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We walked into a great big room, rings of seating set into the walls, creating an amphitheatre-like environment. There they sat, woman after woman, though not all were female. The girl, Jules, she had several guys sitting by her side, but every single eye in the place was on me, on us.

The murmuring had started before we got here, the grey noise a pressure in my head, but it spiked when we finally stood in the centre of the room, only silencing when Ophelia came to stand beside us.

“This meeting will need to serve three purposes,” she began. “To introduce our newest member, Bec. She is the descendant of one of the lost ones, as far as I can tell. She spent her life outside Sanctuary, hiding her beast from the human community, running when the moon was full, alone.”

More murmuring at that, but it seemed more sympathetic somehow. I didn’t care. I stared every person down in the place, daring them to make a big deal out of any of this.

“Shaun has also taken Bec as his mate.”

OK, the murmuring shifted into outright conversation.

“Taken?” One of the older women rose to her feet, several others doing the same at the question. They stared down at us, frowning. “A man does not take a mate in Sanctuary. He is chosen.”

“I…” Shaun started to reply, but the noise, it got louder.

He cleared his throat, to prepare himself to answer, to ask for quiet, but he didn’t get it.

“I was caught up in the moment. What happened… You all felt it. I knew then, knew in a way I never have before.” His eyes darted down to focus on me, and I reached over, grabbing his hand and squeezing.

“I’ve never felt like this. Every single fucking particle of my being knew she was mine.

I couldn’t hold myself back, can’t ever hold myself back from her. I’m Bec’s and she’s mine.”

There were disputes and splutters, shouts and cries, but right now, it all just faded away.

I stared at him, at my mate, a mythical beast my mum and nan had told me about when I was young, and could scarce believe my eyes.

I grabbed his hand and he squeezed it tight, until I stepped closer, until I nestled down in the safe harbour of his arms and just breathed.

“It’s OK,” he whispered. “We can run if this gets too hairy. We’ll find a way. No one’s taking you from me, not ever.”

For a moment, I closed my eyes as his hand went to the back of my neck, rubbing the skin over and over.

I clung tighter, wanting to burrow down into him, my fingers plucking feebly at his clothes, knowing they had to stay on but feeling the wrongness there.

As I surrendered to that, to that intense feeling of connectedness, of being exactly where I was supposed to be with those I needed, I felt it.

I’d never been able to do this before, so god knows how this worked, but one minute, I was feeling something in the sanctity of my own mind, and the next, it was bigger, bolder, unable to be contained, leaching out into everyone around me, if the gasps were anything to go by.

A messy tangle of need, of desperation, of desire, of sweetness and tenderness and finally, the ultimate expression of all of that—love.

I heard and felt the vibrations of Shaun’s groan all the way through me, his fingers tightening, biting down as he held me closer.

“Bec…”

My eyes flicked open, meeting his, unable to look away as I saw an answering fear and pain there, a desperation to believe that this was real.

“Bec?”

My name was a question, his hand gentle as he stroked the side of my face, shaking with what pulsed between us. I just nodded, then my eyelids fluttered when I felt a pulse of power, of love wash through me.

“Oh my goodness…”

Someone exclaimed that, and why not? What poured out of us now was doubly powerful.

He, me, what we felt, it all twined together, soaring for the sun, unable to be held down by this place, by the people gathered here to judge us, by mortality itself.

This was eternal. We were eternal. I felt both our Tirians shift within us, muzzles pointing to the moon above, staring at the alien rock and knowing what bound us together would last beyond its existence and ours.

When I opened my eyes, I saw everyone looking at the two of us in shock.

All except Ophelia. She just smiled, gentle and warm, and nodded.

As we scanned the assembly, I saw tears shining in the eyes of many a person, including his.

For just a second, his mouth found mine, nipping and sucking until I parted my lips, let him surge in.

“Need you,” he growled, “so fucking much.”

And that was all the warning I got before he turned to the crowd, putting me behind him, gesturing with a nod to the other guys to cluster around me.

“Bec’s mine. I don’t give a fuck what you think about that, about the process, and to be blunt, about anything in this fucking town if it means coming between me and her.

She’s mine.” His voice tore on that, and my heart felt like it was being ripped in two, making me struggle against the guys’ grips to get to Shaun.

“I’ll fight anyone and anything that tries to get between me and her.

I’ve lived in this place my whole bloody life, have family and friends, but fuck, I’ll say goodbye to the lot of you if it means keeping her.

Fuck your rules and strictures, fuck anything that stops her from being with me. ”

“And what does she have to say about that?” one of the iron voiced matriarchs said. “You were convinced of the same with Jules, the way all men are when they experience our heat. What of that feeling of certainty you felt for her, for any woman who chose to spend her heat with you?”

“With Jules…” I heard his voice falter, my hand slipping into his. “Jules was what I thought I wanted. I behaved in a way I thought was expected. I did everything right, I thought, but it wasn’t. Not for Jules, not for me. And you know that. You know.”

His gaze, my gaze, we scanned the lot of them, seeing the truth there.

“You were able to observe what went on between the two of us in ways you haven’t with any other mating.

You know exactly what we felt, how we felt, what went through my mind when I bit Bec.

What will always be in my heart. You’re just freaking out because it went a little differently to the way others mate. ”

A slow clap broke the subsequent silence, but when we turned, we saw a procession walking into the hall. An old woman, bent low with age, a tall woman with green eyes, a little girl at her side, and him, the man with the ice chip eyes.

“What’re you doing here, Sylvan?” one of the matriarchs snapped. “Is this your work?”

“Mine? I didn’t even realise there were priestesses left.”

“Priestess?” The word was bandied around the room, tried and tested in people’s minds.

“What else is what we just experienced, but a ritual? One which honours all the White Wolf represents? Sex, need, desire, love?” His voice softened on the last word, then a radiant smile spread across his face.

“Such a gift, to lift up a whole community at once.” His smile fractured slightly, as if whatever he’d experienced hurt him as well as healed him.

“To feel the blessings of the goddess intimately.” Then those blue eyes hardened.

“Don’t be like the Volken. Don’t codify and stifle everything, compartmentalise a wild power and try to control it.

You want to keep your denizens safe, stop the women of your community being abused.

That’s admirable, but what about what lies beyond surviving? Thriving? Exulting?”

“Raping, pillaging,” one of the older women countered. “That’s what your people did, what your god did.”

Sylvan’s expression fell.

“And he helped bring him down.”

Jules stood up now, looking out over the crowd.

“I’m obviously a relative newcomer but…” She looked down the line of the men surrounding her, her mates, I realised.

“But I think I’ve earned a place at the table.

We earned that place.” A tall man with long auburn hair tied back at the nape nodded.

“There’s no further conversations to be had about Bec and Shaun.

I wear my mate’s mark.” She pulled her collar back, revealing a neat scar.

“No one disputes our bond, nor would they want to. Shaun’s right—we felt what’s inside them. ”

When her eyes met my mate’s, my fingers wrapped around his arm, but I needn’t have bothered. She merely nodded in our direction.

“He’s found the other part of his soul, and I, for one, am glad for that.

Is the way they announced that to the community unconventional?

” She shrugged in response to her own question.

“Does that really matter? If Bec holds a power we haven’t seen before, then surely we find out more about that, help her learn to control it, not stage an inquisition at a time when most of us should be in bed.

Want to be in bed, enjoying the afterglow. ”

Her eyes grew heated, her smile cheeky before she sat down.

“Well, that appears to be a proposed plan of action,” Ophelia said. “Let me put it to the floor. Everyone in favour of Jules’ proposal?”

There was grumbling and muttering from the crowd, but a sea of hands went up, more raised than those that abstained. Ophelia nodded.

“For the time being, the four of them will stay at the alpha residence,” she told the crowd. “We will explore ways to contain?—”

“Explore ways… Pfft!” The old woman who’d walked in with Sylvan, the mother, and her child stumped forward, resting heavily on the cane she carried.

“You call yourselves matriarchs. Get off your bony arses and lend me your strength, and I’ll contain the girl’s power to just her chosen.

Though I must admit, I don’t see why.” Her grin made her gaunt face look like a death’s head.

“Made me feel more alive than I have in years. Well, now, off your butts!”