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I hovered in an empty white space. There was no ground, no sky, no horizon to give any indication of where I was. Then, Brandon shifted. He held me completely curled up against his chest, his cheek resting on the top of my head, arms wrapped around me tightly.

“Don’t hate me,” he said.

The white place seemed to somehow swallow the words, like they came out flat and died away promptly.

“What?”

“Don’t hate me for what’s to come. I tried, Jules. I tried so fucking hard to avoid all of this. To find a way to save the guys, to stop the Great Wolf. Every fucking step I took just changed everything, until I couldn’t do anything but follow my heart.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, shifting now, but he wouldn’t let me go. A small tendril of fear wrapped itself around my heart. I was stronger than him, than all the men. I pushed harder, but his body was a wall around me.

“I’ve loved you forever. Before I even knew what it was, before you came to Sanctuary, from the very first breath I took, I’ve loved you. Tell me you’ll remember that.”

I stopped fighting, and he allowed me to move until I was able to look at him. His eyes shone bright green, an odd change from his usual calming grey.

“Brandon, Jules?”

Our heads jerked up to see Finn, Aaron, and Slade before the bed. For a second, Brandon’s eyes glowed as intensely as a Tirian’s before it, and the whiteness, faded away to reveal the room and us, lying on the bed in the exact same position.

“OK, what the fuck was that?” Slade said.

Everyone else just looked around, dazed.

“Brandon?” There was a knock on the door along with a muffled request that had him rolling free and pulling a pair of jeans on.

“Finn, you’re going to get your wish,” he replied. “Aaron, you’ll have everything you want, but we need to get dressed and in the dining room in five. I’ll get Sylvan.”

“Brandon…” My voice trailed off as he opened the door a crack and slipped through. I could hear the sound of a conversation, but not the words, and even that faded away.

I pulled on a shirt with wobbly hands, and Aaron came over and stilled mine, before doing it up neatly. I nodded my thanks.

“Do we do as he says?” I said, my hand on the door.

“He’s always been a fey one, has our Doc, but he’s never steered us wrong,” Slade said with a shrug.

I nodded and then opened the door.

They were waiting for us at the dining room table, Ophelia sitting at the head, Sylvan and Brandon on either side of her. Sylvan looked quietly pleased, but Brandon’s fingers worried the tablecloth, his eyes staring sightlessly. “Come and sit,” she said. “You must be very confused.”

We obeyed her, as everyone seemed wont to do, and she waited until we were seated before beginning.

“Firstly, like Brandon, I wish to apologise, for so many things. If there was another way…” She sighed.

“I relinquished my position as alpha when I first found out about the Volken, and I have taken it back because I know what has to be done. Finn, you will be going through the gate to save the men, including your fathers. Aaron, you will have trained men under you and supplies. Thanks to Brandon, we knew some of this was coming, just not the attack. We have been creating caches near the mine site for some time. Julie, congratulations on forming your pack. I felt the bond as soon as you made it formally, and I couldn’t be more pleased. But this is not what you want from me.”

I stared at the three of them, unable to think of a single word to utter.

“Sylvan is the Volken’s seer. The visions that plagued him are what led him here, what resulted in him marking Julie.

Brandon is ours. This is customarily a female position.

The other matriarchs believe we are waiting for one of our girls to display the requisite talent.

There were a few that noted Brandon’s talents when he was very young, but thankfully, his mother contacted me, and we were able to mask his abilities.

While they tend not to agree on how, the objective is clear—for both of our peoples to flourish, we need to release the Great Wolves and bring the balance.

The line must remain unbroken for us to survive. ”

“May the line remain unbroken,” the two men said dutifully.

“What the fuck?” I said, settling back in my chair. “What the actual fuck?”

“Jules…” Brandon said, his eyes coming alive now, but that wasn’t fair. That such familiar eyes would be scoured with pain, begging me for understanding right when I couldn’t. I switched back to Ophelia, more comfortable with venting my spleen at her.

“You’ve known about all of this? The bite? My infection? My near fucking dying?” My voice was going all shrill and crazy lady like, but I had no other option. There was no rational way to process this.

“I did talk to Kelly and Doctor Hobbes about just this. I tried to warn them,” she replied. She seemed visibly upset by it all, but how could she be? She knew.

“And you?” I said to Sylvan. “What do we need you for if we have our own seer?”

“I see what he cannot, but there will be a seer on both sides, no matter what. Better one that is prepared to ally with you, yes?” Sylvan said.

I fell silent, staring at the pattern on the tablecloth.

I didn’t have anything left in me. My brain, my heart, had been on the most epic rollercoaster since I’d bitten Slade, and now it flatlined.

The guys asked questions—some getting quite heated, if the sound level was an indicator—but I just traced the jacquard arabesques with my finger, over and over.

Then, I felt a nudge at my hand. Buddy sat by my chair, tail wagging and looking up at me with those ice blue eyes.

Again, he shoved his muzzle under my hand when I didn’t respond, so I reached over and rubbed one of those velvety ears.

I was a bad dog owner. Finn was the one who took him for walks now, and one of us made sure he was fed.

We kinda crowd sourced his care between us, and he would amble off outside the yard if he couldn’t get what he needed.

Yet here he was, sitting there and looking like I was the centre of his universe, when he had to know he wasn’t the centre of mine anymore.

You are his pack.

It wasn’t my Tirian speaking, it was just me. I looked around the table, saw all my men speaking animatedly, even Hawk. All except for Brandon. He just watched me.

Did you mean to hurt us? I thought.

He got to his feet, walking down the length of the table and dropping to his knees beside me, his eyes wide with pain. He took my hand gingerly, and when I didn’t pull away, he laid his head on my lap.

I stroked his hair, because he was my friend, because he was in pain, because the scent of him was still all over my skin, because I loved him, and because he was pack.

I clung desperately to what I knew of Brandon, that nowhere in the funny, geeky guy I’d come to love was there a naturally deceptive bone in his body.

But nonetheless, he had been playing a long game, one way more complex than who was fucking who and how.

This was too big to process, this truth, so I just focussed on the silky slip of his hair between my fingers.

“When do we go?” I asked no one in particular.

“You have two days,” Ophelia replied.