by G. Bailey
“You’re kind, Trey,” I reply in a strained voice. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“We are going to be friends when you’re better,” he tells me and lowers his voice. “The forbidden god told me.”
I furrow my brow, wondering who the hell he is talking about, but I don’t have time to ask as Henderson and Saffron come back over to me. Henderson nods at Saffron, and she wraps an arm around Trey, forcing him to the stairs and up to them.
“I’m sick, aren’t I? Am I going to die?” I ask Henderson. If he is as nice as Trey claims, then he might tell me the truth.
Henderson shakes his head and rolls the sleeves on his arms up, revealing tattoos. Moons, starting with a full moon, a half-moon and then a crescent moon, are in lines on his inner arms, exactly the same on each side. He closes his eyes, his face strained for a second, and then the tattoos on his arms glow with magic, pure red magic. Nothing like the green magic of the mating pool, the moon goddess magic. This is different but just as amazing and addictive to look at. When Henderson opens his eyes, they aren’t glowing green; they are glowing red, and it’s almost terrifying to look at. His deep voice comes out as a grumble, almost growl like. “Do you want to live, Mairin?”
“At what cost?” I whisper back, black spots drifting in and out of my vision.
“The only cost for this is becoming your true self and being bound to my pack, to my forbidden god and no one else. You will become ours and heal,” he replies, his voice like the devil, luring me into a world I shouldn’t cross over into, but I want to.
The forbidden god?
I don’t remember saying yes as pain slams into my chest, and I scream, but then Henderson picks me up, placing his hand on the back of my neck, and I feel nothing but magic pour into me. This is nothing like the mating ceremony pool, nothing as kind and relaxing. This magic is powerful and enticing.
I feel each of the markings on my back appear, one by one, until there are four of them from my neck to the middle of my back.
I just know, without looking, they are the moon marks that Henderson has.
“What the fuck are you doing?” a new voice roars, followed by the sound of a door slamming against a wall and cracking.
The magic instantly drops away, and Henderson lets me fall back on the sofa as I gasp, struggling for air. I quickly realise I’m not hurt anymore...in fact, nothing hurts at all. I look down to see the cut on my stomach is gone, the only blood left is what’s marking my dress. I crawl back into the corner of the sofa, letting Henderson stand in front of me as I take in the three new wolves in the room. Each of them looks down at me with a mixture of shock and caution, which switches into pure anger from the man in the middle.
The four alphas of the Fall Mountain Pack bleed power and dominance.
It’s intimidating and overwhelming.
And familiar in a way I don’t understand.
The alpha in the middle is a big man, taller than all four of them, and I would guess over six foot five. His shoulders look big enough for two people to sit on, and his muscular arms stretch the short-sleeved white T-shirt he has on. He has the moon markings around his neck, starting with the full moon at the front, the others I can see going all the way around. His jeans are tight and ripped, and his boots are dripping mud and sand onto the floor. The alpha catches my gaze with his winter grey eyes that remind me of the first-day snow falls and the colour of it. The purest and brightest snow. His short blond hair is a similar colour to mine, just lighter, and it shocks me because I’ve seen no one with hair like mine before.
“Do I need to repeat myself, brother?” he asks, his deep voice gravelly and downright scary.
Henderson crosses his arms and doesn’t say a word, just staring his brother down. Which is a dangerous thing to do. A straightforward way to get killed is to stare down a wolf and imply a challenge, which it looks like he is doing.
One of the other alphas, who looks just like Henderson but with much shorter black hair, steps in the middle of them. “You know what he did, Silas. Let’s take this outside, because the lighthouse doesn’t need to be fucked up by your wolves.”
Silas turns and walks right out, and Henderson follows right after him. The alpha who interrupted looks back at me and runs a hand through his hair. His eyes have infinite hues of blue, swirled together, and it really is something beautiful. Of course, the beautiful alpha had a just-as-beautiful twin brother.
There was no way they aren’t twins, they look the same in every other sense.
“My name is Alpha Ragnar Fall, nice to meet you. You’re safe, this isn’t your fault,” he tells me, holding his hands in the air. “But I need to sort them out. Stay here, all right?”
I flicker my eyes to the only alpha who has said nothing as he leans against the wall, the shadows hiding most of him from me.
Ragnar sighs and runs out of the door. The sound of wolves snarling, growling and scuffling fills the silent room as I stare at the shadow of an alpha by the wall. Eventually, he sighs and walks into the light, lifting a bottle of whiskey and drinking a long sip, drops of it falling down his brown beard. I can’t see much of him through the beard, the long messy brown hair that hasn’t been brushed in a long time. His clothes are torn all over, bits of his golden skin peeking out of his toned chest. He is a muscular alpha, and he must be commanding, or he wouldn’t be an alpha.
He walks right over to me, and I move as far back as I can, wrapping my arms around my legs as he drops on the sofa next to me.
“Whoever you are, trouble, I’m no threat. Neither are any of those idiots fighting outside,” he announces. “The name’s Valentine.”
“Like Valentine’s Day?”
“Yup. It was the day I was born,” he replies, taking another long sip. “What’s your name?”
“Mairin,” I whisper.
“I like it,” he replies. “Tell those jackasses you have my blessing and permission to join the pack and shift, when they’re done. I’m going back to bed.”
Just like that, Valentine takes another long sip of his drink and then shifts there on the sofa. Instead of green magic, red shifter energy, or whatever it is, smothers him, and then there is a pure black wolf on the sofa. The wolf looks back at me, its eyes red and downright scary, before jumping off the sofa and running at the window. He jumps through it, smashing it to pieces, and I stare speechless at the ripped clothes and whiskey bottle left on the sofa.
The alphas of this pack are strange, and whatever god they worship, it isn’t the moon goddess. Slowly I place my hand on the back of my neck, feeling the raised marks in the shapes of moons starting from the middle of my neck and going down.
Maybe I don’t belong to the moon goddess anymore either.
Ragnar appears in the doorway, blood marking his bare sculpted chest and jeans almost all done up. He buttons up the top button on his jeans as he comes into the room and pauses as I lower my hand. Around his heart are the moon markings, and I stare at them for a second too long.
“The markings are from the forbidden god who protects us. Wearing them is the only way to enter this pack, and usually, you need to have every alpha’s permission. The argument Silas and Henderson had is that you hadn’t been given permission by any of us. We make all our choices together,” he explains to me. “Henderson has explained you were dying. It was an unusual circumstance, but welcome. You have my permission and Henderson’s.”
“And Valentine’s,” I say, clearing my sore throat and forcing myself to sit up a little straighter.
Ragnar raises his eyebrows. “He spoke to you?” I nod. “Right, it’s been a weird day. Silas will come around, and then you can shift.”
“I can’t shift without a mate. Everyone knows that,” I reply.
He smiles and widens his arms. “Welcome to the Fall Mountain Pack, where you don’t need a mate to shift. Our god doesn’t force us to mate in order to shift. You only need the alphas’ permission.”
My eyes widen and I’m speechless. I c
ould shift? I could have everything I’ve wanted without being shackled with a mate I don’t want?
Why would the moon goddess force us into matings if she could give us the power as this forbidden god does?
“I believe Miss Irin needs a shower, food and rest, in that order. and I will look after her if you will allow it, Alpha Ragnar,” Saffron asks, walking down the stairs with Trey following behind her.
Ragnar nods at her and turns back to me. “Rest, and I will return tonight to take you to your new home.”
He walks out the door, shutting it behind him, and Saffron walks across the room as Trey sits on the sofa next to me. “Do you want a hot chocolate? Saffron is making us one, but if you don’t like it, I can drink it for you.”
I smile at him, still feeling very on edge. “A hot chocolate sounds lovely.”
“I will get the cookies she hides,” Trey says, jumping off the sofa and running across the room to a door behind the stairs where Saffron went. She comes out after he goes in, and brings over a steamy cup of hot chocolate in a white handmade mug.
“Thank you,” I say, accepting it off her. She nods and goes to leave before pausing.
She looks to the door and then back down to me. “Be careful with the alphas. They came to this pack not too long ago, destroyed the old alpha and brought us into the protection of a new god. They will destroy whatever they want to win. Be careful.”
I nod, understanding her perfectly, but what she doesn’t realise is that I was broken on a beach, seconds after the moon goddess let me down.
The alphas can’t destroy what is already broken.
“She doesn’t remember us.”
Henderson’s statement lingers in the air, turning our internal thoughts into a spoken thing too quickly. Too painfully. But it’s been painful from the second Henderson found her, from the second she looked at us like we are strangers and we didn’t grow up together. Mairin looks so different from when I last saw her, when she was shy of twelve years old and was my biggest crush since I realised girls were interesting at all. It was the same for all of us...until she was gone.
Then we all realised we had everything with her, and without her, we are nothing.
And she doesn’t remember.
In my mind’s eye, I see her on the sofa in the lighthouse, wearing some silk dress that’s ripped, dotted with her blood and soaking wet from the sea. Blood and saltwater couldn’t hide her scent from me, nor could how broken she looked hide how beautiful she is. Her long blonde hair, her bright green eyes that remind me of the dark green trees of our old home, and her long legs caught my attention right away.
She is stunning in every sense.
“Why would that poor excuse of an alpha reject her? Is he fucking blind?” Silas grumbles out, wiping a line of blood from his cut lip, which is healing already. Henderson, who did that, smirks at him.
“Shame your wolf is slow because of how big he is. You might have missed that hit otherwise,” Henderson replies.
I stand up, drawing their attention. “Enough. You two have already scared Mairin with your fighting. Can we not get along for five minutes to discuss what we are going to say to her?”
Henderson looks away and walks to the window, detaching himself from any serious conversation like he always does, and Silas grumbles something I can’t make out but nods. I glance at Valentine’s room upstairs, wondering if he is listening at all as he drinks himself into a slumber.
“Ragnar, not to be a dick, but we should tell her everything. Rip off the Band-Aid, so to speak,” Silas suggests.
“As usual, you always come up with the most dickish move out there. No, we can’t.” I pause as Henderson looks back. “She is broken, fucked up and doesn’t trust us. If we tell her everything, she is going to jump back in that sea and disappear. Considering we have spent over six years looking for her, can we come up with a better plan?”
“Fine,” Silas replies. “Our pack lifestyle is going to be a shock, and either way, we get her back. I’m not letting her go. I will fight any pack for her.”
“You’re not alone in that feeling, brother,” Henderson adds.
“Then she moves in here with us, and we ask questions. Figure out how she ended up in that pack and how they kept her hidden for so long. None of our spies said a word,” I say, rubbing my chin.
“Maybe we need new spies,” Silas remarks with a bloody grin.
“I doubt Mairin has been trained since she left us, we should take turns training her so she is up to speed in case they attack,” I suggest.
“I will train her. You all know I am the only one who will do what is needed,” Silas says.
“Do you plan on giving her your permission to shift?”
“Not until she is trained,” Silas replies, and I growl at him.
He lifts his hands in the air. “Henderson shouldn’t have fucking linked her to our god without explaining it to her or the consequences. She was brought up in the mind-control pack who worship a fake goddess, and she has no idea what she has signed up for. Don’t look at me like that because I won’t force her into shifting and making that final commitment.”
“She was dying, and I would never let that happen. The alpha beat her, or someone did, and then she was thrown into the sea—”
All three of us growl. When I get my hands on that alpha, he is dead.
“I don’t know how she survived, or how any of the rejected do, but she was in awful shape. I could hear her heartbeat fading...so I did what I had to,” he finishes off. “If she hates me, at least she is alive.”
“The mating ceremony, even uncompleted, leaves a bond. He will sense she is alive and send wolves to hunt her. Until she is dead, he cannot take another mate,” I remind them.
“Let him send them. She is living with us, and I will enjoy ripping them apart,” Silas replies, his calm voice downright murderous in its intent. Considering I’ve seen him rip wolves apart for breaking pack laws, and enjoy it, I know he isn’t joking. It will be a bloodbath.
“So we agree she moves in, we train her, and we protect her until she remembers, or we tell her when she is settled?” I ask.
“Agreed,” both Silas and Henderson state. All three of us look to Valentine’s door, and I sigh, knowing it will be me who has to make sure he is all right with Mairin moving in with us. If Silas tries, it will cause a fight, Henderson will get pissed off by Valentine’s lack of interest in talking to him, and I can stay calm.
Mostly.
“Good luck!” Silas calls out as I get to the stairs. “I’m going to find something to eat.”
I hear both Silas and Henderson shifting behind me as I make my way to the top of the stairs and knock the first door before opening it. I duck straight away as a bottle flies over my head, over the banister and smashes into the middle of the living room floor.
Valentine, the broken asshole, shifts before I can ask him anything, and his wolf is left sitting in the middle of the room. His wolf shoves past me and runs out.
“I will take that as a yes!” I shout after him. Asshole.
“You can’t catch me!” a young boy shouts, followed by children’s laughter. I can’t see who they are as I run through the forest, thick trees everywhere around me hiding the shadows of children I’m chasing.
“The trees only hide you in the dark!” I shout back, but my voice sounds so much younger. I pause when I get to a pond and look down, seeing my reflection as a young girl of about six just before everything fades.
“Morning...well, it’s sundown, but I was told to wake you up,” Trey mumbles out as I blink my eyes open in the dimly lit room, everything that happened before I fell asleep on the sofa coming back in a rush. I suck in a deep and nervous breath, unsure if I should start panicking or not. A thick yellow blanket falls down my body as I sit up, and Trey flashes me a toothy grin as he sits on the coffee table in the same clothes he was in earlier.
A shuffling of feet on the stairs catches my attention, and I look up to see S
affron heading down the stairs in a yellow buttoned blouse and jeans, with her hair in the same style as when we met. “You slept for twenty hours, Miss Irin. Are you feeling better?”
Twenty hours? What the hell was in the hot chocolate she gave me? “Erm, yes. I think so.”
“It’s normal for the newly marked to sleep for so long. Do not look so worried,” she replies. “Now gather that blanket and come upstairs. I’ve run you a bath and left out clothes. Time to clean you up before one of the alphas comes back again.”
I scurry to gather the blanket and flash a smile to Trey before following Saffron up the stairs. Halfway up, I ask the question burning in my mind. “How does having four alphas work? Don’t they kill each other for dominance?”
That’s the only way I’ve ever seen it. There is one alpha, and he kills anyone for the alpha position.
Her kind eyes fall back on me as she opens a door on the first clearing on the staircase. She heads inside, and I follow her into a massive bathroom. A wooden bathtub is in the middle of the white-tiled room, filled with bubbling water in a rose pink colour. A toilet and row of cabinets with a sink line the one side of the wall, and on the other are hooks with towels hanging. “Anyone can challenge anyone in this pack, just like the pack you are from, but no one has survived challenging any of the alphas. And they do not challenge each other. From what I have gathered, they grew up together, and that is unheard of. Alpha pups are always kept away from each other to avoid fights, but not in their case. They may argue and fight, but when it comes down to it, they are a family of alphas who grew up together, and may the forbidden god help anyone who gets in their way. Clean up, and I will meet you downstairs.”
“Saffron...” I hesitate. “What am I expected to do with the alphas? Why did they save my life? In my experience, alphas don’t do good deeds for nothing.”
She sighs and steps back, slowly closing the door. “Trey was a baby who was washed up on this shore in a basket with only a note in a glass bottle claiming he was a rejected baby because he wasn’t born in a mating. The alphas took Trey in, loved him, made him one of them in every sense of the word, and that boy down there never once thinks of himself as rejected. They never treat him—and they will not treat you—any differently.” She pauses. “Being rejected is a death sentence anywhere else, but here? Here, it is a new beginning. Be born again on that beach and hold your head high. You have a chance for something amazing here, Irin, and they won’t ask for anything.”