Page 20

–Storm–

I COULD ONLY pray as we made our way over the drawbridge and through the woodland away from Callum’s castle toward Tadc’s kingdom and certain war that the plan we had devised would work. It was hard to imagine anything pulling my mate back from such evil, but I would try until my last dying breath.

“Do not doubt the plan, Storm,”

Adlin advised, embracing me before we left. He had looked me in the eyes with wisdom of which only he was capable. “Once you are in Tadc’s territory, have nothing but faith in the power of fated mates and all you have found with yours. Have faith, and let your magic take over. Not just that, but have faith in those traveling with you, for you are stronger together than you will ever be apart. I will help you from afar as much as I can.”

Knowing he spoke the truth, believing it deep down, I departed with most of the Wolves of Ossary outside of those left to defend the castle and Adlin, who would be guarding over the pups. The little ones hadn’t liked it, especially the grey pup, but they were given no choice.

Where we were going was far too dangerous.

“Are you ready, cousin?”

Kaia said, falling in on one side of me and Naya on the other as we made our way through the woodland, referring to something they had just learned about me. “Do you think you can do it? Do you think you can muddle their minds?”

“I do.”

Viking blade at the ready, now more suited to my size as it had a way of doing for whoever possessed it, I nodded firmly. “I have no choice.”

I glanced at my cousins. “None of us do.”

“No.”

Naya clasped my shoulder in support. “We’ve got your back, Storm. My inner Renegade does, for sure.”

I nodded in thanks and looked ahead again, trying to rally the new power I felt building inside me, praying this would work. Prayed as we stepped onto enemy territory, and my storm blew in that everything would go as we hoped.

“It will,”

Broderick assured, speaking within the mind as his great black beast landed in front of us and paved the way. He glanced back at me, and his dragon eyes met my dragonly wolf eyes. “You are the strongest lass I have ever met, and I do not doubt that will hold true this day.”

“Nor I,”

Tréan agreed, nodding at me with reassurance from beside Kaia.

“Or I,”

Bain agreed too.

“You’ve got this, peanut,”

Uncle Conner said before he and Gráinne split off into the darkness along with many others, and the battle began shortly thereafter. At least for most of us.

Not so much for Callum, despite him thinking otherwise.

While it took everything in me not to go to him immediately when swords started clashing, I needed to stick close to Broderick because I knew he would be their number one target. Moreover, I needed to be with him when Callum figured out what was happening.

When he discovered I had muddled his mind when I had sworn I would not.

“’Tis the only way,”

Ceara had said when everyone discussed it earlier, strategizing our attack. Still in wolf form as she had been since returning from Tadc’s, she had looked at me confidently. “I am not sure how many thoughts you can muddle at once, but you should try to confuse Callum above all else.”

“She’s right,”

Adlin had said. “If you can make him think and see things that aren’t there, then there’s every chance you can bring him back to us.”

He had given me a pointed look. “But it must be believable. All of it, whatever you choose to deceive him with.”

While I hated the idea of doing that to Callum, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to free him from Tadc’s clutches and bring him back to me. And I had the power to do it now, thanks to us coming together as fated mates. I was certain of it.

Certain our love would help save not just him but everyone.

“Tadc’s laid traps everywhere,”

Tréan warned everybody telepathically because so many were here fighting for us, from Mave’s pack and the Rogues, all turned Exiles, to even a few defected twenty-first-century Boston mafia wolves now called the Renegades. “So proceed with caution and allow our Storm Queen to aid us as we go.”

And so I did without giving it another thought or doubting my abilities as I raced after Broderick, who was by all means the bait. I focused and grounded myself even as I kept moving. Better yet, I pulled myself inward while expelling outward and jumped from one enemy mind to another, trying to discombobulate them so our warriors could take them down without killing them.

After all, there was every chance we might be able to save them if we defeated Tadc.

Yet one mind needed to be defeated first or, better said, returned to me, so I linked up with Callum more intensely than the others and created a mock mini-battle within a war he thought was very real. From the warriors he cut down—too many to count, which would normally devastate him—to the two warriors that would bring him to his breaking point and leave him vulnerable.

And it worked.

It worked so well that he defeated images of his brothers, killing them with very little feeling but enough adrenaline and emotion that seeing me was just what he needed. What he craved most because he walked a line between doing the unthinkable and killing his old alpha and defying his new alpha if it meant having me one last time.

Of course, the mirage wasn’t really me, but he didn’t know that.

Not until he took me back into his heart and reality crashed down around him. A crack in the enemy's hold over him broke open, allowing my love to flood back in, and it tore Tadc’s evil influence away in one fell eye-opening, heart-freeing swoop, allowing Callum to at last see clearly.

At first, it was devastating as I dissipated in his arms because I was nothing more than a mirage made in his muddled mind. Yet still, for a few terrible moments, as his thoughts struggled to right themselves, he suffered the horrendous, soul-wrenching realization that he’d killed not only many of his own wolves but his beloved brothers.

At least until the worst happened, just as we speculated it might, and Broderick’s dragon walked straight into the trap set for him, tearing me away from Callum. But not before his head shot up at the sound of a dragon’s roar in the distance, and he was freed entirely from not just my spell but Tadc's hold on him. When that happened, he realized he’d never harmed a soul but had been fighting ghostly figures from his imagination.

And Broderick had bought him the time to do it.

How else could it be when Tadc had been tracking his grand prize, convinced Callum had matters in hand? Meanwhile, the enemy was ready to seize what he considered most valuable, surprising us with his method of attack. More so, he caught us unaware when Broderick suddenly sank into some sort of sticky substance, which kept him from going any further, and the whole of Tadc’s army came out of nowhere, attacking me, my cousins, and their fated mates with a fierceness we didn’t anticipate.

It was the first time since all this began that I’d had to fight like this. Still, everything Kaia had taught me over the years, combined with my own magical skills, kicked in, and my inner warrior screamed to the surface. I raced into the mayhem with my Viking sword drawn, desperate to protect Broderick because his great flailing beast was being locked down more and more by the moment, and it broke my heart.

Fighting and flailing but ultimately losing, my mighty friend didn’t deserve the tightening ropes thrust over him, slowly pinning his wings down, leaving nothing but his head free to roar fire at the sky.

“Burn them,”

I screamed into his mind. “Don’t listen to me and burn them all. Defend yourself!”

As it were, I was the one who had asked him to spare as many as possible because their poor souls might not be lost yet, even though they were loyal to Tadc. He had forced them to worship him via his bite, so I hoped, as I knew Callum would too, that there was still hope for them.

Sadly, Broderick didn’t defend himself but saw through my wishes because, deep down, whether wolf or not, he was part of my pack and a merciful ruler in his own right, so he wanted to give them a chance. And it cost him because more and more of Tadc’s warriors swarmed him until he crashed to the ground, tied down, and his great jaw was bound shut.

Anguished for him, I fought with a ferociousness I didn’t know I possessed alongside my mate’s brothers and my cousins, ducking and swirling and trying not to kill but knock out, but it was difficult as tears poured down my cheeks. Broderick was one of the strongest, most noble people I had ever met, and now he lay prone at my behest, vulnerable to the monster swaggering his way with evil triumph in his eyes because he had brought down the great beast.

The only thing here above him on the food chain.

I barely heard a distinctive mournful howl through the rain and thunder until a huge mahogany wolf with tan and grey flecks broke out of the woodland. He skidded to a halt between Tadc and Broderick, raised his hackles at the enemy, bared his fangs, and released a long, low growl of warning I felt right down to my core.

“Callum,”

I whispered, never so glad to see him again. To witness his great wolf alive and well, defending our friend as the rest of us struggled to get to him.

“Tsk, tsk, bad boy,”

Tadc said darkly, his words carrying on the wind as he flared his wolven eyes at Callum and shifted to his monstrous brown wolf when he might have stayed in human form and fought better.

“Yet his pride gets in the way because he cannot understand why Callum would ever reject him after knowing how powerful he is,”

Tréan said into my mind. “And ‘tis more than worth taking advantage of, sister Storm.”

Despite my near-crippling fear for the two men that mattered most to me, I couldn’t help a small smile as my eyes met my alpha’s mid-battle, and he reminded me with a single look what Kaia had begun, and I could use to my advantage.

Driving my blade into the shoulder of the warrior fighting me, my eyes swept over my surroundings and all of those battling with a fierceness that made me proud. Everyone from Kaia and Tréan to Bain and Naya to my uncle and Gráinne, to all the beasts that loved the Wolves of Ossary. They would fight to the end to defend not just the wolves but the dragons that had become part of our inner circle, whether Viking or Scottish.

All were worth protecting, as were those caught in a spell, or so I could only hope, as more and more of Tadc’s wolves headed into the clearing, determined to protect their alpha.

“Hold the enemy back as long as you can!”

I roared into the minds of every Wolf of Ossary and raced in Tadc and Callum’s direction as their wolves circled with bared teeth before lunging at each other.

After that, it was fast and furious and slow and sped up all at once as I ran as fast as I could, jumping over the end of Broderick’s spiked tail, desperate to get close enough. Meanwhile, the Wolves of Ossary intercepted anyone who tried to slow me down.

Would I get close enough in time?

There was no way to know as rain slashed down, and my wolven sight brightened with the desperation of my inner beast. Callum and Tadc’s wolves had grown especially ferocious, nothing but a blur of teeth, claws, and roars that drowned out the thunder booming across the sky.

“Please let me get there in time,”

I prayed under my breath, pushing my muscles until I was within range. Then, having no choice but to trust my dragon magic to keep my aim tried and true, I whipped the Viking blade with all my might in their direction.

Skidding to a halt, I prayed it met its mark as my mate and Tadc tore into each other. The blade flew through the wind and rain, caught in the trail of my dragon fire combined with Viking, wolven, and witchy magic, until it landed with a heavy thump right where I had aimed.

Baffled by something he hadn’t seen coming, Tadc’s wolf looked down at the blade lodged in the very spot Kaia had first stabbed his human half in the thigh the night Ceara had been returned, barely alive, as they shoved her to her knees in weather much like this.

“Weather exactly like this,”

Ceara said into my mind, her voice coming through far too clearly for her to still be at the castle. And she wasn’t. Rather, she surprised everyone when her white wolf limped out of the forest in Tadc and Callum’s direction.

While the fighting should have resumed or grown fiercer, it didn’t. Instead, Tadc’s wolf stumbled back, and the enemy warriors began lowering their blades as magic festered inside an equally magical wound Tadc hadn’t entirely rid himself of, and his wolf grew weaker and weaker.

I sensed he tried to shift back to his human form but couldn’t as Callum and Ceara circled him, taking their time. Letting him suffer for all the pain he had caused. I choked back emotion at Ceara’s thoughts. Bittersweet rage would be the best way to describe it. She might love her pups, but they had come at a high cost.

Tadc.

I knew at that moment, as she bared her fangs at the wolf who had made her life a living hell, that she would never embrace her human half again. He had brutalized and traumatized her too much, driving her forever into the sanctity and safety of her inner beast.

So it didn’t surprise me when Callum’s wolf charged Tadc, slammed him to the ground, and backed away so Ceara could take the kill. One she had very much earned when she lunged at Tadc, wrapped her teeth around his neck, and bit down with all her might, severing crucial veins so swiftly, he couldn’t fight back if he tried.

Choking back tears of relief, I leaned against Broderick’s dragon for support, rested my cheek against a scale, and promised him he would be free soon. Everyone watched as Ceara bit down even harder and finally had her vengeance on a wolf who had brought so much heartache to so many.

As the last of Tadc’s blood drained away and he slowly went lifeless, I felt Naya’s strong, supportive hand slip into mine. When I pulled away from Broderick and looked at her, I saw in her eyes what she had already figured out. It unfolded as enemy wolf after enemy wolf dropped their blades and drifted Ceara’s way. The dank, corrupt veil of their evil creator was finally, at last, lifted, and they were thankful to the wolf who had ended their nightmare. Another survivor like them. One in which they saw a bright new beginning.

A true matriarch who would watch over them always.

And it would only get better from there as my storm lifted and a waning moon ushered in the best night the Wolves of Ossary had ever had.

An eve that would mark sad endings but new beginnings as well.

Ones that I didn’t see coming but would make all the difference.