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I didn’t get a chance to answer straight away, as Jack marched over and hauled a dazed-looking Hawk to his feet. He stopped for a second, shooting me a scathing look before stomping out of the room, Hawk in tow.

The rest of the guys, their eyes were solely directed at me, waiting, waiting for me to explain.

“Short answer is, I don’t know,” I said, rolling to my feet and pulling on Brandon’s shirt. When I turned around, he smiled, noting my surreptitious breathing in of his scent.

“I’ll have the long answer now, if it’s all the same,” Slade said.

“Sylvan showed all of us a vision, of the black wolves, the Volken. They’re planning an invasion. Sylvan says that the Volken’s fertility has been affected by us.” The men’s frowns grew deeper as I explained what we’d seen in the vision.

“That’s why we’re here, they’re circling the wagons,” Finn said.

“And planning to close the gate. Finn, your dads...” I said.

His eyes narrowed, staring down at the carpet, his fists beginning to ball.

“We assumed they’d set up a new settlement somewhere, a new life,” Finn said. His laugh when it came was harsh. “You’re saying instead, these...Volken, they laid in wait for them? Captured them and took them to what... produce the next generation until they die?”

I nodded, reaching out and taking his hand. He squeezed it back, harder than I would have been capable of tolerating before the change. “And Kelly? Ophelia? What are they going to do about this?”

“What can we do?”

We all turned to see Ophelia standing in the doorway. No one moved a muscle except Brandon, who scrambled to pull some clothes on. She stared into Finn’s eyes, and all of a sudden, I could see the family resemblance. Both had the imperious, uncompromising look, neither willing to break the stare.

“A town meeting is being called. I’ll need all of you there, presentable, of course. I’ll be declaring martial law and explaining the plan as it stands.”

“I’ll need to check in with my CO,” Aaron said.

“You’re standing down until this is resolved.

” I watched Aaron stiffen, his whole body going rigid.

“This is no slight on your abilities, but the intel we have is that you are best placed to serve the community by keeping Julie safe.” His eyes darted over to me, and he nodded slowly.

“Now, where is Sylvan? I need to get him into some more appropriate clothes.”

We all piled into the shower—well, all of us except for Jack and Hawk.

I stood, clad only in Brandon’s shirt, watching the parade of male flesh in front of me and feeling a curious flood of emotions.

There was an echo of the joy from before tugging at my chest, along with a shyness.

I’d been naked before the lot of them, but not after.

.. How would I describe what had happened? There were no words.

“C’mon,” Brandon said, pulling the shirt over my head, and when I was naked, all eyes swivelled to me.

After all that had happened, all we’d done, there was a hunger still there, and not just a sexual one.

They closed around me when I stepped gingerly under the water, soapy hands working my body from feet to head, cleaning me with a sensual efficiency.

“Pretty sure my butthole doesn’t need cleaning, Slade,” I said, stepping free of the hands and under the water to rinse.

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe later we can?—”

“Not yet, Slade,” Brandon said, working shampoo into his hair.

“No one asked you, Doc.”

“You need to respect Jules’ limits,” Aaron said.

“Maybe with the monster dick you’re packing. Being more... streamlined, I am less likely to perform a colonoscopy on the downstroke,” Slade retorted.

“And we’re back to arguing about butt sex,” I said, smoothing the water from my face. “The circle of life.”

“Let’s save the jockeying for various sexual acts until after the meeting,” Finn said, his face grim. “We don’t get invited to these things often, and we need to make our position known. Leaving my dads, all of the men that have gone through the gate in the paws of the Volken is not acceptable.”

I took his hand, squeezing it, but the smile he gave me was strained.

Jack, Hawk, and Sylvan were waiting for us outside once we got dressed, hair slicked back and damp with fresh clothes on. Jack buried his head in the weight of Hawk’s hair when we approached, nuzzling his neck. He blinked, looking dazed and then stunned when Hawk stepped free and over to me.

“You OK?”

Was I? What the hell had happened when we were together? Why Brandon and Hawk? What the hell was that white wolf thing? I saw the slight glow in his chest in the slender gap between the buttons of his flannel shirt.

“I don’t know,” I ended up saying.

“Yeah, me too.”

“The car is arriving to take us all to the council building,” Ophelia said, arriving at the end of the hall. “Come along. We mustn’t be late.”

Were we? When we arrived, striding into the circular room as a group, the place was already packed with people.

There were plenty of women in the seats, but the circular space in the centre was also filled with rows of men standing around.

There was a lot of higher-pitched mumbling as we walked into the room that just got more excitable when people saw Ophelia.

“Stay here,” she said. I wasn’t sure if it was to me or Kelly as we went to take a place in the crowd. “Ah, Sylvan, you look much improved.”

The black wolf was now clad in a business shirt and slacks, looking oddly debonair. I compared it mentally to the leather armour I’d seen the Volken wearing in the vision, but he seemed completely unfazed by the change.

“I’ll take a seat, shall I?” he said.

“No, no,” Nancy said, having just swept in. “You’re the guest of honour.”

He was something alright. People started to talk in earnest at the sight of him, men stiffening and stepping forward, eyes narrowing.

Then, the big swinging doors slammed open, and soldiers strode in, taking up position around the central dais.

They weren’t toting guns, but you got the feeling it wouldn’t take much for them to retrieve the firearms strapped to their sides.

Almost as if timed, the rest of the matriarchs came next.

Some wore trailing dresses like Nancy, others wore nice pantsuits and twinsets.

It didn’t seem to matter. Each and every one of them exuded something I was yet to see in anyone else here, even the soldiers: pure unadulterated power.

“If I could have some quiet, please.”

Ophelia didn’t raise her voice, yet silence settled quickly over the room. She surveyed the inhabitants, supremely confident that she had their attention.

“Sanctuary is a small town. I know some of you are aware of the leadership change. My daughter, Kelly, has decided to step down in light of the most recent information, of which I will go into more detail presently. Sanctuary is about to enter a difficult time. All of you know of the incursion by Sylvan, the black wolf.” She held up her hand when the mumbling began again in earnest. “It has come to light that Sylvan did so to bring us useful information from the Volken, the black wolves. An attack on the gate, on Sanctuary, has been planned.” Even Ophelia couldn’t keep the crowd silent at that, but she sailed on.

“The Volken are producing fewer and fewer sons. They blame our existence for this and think that by exterminating us, they can restore their previously exclusive patriarchal society.”

Well, that was it. The cat was completely out of the bag, and everyone was going to stand around talking anxiously about it, apparently.

Finn shook his head. I took a step closer to him.

There was something harder, more brittle about him, his usual easy-going nature taking a backseat.

He looked down for a second when I took his hand, but then his eyes returned and remained trained on the proceedings.

He’s waiting , I realised, for some kind of mention of his dads.

Ophelia spelled it all out—what martial law meant, the closing of the gate, the way Kelly would maintain the business side of Sanctuary Metals with the stockpile of gold they’d kept for just this reason and keep the community ticking along.

Ophelia, with the support of the matriarchs ringed behind her, created a calm and compelling response to the incoming threat.

By the time they opened the floor to questions, I knew Finn’s heart had to be breaking.

I zoned out Ophelia’s cut-glass voice and Sylvan’s smooth one as they took questions.

I watched Aaron edge forward when the soldiers began to try and get details about the potential attack, obviously wanting to be with them.

I heard the rasp of Finn’s breath as it came, long and slow and rattling.

I felt the fine shake of his arm when I placed my hand on it.

There it was, down our bond, the anger, frustration, the fight to hold himself still.

The grind of his jaw, the clench of his fingers. Finn held himself back by a thread.

Then, Jack piped up.

“So why are the...Volkmen?”

“Volken,” Ophelia corrected.

“Volken. Why are they attacking? They think we’ve stolen their male mojo, but why?”

Silence reigned within the room.

They’re not going to say it , I thought as I watched the matriarchs’ eyes dart around. Ophelia remained still and quiet, staring back at her grandson.

“Well,” one of the matriarchs said, stepping forward as the pause in conversation grew longer and longer.

“Because they’ve used the men we’ve exiled in a breeding program and proven they can have many sons, if fathered by our men.

” Finn bit the words out, the implication of just who he meant clear in such a small community.

I didn’t know the details of why Finn’s dads were banished, but they did. “We gave them the incentive to attack.”

Well, that was it. The thin veneer of calm the alpha and the matriarchs had been able to maintain was well and truly lost.

“They want men? Why not send some? We have so many, anyway.”

“We never should have sent them through the gate! We’ve always exiled to the human world!”

“We need to shut the gate now! What if they are already here?”

“What about the kids? How are we protecting the kids?”

“Enough!”

The lash of Ophelia’s voice was absolute and unquestionable. You could no more speak against it than walk through a wall. I’d heard the power in Kelly’s voice, but that was nothing by comparison. Everyone was pinned to the spot, unable to move a muscle. Except Finn.

“You sent my dads through the fucking portal to be fucked to death by those monsters, and for what?” He bit off the words, having to force them through his teeth to be heard. “Because Max refused to sign off on Kelly’s ascension? How are we getting them back before we close the portal?”

Gasps went up around the room. Obviously, Finn should not be able to do any of what he was doing. He should be frozen, wide-eyed, like all the other men.

“There was more to it, and you know it!” Kelly snapped back.

“This meeting has been a courtesy, not a necessity.” I could feel the growl in Ophelia’s body all the way down to my toes.

“Sanctuary is under martial law, my law. Until such time as peace is guaranteed, I make the decisions here.” Her eyes scoured the gathering of people.

“As I said, the miners will be recalled, the equipment that can be removed will be brought back, and the portal closed. We will be entering into a new era for Sanctuary, but a necessary one. We will not be sending our men through as some kind of act of appeasement. Apart from the way they are guaranteed to be treated, we do not do that to citizens of our town. But the men who were exiled... They made their choice, between adhering to the principles under which Sanctuary is run, or breaking off on their own. They chose to break off. I’ll not risk the men we do have,” she nodded to the soldiers, standing in a stiff group, “to try and save those who rejected us.”

As soon as the grip Ophelia held on us all was relinquished, Finn spun on his heel and marched from the building, the swinging doors slamming in his wake.

“You’ll need to find a way to manage him. I thought getting him a mate was supposed to help with that?” one of the matriarchs said to Ophelia as an aside. Her eyes flicked to me. “You, you’re his mate, yes? You need to keep him in line if you want to keep him by your side.”

I blinked, then shook my head, the desperate state of the men from the vision playing across my mind. It wasn’t just their pitiful state and the diabolical way they were used, it was the sheer hopelessness of it all. They faced each day knowing no one was coming, that help wasn’t on the way.

“If that’s what it takes to stay here,” I said, “you better boot me through the gate before you close it.”

I took off after Finn, feeling instantly better the farther I got from the enclave and their plans.

Fucking hell, I’d thought I’d landed in some kind of women-centric paradise, but it appeared—like every other bloody society—people in power worked hard to maintain that power, even if it meant keeping others down.

I heard footsteps behind me, turning once I was out under the afternoon sun and expecting to see the guys there. Instead, Sylvan grinned, noting my change of expression with frank amusement. “Frustrated with the short-sightedness of your ruling elite?” he said.

“Appalled by what your people are doing to our men.”

His smile faltered at that. He blinked and then dropped his eyes to the ground, his jaw flexing.

“Me too. An unfortunate side effect of being a seer is you don’t get to choose what you see of other people’s minds or lives.

Instead, I was forced to endure a visceral account of the men’s experiences during captivity since the moment I came into my powers.

I drank, fucked, took as many drugs as I could find, but it never dulled.

Still doesn’t.” He shook his head. “Well, you want to find that man of yours? I can take you to him.”

“Finn? How?”

“I’m a seer, Julie. It’s what I do.”

We found Finn by the fence of the gate complex, sitting down on the ground, his back against the mesh. “They’ve already changed my access,” he said, flicking a swipe card. He shook his head and then looked up. “How’d you find me?”

“Sylvan.”

“So you’re the seer, huh? Can you ‘see’ a way for me to get beyond the gate?”

Sylvan smiled, his teeth stark against his tanned skin.

“I thought you’d never ask.”