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So when he yanked me close, branding my mouth with his, I was surprised, relieved, and elated by turns.

Jack had made his big gesture at the ruins, opened his heart, but it was only now that I knew this was going to be permanent.

A deep satisfaction I hadn’t expected to feel welled up.

It dominated my thoughts and my feelings as I moved, as he moved.

Hands dragging through hair or sliding up thighs, it didn’t much matter.

I felt a powerful throb within me with each of my guys today, but it seemed fitting that Jack would be the finale.

He might always be the show pony, but he delivered.

When we finally pulled back, panting as we regarded the other, he nodded. “Now, Jules.”

I pulled my hair away from my neck in response, and he drew me closer so I straddled his hips.

He held his cock with one hand, shuffling our bodies to line us up, and then pulled me down in one incredible stroke.

As I gasped at the sudden intrusion, his mouth sought my neck, teeth and lips teasing the skin there for a moment as his hips shifted in small strokes, and then he bit me.

We chased the black sun, the great obsidian orb rising and rising, while we sprinted faster and faster to try and catch it.

It would burn us whole, consume with no thought, but we strove with everything we had to reach it.

We got to the water’s edge, saw the star begin to rise, and then we leapt.

Our fangs closed around that swirling mass of black fire, and then it all exploded.

We were spiralling, up and up and up, seven points of light careening around each other, bouncing off each other as we streamed.

We were reaching for the stars, every petty fight and struggle left behind, burned away by the fire within us.

When I glanced back, I saw a dim red light, far below on the ground, tethered by whatever it was that held it down.

Sylvan, I thought. He was like a tiny anchor, trying to drag us back.

Not deliberately, there was no intent there, just the unconscious purpose that thrummed within him.

As if summoned by my conceptualisation of him as an anchor, a thin thread that bound me to him appeared, slowing me down.

I still flew through the air with my pack, but I lagged, dropping lower and lower.

My heart screamed as I watched my men fly past me, feeling and tasting each one of their particular essences as they passed.

I glanced down again at the rope, and felt a godawful anger.

Sylvan was a fucking millstone around my neck, literally. The ache of that first fucking bite, where he’d bit me while I was still human, flared again hard, as if to keep me where I was supposed to be.

Fuck that.

I’d been jerked around by him, by prophecies, by unknown genetic quirks, by seers, by psychic attacks, even by mysterious wolf gods since I got to Sanctuary.

I was done. I transformed from a ball of light into human form, still lit from within, my hands an unearthly green as I grabbed the rope and tugged.

I grit my teeth, feeling like a furnace flared within me, burning hot as I put everything I had into this—breaking the bond or pulling Sylvan along with us.

Then I remembered the green-eyed woman I’d seen in his dreams. He was already bonded to whoever the fuck Branwen was, this link between us an artificial one created for some mystical bullshit reason, and I was done with it.

I let the fire inside me burn hotter and hotter, my whole being now one of heat and light. Then, the bond broke.

I shot through the darkness, arrowing through space beyond countless stars, to join the radiant constellation of my mates.

But I didn’t slow when I reached them. Instead, I swept past, catching them in my wake as we kept flying higher.

There was nothing to see here, nothing but blackness and pinpricks of lights, yet some internal compass had me flying up. Then those great red eyes appeared.

I felt twinges of fear, of protectiveness at the sight of them. Unlike the Great Black Wolf I’d seen in visions, this one encompassed the whole sky. His mouth opened, his tongue lolling out in a wolfish smile, his white teeth shining brighter than the stars.

I should have been terrified. This was a Wolf God.

He looked like galaxies hid like fleas within the sable of his coat, but for some reason, I hung in the space before him with the guys at my sides, and felt no such sensible fear.

We were fucking pack. Nothing was going to take us down now, not even divine creatures.

I threw back my head and howled my disdain, now in Tirian form, the guys joining in.

Our howls rose, twining together to become one note, ringing out throughout the universe.

We were giving the Black Wolf notice. We were here, and we were done cringing away from this fucking shit.

The Great Wolf reacted predictably, straightening up from wherever he stood on the fundaments of known space, the hunch of his shoulder, the angle of his head indicating an attack was imminent.

I felt the clamouring whispers of concern, of worry, but I held firm.

I was not bowing down before these motherfuckers.

We were strong, so fucking strong. We were a Great Wolf in ourselves.

Thought controlled reality here as I felt the lot of us meld and mesh until we were just that.

It was a confusing thing as suddenly my brain was full of a million clamouring thoughts and feelings.

I eyed the Great Black Wolf taking ponderous steps towards us as I struggled to hold on under the onslaught.

Run, stay, fight, stop, hide, fade, go back to reality, howl, cry, rock in the corner, snarl our disdain—each thought or feeling smashed into me, screaming that it was the way forward.

Enough!

I nearly cried from the relief the command brought, but it was not mine. Instead, I felt the warm woody presence of Finn and his alpha control bring order. We now faced down the Black Wolf united.

We ran towards the great beast, paws somehow gaining traction on the great nothingness we hovered in, while the Great Black Wolf tossed his head and then did the same.

It was then that I saw the error of our ways.

We might be a Great Wolf now, combined of the essences of the seven of us, but he was so much more.

Having been fed on the souls of countless people, they were like tiny winking stars within his coat as he approached, growing larger and larger.

It was then the constant thread of fear burst through, the new evidence of threat forcing it past Finn’s order.

It didn’t matter. Our body contained a momentum now, and we were being sucked into the Black Wolf’s orbit, no more able to fight him than gravity.

He paused as the realisation struck us, his grin hungry now.

Then, like some kind of horrific snake, the details of the Great Black Wolf grew fuzzy and obscure, until only the red eyes and yawning jaws were truly visible.

They grew exponentially bigger, large enough to swallow the world, all the worlds, all of existence on all the planes of reality.

I thought of Morgan and his mates, the men who we’d seen face down the Great Wolf in the cave under the Volken city, and the way they’d faced down the beast, not willing to sacrifice their bond, drawing strength from each other as they were swallowed down.

It felt like I collected everyone to me, holding them close to my chest, murmuring reassurances as we ploughed on.

This was horrific, a bad trip gone wrong, but it seemed we were on a track and could not change it, so I focussed on our bond.

If we were to go, so soon after becoming a pack, they would go with my love.

I pushed it out into every single one of them—the most complete and radical acceptance I could muster.

Instead of the incoming threat, I concentrated on them, all the memories, sensations, feelings, thoughts, needs, wants, and desires I’d ever had for each and every one of them, including the way they cared for each other.

From the platonic mateship of Finn and Slade, to the burning, all-encompassing love of Jack and Hawk.

They were everything now as the world narrowed down to just us. And then we hit the Great Wolf.

Being swallowed was not what I expected. It wasn’t a physical peristaltic process. We weren’t chewed and then gulped down. Instead, we disappeared into a place of complete blackness. It was cold, dark nothingness.

I reached for my mates, but of course, could not find them.

This was the void, and bonds and relationships didn’t exist there.

And yet, I couldn’t stop reaching for them.

Where it had been a conscious thing beforehand, needing an intention to reach out to one of them, now it was as automatic as breathing.

I kept searching for them, my body, my brain aching as I did so.

While hanging in a vacuum did a lot to focus your attention on what you could feel, mine became pain and need.

My stupid brain wouldn’t let up, insisting over and over that the guys were here, that I just needed to reach out to them, the pain growing sharper and sharper with each minute.

I wanted to cry, scream, claw at my skull, anything to make it stop, but I didn’t have any of those things anymore.

I was just a tiny mote of consciousness, flickering painfully in the darkness, about to burn herself out.

This is the end , I thought, and the effort of forming those words just made the pain flare brighter.

I can’t fight this. This was never meant to last. What makes me so special that I would form a pack of these men and be the centre of it?

This is the way it all ends, for everyone.

All you are winks out and then you’re no more than memories in other people’s minds. And who will mark my passing?

If I’d had a body, I’d have closed my eyes and tossed it back, skydiving into the blackness, rushing towards my fate rather than fighting against it. I was rewarded for my surrender by a slow decrease in the pain. As it slipped away, so did I, until there was only one thought left of me.

I love you.

The words lit a match to the world and boomed in the darkness, sending shock waves out in the infinite space, something it shouldn’t be able to do.

This place was the absence of everything, and I’d created something.

As if invited in by that denial of this place’s fundamental physics, more rushed in.

Warmth, need, desire, the guys’ consciousnesses all popped into being one by one, and as they did so, I felt my strength return.

Are you OK?

What the fuck is this place?

Where did you go?

How do we get out of here?

I didn’t get a chance to answer any of them, and probably wouldn’t have wanted to.

For the moment, I just basked in the fact that I could consider doing so.

But that wasn’t enough. It never is for human beings.

We are creatures of desire, and I desired to get the fuck out of here.

I collected our consciousnesses together, and then… pushed.

Like the Wizard of Oz, revealed as a small man behind his projections, the void tore and dissolved under our combined will, and for a moment, I saw the man that looked so like Sylvan staring out at us, his wolf skull helmet pulled down low across his eyes.

And then we arrived, taking our human forms in a familiar landscape of endless white.

Well done , the Great White Wolf said, emerging from the featureless landscape, green eyes first, then the rest of her body. You are pack.