Page 7

SEVEN

Reed

W ith Fiona’s flight booked and her sleeping peacefully on my shoulder, there wasn’t much I could do but sit and enjoy the improbable perfection of the moment.

I stared unabashedly at her face, the soft curve of her cheek, the dark spray of her eyelashes over pale skin. Blonde waves in a tangle against her jaw.

She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, bar none. My chest was so tight with emotion, I could barely breathe, and all she was doing was lying there. There was a deep, primal urge inside me to protect her, this peace and safety she felt, at all costs.

She was precious. To me, to my wolf.

Was this how everyone felt when they found their mate? I couldn’t believe it. Because I saw Kane and Dirge, walking around getting pack business done like everything was business as usual. And I couldn’t imagine any part of me getting up from this bed and going about business as usual. The earth’s axis had shifted, and she was at the center now.

From the second our eyes had locked, I was done. She was it for me.

And I had never believed in love at first sight, not really. I was over three hundred years old; I’d seen a hell of a lot of folks and never felt more than passing interest in anyone at first sight. But it was more than that, somehow, with Fiona. An instant, soul-deep knowing . Was that love? Or was it something else?

Maybe it didn’t matter.

Now I just had to not scare her off.

A week was something; a beginning. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of dangerous pack times, and I couldn’t fly her to my restaurant in Paris or wow her with the view from my rooftop restaurant in Seattle. All I had was myself, and I wasn’t sure that was enough to convince her.

Though it was a good sign that she hadn’t run screaming when she found out that shifters were real. I was kind of shocked by how well she’d taken it all. Although…

I picked up my phone and texted Dirge.

Reed: Can you ask one of the maidens to come in here? I have questions. Quietly, though. Fiona’s asleep.

Dirge: Shouldn’t you be asleep? You were up all night.

Reed: I’ve operated on two hours before. I’m fine.

Dirge: Whatever you say, brother.

Reed: Thanks.

It wasn’t five minutes later that a soft knock came at the door.

“Come in,” I called quietly, knowing she’d hear.

Elodie silently stepped inside, shutting the door carefully before crossing the room and leaning her hip against my desk.

“What’s up? D said you have questions?”

It amused me that she already called my prickly, aloof twin D. Most people skirted him with terror, and Elodie looked like she weighed maybe a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet. Clearly, she wasn’t easily scared.

“Any word on the barrier yet?” I asked in the same hushed whisper.

She responded in equally quiet tones. “No, nothing. Though it’ll probably be tomorrow or the next day. There’s a whole ritual, and it has to happen at night.”

“Ah, okay. Does the enclave have a library we could access? Particularly one with magical history?”

“Oh yeah, a big one. We’d have to ask the priestesses to approve the access part, but I’m sure they would, given your pack has clearly been Goddess touched with all the omega-marked females you have.”

I nodded, those words weighing heavily on my mind. There was absolutely something different happening to our pack. And I felt wholly unprepared to take such a front-row seat to all of it.

More than that, I was going to father an omega daughter. With a human—or perhaps not—mother. It was a lot to digest so quickly. But I didn’t have any time to waste, and if they had a library, we might figure out more about Fiona’s history.

“I want to dig into what other species are blue that might account for the family lore she has. Barring that, what species would be so hard to identify this quickly? A one-eighth shifter would still have a wolf, and we’d be able to identify her by scent. So what’s in her background that has still given her powers but that a wolf nose can’t identify?”

Elodie nodded slowly, considering. “It is a mystery. But there’s a lot out there. It could be anything besides shifters, vampires, and fae, I’d guess. Fae, your girl Shay would be able to identify, by touch if nothing else. Vamps we can smell a mile off, and they don’t have the weird vision stuff she seems to have. I don’t personally know a lot about pixies, but she didn’t mention any of her relatives being super short or having other physical differences.”

“Yeah, I’d think if her grandmother was half pixie, there would have been physical signs. Whatever she is, it’s almost as if it has no effect on her human form. I don’t know of any magical species that operates that way when mixed with a nonmagical bloodline. That’s probably our biggest clue.”

“So, something incorporeal, then? Unless, I mean, could her family be gypsy? The Romanies of the past were thought to have real spirit connections that helped them tell fortunes. It’s not all parlor tricks, though that’s what humans are inclined to believe.”

I shrugged. “We’ll have to wait to ask her when she wakes up. Speaking of, she mentioned having stuff in a hotel room. Is anyone available to go pick it up?”

Elodie bobbled her head back and forth. “I can ask one of the trainees to do it. Just pass me the key, and let me know what hotel. Then I’ll go see about getting you library permission, and we’ll see what we find.”

“Thanks, Elodie.”

“Call me El. We’re practically pack now,” she said with a jovial grin before slipping silently back out the door.

* * *

I must have drifted off at some point because I woke with a start when Fiona stirred at my side. But where we’d fallen asleep chastely propped against each other, we woke in a tangle of limbs. A low rumble built in my chest as I took stock of the situation.

We’d both sunk down to lie horizontally, her head pillowed on my biceps and one leg tossed over my hip. My top leg was pressed between hers, thigh tight against her core.

She was whimpering in her sleep, as if she was in the midst of a nightmare.

I rumbled a little louder and rubbed her back, hoping to ease her out of the bad dream. And while she did go still, it was only for a moment. Those beautiful eyes flew open a second later, startled and wide, as she seemed to register our close proximity.

She had heterochromia, and I stared into the depths of her rich brown eye on one side, half blue, half golden on the other.

“It wasn’t a dream,” she blurted, studying me intensely.

I chuckled. “No, it wasn’t a dream. Seems like we both had a power nap.”

“I needed it. Seizures tend to wipe me out for a couple of days, after. Although… I feel pretty good now. Maybe we slept longer than we thought?” She blushed, the color tinging her pale cheeks beautifully as she extricated herself from my grip.

I could tell she was embarrassed by how we’d woken up, but my wolf was content on a bone-deep level. Sleeping with your mate—even fully clothed, on top of the blankets—was the most restful experience I’d ever had.

But while I was basking in the afterglow of her touch, she was keeping her head ducked low and avoiding eye contact as she scrambled from the bed. Her scent was tinged with embarrassment, which my wolf hated.

“You don’t have to feel embarrassed.” I stood, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around her from behind. “Wolves crave touch. It’s part of the pack dynamic. And the touch we crave most of all is our mate’s.”

“I… I’m not a wolf, though. This is all so strange, and I can’t figure out why I feel so drawn to you. I should be worried about you murdering me and wearing my skin like a designer coat, not cozying up to you like you’re my college boyfriend!” She ran her hands through her hair with a wince, and I realized that maybe she needed a few minutes to collect herself, feel a little more human after the long night, before we had this conversation.

“I asked Elodie, one of the maidens who’s going to be staying with our pack, to get your stuff from the hotel earlier. It might be outside the door by now, if you want to check. And then we can talk about the fated-mates situation.”

She nodded stiffly, so I crossed the room and pulled open the door. Sure enough, there was one small carry-on suitcase, with a neon-green ribbon tied around the handle, sitting outside the door.

“Looks like you’re in luck. I’m going to go right down the hall and check in with my Alpha to give you a few minutes. The attached bathroom is right through there.”—I pointed to the door—“And I’ll wait outside until you tell me you’re ready to talk. Okay?”

“Thank you.” She still wouldn’t make eye contact with me, and my heart sank as the door closed behind me with an ominous thud .

I had always been a confident guy. I rarely second-guessed my decisions, but as I stood and stared at the solid oak door, I was questioning everything. Should I have stayed and gutted it out? Was it the right thing to let her have some space? I had no idea.

But I hated feeling disheveled, and in her shoes, I’d have wanted a moment to get clean and feel like myself. Hopefully, it was right.

I stalked down the hall, my worry over Fiona painting everything in a sour light.

When I knocked on Kane’s door, he called for me to come in without hesitation. I was surprised to see the pack had gathered, lounging around the room, including Gael and Leigh. It was obvious they were all loved up and happy, and seeing them that way was like a knife twist to the gut.

I was thrilled for them; they had a rocky time getting to that place, and I didn’t begrudge them their happiness, not really. But while my own mate was unsure of me, it was hard to see them cuddled in each other’s arms in the same chair.

I averted my gaze and saw that Elodie and Galyna were also here in their maiden’s uniforms, leaning against the only window in the room.

“I’m surprised to see you all together. Is everything okay?”

Dirge was the one who answered. “You had a long night, brother. We decided to let you both rest since there wasn’t pressing news yet. Finding a new mate is a… harrowing process sometimes.”

I nodded my agreement. Harrowing wasn’t the first word that had come to mind, but navigating all the new feelings was a bit like traversing a minefield while blindfolded.

“I wanted to thank you all for having my back this morning, with the priestess.” I cleared my throat. “But I also want you to know that if the test comes back that Fiona is harming the protective barrier here, I won’t ask you to put your lives in danger for us. She wants to go home next week anyway. I can go with her, or, if she’s willing, take her back to Alaska to the rest of Pack Blackwater.”

Gael was already shaking his head. “Absolutely not. We’re pack, man. We stick together. And from what Kane was telling us, your girl’s got the mark, just like Leigh and Oli. She needs protection from the ODL too.”

“Apparently, she needs protection from random male wolf shifters, not just the ODL.” I said the words with more of a growl than I intended. Even the memory of the four males following her still pissed me off.

“What do you mean?” Leigh asked, sitting up straighter in Gael’s lap.

“That’s how we met. I was drinking at a hole-in-the-wall nearby, and she ran through the doors with four assholes on her heels. They chased her through the woods in wolf form. She thought she was going to die.”

Leigh’s eyes went wide as she glanced at Gael, then back at me. To my surprise, she pushed herself to her feet and crossed the room to where I stood. “I don’t think we told you guys because of everything happening so fast… but something similar happened to me when the castle got attacked. I was on a walk out in the forest, and when the attack happened, six males broke off from the main group and followed me.”

Shit . That would have been the clean-up call Gael made while we were evacuating the castle, though he hadn’t said much about why. I’d just assumed it was because he’d run into part of the invasion force.

“So, what the fuck is making these random males chase our women? We assumed it was the pregnancy making Leigh smell attractive to them.” Gael’s lip lifted with disgust, an emotion I mirrored. The idea of random males coming after my mate made me want to set things on fire.

“You guys really don’t know?” Galyna asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Know what?” I asked.

“It’s the marks. If an omega-marked female is unbonded, she’s basically flies-to-honey to any shifter male nearby.”

“That’s not true,” I interrupted, shooting a glance at Olivia, who sat on the edge of Brielle’s bed, fidgeting. “Olivia’s marked, and she hasn’t had any issues, right?”

Olivia nodded then ducked her head as if embarrassed by the whole conversation.

“Has she been out of the pack’s protection? It doesn’t happen to males in the alpha-omega pair’s pack. Their influence protects you as much as the females, which is why none of you pounced on Olivia or Leigh when they showed up with the omega seal. You’ll only react to the female if she’s your mate, like Gael and Leigh. But to males outside the pack…” Galyna shrugged. “They’re basically catnip once the omega seal changes their scent, until they’ve got a bonding bite. Wherever Fiona was out in the woods, she must have wandered into Brielle’s range. Or, perhaps, uh, Brielle was getting a… fresh charge from Kane at the time? Her powers could have spiked. It’s really hard to tell with her powers so drained most of the time.”

I thought back, trying to piece it together, when I realized what she meant.

Ahh . Kane fed Brielle’s powers through physical contact. If they were having sex after the bonding ceremony and her use of the lovelace on Leigh… Yeah, I’d say she was charged up around the same time Fiona’s mark appeared out in the woods.

“It’s as good an explanation as any,” Kane offered, arm around a blushing Brielle. “Leigh and Olivia didn’t get immediately marked either.”

“That’s true,” Leigh mused, looking down at her own palm. “They showed up kind of randomly for us on the same day. But with Shay feeding Bri’s power too, she’s stronger than she’s been in a long time.”

I looked back at Galyna. “So you’re saying that if Fiona goes home, any local shifters are going to hunt her down and try to, what? Claim her?”

“Not necessarily. Some might think it’s the mate bond and try to claim her. Most will just try to breed her, for lack of a more delicate term.”

My hands started to shake, pure fury pulsed through my veins instead of blood. “Over my dead body,” I said, voice raspy with my wolf’s presence.

Galyna held up her hands in apology. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I’m not one to beat around the bush. The fact that you’ve all managed to stumble around safely this far is kind of a miracle, with how little you know about omegas.”

“Brielle and I have discussed this at length, and it’s time that ends,” Kane said solemnly.

Brielle squeezed his hand and nodded. “I think I’m ready to lift the curse.”

Several gasps sounded around the room.

“But, Brielle… If you do that, you’ll be a beacon to the ODL. They’ll come after you night and day until you’re wiped off the map,” Shay said, pleading with her friend.

“I know, Shay. I know. But we’ve tried to go about things the right way, we’ve asked the IGC for fairer treatment, and got attacked inside our own pack home. We’re already not safe . I can’t keep hiding. Maybe with my powers unlocked, we can prove that I’m not a threat, and therefore, the next generation of omegas on the way isn’t a threat.” Brielle looked at Leigh, misty-eyed and voice choked with unshed tears.

“I am high alpha of the nine great packs. My mate is an omega. The goddess clearly has her hand on our pack for a reason,” Kane said, nodding at each of the omega-sealed females around the room, and then finally at me. “I’m done hiding. The ODL can try to take us down, but we won’t be unprepared. War on our pack is war on all wolves. And I intend to make it clear that that’s the case to any wolf who thinks otherwise.”

Shock rolled through me, but I could also see how it would grate on the strongest alpha wolf in the world to hide instead of standing up and fighting. It wasn’t his nature. It didn’t sit well with me either, but it wasn’t my call.

Did we stand a chance, though?

I didn’t know, and that was chilling.

The conversation devolved after that, Galyna and Elodie weighing in on options for removing the curse inside the enclave, with and without Karissma’s help. I wasn’t adding much to the conversation, so I excused myself, the desire to check on Fiona too strong to ignore after what I’d just heard.

Galyna’s words about her being hunted by other males until she wore my bonding bite echoed with my footsteps down the empty hallway. There was no way in hell I was going to let that happen.