Wicked Wolves, page 3
Laurel looks over at me with a hard, empty expression.
And I feel the whole world drop out from underneath my feet.
Chapter 6
Rina
Laurel was the one who pronounced me the chosen mate of the First Alpha five years ago, when I stepped into the Mating Circle after my sixteenth birthday.
She combed my hair the night before my twenty-first birthday and told me how proud she was of my strength.
I feel the twist of betrayal at her sudden about-face now, though I fight to keep it from showing. The pain is enough to make me clench my fingers in my T-shirt and wish I were anywhere but here.
My mother puts her hand on my shoulder and fiercely promises me in a low, dangerously angry voice, "I won't let her do it. And I'll castrate Morgan if he even tries to go along with it."
"So will I," Ali swears, her voice wobbly and uncertain. "I may not be a naturalistic witch like Laurel, but I can brew a mean potion. I'll put her to sleep for a thousand years if it comes to it."
I want to thank them both for their loyalty, but I don't have the words inside of me. I'm afraid that if I speak now, all I'm going to do is start crying.
"Casting Caterina out won't fix your problem." Delilah's voice rises angrily as she turns to face Laurel and Constance, her hands clenched at her side. "I already made that clear to the rest of your coven, and I thought they agreed with me. But in case it needs to be clarified—no one will be severing Caterina's bonds to the pack."
She looks out at the pack again, and I feel the press of an alpha's influence. Delilah might not be ours, and neither is her mate Roarke, but the instinct to follow them rises up inside me anyway.
So does the urge to whine.
I push it down, like I always have. It makes me feel like a child when an alpha's leadership causes me to whine. There's no reason to go all weak at the knees over their influence.
"In fact," Delilah continues angrily, "severing Caterina from the pack will just sever all your bonds. I know that because I'm a weaving witch. I don't just see the mating threads, I can manipulate them too. I know where they begin and end, and the consequences of severing or strengthening them.
"The thread that connected Caterina to the First Alpha now connects her to every single member of the Mountain Pack. There is no way to untangle them. Like it or not, she's at the center of all your bonds, and severing her will destroy every single pack bond at once."
A murmur begins in the crowd. More angry faces turn my way. It seems they're not a fan of being reminded this is all my fault.
Neither am I. Especially now that the supposed First Alpha thread is being brought up again. I wince at the memory of that thread, which I haven't seen at all since waking up. For all I know it's gone now, and I'll never get it back.
"You have to figure out what's going on here and fix all of your bonds," Delilah says firmly. "Whatever it is, it has something to do with your Mating Circle, and the strong wellspring of power that runs beneath it. Heal that, or the Mountain Pack will cease to exist."
An uproar comes from the warriors, standing at one end of the pack. They bare their teeth and show their claws. Morgan has to step forward and snarl at them to get them to calm down—an unusually aggressive maneuver from an alpha. I feel their anger like a physical sensation, and shudder as they stare me down, their eyes fierce and angry even from dozens of feet away.
Warriors, more than any other pack members, rely on the bonds. The strength of them lets each warrior know where their allies are in battle. Without those bonds, a vampire can get the best of them and they won't even feel their packmate go down.
One of the warriors angrily confronts Delilah. "How do we know you aren't just lying to us about the poison being incurable? Letting the Mountain Pack die out would benefit all the other packs, especially ones with a witch like you. For all we know you're planning on stealing our power for yourself and your new coven."
Roarke steps between Delilah and the warrior. "You know we're not bullshitting you because the consequences of failing to heal this poison won't just effect your pack. It'll effect all the packs."
Morgan speaks up. "What do you mean?"
"We saw it on our way here." Delilah motions to four strange men in the crowd, who I recognize right away must be her other mates. "The bonds are weakening in neighboring packs. The blood rot has spread outside your territory, even beyond where vampires feed. Something in your wellspring is affecting all of us—and if we don't fix it, all the packs will fall."
I feel cold numb shock spread through me.
All the packs will fall.
All because of me.
Chapter 7
Rina
"This is awful," I murmur, mostly to myself, but also to Ali and Talon. "All of this just because I wasn't good enough for the First Alpha."
I cross my arms over my chest, wincing at the press of my wounds. They should've healed by now, but either the First Alpha's spiritual claws were too strong for my body to heal from them, or I'm too weak to do what proper werewolves do.
"We have to do something!" Morgan's mate speaks for the first time all evening, her voice panicky and frightened. "To lose our bonds... it's impossible to survive once we've lost our connection to each other and to the land. The vampires and the humans will take over if they sense any weakness at all."
They will. She's right. Her panic spreads through the pack. Even through the weakened bonds, I can feel it. Morgan takes her hand and tries to soothe her, but it's too late. The fear is spreading.
My mom tsks impatiently. "You see? I never would've done something weak like that. Morgan should've chosen me as his mate instead of that weakling."
I bite my lip so I don't say anything snarky.
"Not gonna respond to that?" Mom raises a reddish-brown brow at me, smirking a little. "Here I thought sniping at me would at least make you feel better."
"This is so much bigger than that," I tell her, keeping my voice low. "Don't you see that? Whatever is wrong with me, it could destroy all the packs. Every bond, every mate, every territory... all of it could crumble, and it would be my fault."
My mom has nothing to say to this.
But Delilah does. She raises her hand and makes a chopping motion in the air that causes all the wolves of my nervous, on-edge pack to cease their milling and calm down.
"We're going to fix this. I promise you that."
She sounds so confident that I almost believe her, even though no one here has any idea what the problem is.
"The packs won't fail. The bonds won't break. It's just a matter of time and ingenuity—both of which we have in abundance. Please, if you don't trust me, trust each other. That trust, more than anything, will rebuild your poisoned bonds."
This seems to calm them down enough that Morgan is able to call out to the most experienced members of the pack and get them to agree to meet with the coven and hash out a plan for our future. Delilah proposes that her mate, Bastian, join in—then pushes forward a tall, brown-skinned man with long dark hair and a nervous smile.
I watch from the edges, aware of eyes on me, sensing the resentment my pack has for me.
Poisoned bonds that need healing. Blood rot that threatens to let the vampires through our protective wards. And worst of all, centuries of tradition thrown out the window, all because of me.
I cast my gaze up towards the stone of the Mating Circle, my heart twisting, tears in my eyes.
Why wasn't I good enough for him?
"I want to go see it for myself." I glance over at Ali, then reach out to take her hand. "Will you come with me? Up to the stones?"
She looks at my mom, who sighs and nods. "Don't let her pull her stitches or open that wound. It'll heal in time, just stop messing with it."
My mom joins the rest of the pack in peppering Morgan with questions and demands, her aggressive personality making up for her short stature. I spot Ali's father in the crowd near her, his shaved bald head shining in the late evening sun. He gives my mother a wink that makes me bristle.
"Are they...?" I glance over at Ali, who sighs. "Again?"
"Maybe permanently this time. Who knows."
"My mother never keeps a man," I remind her, as we walk towards the steps to the Mating Circle, our hands joined. "She's not going to settle down with your father."
"Maybe," Ali acknowledges. "But it's not like he'll care one way or another. He just wants the company."
Ali's father was born to a human and a werewolf, but unlike his siblings he never shifted when he came of age. That's how he wound up marrying a witch in the coven. When she died of a potion sickness, he wound up raising then four-year-old Ali on his own.
He did the best he could, but every little girl needs the occasional bit of female guidance. That's where my mom came in. Unlike some of the more stuffy, distant witches in the coven, Talon Birch was more than willing to tell young Abigail Allegra Shade where babies come from and why making them feels so good.
My mother taught me how to say the word clitoris before I was old enough to use a tampon. Hell, she could draw a diagram of the female anatomy off the top of her head, but she still can't boil an egg without starting a fire, ruining a pot, or flooding the basement.
Three things she's done while attempting to cook.
Watching my mother with Harry, though, I wonder if maybe she has changed. Because she's sidling up to him and putting her hand on his upper arm like she likes him, and she doesn't care who knows. I don't even think she's doing it to make Morgan jealous.
"Stupid bitch."
The curse is directed pointedly at me, and I shy away from it, pulling against Ali as one of my pack members spits angrily at the ground near me. He stares at me with hateful eyes, dark circles prominent under them, his face wan and drawn. Despite the supposed health of our pack and our land before my ceremony, he looks like he's been through hell and back, and his weak threads are proof of it.
All problems he blames me for causing.
Ali starts to mutter a spell under her breath, but I jerk her hand and shake my head at her.
"You'll only make it worse," I point out as we approach the steps to the circle. "Let them be upset, if that's what they need."
"It isn't your fault. You didn't do anything."
"I must have. I'm not good enough for the First Alpha, after all. Even though I kept myself pure for him, even though I was willing to sacrifice anything, even my voice like his first mate, he spurred me. I must've done something to deserve it."
Ali scowls at this, shaking her head. "Not a chance."
We've made it up the shallow steps to the Mating Circle. Its great, grand stones stretch out in front of us, set into the ancient earth and carved with protective symbols. A dozen columns surround the perfect circle that they form, each column carved with a story of our pack's birth and the First Alpha's action.
Before the First Alpha, werewolf packs were violent and unruly. We fought among each other, often to the bloody death, for dominance.
But he showed our ancestors that it didn't have to be that way. An alpha could be encouraging, supportive, egalitarian, and most of all, protective.
His people chose him, and he chose them back. They surrendered power for him in exchange for unity and strength. In thanks for their sacrifice, he protected them to his death, creating their territory and protecting it with bonds of mate and pack.
"I just want to feel safe and protected," I tell my best friend, staring at the center of the Mating Circle. "I was supposed to be special. Chosen. I still want that."
"You're going to get it. I'm sure of it."
"I'm not."
As I tell Ali this, I see it again. A flash of the stranger standing just behind her—a different one this time.
He's incredibly tall, his frame massive and broad, with tanned skin, long brown hair, and a clean shaven face. There's a scar across his jaw that twists with some attacker's long-ago rage. His sea-foam green eyes seem to look straight into the center of me, through the surface and all the way to the soul beneath.
I shiver, strangely drawn to him.
But he's gone as soon as I blink, leaving empty air behind.
Ali stares at me. "What is it? Did something happen?"
"I just saw..." I shake it off, not wanting her to worry about me. "I don't know what I saw. Something weird."
"You can tell me. That's what best friends are for."
Hesitating, I glance at the empty space where the man stood. "I will if it happens again. For now, let's just go back to the tent. I'm starting to get tired."
The whole walk back I sense I'm being watched, and not just by my pack this time.
Chapter 8
Rina
When we get to the healing tent, Talon is waiting outside, a determined expression on her face.
I know that look. Someone told her not to do something, and she's about to do it anyway.
Ali winces in my general direction. "Sorry for whatever happens next."
"You and me both."
I love my mom. This is what I remind myself as we get closer to her and a knot begins to form in my stomach.
Talon Birch is a singularly stubborn woman. She's outspoken, courageous, fiercely protective, and loyal to a fault.
She can also be a total and complete asshole at times. Just ask any of the men she's dated—and plenty of the men she hasn't.
"I want to take you back home." Raising her chin, she glares daggers over my shoulder. "I don't care what the old crones say. We should try it at least once."
Glancing over my shoulder, I spot four members of the coven gathered near the clearing where Delilah spoke: Greta Moss, Constance and Cassandra Moon, and of course, Laurel Sky.
Cassandra is looking at my mother like she recently vomited on her shoes.
Which, to be fair, it's possible she did. My mom has been known to down more tequila than is advisable for a five-foot-two woman. She stopped drinking earlier this year, but if past history is any indication, she's likely to take the habit back up again "just while things are tough."
Ali leans in and murmurs to me, "I can try to convince her not to do this."
"Why bother?"
"Because when we tried to take you home while you were out of it, you started screaming." Ali turns white at the memory, and I start to wonder just how much she went through after my rejection. "It wasn't until we set up the healing tent close to the Mating Circle that you actually started to get better."
I look at my mother, who has that glint in her eyes. She's starting to tap her toe on the ground—a sure sign she won't be convinced of anything.
"Let's do it," I tell her, even though I think it's probably a terrible idea. "What's the worst that can happen?"
Mom claps her hands together excitedly.
"Great! Get in the car. I brought it as close to the tent as I could—don't mind the mud."
Talon leads us around the tent, revealing that, of course, she parked in the least convenient place possible. Instead of leaving her car on the gravel roadway nearby, or parking it further up where the ground is dry, she drove it straight into a muddy, grassy patch.
No doubt people tried to stop her, but there's no stopping my mother.
Sighing, I close my eyes and send up a little silent prayer that the ground lets her tires out.
When I open my eyes, I see a tall man with brown skin, a shaved head, and a thick black beard standing next to the car.
He winks at me.
Then disappears.
Chapter 9
Rina
Istop short, looking around wildly—and Ali inhales sharply.
"You saw that?" She whispers the question. "That man standing next to your mom's car—you saw him too?"
"Yes." I go cold at what this suggests. "Is he—are they real?"
"Very real." Ali steps up to face me, grabs my hands, and searches my face. "I thought I'd imagined them. Delilah and the coven had me convinced they weren't real—no one else saw them but me."
"And now me. They've been here for a while now, haven't they?"
"Yeah. They were there the whole time you were out of it. They protected you. No one could get close to you. That's why Laurel had to wait until you were awake to propose casting you out of the pack—when she tried to come into the healing tent they threw her out."
My eyes widen. "Who are they?"
"Get in the car, Caterina Birch!" My mom honks the horn on her old sedan, its tires squealing in the mud. "I want to do this before the sun sets. You know my headlights don't work."
They haven't worked for a year and a half, and Ali's dad Harry has offered to replace them at least a dozen times. Mom keeps putting him off, saying she doesn't want to owe him, but I think she just enjoys the drama of gunning it home before sunset.
"Let's table this discussion," I tell my best friend, sighing as we approach my mom's beat-up car together. "We might as well get this over with."
I have the feeling that my mom's harebrained scheme to just take me home is unlikely to work. After all, if Delilah Glass, the most powerful weaving witch in North America, couldn't fix me, no one can.
Whatever is wrong with me, it's causing weird, hot, invisible-to-others men to show up and smolder in my general direction. Even worse, my best friend can see then too—a shared delusion in sexiness.
Talon Birch's stubbornness is nothing compared to that. We'll probably get halfway down the road and I'll burst into flames.
Which, I'm realizing now, might not be a bad thing. My heart still aches because the First Alpha rejected me. All my life, all I wanted was to be his mate.
