More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
June 2 - October 30, 2023
All eyes are on us. Cadoc and I, side by side, Seth, Bevan, and Derwyn at our backs. Again, I’m struck by that feeling—pack.
Our pup is there, too, it’s little light a beacon, oblivious to the goings on in the outside world. So tiny. Fear digs its claws into my throat. We’re outnumbered.
He believes what he’s been taught—that we’re less than and powerless and corrupting. I know then that he is going to lose. Brody doesn’t bother to speak. He throws back his neck, and his wolf howls, demanding submission with an alpha command. It sounds like bubble wrap popping as the entire pack bends the neck or bows the head. Everyone except Cadoc and me. I hear the command, but Brody Hughes isn’t my alpha.
Cadoc is standing by the podium, hand still fisted, as if he’s waiting for Brody to get back up, but Brody’s out cold, his spine bent at an impossible angle. A wave of “he’s still breathing” and “he’s alive” passes from the front to the back of the crowd.
Then his eyes meet mine. They’re swirly and silver, unreadable and full of possibility. He holds out his hand. And I’m afraid.
And it strikes me. No, ‘strikes’ is the wrong word. It clicks. We don’t belong here. Neither Cadoc nor I. None of us. I remember Abertha’s words, and I understand. I am nothing special. I’m not strong and brave and brilliant like Cadoc. But I am what I am—I’m special to him. And I know what’s important. I am the things my mate is not. I know the things he doesn’t know. He needs me. And I’m not Rose Kemble, am I? I’m Rosie Collins. I calmly take the steps, one by one, and he patiently waits for me, arm outstretched, his hard expression revealing nothing while the bond braids itself tighter and
...more
He is an alpha. My alpha. “Step back,” I tell her, cutting her off. She draws herself up, and glares down her nose, “Who do you think you—" she starts, but her words drown in my wolf’s growl which rattles my ribcage and causes the microphone to squeal.
And Gwen Collins shows me her neck like a ghost snapped it. She gasps, tensing, but she doesn’t—or can’t—raise her head.
But in this moment, he is brave, and he is real. I’m terrified for him, and I am certain of him. When he holds out his hand, I take it, and I let him lead me down the stairs, knowing in that moment that I would follow him anywhere.
What are we doing? I’m eighteen. Cadoc’s nineteen. I’m a witch’s apprentice with no magic at all. He has the strength, audacity, and presence of a born alpha, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know how to butcher a live kill, and I’m not a hundred percent sure he’s ever caught his dinner, either. Except those fish on his phone. And what did he do with them? He took pictures. He needs me. We’re doing this, no turning around now, so I’m going to have to teach him the million things he doesn’t know.
I reach for the bond, and now, all there is, is love, flowing from him to me, calm and sure and peaceful. No. He can’t do this.
“The bog rats aren’t yours, pup. We own them.”
His muzzle is an inch from Cadoc’s throat when his skull crunches between my wolf’s teeth.
Oh, no. The pup. Panic seizes my chest, but then I feel him. He’s here. With me. In the real, but not. My wolf stalks next to Cadoc, the ground trembling with each step, and she sits beside him. Cadoc drags himself upright to slump against her. She bends way down to lick his face.
When she feels assured that everyone has acknowledged her dominance, she plops back onto her haunches and starts snuffling at Cadoc, lapping his neck, licking his hands. She is utterly uninterested in her audience and obsessed with drooling over every inch of Cadoc’s ravaged body.
And this pack and the future is ours.
My people respect me, but it’s my mate’s wolf that’s the real power in this pack, and everyone knows it. Except maybe Rosie. She takes the mammoth inside her totally for granted. Her wolf’s not even on her radar these days.
