by Callie Rose
“I want you to know… I was wrong about you.”
I blink at the buttons on the front of the coffee maker, momentarily forgetting what I was doing. I glance at him and repeat, “What?”
It’s not that I didn’t hear him, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
“Malcolm was a good man,” Trystan says, looking slightly uncomfortable in his own skin. Open displays of emotion still aren’t really his thing. “At first, I thought it was fucked how you, like, tag-teamed the whole alpha thing. But I didn’t know, you know? I didn’t know better. But I see why you did it now.”
I jab at the button to set the coffee brewing, then turn to face him fully. “You do?”
“Yeah. The pack needed Malcolm. Hell, they were lucky to have him. Fucking great leader. Really.” He pauses and brushes a hand back over his hair, then blows out a breath before he catches my gaze. “They’re lucky to have you too, man. And you’re going to be a great alpha even without him here to lead with you. You were great together. But you’ll be great alone too.”
I catch sight of Sable over his shoulder, her blue eyes trained on us. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, though she looks like she’s on the edge of her seat, ready to jump up and join us at any minute. I wonder if she jumped to conclusions like me and thought Trystan was going to say something stupid.
Instead, he just said exactly what I needed to hear in this moment.
He nods once as if to punctuate his statement, then offers me a hand to shake. “Anyway. Just thought you should know.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I give a low chuckle as I clasp my fingers around his. This isn’t at all like the Trystan I used to know. This man is different. More humble, more aware of the people around him.
“Yeah. I ask myself that every day lately.” He rolls his eyes with a snort. Then he glances over his shoulder at Sable, and a small, warm smile spreads over his face. “She’s changed me.”
“She’s changed us all,” I agree quietly. “For the better.”
Before I even notice her move, my mate is out of her chair and wedging herself between us. I don’t have a chance to let go of Trystan’s hand before she’s kissing him, and I laugh at the extremely obvious sense of pride she feels toward him.
Then she turns and kisses me. I feel Trystan step closer to her, enclosing her small body between ours, and as I lose myself in the feeling of her lips on mine, I wonder for a moment what I did to deserve this.
My dad may be gone, and the sadness he left in his wake won’t go away anytime soon. But I’m happy with this woman in my arms, with these other alphas who share her with me. And I’m determined to keep the people I love safe. It’s what my father would want.
It’s what I want.
I want to end this war with the witches once and for all.
The East Pack meeting house is still packed to the brim with visiting North and West pack shifters, so when I call a meeting of the elders from the three packs, I invite them to meet with me at my father’s now-empty house.
It’s weird to be here so soon on the heels of his death. My father’s presence is everywhere in this house—in the art on the walls, in the choice of furniture, even permeating the air as his scent lingers in the space.
I hate it and love it all at once.
We barely fit in his dining room. The oldest of the elders from each pack are given preference for seats at the long wooden table. Ridge, Dare, and Trystan haul in extra chairs from the meeting house and set them around the room, until only a few of us remain standing. Then I stride to the head of the table to speak. I’m nervous to lead this dialogue, but Sable’s smile and encouraging nod from the other side of the room where she stands with Amora gives me the strength to start.
“Ladies and gentleman, thank you for meeting with us tonight,” I say, my voice low and serious. “I’m glad to see you here, and I wish you peace in the wake of our shared tragedy.”
A rumble of agreement passes among the elders.
“Getting back to the business of running our packs is imperative,” I add gently, “though I know many of us are still grieving. First and foremost, I want to make it clear that you are welcome on East Pack lands for as long as you desire to stay. And in that vein, I wanted to begin a discussion about the future of our packs.”
The room is silent. More than two dozen pairs of eyes are fixed on me, and my heart beats quickly as I broach the delicate subject.
“I propose that our three packs remain together indefinitely,” I say before I can lose my nerve. A ripple of surprise passes over the elders’ faces, but I forge ahead. “Together, we are stronger, as we saw while battling the witches yesterday. We could certainly split up again—you could return to your respective lands, and we’ll maintain our treaty, stay in touch, support one another as we’ve always done. Or… we could become one.”
I let them murmur to each other for a few seconds before continuing.
“We mustn’t forget the truth. This fight may be over, but the war isn’t. The witches won’t stop, and they’ll likely return one day to finish what they started. At that point, in my opinion, I believe we would be better served by remaining together, rather than being separated by so much space.”
A few of the elders look thoughtful at that, and I wonder if any of them have ever considered this possibility. I hope they have. It’ll make it easier to convince them it’s the right choice.
“Alpha Archer,” one of my own elders calls out. Elder Carter, a man my father considered a great friend. He eyes me appraisingly, almost proudly. “I’d like to second your motion for us to remain as one cohesive pack.”
“It would be a logistical nightmare,” Elder Marianne states. She’s one of mine too, and always pragmatic, so it doesn’t surprise me she’d leap directly to the question of, how the hell will we all fit in one village?
Ridge clears his throat and steps up to stand by my side. “Alpha Archer, if I may?”
I nod. “Of course.”
“We’ve been discussing this particular obstacle,” he says, addressing the room. He glances at Marianne. “You’re not wrong that it will be logistically difficult. We’ll have to decide if we want to build out one of our existing communities or settle in an entirely new location, and that will depend partially on witch activity. If we…”
As he continues to speak, a small noise across the room catches my attention. It’s not loud, just a sharp inhale of breath, but something about it makes my skin prickle, some instinctual warning that something is wrong.
I glance over quickly, my gaze going directly to Sable.
Her face is pale, her eyes wide. I open my mouth to ask if she’s all right, worry flaring inside me as I start to take a step toward her.
But before I can speak, before I can move, the black sigils flare to life across her skin.
Her eyes roll back into her head, and she collapses.
28
Sable
I thought I was just tired.
I mean, we did just fight a war. I used magic to hurt people—to help kill them—and that’s not something that’s easy to bounce back from.
It’s not that I regret my actions. They were necessary for the good of my packs. But two months ago, I was a naive teenager living in an abusive home with an “uncle” who barely let me leave the house.
Now? I’m sleeping with wolves. Killing witches.
It could get to a girl.
And if I slept last night at all, it was scattered and light and full of nightmares about a woman with long red nails like claws. So the fact that I was dizzy and hot, swaying on my feet like I drank a heavy pour of whiskey before coming here, didn’t really strike me as that odd. I just thought I needed this meeting to wrap up so I could go back to Archer’s house and sleep for a week.
But then the dizzy, hot feeling morphed into something even stranger. A tickling at my senses, like static between my ears. I shook my head, trying to chase away the fuzzy feeling, but it only grew stronger.
It grew and grew, until I couldn’t even hear Ridge speaking anymore. I watched his lips move, watched him forming words as he addressed the elders about the logistics of joining the packs, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing.
This wasn’t like my panic attacks. This wasn’t coming from inside me, from my own insecurities and anxiety. It was an attack from some outside force.
I wasn’t alone in my own head.
Someone else was there.
Then, with a sharp and painful jerk, imaginary claws sank into me and wrenched me from my body.
Now I’m… I don’t know where I am.
For a long moment, everything around my consciousness dips and swirls. I’m tumbling head over heels, arms and legs flailing even though I’m no longer in my body. Those sharp claws keep hold of me, tugging me through time and space into a dark, cavernous place.
The claws release me, and I land on my feet, stumbling several steps across slick rock. I catch my balance, my breaths coming hard and fast, and glance quickly at my surroundings.
I’m nowhere and everywhere, stuck in the ether between my body and somewhere else. I have a form, though it isn’t my living body as I know it, and there’s something that feels like solid ground beneath my feet. Darkness presses in around me, suffocating. I get the distinct feeling of a cave, though I know innately that I’m not really here.
Just a fraction of me exists in this space. My essence.
And I’m not the only person here.
A woman stands before me, her head slightly tilted and her face twisted in irritation. I know who she is without needing an introduction. Cleopatra is a stunning woman—tall and trim and dressed in clothes that hug the lean curves of her body. She has black hair that hangs nearly to her waistline, framing the pale angles of her face. At first glance, I think she’s hardly older than me, but then I notice the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. She’s older than she looks, and I know without a doubt that she’s much, much stronger than me.
The coven leader eyes me like a predator sizing up her dinner. Ironic, considering I’m the wolf.
“You’re smaller than I expected,” she greets me in a deep, throaty purr that sounds like black smoke.
I don’t know what to say to that, so I keep my mouth shut, trying to shove down the fear that claws at the inside of my chest.
“I felt you poking around in my head,” Cleo goes on, taking a few steps to one side as her gaze rakes over me. “I thought you would be… more. You’re just a child.”
If I weren’t so terrified by her presence, I’d be a little more pissed at her dismissal.
“Why did you bring me here?” I demand.
“I wanted to meet the bitch who ruined my plans.” Cleo’s hands come to rest on her hips, and she cocks her head slightly. “I could have had them if it weren’t for you. One by one, I could have annihilated them all.”
She has strange lavender-colored eyes, and the feel of those eyes focused intently on me makes me feel like my skin might burst into flame. My body is tense, poised to leap into motion like I might run away—but where the hell am I supposed to run to?
Her expression hardens as her gaze rakes up and down my body. “Interesting how a little nothing of a nobody got inside my head.”
I grit my teeth. I want to argue that I’m not a nobody. It’s like standing in front of my uncle all over again as he screams at me, telling me how I’m a useless waste of space, worthless, nothing. My gut reaction is to run and hide, but my new reaction—the one formed from my time with my mates—urges me to snarl back.
Like a coward, someone caught between who I was and who I am, I keep my mouth shut.
“Well, regardless. Here we are,” Cleo says, a slow smile spreading over her sharp-featured face. “I’m so glad to meet you.”
The emphasis on the word “glad” chills me to my bones. She knows now. She knows we’re bonded. The question is, does she know why? Did she know Clint? Does she have some idea of what was going through his head when he traced the sigils that bound me to her?
Before I can get up the courage to ask her anything at all, Cleo holds out her hands, fingers splayed wide. Blackness roils around her palms as she traces a complex sigil in the air, and pain lances through me, stealing the breath from my lungs. I fall to the hard rock floor, my vision darkening at the edges. Even though I’m not in my real body, the pain is unbearable, as if my insides are boiling, contracting, trying to tear away from my soul.
Cleo isn’t attacking my body. I don't have one here.
But I do have a soul. An essence.
And she’s making it bleed.
I scream, though I’m not sure if the sound is physical or just in my head. The dark cloud wells up inside me, and I can’t tell if it’s trying to attack Cleo, to fend her off… or if it’s joining with her to tear me apart. I struggle against Cleo’s spell, some part of me seeking the tunnel that will lead me away from here. It must be there. The coven leader dragged me right out of my body and into this limbo, so I know I can get back.
I reach for the cackling dark cloud inside me and take hold of it, fury dampening a little of the pain. It will not control me. It will help me, or so help me God, I’ll find a way to cut it out of me if it’s the last thing I do.
Black smoke obscures my vision, and a moment later, the spell Cleo cast breaks. Her hold on my soul falters, and I hurtle away from the cavern, my consciousness spinning through space.
I jerk awake on the floor of Malcolm’s dining room.
Archer cradles my head, while Ridge, Trystan, and Dare crowd close on either side of me, identical looks of concern on their faces. Amora’s pale face peers over Archer’s shoulder as she wrings her hands, and the elders remain where I left them, seated around the room but watching the turn of events with an aura of fear surrounding them.
From the black sigils still burning on my body, I presume.
I take a deep breath and look up at Archer. I’m shaking all over, sweating like I just ran across the Montana wilderness to save the shifter packs. But I can’t relax yet. I focus on his green eyes and piece together a barrier between me and Cleo, shoving as much power behind it as I have left to give.
“What happened?” Archer asks, his voice rough. “Sable, what the hell happened? You stopped breathing. Your heart slowed to the point where it was barely beating…”
My heart flutters in my chest.
Shit.
“Cleo,” I mutter. I still feel dizzy and weak, my pulse too sluggish. “It was Cleo.”
The connection between me and the coven leader is fully established now. Gwen said she thought it was weaker because the binding sigils were drawn by my false uncle and not Cleo herself. But he did everything he could to strengthen that bond, and now that she knows it’s there, it feels like something has shifted—like a tunnel has opened up between me and her.
A two-way street.
The bond is more solid than ever, and we can both use it against one another now.
Dammit. How long can I keep her out? She’s infinitely stronger than me. A well-trained, well-seasoned witch, and a psychopath too.
“Fuck.” Ridge’s voice is hard, his face creased with worry. “Is she in your head now? Can you feel her?”
I search inside myself, rooting around in my chest and my mind for any signs of the vicious witch. Then I shake my head weakly. “No. I don’t think so. She… she pulled me out of myself. Into some kind of astral plane where she attacked me. But she’s not in my head now.”
Gathering my strength, I try to build a wall around my heart. Around the very core of me. I can hold her out for now. For a day. A week. A month.
But how long can I manage to keep the barrier in place without it draining away all my energy? How long until she manages to snatch me out of my body again and finish the job she started? Archer said my heart almost stopped while Cleo was attacking me through our connection.
She’ll try again. Just like Gwen warned me, she’s ruthless and determined. An
d I know without a doubt that Cleo will keep trying, keep invading my mind, until she kills me.
Unless I kill her first.
***
The Claimed by Wolves series will conclude with Alpha Queen.
Find it on Amazon:
HERE
Hungry for more? If you like your romance dark and your men dangerous, check out my Ruthless Games series, starting with Sweet Obsession. Turn the page to find out more…
I saved his life.
Now he’s invaded mine.
Two years ago, a split-second decision changed everything. I risked my life for a man I didn’t even know and nearly died for it.
I’ve tried to forget him. To forget that whole night.
But he hasn’t forgotten me.
He’s been watching.
Obsessing.
Craving.
And when he crashes back into my life like a wrecking ball, accompanied by two dark shadows—men he calls his brothers—the life I’ve been trying to rebuild for myself shatters into a thousand sharp-edged pieces.
He believes our souls are bound by blood, and he’s come back to claim what’s his.
Two years ago, I saved Marcus Constantine’s life.
Now I wish I hadn’t.
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Books by Callie Rose
Boys of Oak Park Prep
Savage Royals
Defiant Princess
Broken Empire
Kings of Linwood Academy
The Help