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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

GRACE

H e’s not my father. He’s not my alpha. He’s just a pathetic beast that can die by my hands.

“Run, bastard, run,” I say as Father flinches, shock and anger flooding his desperate expression.

“You’re my… Prince—”

I take the hatchet and hold the handle tight with both hands. The scream that claws its way out of my throat is inhuman.

Before he can get the words out, I cleave his disgusting mouth in half. The sound he makes isn’t really a word. It’s a wail filled with teeth, blood, and flesh.

He stumbles backward, and falls to the ground, trying to hold his shattered jaw bone up. For so many years, that cruel mouth has ordered me around, tortured me, and ruined the lives of thousands with a single word.

So he deserves a death befitting his crimes. A thousand wounds from a thousand swords sharpened just for him.

Crashing through a ransacked cabana splattered in blood.

I hand the hatchet to Raphael, nod to Leo, and then grasp Nakoa’s bloody hand.

“This is our revenge.”

He crawls, jaw hanging limp and shatter, tongue flapping uselessly.

I watch the frenzy as they butcher him into insignificant chunks of flesh.

We make it back to the boat as the pack left standing recover the dead and dying. North Shore didn’t have more wolves, just access to moder weapons.

Astonished, I watch as Emilio kneels before me. With a trembling hand, still stroking Nakoa’s sweaty forehead with the damp clothe, holding up Raphi to my left, and resting on Leo, I take the black box.

It’s a recorder, badly beaten up but working as I hit the ‘PLAY’ button on the side.

The voice the softly whispers to me breaks through the haze of madness that swept over and consumed me.

Tears stream down my face, and the panting breaths of my alphas hitch.

I stare up at the cloudy gray sky and grin, surrounded by the warmth of my men, my mates, our baby…

And the voice of our precious child’s auntie.

Grace? If you can hear me, if you find this, know that I am I’m safe.

I’m alive. I’m sared. And everything has been a lie orchestrated by him.

Hoku dragged me out of the wreck. But then we say your plane crash before the wolves took us to this place they call North Shore.

And nothing’s been the same ever since. It was all a lie!

I can’t accept you’re dead. Not when that bastard is still breathing!

The rage in her voice mirrors my own as I scream and scream and scream until my throat is raw. Pack Delta says nothing, Nakoa, Raphael, and Leo squeezing me as tightly as their injuries will allow as I force myself to listen to the ghost of my sister.

I can’t accept we’re trapped here forever!

Please, if you’re out there, you have to survive.

Because no matter what, I’ll save you, just like you saved me for all these years.

Protected me. Fought for me. I’m going to do all that and more.

So wait for us. And sis, this time, I’m not joking. Pray for me. No, that’s not right…

She pauses as the engine purrs, sputters, and roars, pushing us off the island and towards the beeping beacons of the omega captives in the dens. The first is the brightest, blinking bright blue. Blinking. Blinking. Blink. Blink. Blink. Three long blinks. Three shorts blinks.

“S.O.S.,” Nakoa rasps as Raphael and I squeeze him and each other tighter. Leo shouts, and the captain turns the boat in the flickering lights direction.

And if anyone else finds this recodering, please continue, and reveal the truth… If you find this and Grace is dead, my name is Faith Wilder, former princess of Erewon. No, I believe you’re out there. I know you are alive out there, somewhere lost in the forest. And we’re coming.

“Look!” voices from ships bellow, pack mates rushing to the rails injured or not, shouting as the blue light stops flickering and floods the bay. An arrow, a pathway, leading straight to the survivors we didn’t recover from the first wave of the attack.

I tremble, pulled to my feet by Raphael, as Leo takes Nakoa into his arms. Together we shuffle, and I bargain with the universe as a voice so hauntingly familiar I shake cries out, “HELP!”

Be safe. I love you. Grace, don’t just pray for me. Hoku and the man who will lead us to freedom once we find you are with me. So when you hear this message…

Pray for us.