by M F Adele
Palmer pressed his chest into my back as Blaire and the guys disappeared inside. That one move brought my mind spiraling back into the gutter as memories rushed me.
His mouth brushed the shell of my ear as he spoke, and I shivered against him. “Love? Any particular reason yer staring at Blaire like that? Something ya want to share with the class? ”
“Did they look cozy to you?”
I turned to watch his expression as he stared at the now-empty porch of their cabin. He shook his head.
“Not really, nah. Blaire’s flirty, and so is Jack.”
“Grim was touching her back,” I told him, but he didn’t know what that would mean. “I think I can count on one hand how many people I’ve seen him touch casually.”
“Stop overthinkin’ it. Blaire has a way of makin’ people feel comfortable.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I disagreed with him, but I didn’t know why. It was odd, yes, though it wasn’t entirely out of character for Jack to be… Jack.
Grim, on the other hand, was not being himself. It wasn’t a significant change, but it was subtle enough for me to notice and wonder.
Palmer sat on the stairs, tugging my hand until I joined him. I perched on the stair below him, leaning my back against him and propping my arms upon his thighs.
He ran his fingers through my hair absently while I watched the light from the overhead sun highlight the forest floor.
After a few beats of silence, Palmer’s hand stilled where it was tangled in my hair, so I asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“Not gonna read my mind?” he inquired.
“No. Are you thinking about last night?” I teased, peeking over my shoulder to smirk at him.
He rolled his stormy gray eyes. “Thinkin’ about new punishments and how you were able ta read my mind through the barrier. It was supposed ta negate the powers of everyone inside except the caster.”
“I don’t like the telepathy powers, and I mostly try to avoid them,” I confessed. “The barrier blocked some of my other powers, though. It felt sort of heavy… No, not heavy. It was like looking through a veil. I only saw or felt it when I was trying to.”
“Why don’t ya like that power in particular?”
“It feels like… an invasion of privacy. I don't know. It seems unfair to know every single thing that crosses your mind. I block it out, kind of like your muting spell, I guess. I turn the volume down, only listening for urgent shouts from voices I recognize.”
Palmer hummed under his breath, and I twisted to study him. His head was slightly tilted as he thought through whatever was tumbling around in his mind, then he snapped his fingers.
“Can ye read my thoughts now?”
“No.”
“Are ya tryin’?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Try,” he commanded.
“Why?”
“I want ta know if I can feel ya inside my mind. I know I can hear when ya want ta be heard, but I’ve never tried ta seek out a presence. If I can find yers or Novak’s presence inside my thoughts… then I might be able ta find others.”
“Ahh, gotcha.”
I saw where he was going, what he didn’t want to say aloud.
Angels had ways to corrupt and infiltrate the mind. It wasn’t as simple as a vampire’s telepathy, though. They needed to be touching their victims somehow.
Clearing my mind, I reached for Palmer mentally. His walls were up, and I took a minute to appreciate how sturdy they were before I tore them down.
Bright orange rippled with what appeared to be yellow electricity. Every three seconds, the bolts stuck at measured intervals, and they hit the edges of his wall in a circular pattern going counterclockwise.
It was tricky, but it was too easy to pick apart with the three-second pause in his security. I waited for the bolts to finish their strikes and slammed my fist into the orange barrier.
Metaphorically.
Physically, I didn’t move a muscle.
And neither did he.
His mental walls were too thick for him to feel my attack. It was like knocking out a section of bricks, but the rest were unbothered. The wall still stood, even with the hole. The electricity struck as if the spot wasn’t there.
Once inside, I realized that he was thinking about him and Briggs digging around in my room. I wasn’t mad about it. The memory was rather funny. Their paranoia at being caught made them jumpy.
“You are so nosy. I can’t believe you guys went through my bedroom just to look for toys.”
“I needed to know what I should buy,” he stated with no remorse.
“You could have asked.”
“Where’s the fun in that? It wouldn’t be a surprise then.
I raised a brow at him. “If you tell me I have to write a contract…”
Palmer scoffed. “I’m quite capable of writin’ one myself. Ye’ll just need ta look it over and sign.”
“I know you’re joking.”
“Am I?” He grinned, and my suspicions grew before he sighed. “Alright then, how’d ye do it?”
“Your wall is too thick to feel an attack. The pause in your security is too long. If you’re going to have the electricity circle your mind, then it needs to be continuous, and it needs to be sped up.”
I bounced my head left and right as I tried to work out the best way to protect him mentally.
“Make your wall more like the surface of a pond so that you can sense the ripples from even the smallest attack. The electricity bit is neat, but does it really shock? Because you could make it do that.”
He shrugged. “It does shock, but it’d have to touch ye to work.”
“Have it follow a presence into your mind, constantly shocking the infiltrator.”
“It’s not that easy, ye know? I can’t just knock them down and rebuild them like they’re a child’s building blocks.”
I smiled at him, knowing he could do it in under an hour. He didn’t give himself enough credit when it came to his magical abilities. Not what I’d seen of them, anyway.
Atlas had wandered out of the cabin during our conversation. I hadn’t paid him any attention, knowing he came out to nap on the porch in the patches of sunlight.
His soft snoring had turned into background noise, but when it halted suddenly, I heard him loud and clear. A low growl warned me just as the breeze shifted from north to northeast.
I called out quietly to Briggs as annoyance swarmed through me.
We’d been on pack property for mere hours, and already shifters were moving in. I didn’t give a fuck about the fighting, but I didn’t want to fight outside of the rules.
The door behind Palmer and me opened with a creak. I didn’t look away from the woods around us as I stood and tugged my mage up with me.
“Do you smell that?”
“No,” Palmer said at the same time that Novak murmured a soft, “Yes.”
“It smells like bears, but something's wrong,” Briggs rumbled.
I nodded, turning my head enough to see my mates and our surroundings. “Go inside.”
“You or Briggs could handle a bear,” Vaughn commented.
He didn’t understand, but Briggs summed it up with haste. “There’s more than one. Go inside. Call Charlie. Now.”
Stone glanced from left to right, tracking the movements from within the dense trees beyond the row of cabins. “What’s wrong with them?”
“The drug, maybe? I don’t know yet,” I whispered, reaching out to Jack and begging them to stay inside if this was just a challenge fight.
Briggs and I would be the only people that could fight if one came to challenge us and brought witnesses. But the mental static that I was hearing told me otherwise.
I pushed my thoughts out to my mates, Jack, Grim, and Blaire, pulling them all into my mind like a group chat.
“Six,” Stone called, and I shook my head.
“Six bears. They’re masking the scent of whoever is behi
nd them. They smell stronger than the rest of the shifters.”
“Try six directions,” Grim corrected, sounding like he was speaking underwater as he moved through the Void. “I see around twenty animals moving toward us. Could be more.”
“Grab Charlie, Grim,” Jack demanded, concern making his voice rise.
Jack brought Blaire through the Void, landing on the porch beside us at the same time as Grim and my dad. Briggs and I flanked the Supreme Alpha, walking down the steps and into the leaf-littered yard to meet the incoming shifters head-on.
And the shifters breached the tree line in small droves.
5
Sloane
Wednesday, June 3rd
Midday
The moment I had a clear line of sight on the animals coming at us, I knew they weren’t here to make a single challenge. I’d seen the behavior before, the hive mentality.
They weren’t working together as a pack. They were working around each other, staying out of the others’ way.
I was reminded of the rogues that Briggs, Stone, and I took out a few weeks ago, but there were quite a few more this time.
Twenty-two that were visible.
I couldn’t count based on mental signatures because all the static made them sound the same.
Charlie King wasn’t Dad right now; he was the Supreme Alpha. His power rolled off him in waves, weakening my knees with the need to kneel. It didn’t affect the shifters in front of us.
He didn’t show his anger toward their defiance as he shouted, “State your challenge or leave.”
No one shifted to speak.
A grizzly bear stood on his hind legs and roared so loudly that birds scattered through the nearby trees.
I began to assess, looking for weak spots and counting shifted species. We needed a fucking plan, but godsdamnit. I hated planning. It was the smart thing to do, even if there was no way to account for how they would react.
The two eagles would be a nuisance, but they could wait.
The three tigers and the six bears were a more significant threat. They needed to be taken out before we moved on to the wolves and coyotes.
The mountain lion balancing on a low-hung branch was a pain-in-the-ass, but it’d be a quick kill.
All I needed to know was if this fight was for Briggs and me or a free-for-all.
Injuries would do no good if they were so far gone that the animals couldn’t return to their skins. To be trapped inside your animal’s mind with no connection to the world around you would drive a shifter mad. Add that fucking drug into the mix, and it would be ten times worse.
Death was a kindness at this point.
As we waited for the Supreme Alpha to make a call, a black wolf slunk forward from the side of our cabin. He dropped a wad of cloth by the corner and continued approaching us. I pivoted my feet in the wolf’s direction, but Briggs touched my arm.
“That’s my brother. Check his mind.”
I heard no static. His mental voice was the same deep tone as my mate’s. When I asked him who he was, his eyes flew around our group until they landed on mine.
“Bay Elliott, she-wolf. Now get the fuck out of my head and stay out of my way.”
Charming.
Super fucking charming.
There was no way I could deny that he was Briggs’ brother.
I wanted to snort, but I turned my attention back to my Alpha. He’d issued three calls for a challenge and one official warning to leave or be met with force.
They weren’t leaving. We all knew it.
Just like Kadence’s army of vampires, someone within the pack had drugged and trained these shifters to act this way. I didn’t have a clue who, though I knew it was probably the same person—or people—who sent those idiots to our home to ask questions about Novak.
Dad growled, forced to stand witness, as per pack laws. He wouldn’t join either side unless necessary. I knew that being inactive would eat him up.
These rogues were his responsibility.
He’d find a way to place their deaths on his shoulders.
His upper lip curled to show his teeth as they elongated, and his voice thundered through the area with the force of his power.
“You have been informed to state your challenge. You have been asked to retreat. Each one of you has a single chance to turn and leave now.”
He paused to give them ample time to retreat, but none moved.
“As Supreme Alpha, I will be calling for the assistance of the supernatural creatures with me. They will face no charges as you have been deemed a threat to the pack.”
Fuck the formalities. My claws extended with my growing ire. Silver fur spotted my hands and arms as I held onto the last tether of control.
A smoke-gray wolf took one step past the line the rogue shifters had formed. The snapping of my control was nearly audible in my mind as I launched myself forward, shifting before my feet hit the ground.
Being able to switch from human to animal gave us the advantage in a one-on-one fight. Having lethal mates would be the most significant factor.
If I wasn’t in the fight myself…
If I could sit back and watch them fight…
I’d be dripping.
I slammed into the smoke-gray wolf, latching my teeth into his shoulder as sharp incisors broke through the flesh of my flank. Releasing my hold, I swung my head to nip the coyote on my ass.
The smoke-gray wolf darted away, making a bee-line for Palmer. Sweat beaded across my mate’s forehead as he threw bolt after bolt of bright orange power into a charging bear.
Rogues passed me as they sought out their prey.
They weren’t fighting against Briggs, Bay, or my dad.
They were only attacking Jack, Grim, and Blaire to get to my other mates.
What the fuck was happening?
“What are we missing?” Blaire shouted, pissed as she flipped a cream-colored wolf onto its back.
She shoved her hand straight through the she-wolf’s stomach, snatching a fistful of organs out. Blood splattered her face, and she glanced at me as her eyes started to bleed from anger and bloodlust.
Think, bitch. Think.
I followed the fray, circling to find an opening to get to my guys. Jack and Grim were in the center with them, but Briggs wasn’t. He had his jaws clenched around a bear’s neck as he shook his head violently to tear his throat out.
The longer I couldn’t reach the rest of my mates, the more furious I became.
I was a trembling ball of fury.
One smooth transition took me from wolf to demon. I let the demonic wrath cascade over me. The three pieces of my soul had never been so in sync, and we were continuing to grow closer.
Blaire sidled up to me, wiping her gaunt face as we assessed the fight. “Let the boys handle the bears?”
“Mmm,” I agreed, my voice echoing as I felt for any fear around me. “I hope you enjoy swimming.”
“In the blood of my enemies? Hell, yeah.”
“The tigers are too far in the group to get to, so we need to kill everything else. Ready?”
The savage smile she gave me perfectly matched the harsh lines of her face in her raging bloodlust. “I’m always ready.”
I flexed my wings, tucking them tightly against my back as I whistled low. I rolled my neck and called my hounds’ collars to my hand.
Excitement coursed through my veins as I grabbed a coyote by the tail and tossed him behind me. The crunch of bones was a heady sound, but the splitting of skin beneath my talons set the mood.
I raked my blood-soaked talons through the dense fur of another wolf, from flank to neck, before wrapping my hands around her jaws. I pried her mouth apart, the pricks of her teeth no more than a mild annoyance. I dropped her lower jaw to the ground with her body.
Pain wasn’t enough to stop the beginning of my warpath.
An eagle dropped from the sky, aiming for York, and I was just close enough to snatch it by the wing and rip it off at the base.
The hellhounds prowled behind Blaire and me, finishing off whatever we didn’t kill.
Wolves and coyotes were falling all around us. I had my hands sunk into the chest cavity of a brown wolf when I heard Novak yell Stone’s name.
My demon was a few feet off the ground, his wings flapping furiously as he tangled with the last eagle. A tiger leaped, latching onto his left calf and dragging him down. My vampire sprung into action, yanking at the base of the tiger's tail so fast that he pulled out connected vertebrae.
Novak wielded the tiger’s spine like a whip, bits of muscle and nerves still attached. Stone shoved the eagle he was wrestling in my direction, and I pushed it right past me to the awaiting hellhounds.
Blaire slid into my legs, her right hand dragging the ground as her feet left dirt tracks from where she’d been. A polar bear stood on his hind legs, stalking forward as he swung meaty, blood-stained paws.
“I’ll go low,” she murmured, nodding her head when her eyes met mine.
We lunged together.
I jumped up, carving my talons into the polar bear's chest as Blaire’s hands broke through the fatty tissue of his stomach. We poured his innards onto the ground, landing on top of him as he fell backward.
The fight was over too quickly, but something told me that this was just the beginning of the war. Like those video games I used to play with Dolyn, I knew there was a boss lurking somewhere. It was hidden in the shadows, waiting for us to clear the floor before he showed up.
“You good?” I asked Blaire as she tried to shake the gore off her hands.
She sat in a pool of blood, leaning against the dead bear as she breathed deeply through her mouth. The gray tone of her skin warmed to her usual pasty color, and her eyes became golden once more.
When her face finally filled out, she let her head fall back to look at the canopy above us. I surveyed our group, searching for any injuries on my mates and family while giving her a moment to gather her thoughts.
“It’s hard to quiet the bloodlust down sometimes. I don’t know how Novak does it so easily.”
“Not sure if it helps or not, but coyotes are way too salty, and bears taste disgusting.”