I grit my teeth. Of course they’re not going to open the door for me. Turning the nob, I take a step inside, and look around what turns out to be an entire gathering sitting around the modest meeting table in the alpha’s office.
But only one person at the table really snags my attention. This close, I can see Kieran’s ice blue eyes. His hair is shorter than it was five years ago, shaved close at the sides and neatly trimmed across the top. He’s just as tall as I remember, and maybe even more muscular.
One thing major has changed: there’s a scar on his cheek now, stretching from the base of his eye to his jawline. It captures my attention because it looks old, healed, and very, very deep. Shifters don’t normally scar unless we either fight each other, magic is involved, or a wolfsbane weapon cuts us. Even I don’t scar, and I heal unusually slow for a shifter.
“Thank you for coming, Aurora Blackburn.” Elder Mariana, who’s one of the three elders who have come to this meeting, catches my attention as she motions to the single empty chair at the table. “We must apologize for the suddenness of this meeting, but some things can’t be planned for far in advance. And in light of new information we received yesterday, it was important that we speak to you at once.”
“Of course.” I’m glad for Mariana’s presence here; she’s one of the more severe elders of Pack Jade, but she cares about decorum and rules. And she’s chosen the chair for me that’s furthest from Kieran, which is… something. “I have no idea what this could be about, though, since I haven’t attended any of the pack meetings in years.”
Elder Bear, a big beast of a man, grunts. “Five years, to be exact.”
There’s a silence in the room for a long moment. Elder Cahan, the third and final elder in the room, speaks up to point out, “We aren’t here about that, and we don’t have much time to discuss things.”
“Yes, let’s get straight to business.” Alpha Cade sounds like he’d preferhebe the one to lead the meeting. Standing up, he leans forward and braces his hands on the table, staring directly at me in a way that can’t be ignored. “You’ve been summoned here because your presence is needed for a mission of utmost importance to Pack Jade. We’re concerned about the madness affecting several packs in the region—the same madness, of course, that affected your own pack so many years ago. I assume you’ve heard the news that it’s spreading again.”
“I have,” I acknowledge, sneaking a glance over to Kieran and wondering if he, too, feels the ice-like knife in his chest that is our rejected bond. Probably not, given how stoic and unaffected he seems to be. “Some of the new shifters in the outskirts are refugees from those packs.”
The pain, at least, seems to be settling, or maybe I’m just getting used to it. I’ve learned how to breathe through pain over the past five years; I’m more resilient than I was on that fateful day. Less optimistic and naive, too, I guess.
“Well, we have reason to believe that this madness has been caused by the fae,” Alpha Cade says, his words jerking myattention back toward him, and to the present. “A messenger from Pack Amethyst arrived yesterday?—”
“Wait.” It feels like an eternity before my mind catches up with what he’s saying. “The fae caused the madness? Not…”
Not genetics, I want to say. Not blood, or a curse that’s passed on by family members, or some inevitable, ineffable thing that makes me so hated and unwanted.
If it isn’t a sickness… if it can’t be passed on…
Mariana says, “Yes, we have evidence linking it quite firmly to the fae. That very same evidence seems to suggest that it’s the same madness that affected Pack Onyx, which means we missed something all those years ago when your pack was decimated.”
Digging my fingers into the armrests of my chair, I try to take in this new information without reacting. Cade says, seemingly reluctantly, “I’ve given Kieran a mission: to trace the madness back to its source, which as far as we can tell, is Pack Onyx lands. He’ll investigate the madness in other packs along the way, and you will accompany him on this mission.”
It’s his final words that make me catch up and immediately react. “No, I—I can’t. We haven’t even seen each other in years, and the rejected bond…” I look over at him, begging and pleading with my eyes, even though I know it’s useless. His ice-blue gaze stares through me unfeelingly, and I glance at his scar again, wondering how he got it. “There’s no way. It won’t work. Besides, I know nothing about the madness. I was just a baby when it took my pack. There’s nothing I can do to help.”
“Ah, but you can,” Elder Cahan says in a quiet voice. “I’ve researched pack lore for years, and one thing I know the most about is our lands. Your connection to Pack Onyx lands lives in your blood, regardless of where you were raised or which pack you call your own. That connection may be crucial in discovering what happened—which is why Kieran will need you with him when he arrives there to investigate.”
I can’t say anything in response to that, because I’ve researched the same pack lore. He’s right—my blood will awaken Pack Onyx lands as its only remaining shifter. I used to think that was one of the reasons why I couldn’t shift, until I did more research, and discovered that I’m alone in the malady affecting me. I decided then that it was the madness, and stopped trying to find answers that might help me shift.
If the fae had something to do with the madness, though, and it’s not a sickness or a curse I was born with, then that begs the question: why can’t I shift?
“You may be able to find out more about what happened to your pack, including your parents, if you go.” Elder Mariana’s voice is calm and assured. “When a shifter returns to their ancestral lands, the connection can be quite strong and overwhelming. Especially if no shifters have set foot there for a while—in this case, over two decades. There may be answers there waiting for you.”
It’s a tempting offer. I’ve always wanted to know more about what happened to my pack. Especially my family.
I want to say no to this, to declare that I’d rather be exiled than do their bidding. Just being in the same room as Kieran hurts like a knife through the chest. But I can’t refuse to look into the past when it may hold the answers I’ve been looking for my entire life.
Sneaking another glance at him, I wonder idly why he hasn’t spoken this whole meeting. He looks bored, uninterested even, despite the fact that this affects him too. My eyes trail up and down the scar, which somehow only adds to his attractiveness, and it’s all I can do not to demand answers.
Why reject me. Why refuse to give me a second chance. Why be kind to me all those years, if secretly he loathed me so much that the mere thought of being with me was worth denying fate itself.
There are no answers behind his cold blue eyes. But there may be answers for me on Pack Onyx lands. So I turn to Alpha Cade and tell him, with more confidence than I feel, “I’ll help with the investigation in any way that I can, even if that means working with your son. As long as I get to return to Pack Onyx lands and find out for myself what happened there—yes, I’m in.”
“I wasn’t asking,” he says in rebuke, a dominant wolf’s growl in his tone. “It wasn’t up to you to decide for yourself if you’re going or not. This is an order directly from your alpha, Aurora Blackburn, and youwillobey.”
Kieran winces, and the elders shift a little, but I feel next to nothing. The dominance of other shifters doesn’t seem to affect me very much, maybe because I don’t have a wolf of my own. I make myself flinch anyway, hiding as always the fact that I’m different—after all, a shifter as weak as me should be cowering in fear belly-up at his words, not planning what to pack.
“Apologies,” I tell him, lowering my head and looking away. “I’ve lived too long on the outskirts of the pack, and I forgot myself.”
I don’t say anything else for the remainder of the meeting, which trails off with little more than a few planned logistics. The only thing I really tune in for is when Kieran speaks up.
