Page 4

FOUR

Fiona

M y head was fuzzy, and my limbs were heavy. I blinked slowly up at an unfamiliar ceiling, trying to remember where I was and why. I had the strangest dream that I’d been walking in the woods when I’d been chased by wolves.

And then there was a man, the one from my dreams. He always saved me, no matter what nightmare chased me. His eyes were so blue, they couldn’t be real. But the squishy comforter pulled over my lower half was very real, the fabric soft and nice under my fingertips.

I shifted, squinting harder at the light overhead. It looked old, nothing like the usual harsh fluorescent glare of a hospital.

Wait.

I wasn’t supposed to be at a hospital. I was supposed to be photographing— I gasped and tried to sit up as the memories flooded in. The alpine shrew jumbled together with the strange wolves and the hallucinations about their glowing eyes and my glowing hand. I scrubbed at my eyes and winced as my abdominals didn’t want to engage to lever me upright.

My whole body hurt like I’d been put through a car wash made of whips, but panic was setting in, because the last thing I remembered was stumbling into a bar and collapsing. I was alone in a foreign country, and I had no idea where I was or who had brought me here.

“Hey, it’s okay. Fiona? You’re okay. Do you want to sit up?” A woman’s soothing voice pierced the panic, and I froze as her face came into view. She was lovely, flawless cream skin framed by dark, messy curls and piercing eyes. “My name’s Brielle. You had a seizure this evening, and my friend Reed brought you to see me because I’m a doctor. But you’re safe, and we’ve got your wounds all cleaned and bandaged up.”

Her voice was so calm, so assured, that all the nervousness fled my body as quickly as it had started. “Hi, Brielle,” I answered, but my voice sounded raspy, and the ache in my throat reminded me of what had caused me to collapse in the bar. I touched my neck gingerly, and she winced.

“Olivia has a frogs-foot tincture on your abdomen to help ease the worst of the symptoms of exhaustion postseizure, but if you’d like to take something for the pain, I can help with that as well. We didn’t want to do anything else without speaking to you once we knew you were stable.” I glanced to the side, finding a redhead with kind eyes standing right past Brielle’s shoulder, and another, silent woman with darker skin and tight black curls watching me intently.

I thought I saw a flash of light there along her cheekbone for a second, but I blinked, and it was gone. Clearly, the hallucinations weren’t completely past yet.

It was so humiliating. My disease was better controlled now than it had ever been, but stress was a trigger, and getting chased by four wolves through a forest definitely qualified as stress.

“I would like to sit up,” I whispered when I realized they were all staring because I hadn’t answered her question. “But I don’t need any more medication, thank you.”

“No problem, we’ve got you,” the redhead said, coming around behind me to put a hand behind my back and another on my arm, the two of them helping me sit up without too much fuss.

I gazed around the room, confusion sinking in as I took in my very un-hospital-like surroundings. The walls were stone, the furniture old, and the window looked like it was made of single panes of glass in a leaded frame.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Umm…” Olivia—I thought the redhead was Olivia, but it felt kind of rude to ask after they’d taken care of me, so I kept my mouth shut—glanced nervously at Brielle, then the third woman.

“We’re inside a place called the Maiden’s Enclave. Have you ever heard of it before? It’s very old.” Brielle spoke calmly as she tidied a roll of gauze.

“No. We’re still in Romania, right?”

“Yes, we are. It’s pretty remote here. Reed says he met you in a bar nearby. Do you work there?” Her eyes were kind, and for some reason, I wanted to tell her every crazy, ridiculous detail.

“No, well—not really. I’m a wedding photographer, and a client got married at a nearby castle. I had a day left before my return flight, so I was out hiking, hoping to get some wildlife photos.”

“Oh, you’re a wildlife photographer too? How exciting,” Olivia said, giving me a supportive smile as she sat next to me on the edge of the bed, raptly listening.

“It’s a hobby for now.” I cleared my throat. I felt like an impostor whenever I told people I wanted to publish a book. So few people actually did that, and photography books were expensive to produce. “But I got the shot, and on the walk back, I heard something. And there were wolves chasing me. It was the strangest thing, because they followed me all the way to the edge of the bar parking lot, even after I hit them with the bear spray.”

“That must have been terrifying, being out there all alone like that.” Olivia’s compassion was clear as she squeezed my hand.

“It was. The seizure hallucination made it seem like they were huge , and—” I shuddered at the memory of the glowing eyes… It was eerie. Fit for one of those scary Halloween movies. “It was the craziest thing. Maybe none of it was real, I don’t know. This time, I even thought my palm was glowing. Have you ever heard of anything so crazy?”

I shook my head, but the women were so silent, you could have heard a pin drop.

Shame and humiliation flooded me, and I looked down at my lap. And that was when I saw it. My hand, glowing up at me exactly as it had the night before. It wasn’t as bright because it was daytime, but I could clearly make out the shape of a moon and stars, and my head started to spin as I stared.

What the actual fuck? I blinked twice, hard, but the glow didn’t fade or vanish.

I started to shake, this time from terror. What was happening to me? I’d never had a seizure aura last this long. Was this something else ? Did I need my daily meds adjusted?

Hands landed on my shoulders, and a sense of cooling calm rushed through me like I’d never known before.

“Fiona, I have to tell you something, and it’s not going to be easy to swallow. But in this case, I feel like it’s time to rip off the Band-Aid. Do you feel… calmer?”

I blinked up at Brielle, whose hands were anchoring me. “I… Yes. And that’s really odd.”

She nodded, expression grave. “That mark on your palm isn’t a seizure hallucination, and you’re not imagining it. That’s called an omega seal, and you’re not the only one who has it. Olivia has one too. It means you’re both special, and you’ve got a destiny written by the Moon Goddess herself.”

I blinked, and despite the cool calm, I still felt incredulous. This was insane . What kind of doctor talked about goddesses and glowy hands? This couldn’t be real. This had to be some kind of elaborate prank. Cameramen were going to charge this room any minute.

Right?

“Olivia, do you mind?” Brielle looked over my shoulder, and Olivia came around where I could see her. She smiled softly at me, then held up her left hand. In that moment, everything I thought I knew about the world shifted.

Because, sure as shit, there was an identical soft glow emanating from her palm.

“That’s not all. Are you ready for the rest?” Brielle asked, sounding strained.

“I’m not sure what else you could tell me that would top the fact that I’ve got some magical moon destiny.” It was a little snarky of me, but I couldn’t help it. Apparently, that was my defense mechanism when faced with utter insanity .

“Those wolves chasing you last night? They weren’t regular wolves. They were shifters. So is Reed, and so are we.”

“No, uh-uh.” I tried to stand up, and she let me go, let me get to my feet even though my knees felt like jelly and I was at risk of toppling over if I tried to move too fast. “I can see my hand with my own eyes. And I’ve never had two seizures this close together, so against all odds, well… I think this has to be real even though it’s fucking impossible. But shifters? That’s got to be a joke. This is not some teenage fantasy where the hot guys have superpowers and all want you. This is real life . And I don’t know who you think you’re screwing with, but I’m out of here. I’ll call an Uber and get back to my rental car and get the fuck out of Romania.”

“Shay, I’m feeling a bit peaked. Would you mind doing the honors?” Brielle swayed a little before sitting on the edge of her bed, and I noticed that she’d gone significantly paler than she was when I first woke up. The third woman, who’d sat quietly in the corner all this time, stood and gave me a grim smile.

“I’m going to show you something, and I just want you to remember that it’s me. I haven’t hurt you, and I’m not going to. I’m still one hundred percent in control, no matter what form I’m in.”

I shook my head, disbelief too strong to even entertain the idea of wolf shifters. This would probably be some shitty close-up magic, and I was going to be expected to fawn over them. Maybe it was a cult.

Were there weird wolf-worshipping cults here? I hadn’t heard of any, but I’d mostly researched the wildlife I might spot, not the crazy-ass humans that lived here. New item added to the travel checklist from now on: research if there are any notorious cults, and avoid them like my life depended on it.

But then Shay’s arms started to grow fur, and her eyes began to glow. I took a shocked step back as I heard her bones snap, and her face morphed in front of my eyes—a snout elongating from her snub nose, elongated fangs protruding over her bottom lip, and cocoa-colored fur bursting out of her skin. Within two heartbeats, the beautiful woman who’d just been speaking to me was gone, clothes lying in a shredded pile around her paws .

Because where the woman had stood was now a giant, terrifying-looking wolf.

And her eyes were glowing .

“Holy fucking shit on a stick.” My lungs felt like overinflated balloons as I panted rapidly and backed away. “This is not possible. I don’t know how you made that look so real, but this is not possible . I’m sorry, you’re all cult whackadoos, but I need to leave. Right now. Take me to Reed. I want to go, and he’ll take me. Please.” I held up both hands, as if this live freaking wolf couldn’t take me out without breaking a sweat.

Wolves didn’t sweat. But that was not the point. I didn’t believe for two seconds that Reed—the man with the kind electric eyes—was part of this mass delusion. Why he had brought me here, well… That was a question for the next time I saw him.

“I know it seems impossible. But haven’t you already experienced several things that shouldn’t be possible in the last twenty-four hours?” Olivia asked sadly. “It’s still Shay. You can touch her fur if you want. She won’t hurt you.”

I glanced at Olivia, surprised to see a frown etched into her cheeks. “You don’t have to live like this. You can leave with me. We can both get on a plane. I’ll take you with me.”

She shook her head and shot a questioning look at Brielle. “Fiona, I have a wolf inside me too. These women are my pack mates. Brielle is a healer, and she has special powers because of her wolf. That’s how she made you feel so calm. That’s why our palms glow. Wherever you were out there doing your photography, you must have gotten close enough to Brielle to trigger your seal to light up. It only happens when you’re in range of a mated alpha-omega pair. Her job is to help us, and his is to protect us. I know this seems crazy. But can you honestly not trust what you can see and touch and experience? This is real .”

Olivia walked across the room and placed her shining palm on the wolf’s coffee fur, stroking between her ears.

And… nothing bad happened. The wolf didn’t charge, bite, or even flinch. Her tail was wagging like she was an oversized puppy. My jaw dropped when she tipped up her head and licked Olivia’s hand in greeting.

Her question ran through my head like a bulldozer. Could I trust what I saw? This was absolutely impossible.

If I told anyone what I’d just seen, they’d lock me in a psych ward, just like my great-grandmother.

Dread filled me. Oh, no no no.

Great-Grandma Nell. Who was institutionalized with schizophrenia. I closed my eyes and dragged in a harsh breath. Mom had been telling me since I was a kid that I couldn’t talk about my hallucinations, because, and I quote, “Crazy runs in the family.” She had a real way with words, and little to no empathy.

My great-grandma had been in her early thirties when she started claiming she’d met a blue man. Blue, like the friggin’ genie in Aladdin . That was… not possible, obviously. Great-Grandpa had had her put into a mental institution when she insisted the baby she was carrying was the blue man’s and not his.

Their second child, my grandmother, Florence, was born in the institution—perfectly healthy and not the least bit blue—and then raised without great-grandma. It was awful even knowing that was in my history. Hiding in my genes.

And my mother had made very sure I knew the risks of talking about the weird stuff I saw when I had seizures. She spent my teenage years reminding me that many women in the past had been locked up for less.

A wolf appearing in front of my eyes when I was stone-cold sober and awake? It wasn’t good.

“Please just come, touch her fur. See that it’s real,” Olivia begged, unaware of my internal freak-out. And for some reason, I took a step forward, and then another.

Because deep down in my stomach, I’d rather believe the impossible than that I was losing it. And if that wolf was real?

I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t slipping over the edge into delusion, into mental illness and suffering.

I closed the last of the distance and petted the wolf.

Relief, sharp and instant, filled me as I stroked the soft, thick fur. She let out a happy yip, and I jumped in surprise as she licked me on the chin. Wolf drool was dripping off my chin, and when I wiped it away with my sleeve, the fabric was wet. This close, I could smell the canine scent of her.

“Holy shit, the wolf is real.” I swayed slightly with shock, petting her on the head again, even as I felt weird about it. I was basically petting a stranger on the head. But her tail was wagging, and she didn’t seem offended. “You’re all wolf shifters?”

“Yes, all of us. Even Reed.” Brielle answered my question from the couch.

You could have knocked me over with a feather right then. “So, are all the myths just… true? Do I need to be worried about Dracula coming and sucking me dry and then stuffing me in a coffin?”

“Not all of them, no. Garlic doesn’t do anything against vampires. We’re pretty sure the Italians started that rumor so their populace wouldn’t be afraid,” Brielle said with a soft smile. “Shay.” She addressed the wolf. “I’m sorry to ask, but I might need a recharge, whenever you’re ready to shift back.”

The wolf yipped her agreement, and a second later, the woman was back. Buck naked, but back.

I sank to the edge of the bed, averting my eyes from her nudity as Olivia went and rummaged through a closet, coming back with a pair of sweats for her to slip into. As soon as she was dressed, I watched as she clasped Brielle’s hand in hers, and then closed her eyes.

My jaw dropped when an electric-looking crackle of energy danced over her skin. “What is she doing? It looks like she’s electrocuting Brielle,” I asked Olivia, the only one without her eyes closed.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean? They’re just holding hands.”

“No, they’re holding hands, but there’s… electricity dancing all over them. It started with Shay, and now—now Brielle is covered too.”

Shay cracked one eye and focused on me. “You can see my powers?”

I shrugged, not sure what to think about anything I’d seen in this room. “I guess? It’s like electricity.”

Shay flattened her lips and tilted her head to the side with a shrug before closing her eyes again and concentrating on what she was doing. The electricity tracing over her intensified, and I watched in fascination as Brielle’s color came back, her cheeks turning rosy again under Shay’s touch.

“That’s enough, thank you,” Brielle gasped a moment later, closing her other hand over Shay’s. “You’re getting really good at that.” She smiled at her friend before turning back to me. She opened her mouth as if to tell me something, then surged to her feet with a worried frown. “Something’s wrong. Kane’s blocking our bond, and— We need to go. They’re in the head priestess’s office.”

The urgent tone of her voice had everyone moving, even me. Even if the whole priestess thing was still giving me the cult creeps. I followed them out of the room, Olivia staying back with me as Shay and the man she spoke to in a rushed whisper outside the door raced down the hallway ahead of us.

“What’s going on?” I asked Olivia as I tried to will my still-tired legs to move faster.

“I don’t know. Kane is Brielle’s mate, her alpha. They have a mental bond, and whatever she heard must have worried her,” she told me as we trailed behind them.

Her mate? I didn’t know what that meant. But it didn’t seem like the time to ask, so I stored the question away for later.

When we stepped out of the building we were in, it was to an open courtyard that felt like it was frozen in time, or perhaps that I’d somehow stepped into the pages of a fairy tale. Everything was stone, covered in trailing vines, with lovely plants the only adornment. Yet somehow… there was more . Magical light, much like what had flowed over Shay’s skin as she touched Brielle, encased the entire area in a bubble . I stopped and gaped up at the bright barrier across the sky until Olivia tugged on my arm to get me moving again.

“What are you looking at? We’ve got to keep up. I don’t know where the head priestess’s office is.”

“Sorry, sorry.” I started walking again, putting a little more oomph into my steps, despite the fact that I still felt like shit. Seizures took a lot out of me, and I usually ended up in bed for a few days after, doing nothing but eating and sleeping until I felt human again. But I dug deep and kept up. Something inside me was tugging me, pulling me toward the other side of the enclave with a force I didn’t understand.

We followed Brielle into a long, low stone building across the courtyard, and she broke into a run as soon as she was inside.

“This must be bad. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Brielle run before,” Olivia murmured quietly to me as we increased our semifast walking pace to a jog. I was hanging on to her arm, but the closer I got, the stronger I felt. The stronger the drive compelled me to close the distance.

But what I saw when I got to the door she vanished into, I couldn’t explain. There was a woman in a blue tunic with a scary, double-bladed sword, pointed at a giant black wolf with glowing red eyes.

I paused, terror flooding me at the angry, slavering beast. The Shay-wolf was sweet and friendly. This one was trying to find an opening past the woman’s sword, while the rest of the people circled behind him, yelling for him to stop, to shift back.

“Reed! You cannot attack the head priestess!” The words out of Brielle’s mouth stunned me.

That beast of a wolf was Reed ? I grabbed onto the door frame for support. He was so kind to me, the electric blue of his eyes absolutely nothing like the terrifying red of this wolf.

A cooling flood of energy filled the room, the scent of water cloying in my nose that, for some reason, reminded me of the doctor. But I couldn’t focus on that, because the man who ran here with us burst out of his clothing, a snarling black wolf the same size as Reed’s suddenly charging into the too-small office. He bowled into Reed’s side, pinning him to the earth with his paws and a snarl.

The two began to struggle and tussle, all snapping teeth and flying saliva as they grappled for the upper hand. The second black wolf rammed into me when Reed shoved him back, and my tired muscles couldn’t hold me. I toppled to the floor, screeching like a banshee on the way down.

I landed with a hard thud, stars swimming behind my eyes at the pain in my wrists from where I caught myself before my face could smash into the ground.

“Fiona!” Olivia dropped to her knees at my side, worried eyes running over me as if I were going to be shattered like glass.

“I’m okay. Just lost my balance when he bumped me.” I held up a shaking hand, not wanting her to worry even as multiple parts of my body stung and throbbed with the force of impact.

In the next moment, two things happened at once.

Her eyes went wide, and she looked away from me at the same time that I realized the room had fallen into complete silence.

When warm, masculine arms scooped me off the ground, I gasped. Reed—the man, not the scary-ass wolf—was holding me against his naked chest, eyes full of concern.

“Fiona. I’m so sorry. Are you okay? You shouldn’t be out of bed.” He pressed a tender kiss to my forehead, and all the fear and stress I’d been feeling a moment ago melted away.

He was a wolf… but he was also Reed . And even though I barely knew him, I felt this bone-deep sense of security when I was in his arms that I couldn’t explain. Like that pull wasn’t just this room, it was him personally drawing me in. It was absolutely ridiculous; apparently, my stranger-danger meter was completely broken.

But I couldn’t deny the comfort I felt in that moment, and I let my head rest against his bare shoulder. My breath was still coming in shaky, overexerted pants, but I was okay.

Once I was secure, he turned to face the rest of the room, everyone staring at us with their jaws dropped, including the very naked man standing at Shay’s side, who I quickly looked away from as one of the others handed them both pants to put on. Reed begrudgingly set me on my feet long enough to dress.

But the silence lasted only one beat after they were clothed before the sword-wielding priestess stalked across the room.

Reed growled, the sound vibrating his chest and sending a thrill thrumming through my veins as he scooped me back up.

“You have ten minutes to remove yourself, your mate, and all of your belongings from our grounds, or we will consider it an act of war. Every moment a human resides within these walls is a moment our barrier weakens. And without the barrier, we cannot guard the omega. This is the only hallowed ground where she may remain safe and be what she is.”

“Is that what the bubble outside is?” I whispered the question, whether to Reed or Olivia, who was still hovering anxiously next to us, I didn’t know.

“Bubble?” Reed asked, looking down at me with a furrowed brow.

“Uh, over the enclave? It’s shiny. A big dome. It looked to me like we were inside a soap bubble. What does it look like to you?”

He blinked at me, then across the room at one of the men in confusion.

“Are you claiming that you can see the barrier? You’re human. None can see it, not even the priestesses who protect this place and perform the moon rituals.”

“I… I thought you could all see it. It looks a lot like Shay’s magic when she touches Brielle. But instead of streaks of lightning, it’s smooth. I guess it could be iridescent glass instead of soap,” I stammered, confused. They were the ones with actual magic here. So why were they all looking at me like I’d grown a third eyeball in the middle of my forehead?

“None of us can see it,” Reed said, answering the question I hadn’t asked aloud.

Shame filled me, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. Even among the magical, I was weird. An odd duck, not the same.

Never in my life had I been ordinary. Chronic diseases were always an invisible barrier, blocking us from the normal people. For a split second, I’d hoped the magical world would be different, that I might have found people I fit with.

But I was wrong. And it stung.

“I must have been mistaken,” I whispered, averting my eyes. Reed’s chest began to vibrate under me, a soothing rumble sound that took away some of the sting. Almost as if he was saying that he didn’t mind that I was different, even though that was absurd. Men always minded, in the end.

“If they leave, we all leave.” Brielle’s words snapped me out of my moment of shame, the priestess’s sharp inhale her only response for a heartbeat.

“You cannot. Your power grows here, despite the block. If you step outside these walls, you will be found and killed.”

Brielle shook her head, looking sadly at the man I assumed was her mate before addressing the priestess again. “We are pack, Priestess. If Reed and his mate are unwelcome, we are all unwelcome, and we’ll leave.”

I was floored. I had no idea what the hell half of it meant, but the fact that she was willing to put herself in harm’s way for her friend—pack mate, I corrected myself, even though the word sat strangely in my mind—was loyalty to a degree I’d never in my life experienced. Not to mention me, a complete stranger.

“I cannot let an omega put herself in harm’s way any more than I can allow a human to stay inside these walls.”

“I don’t think she’s human,” Shay interjected from across the room, her eyes on me unnervingly sharp. “Are you able to check the barrier’s strength, to confirm?”

“There is a way, but it has great cost to the one who performs the test,” the priestess said stiffly.

“I am sorry about that, but you said yourself there’s no history of human women bearing an omega seal, yet here she is.” Shay turned back to me. “Can you show her your palm, please?”

Reed stiffened at the request, but his grip remained gentle on me.

I bit my bottom lip between my teeth and lifted the marked palm, even as part of me expected it to have vanished, the whole thing a nightmare.

It glowed in the softly lit room, and the priestess shook her head. “I sense no wolf blood in her. Only human.”

“Isn’t it possible she had a long-ago ancestor who was a shifter? There are legends about humans under duress whose latent blood was activated. Maybe that’s what’s happening here,” the naked man offered.

“We would be able to sense it if her ancestor was a shifter. Her scent doesn’t contain it.” Kane, I thought his name was, strode to stand in front of us. After a moment, his eyes began to glow as they stared into my own.

“Shift.” He said the word with a deep, gravelly tone that made me quiver in fear, but as the seconds ticked by, nothing happened.

“She is not wolf,” he said, stepping back. “If she were, my command would have dragged her into wolf form. But that doesn’t mean she is unmagical.”

My head was spinning. And then a thought hit me. “Are there any magical creatures who are… blue?” I felt stupid even asking the question. But a tiny part of me demanded it. When was I ever likely to have the chance to ask again? Any minute now, Reed was going to get himself dressed and drive me back to my rental car. I would get on a plane, fly home to my tiny apartment, and this would all be a strange fever dream, that night I couldn’t talk about because everyone who heard would think I was crazy.

Except… what if it wasn’t? My pulse pounded faster as I waited for an answer.

“Pixies come in a rainbow of colors. Why do you ask?” the priestess asked, her tone still hostile.

“There’s, well… My great-grandmother was institutionalized for claiming she’d met a blue man and that her second child was his. It’s probably nothing. I just wanted to help.”

“That would make you… one-eighth pixie?” Reed asked, looking down at me.

“I have no idea. Everyone back then thought she was crazy, so I never put much stock into it.”

Brielle was nodding, though. “You have some kind of powers. I think we can all agree with that. You’re omega sealed, and you’re Reed’s mate, which means you can’t be fully human.”

I blinked rapidly at that last piece of information. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“That you have powers? I thought you were picking up on that, given you can see?—”

“No, not that. The bit about being Reed’s mate ?”

“I’m sorry, I thought you knew that was why he brought you here.” Brielle cleared her throat and looked up at Reed apologetically. “Reed, you didn’t tell her?”

My fingertips felt cold, almost numb. “Tell me what?” My voice sounded too high, on the verge of hysterical.

“Fiona,” Reed started in a wary tone, “my wolf has claimed you. He says you’re our fated mate.”