He rumbled deep in his chest.
He said, “Mine.”
My cheek scraped against his.
The wolf growled, “Mine.” It was a great and terrible thing.
So I said, “Yeah. Joe. Yeah. Yes.”
And turned to kiss him.
But before our lips could brush together, a howl rose up, echoing through the trees. Birds took flight. The forest shook with it.
It was Thomas. Of that I had no doubt. Because I knew my Alpha.
But it was a song filled with such rage and despair that I staggered back, the pack bond bursting in my head and heart with red and blue.
And violet. So much violet that I was all but buried in it.
Joe’s eyes flared to life, and he sang out his response. I could hear the fear in it. Pure, cold fear. The song itself was Alpha red and Beta orange. And blue. So blue.
It died in the trees around us.
Everything was quiet as I struggled to breathe.
He said, “We have to hurry,” and his eyes blazed.
So we did.
And everything changed yet again.
word of warning/it’s a right
THERE WERE men at the Bennett house.
Men I’d never seen before.
They stood in front of the house next to black SUVs.
They heard us coming, and for a moment, their eyes glowed orange in the dark, and I wondered if Joe and I could take them. We were outnumbered but we weren’t weak. Thomas had seen to that.
It wasn’t necessary. Thomas came out onto the porch and growled lowly. The men stood down.
Another man came out from behind him.
Osmond. The man who’d come in the winter.
He said, “Be still. All of you.”
The men next to the SUVs turned away from Joe and me, eyes scanning the forest behind us.
Osmond said, “Where is your witch?”
Thomas said, “He’ll be here,” and I wondered what Gordo would have thought about that. Being called Thomas’s witch.
“What happened?” Joe demanded.
“Go inside,” Thomas said. “The pack is waiting.”