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“Stop!” I yelled. I looked at Ezra’s face, his focused gaze scanning his opponents with calculating intent. He was sizing them up, and despite the numbers, I feared with his magic, the odds were in his favor.

“Ez,” I whispered. “I love you, but this is my pack. We’re bonded.” I shrugged off the coat and showed him my marks. “I’m never leaving them, I don’t care what your king wants…”

A low growl reverberated through his chest. “Our king is inevitable. We’ve belonged to him since before we were born. I am the sword, and you are the arrow. Under him we will remake the world.”

He shifted, the sweatpants ripping off his transformed body. He gave a final snap of his jaws towards my pack, rubbed his face against my hand, and then ran off into the woods, slipping into the shadows and disappearing.

Julian reached me first, grabbing my hand. “Are you okay, Lowe?”

A mournful howl pierced the air.

“No,” I replied. I wiped a lone tear that fell down my cheek. “My brother’s alive, and I think he’s lost his mind.”

7

NOLAN

Iignored the gaping hole in my chest as I pulled into city hall. After a busy morning trying and failing to track down Marlowe’s missing scarf, she and Elias had finally left to catch their flight. It had taken every ounce of will power in me not to punch the satisfied, smug look off the blonde fuck’s face as he’d loaded their suitcases in the trunk, promising to buy her a new one on their trip.

They were going to be alone, just the two of them, for several days. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been planning this for a while. She’d said taking him to San Francisco had been her idea, but Elias was a successful lawyer for a reason. He could talk his way out of or into anything.

And in this case, he’d talked Marlowe straight into his arms.

It was Saturday morning. While I had opted to work from home yesterday to avoid all the weird stares and questions from my staff about my wolf, I unfortunately had some projects that couldn’t be done remotely, and I was happy to see the parking lot was mostly empty.

There were still enough people there that I’d probably run into them, so I went over the explanation for my shift Archer had come up with last night—it’d been the threat from the vampyrs, and not our bond with Marlowe, that had released our wolves.

But I was happy to be out of the house anyway. Being there with nothing to do aside from notice Marlowe’s scent weaken due to her absence sounded depressing as hell. Even Archer had decided to stay at his place in Eau Claire while he finished up the semester, notwanting to be wallowing around in pity, either.

I sighed. She’d been gone just a few hours and it already felt like our pack was falling apart. Didn’t she realize that she was the glue that held us together?

Cam was dealing with it much better than I thought he would. As Archer had surmised, Julian was like the little brother he’d always wanted, and he’d gone back to his house to grab a game system. By the time I’d left they were already five beers deep a piece and playing some first-person-shooter. It seemed like that was his plan to keep himself busy until Marlowe came back.

I guess when you own your own company, you can take a one-week bender without much consequence.

Not so much for the mayor.

I tried to keep my steps quiet through the hallways, but Megan clocked me instantly and stepped out of her office with a big smile. “Hey cuz, long time no see!”

I returned the smile, happy to see a familiar face. “Yeah, sorry, life has been…”

“Crazy?” she asked. “Insane? Nuts? Wacky?”

I sighed, running my hand through my hair. “Thank you, Ms. Thesaurus. Yes, all of the above.”

She walked up and gave me a big hug. “You shifted into a wolf and your pack was attacked by an army of vamps—you seem entirely too calm about all this. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I let myself relax into her familiar scent. Megan was more like my sister than my cousin. She was only a year younger than me, and we’d grown up on the same block, going back and forth between each other’s houses like they were both ours.

“No,” I admitted. “I’m not. But do I really have a choice to do anything besides go on right now?”

“Of course you do. Take some time off, bond with your new pack mates… get yourself right.”

I groaned, releasing her and taking a step back. “I’ve already taken too much time as it is. I think Seth would revolt.”

Megan rolled her eyes at the mention of the city manager. “Screw that guy. I feel bad about his wife, but he’s been a bitter dick about it for months and my patience has officially worn off.”

The guy had been through a lot recently, what with his wife leaving him for an alpha down in La Crosse, and he was not taking it very well. He needed as much grace as I was asking for, but instead I’d accidentally doubled his workload.