer.
“Let's do a quick walkthrough and see if you can't sense any residual energies,” Jas suggested as I set my black leather satchel on the floor and knelt beside it. The ground around me was littered with debris—leaves, twigs, bits of crumbling plaster, a dead mouse.
“Oh, that's flubbing sick,” I whispered as I caught sight of the creature's spirit hovering nearby, its furred sides almost completely translucent as it took long, heaving breaths. Of course, the mouse didn't need to breathe anymore, but it didn't know that.
I pulled a dagger from the sheath on my belt—please Goddess, don't actually ask me to use this thing in combat—and prodded at the mouse's body with the jeweled hilt.
Fresh blood stained the white leather pommel and made me shiver.
“Jas,” I started, because a long dead carcass was one thing, but a fresh one? Hell's bells—since Hell was an actual place it didn't count as a curse word so no lost feathers for me—but I hoped it was just a cat that had taken the rodent's life and not … something else.
“Brynn, you need to see this!” Jas shouted and I sighed, wiping the mouse's blood on the already dirty leg of my breeches and tucking it away. Before I stood up, I clasped the silver star hanging around my neck with one hand and reached out to touch the mouse's spirt with the other. The poor thing was too scared to even shy away, its soul becoming briefly corporeal as my fingers made contact with its fur.
“Goddess-speed and happy endings,” I whispered as the image of the mouse morphed and shivered, turning as silver as a beam of moonlight and fading away until there was nothing there but the warped and rotted boards of the old floor.
I stood up, leaving my satchel where it was on the ground and rubbing my shoulder as I followed the sound of Jasinda's voice. The road up to the manor was riddled with broken cobblestones, weeds, and the skeletons of long abandoned carriages. It was too rough for any sort of pack animal to make the trek, so we'd had to carry ourselves on foot, lugging all the equipment that a spirit whisperer—that's me—might need to exorcise a ghost or two or ten.
“Jassy?” I asked as I moved past the formal foyer with its double staircases, and down a long receiving hall that would've been used by servants in times past. The wallpaper was peeling like old skin, leaving behind water stained walls and flaky plaster. At some point, thieves had come in and stripped the old place of its wood moldings, sconces and chandeliers; they'd left nothing but a skeleton behind.
“In here!” she called out, drawing me through an empty archway where a swinging door might've once stood and into the kitchen. As I moved, I was conscious of keeping my wings tucked tightly against my back. My clumsiness was not limited to my feet. I was notorious among the castle staff for breaking things with the feathered black wings that graced my back. As a kid, they used to call me Pigeon Girl because I caused ten times as much damage to the royal halls as the flying rats that plagued the old stone building.
“What is it?” I asked as I leaned against the wall outside a small servant's room—a tiny square that would've belonged to the head cook. “Jas, there was a mouse—”
“Flub mice,” she said, only she didn't actually say flub but I wouldn't lose a feather even thinking about the F-word that famously rhymes with duck. As a half-angel, my powers were bound to the light goddess and she was a serious stickler for avoiding words with negative connotations. I supposed I couldn't blame her; the very words I spoke held power. The more positivity and light I imbued those words with, the more powerful I was. “Look at this, Brynn. There's a distinct spiritual signature written all over this room.”
The room itself was so small that with the collapsed remains of a small bed and a sagging dresser, there wasn't space for us both. I waited for Jas to step out, pushing her long dark hair over her shoulder, sapphire blue eyes sparkling with a scholar's excitement.
“Brynn, this could be it,” she said as I took a deep breath and stepped into the room. “Our big break.”
Jas was always looking for that one case, that one unique spirit that we could exorcise that would prove our worth to the scholars at the Royal College. In just two weeks, I'd be turning twenty-one and that'd be it; that was the cut off date for acceptance into the prestigious training facility. It wasn't that Jas cared about the status of being a student there, or the potential for a high-ranking position after graduation, it was the library. Only students of the Royal College were permitted to use the vast, twisting hallways of the catacombs. There were books there that couldn't be found anywhere else—not to mention ancient artifacts, exemplary professors, and vast resources that could be used for research.
It was Jasinda's dream, even if it wasn't mine. I hoped she was right; I hoped this was it.
I stepped over a small hole in the floor and into the tiny windowless room.
As soon as I did, it hit me, the pressure of an angry spirit, bearing down on me with the cold burn of something long dead and waiting. Waves of icy winter chill tore across my skin like knives, despite the warm evening air that permeated the rest of the building. Whatever this was, it was powerful.
I grasped the silver star at my throat and closed my eyes.
“Haversey,” I whispered, invoking the name of the light goddess.
If I were Jas, I knew what I'd be seeing: a girl shrouded in silver moonlight, her tanned skin pearlescent and shimmering, her hair as white as snow lifted in an unnatural breeze.
I opened my eyes slowly and bit back a gasp.
Every inch of the walls was covered in the word Hellim, the name of the dark god. What I had originally thought were decorative splotches on the wallpaper were actually his name, wr
itten in blood a thousand times over. It had been impossible to see in the dim half-light, but now that I had my second sight open, the letters glowed with a strong, angry spiritual signature.
I started to take a step back when my foot went through the hole in the floor, and the rotting boards around me creaked and toppled into a black pit below.
“Brynn!”
Jas screamed my name as I fell through cold shadow and frost, hitting the soggy wet earth with a grunt and a crack of pain in my shoulder that almost immediately went numb. That was bad, really bad. Pain was one thing, but numbness meant that what'd just happened to me could be really serious.
I tried to stand up, but my arm gave out and I found myself lying in a mound of decaying wet leaves and dirt, the scent of rot thick and cloying in the air.
As I blinked to try and orient myself to the darkness, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder and a gust of icy breath at my ear.
When I turned, I found myself looking into the face of a handsome—and very angry—spirit.
His lips curved up in a smile meant to disarm me.
“Boo,” he whispered as he reached out and pushed my dislocated shoulder back into place.
White-hot pain crashed over my vision and I passed out.
KEEP UP WITH ALL THE FUN … AND EARN SOME FREE BOOKS!
JOIN THE C.M. STUNICH NEWSLETTER – Get three free books just for signing up http://eepurl.com/DEsEf
TWEET ME ON TWITTER, BABE – Come sing the social media song with me https://twitter.com/CMStunich
LOVE YA SOME SNAPCHAT? – Let's send some exclusive and killer Snaps such as video from book signings and sneak peeks at new books, search cmstunich or visit https://www.snapchat.com/add/cmstunich
Pack Violet Shadow (The Seven Mates of Zara Wolf Book 2) Page 29