by C. D. Gorri
“Do you know of a way to fuse the wolf to his soul?”
“You must find the magic that awakened it. It can either solve the problem or put the wolf to rest for good.”
“In this condition, can the wolf claim a mate?” Mr. Mason asked.
“He wouldn’t know it if it did.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “He’ll be a danger to any mate he might choose.”
“Thank you, Helga. Please submit your report to the archives.”
The witch nodded and left the room. Noah gripped his thighs, digging his fingertips into his muscles. He couldn’t make himself breathe, so he sat there holding the end of his exhale, unable to move. Amber would never be safe around him. Not only had his selfish desire to awaken his wolf brought a reign of terror on New Orleans, but now he’d destroyed any chance he had at a life with the one person who mattered most.
Mr. Mason stood in front of him with his arms crossed. “Whatever relationship you have with my daughter ends now. I won’t have you endangering her life.”
Noah agreed.
Chapter Sixteen
Amber slipped her phone into her pocket as Cynthia returned with the books she’d requested. She smiled and thanked her before flipping one open and staring at the page, but her eyes didn’t register the words. Instead, her thoughts raced in a thousand different directions as she chewed her bottom lip.
It all made sense now: Noah gaining the ability to shift, his wolf not wanting to obey him, why she was certain Nylah was alive. It was all she could do to keep from bursting out of the archives and intruding on the council’s examination of Noah. She didn’t need a witch to tell her what was going on with him; it was all recorded right here in this journal.
Her knee bounced incessantly beneath the table, and as the heavy door swung open and her father entered the room, she shot to her feet and started toward him. But she froze midstride when Noah didn’t follow him in. “Where is he?” Her voice held accusation, and her father stiffened.
“He’s waiting in the truck. Let’s go home.” He turned and strode out the door, leaving Amber standing there with her mouth open.
“What happened in the examination? Is he okay?” She jogged to catch up with her dad.
“The congress will be meeting tomorrow afternoon to discuss his affliction, so I’ll be taking you both home first thing in the morning. That’s all I can say.”
“What do you mean that’s all you can say?” She followed him down the stairs and out the front door, her heart running at a thousand miles a minute. “Dad, what are you not telling me? I’m part of the alpha line; I have a right to know. Or is that fact only convenient when you want it to be?”
He stopped, taking her biceps in his hands. “Your relationship with Noah ends today. He is not a welcome addition to our family.”
She scoffed, opening and closing her mouth as she tried to find the words. “Are you serious? Mom has been on me nonstop to hook up with him, and now you’re forbidding me from dating him?”
“That was before his affliction.” His gaze softened, and he squeezed her arms before letting her go. “He’s been deemed an unfit mate.”
“Unfit? Why? Because his wolf is wild?” This couldn’t be happening. They didn’t come all this way with the intent to help Noah, only to have the national congress of werewolves say he was unfit to be her mate. No way. She refused to accept it. “I found something in the archives that expl—”
“Drop it, Amber. My decision is final.” He gave her a pointed look, the same look he gave her when she was a kid and had been pressing her luck. The look that meant the conversation was over, end of story.
But this story was just beginning. “Don’t you want to hear what I found in the archives?”
He sighed heavily. “Report your findings to Luke when you get home tomorrow. I don’t meddle in your pack’s affairs.”
“No, you just want to control your children. First Luke’s life, and now mine. Things are changing, Dad. You have to accept that—”
“Your mother has dinner waiting for us.” He cut her off as if she were nothing more than a belligerent teenager and gestured to the truck where Noah sat in the passenger seat, staring out the front window.
“Noah.” She ran to the truck and pulled on the handle, but his door was locked. She knocked on the window, and he looked at her with sad eyes, shaking his head.
With a groan, she climbed into the back seat, but before she could speak to him, her father joined them, silencing their would-be conversation. Amber buckled her seatbelt and clenched her teeth. Noah would talk to her; she just had to get him alone.
Country music playing quietly through the speakers softened the heavy silence hanging in the Chevy on the fifteen-minute drive to her parents’ home. Neither her father nor Noah said a word, and Amber chewed the inside of her cheek, her dad’s verdict playing on a loop in her mind. Noah has been deemed an unfit mate. That was total bullshit, and if her stubborn old man would allow her to explain what she’d found, he would feel otherwise.
She seethed with anger. She—and only she—would decide who was fit to be her mate. Noah was a better fit than any man she’d ever met.
Her mom was putting dinner on the table as they walked through the front door, and she smiled, oblivious to the news Amber had just received. She set it up so Amber would sit next to Noah, and her dad inhaled, opening his mouth as if to protest the arrangement. When her mom cocked her head, he sighed and took his seat. Amber sank into her chair and gave Noah a small smile, which he didn’t return.
“How did the examination go?” her mom asked. “I hope all is well.”
Noah cleared his throat and looked at her dad.
“Yes, Father.” Amber folded her hands on the table. “What happened in the examination?”
He narrowed his eyes at her before addressing her mom. “We’ll discuss it later.” He shoved a piece of meatloaf into his mouth.
They ate in silence, the tension in the room so thick it rivaled the mashed potatoes. Amber slid her leg toward Noah, leaning it outward so her knee touched his. He swallowed hard and then shifted in his seat, moving his leg away from hers.
Amber’s heart ached. No doubt her father had put the fear of God in him. The man was old-fashioned at best. He bought into the old ways, where the men’s—especially the elders’—word was law no matter how irrational it may be.
Under Luke’s command, the Crescent City Wolf Pack was finally seeing the light of the twenty-first century. No one—not her dad, not a bunch of old fogies in the congress—was going to send them back to the Dark Ages.
As they finished dinner, Noah stood and picked up his empty plate.
“Leave it,” her mom said. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”
Noah returned his plate to the table, glancing at Amber before looking at her mom. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Mason. It was delicious.”
She smiled warmly. “Any time, dear.”
“I’m going to turn in early if that’s all right.”
“You two can take the big bedroom at the end of the hall upstairs.” She gave Amber a conspiratorial wink.
“They’ll be taking separate rooms,” her dad said.
Her mom gave her a quizzical look. “Okay… Amber, you can have the second room on the right, then.”
“Thank you.” Noah pushed in his chair and strode out of the dining room without a second glance.
“I’ll be in my study.” Her dad stood there for a moment, but if he was expecting a goodnight from her, he would be sorely disappointed. She couldn’t even look at the man.
As her father left, Amber picked up the plates and followed her mom into the kitchen. She waited until she heard the study door click shut, and they both turned to each other, speaking at once. Amber closed her mouth, letting her mom go first.
“What the devil is going on? It would have taken a butcher knife to chop through the tension in there.”
Amber set the plates in the sink and turned on the wate
r, just in case her old man was listening. “He has decided Noah is unfit to be my mate.”
“What?” Her mom’s mouth fell open. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You two are perfect for each other. What happened during the examination?”
“I have no idea. He won’t tell me anything, except that my relationship with Noah is over. Will you talk to him?”
“Of course I will, but I don’t know that it will do much good. You know how stubborn your father can be. Have you talked to Noah about this? What does he think?”
“I haven’t been alone with him to ask. He barely looks at me.” A sob bubbled up from her chest, but she caught it in her throat and blinked back the tears that threatened to spill.
“Oh, honey.” Her mom pulled her into a hug. “I’m on your side. I’ll get your father to come to bed early so you can talk to Noah.”
“Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”
*.*.*.*
Noah lay in the center of the queen-sized bed, staring at the ceiling fan whirring above. He’d felt his fair share of humiliation lately, but being called an unfit mate took the cake. He could hardly look Amber in the eye, much less have a conversation with her about it.
Anger fumed in his soul. She should have listened to him in the beginning when he told her she deserved better. His wolf awakening had given him the false hope that he might be able to be the mate she needed, and he’d let his guard down, allowing himself to fall completely head over tail for her.
And look where that landed him. Forbidden from taking a mate. Forbidden from love.
He growled and rolled onto his side, cursing his goddamn wolf for emerging when it did, cursing Nylah for finding the Thropynite, cursing himself for not stopping her. He could have accepted his fate and given up on the dream of becoming a shifter, but no. He’d been selfish. He’d put his sister’s life in danger, and he’d almost killed Amber twice.
No, he did not deserve Amber or anyone, for that matter. He didn’t deserve the air he breathed.
A light knock sounded on the door a moment before Amber stepped through. She wore a pale pink satin nightgown, and the moonlight streaming in through the window gave her fair skin an ethereal glow.
His entire body ached at the sight of her, his throat thickening as she glided across the room and sank onto the edge of the bed. He pushed to a sitting position, leaning his back against the headboard and forcing himself to look into her eyes.
“We need to talk.” She folded one leg beneath her, angling her body to face him, her phone clutched in her hand.
“I know.” He inhaled deeply before blowing out a hard breath. “I told you from the beginning I couldn’t be the wolf you need.”
“Stop it, okay? None of you know what I need better than me, so I don’t want to hear any more of that. Tell me what happened during the examination.”
“It was just me and a witch alone in a room with your dad watching through a window. She made me drink this potion that let her look into my psyche, and then I had to shift.” His jaw clenched at the memory.
When he didn’t elaborate, Amber rested her hand on his leg. “What happened then?”
He let out a sardonic laugh. “If I hadn’t been chained to the bed with magical shackles… My wolf tried to attack, so your dad busted in and forced me to shift back to human. When it was over, the witch told your dad that being with me would put you in danger.”
He shrugged and toyed with a loose thread in the sheet. “So here we are. I could be thrown in the pit just for being alone with you right now.” Not that he cared. It was worth the risk to tell her a proper goodbye.
“First of all, we’re not alone. My parents are asleep downstairs. Second, are you saying my dad is the only congresswolf who knows about the examination? No one else was there?”
“It was just the witch and your dad.”
“So the congress hasn’t deemed you an unfit mate. That’s all my dad’s doing.” She laughed cynically. “Typical. It’s just like my father to make a life-altering decision and expect everyone else to follow along.”
“Once he meets with them tomorrow, I’m sure they’ll agree. I’m a danger to everyone, and it’s only a matter of time before they connect the dots and figure out I’m shifting because of the Thropynite and Nylah is the one who brought it here. She’s better off never being found if they discover our secret.”
“You’re not shifting because of the stone. You’d have to make physical contact with it for its magic to affect you. Look at this.” She offered him her phone, and he gazed at the image of an elegant script on a withered page.
“What is this?” He flipped through the photos, taking in page after page that she’d photographed.
“It’s a witch’s explanation of what happened to the Grunch. She claims the Grunch live in a pocket dimension, just outside our plane. Alrick, their leader, held her captive for a century, the magic of the dimension slowing time so she hardly aged. She managed to escape, and she stole the piece of Thropynite they’d brought here. She created a potion to destroy the stone, which froze them all in their dimension.”
He furrowed his brow as he read the account. “If this is true, it’s proof that Nylah did find the Thropynite. How will this help?”
“I think the Grunch have Nylah. If she’s trapped in their pocket dimension, she has ceased to exist on this plane. Since she no longer exists here, your wolf was awakened, but because she hasn’t actually passed on, your wolf can’t fuse with your soul.”
He stared into her bright blue eyes as he processed her words. So much hope filled them, he couldn’t help but believe it was true. “That would explain why we both feel like she’s alive, despite the evidence that she isn’t.”
She beamed a smile. “It makes perfect sense.”
“When she retrieved the stone from overseas, it awakened the Grunch, and they took her while she was investigating their reappearance.”
“She probably had no idea the Thropynite would awaken the monsters; no one even knew they were here. If we can find Nylah…”
“We’ll find the stone.”
“And the stone can fuse your wolf with your soul.” She took his hand. “Then no one can say you’re an unfit mate.”
“And you found all this out while a witch was poking around in my mind.” He laughed. “You’re amazing.”
“No one has to know what we’re doing. I know a witch who will help us with the spell to disintegrate the stone. Remember Snow?”
He nodded.
“Whether Nylah is the one who brought it here or not, it won’t matter once it’s destroyed.”
He tapped his thumb on his knee, his mind reeling with possibilities. “Does the witch’s journal say how to activate the Thropynite’s magic?”
Amber flipped through the images, scanning the pages. “It only lists a spell to destroy it, but I’m sure Snow can help us with that too.”
“How will we find their dimension?”
“We know the general area to look in, and now that we know what we’re looking for, you can use your gift. I’d bet the bar you’ll be able to feel a disturbance in the atmosphere where the entrance is.”
He did sense a heaviness in the air when he was there with Cade and James, but he’d chalked it up to creep factor. Maybe he was sensing the entrance to the Grunch’s dimension. “It’s worth a shot.”
“We can fix this.” She scooted closer until her leg rested against his. “And we can be together.”
He traced his fingers up her cheek, sliding them into her silky hair. There was still the issue that his wolf might not claim her, even if it fused with his soul, but he didn’t mention it. For the first time since this ordeal began, he felt hope. No need to kill the mood.
“You’re the only person I can imagine spending the rest of my life with,” she said, “and I know… I know everything is going to work out. It has to. I love you, Noah.”
His heart felt like it burst into a million pieces, swirled around in
his chest, and stitched itself back together again. “I love you too.”
She climbed into his lap, straddling his groin, and ran her hands up his bare chest to hook them behind his neck. Her fingers felt like silk against his skin. Leaning down, she brushed a tentative kiss to his lips.
“Should we be doing this in your parents’ house?” he whispered.
Her only answer was to crush her mouth to his.
He held in his moan, the thought of what her father might do if he found them together making him conscious of every sound they made. He almost stopped her, but as her lips glided down his neck, and she nipped his shoulder with her teeth, he said screw it. They were both consenting adults, for fuck’s sake. They could do what they wanted.
He ran his hands up her sides to cup her breasts, and her nipples hardened beneath the satin as he teased them with his thumbs. Her lips parted on a deep inhale, her warm breath tickling his neck before she found his mouth once more. She tasted of mint, and as she slipped her tongue into his mouth to tangle with his, all the blood that was left in his head rushed to his groin.
He lifted her nightgown, tugging it upward until she raised her arms, allowing him to remove it and toss it aside. He slid his gaze down her form, taking in her delicate curves and smooth, lightly freckled skin before looking into her eyes. His mouth watered to taste her, and when she smiled, something snapped inside his chest like a glowstick coming to life. He still had no idea what his wolf was thinking, but the man needed her more than he needed air to breathe. He would die before he’d spend his life without her.
He stifled the growl rumbling in his chest and leaned forward, taking a nipple into his mouth while teasing the other with his thumb. She let out a breathy ahh, the seductive sound raising goosebumps on his skin.
Gliding his tongue upward between her breasts, he circled it around the dip in her collarbone before continuing his ascent to take her mouth in another kiss. How many times he had imagined this moment, he couldn’t recall. But having her here, nearly naked in his arms, he felt complete.