Page 84 of Taken By The Wolves

My blood runs cold. “The sound of what?”

“We don’t know,” the bear shifter says, rubbing the center of his brows. His barrel chest heaves, and his eyes dart upto the sky, as wide and fearful.

“A bird?” I ask. “Something in the sky?”

I sound like I’m playing charades, but no one is giving me answers.

How dangerous could a bird be?

“No feathers,” the bear says.

“No feathers,” I repeat, confusion surging. What kind of bird doesn’t have feathers? They can’t mean…

The bear mystic’s head lifts sharply. “A creature of ruin.”

Cami’s face is grave. “No. It can’t be.”

“We saw it,” Harry, the youngest but fastest wolf shifter in my father’s pack, says. “At least, I think we saw it.”

He doesn’t sound sure.

“Whatever you saw, is it with Gregory?”

He shrugs and I growl with frustration. “I… I don’t know, Nixon. It was a glimpse… the noise of it.”

I turn to Cami, desperate to understand what’s happening.

“The child is born of magic,” Cami says. “And dragons were always the oldest protectors of magic. If one has awakened... maybe it senses what is to come.”

“Gregory can’t control a dragon,” I say, searching their faces for confirmation. “Right?”

“No,” Cami says. “But he may have awakened it. Or worse, angered it.”

I run my hands over my face as the tense silence strangles the camp. The world seems thinner now, stretched too tight, like the membrane between what we know and what we fear is about to tear.

“We deal with what’s in front of us, and we stay ready for the rest,” my father says. “That’s all we can do. Dragon talk isn’t helpful right now. “

“Okay.”

I clap him on the shoulder, relieved to have his guidance again, and move past to take Scarlet’s face in my hands.

“Keep Ahya with you at all times. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

Her eyes swell with tears that I wipe away with my thumbs before pressing a kiss onto her lips. “You carry life inside you,” I whisper. “I love you. I will come back.”

Her face crumples as she shakes her head. I touch her flat belly, already sensing the change within her; the warm sweetness of her pregnant scent and the magic of life growing within. “You are strong, Scarlet. My love. My mate.”

I straighten quickly and walk away before the desperate way she clutches at me fractures my heart.

***

The smell of sweat and metal lingers, the tension heavy enough to choke on. Bears and wolves stand side by side now, shoulder to shoulder, moving with purpose as the final defenses are laid. No one speaks of the dragon.

But every one of us is listening for wings.

Inside the cabin, Cami and the bear mystic draw sacred lines around Scarlet, Ahya, and the children. Reed and Finn take up posts on the outer edges. Hunter stands beside me; the weight of leadership etched into the lines around his eyes.

“I have to tell you something,” he says. “I want you to understand the trust I’m putting in you by making this confession. You cannot share this information with anyone. Not even your brothers. Doing so will risk my whole family.”