Page 7 of Stormbinder King (Stormbinder Pack #1)

T he Stormbinder Pack was so close-knit and tight that I hoped for the first time in a long while to feel a sense of belonging somewhere.

But as I settled into my first days and weeks in the treetop village, it didn’t seem like that was happening.

In fact, the Pack seemed downright hostile.

At first, I worried it was the protective spell Jack had put on me.

I loved how protective he was, how worried he was about me. No one had ever been that concerned about my wellbeing before. Of course, I wasn’t going to go into the forest by myself, so maybe the spell didn’t need to be this powerful.

It was so much more than the gentle everyday spells I saw the Pack use, the little trails of starshine to move a heavy log or light one of the beeswax candles.

I tried very carefully not to touch or brush against anyone accidentally, because it meant they were wracked with excruciating pain. But even with all my care most of the Pack only looked at me with wary sideways glances.

No one responded to my halting attempts to make friends.

And then there was Aurelia. She looked at me with such outright hostility that it was obvious that she wanted Jack and he had rejected her.

I tried to remember that Jack’s rejection would sting badly, so I swallowed my fear and complimented her food or clothes.

Nothing worked.

In the village, strong, young shifters spent their days roaming the boundaries of the Stormbinder lands and hunting, then dressing and preparing their kills. In the evening, they mended tools and homes and drank the deep, plum-colored wine and tart berry beers.

Old or weak shifters gathered and prepared food and did mending or repairs.

And of all the women in the Pack, of course Aurelia, who was so jealous of me, was assigned to help me find my footing in my new treetop home.

One day she was teaching me how to skin a kill, another boar Jack had brought down.

I listened to her impatient, sharp instructions, then began to gag as she handed me a knife, turning away from the biting bitter iron smell to throw up on the ground.

“Weak,” she said angrily as I took my knife to the animal, my cut sloppy, mangling the fur. “Do it right the first time, idiot, and don’t waste his kills.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked boldly. “Is it because Jack chose me and not you?”

I felt Aurelia still, her fingers tighten around the knife, a small, almost imperceptible intake of breath.

But then she laughed.

“I don’t hate you. I just think you’re a bratty little bitch and Jack is going to regret what he did.”

My lips trembled.

“N-no, he isn’t,” I said, hating that I couldn’t quite suppress my stutter.

“Don’t backtalk,” she said, flicking me sharply on the forehead.

I instantly smelled the low burning sizzle of magic, and Aurelia ripped her hand away, her face whitening with the pain.

“That hurt, didn’t it?” I said childishly, feeling ridiculously like I wanted to cry.

“I just want to be your friend. I just want to find my place here.”

Aurelia picked up a leather glove and flipped it over.

Shit .

I stumbled backward, but not fast enough.

She whipped the glove out by the finger, the hard steel buckle catching me on the mouth and splitting my lip open.

I fell to my knees, my hand on my lip, blood spilling into my palm.

“You don’t have a place in this Pack.”

Ashamed of myself, I waited with my head buried in my hands until she left. Then I quickly washed away the blood with cold water so Jack wouldn’t know.

Why was this so hard?

But everything else was joy.

Jack and I berry picking in the cool of the night, licking his fingers dry of the sweet deep-purple juice as he fed me plump, delicious blackberries. . .

The heat of the day so airless and oppressive that he took me deep into the forest and we stripped bare and bathed in the cool of the stream, then fucked each other with raw primal need until my legs trembled so hard I couldn’t stand and he carried me back home for miles in his arms. . .

“Come howl at the moon with me,” Jack said one evening.

He had even more of a puckish gleam in his eyes than usual, and I eagerly took his hand.

Should I tell him what Aurelia had done?

Even though I had put some healing balm on my lip, it still stung.

But I didn’t want him to think I was into drama or was tattling on Aurelia.

Hopefully when Aurelia got over her sadness at his rejection, things would get better.

When we got down to the forest floor, I saw that music was already playing and the Pack had already started to drink and feast, begin to dance together in the moonlight.

Jack went to get us cups of the spicy blackberry wine, and I stood there uncertainly. Shifter women often wore light, loose pants and light woven tops, but everything was so big on me that I had taken to wearing Jack’s shifts cinched around the waist.

The music was hypnotic and I began to sway my hips, still rubbing my legs nervously together.

There were some new shifters here that I didn’t recognize, maybe some of the group of hunters that had been surveying the boundaries of Pack lands, and that made me feel even shyer than ever.

I wished Jack would come back. I always felt much braver when he was around.

Aurelia walked by, knocking her shoulder into me and sending me stumbling across the clearing.

Well, I guess, great that she was no longer so scared of my protective spell that she’d risk touching me for half a second.

As I straightened up, I felt eyes on me.

I turned and across the clearing there was a very tall, powerfully-built man, taller even than the typical shifter. He had thick raven’s wing hair pulled back into a short ponytail and a hawk-like face with a harsh profile.

Not only was he massively broad-shouldered and muscular, but he looked ruthless and unforgiving.

There was something about how he looked that made me anxious to avoid his notice without Jack around and I shifted, trying to go deeper into the shadows.

But as I moved, his dark eyes flicked over me, scanning down my body.

I felt a flicker of unease, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

I looked away quickly, trying to force my frozen legs to move, but I felt rooted to the spot.

And when I risked another glance, I saw that he was still looking at me.

Fuck

Fear pounded through me.

Why did he keep looking at me so intently?

Why were his dark eyes locked on me? His face was harsh and unsmiling, a strong nose over a tight slash of a mouth and a stubborn jaw.

I felt uneasy.

Why did he keep looking at me?

Where was Jack?

Someone walked in front of us and I slid sideways in relief, moving behind some of the other shifters and hugging the dark edges of the clearing.

Loud music thumped, the ground reverberating as dozens of shifters danced in little whirling circles.

I emerged from the shadows, and there he was, directly in front of me.

And blocking my exit.

Now that I could see him closely, I saw that his eyes were very dark, almost pitch-black, his clothes looking rough and plain.

He was close, way too close, his body so big that I couldn’t see anyone behind him, and he backed me up so hard and fast my ass hit the side of the storage with a thump.

My head spun.

“Who are you? Are you one of the hunters?” I asked tremulously.

“I hunt some things,” said the man.

I didn’t know if he was a shifter, but if he was, he would make an enormous wolf, shaggy and rough, dark-furred and brutal.

Up close, he was an unnerving person. He was so big—huge broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms and thighs. His face was forbidding too, heavy-lidded and harsh.

And the way he was looking at me—brows drawn together and disapproving.

“Come here,” he said, extending a finger and gesturing impatiently.

As if I was just someone to be commanded by him!

“No,” I said, my throat dry.

There was something unnerving about him, some great cruelty that I sensed there.

I thought he would be the last person you’d want to get on the bad side of.

To my horror, I saw his big hand reach out for me. Even his hands were massive, thick fingers criss-crossed with scars.

There was a muscle that pulled in his tanned forearm as my eyes widened.

Shit, I had to get out of here.

I tried to slide down the side of the shed and escape, but he took a step forward and blocked my exit.

“Where did you learn not to respect Alphas? I gave you an order.”

“Who are you to order me around?” I asked indignantly. “I’ll tell Prince Jack and you’ll get in trouble!”

The big man’s lips twisted up, and he cocked his head, as if figuring out how he wanted to wring my neck.

“What could Prince Jack do to me? Now get over here or I’ll pull that skirt up and whip your little ass.”

I gasped in horror, and he gripped my wrist with one strong hand.

Instantly, there was a loud burning sizzle where our flesh connected.

The big man drew his hand back quickly, the harsh lines of his face looking almost diabolical now as he twisted his wrist around to look at where the tips of his fingers were red and raw with the burn of magic.

I smelled something foul in the air, a bitter acid on my tongue.

“You’ve been ensorcelled,” he said, his voice a mixture of disbelief and fury.

“Basic protective spell,” I heard a lazy voice drawl, and the big man jerked around, his other arm still trapping me against the side of the building.

“This is no basic spell!” he spat out. “This is highly complex and unstable magic. What have you been doing while I’ve been gone, little brother?”

Little brother?

Wait, was this Symeon, the Alpha King?