Looking ahead, I can see the glow of campfires through the trees. The exiled members of Pack Jade—my people, who need me to step up and be the alpha they deserve. Who need me to be stronger than my father’s legacy of fear and control.
“Together,” I agree, drawing strength from her touch.
Whatever comes next, we’ll face it as true mates should. Side by side, stronger together than apart.
Even if it means facing down my own father to save everything we hold dear.
Chapter 38
Aurora
The scent of fae magic grows stronger as we approach Pack Jade territory, an acrid sweetness that burns my nose and makes my skin crawl. Even with my weaker shifter senses, I feel the wrongness in the air—a corruption seeping into the land that once felt like home. The magic that has sustained generations of shifters now twists and writhes, struggling against fae influence like a living thing being held down and tortured.
Kieran moves silently beside me, his massive bronze wolf form tense with anticipation. Through our strengthened bond, I feel his turmoil: anger at his father’s betrayal warring with lingering love and loyalty. Around us, our allies slip through the shadows—Dana, Gran, and the other exiled pack members who chose to stand against Alpha Cade’s madness.
The streets I once knew are empty now, devoid of the life and energy that once filled them. No children playing in yards, no shifters going through their daily routines, no gossiping or shifting or… anything. Just eerie silence and that sickening twist in the land’s magic that makes me grimace with each step I take further into it.
“They’re corrupting it,” I whisper to Dana as she steadies me. “The pack lands. They’re turning all that ancient magic dark and awful.”
“I can feel it too,” she says, shuddering. “We have to stop this before it goes any further.”
A haunting laugh echoes through the air, making every hair on my body stand on end, something so similar to the voice of the fae man I fought in the ruins. We freeze as a tall figure steps out of the shadows: an impossibly tall, lithe, strange-looking man with pointed ears, a long, inhuman face, and violet eyes that seem to pierce straight through me. This must be Lord Hule, the high fae who seduced Cade with false promises. He’s beautiful in a way that hurts to look at directly, and he smells wrong somehow, like dark magic and darker words.
“Don’t agree to anything he says,” I warn the others, not for the first time. “He’ll hide bargains in his words and try to rile you up so you don’t notice what he’s doing. Stay back from his magic—there’s no telling what he’s up to.”
The fae man cocks his head at this, staring right at me as if he can hear my voice from here, which for all I know he can.
“Well, well, if it isn’t a little birdy who knows a few things.” His voice carries like a song on the wind, deceptively sweet and saccharine. “The last of the Onyx wolves is here, if my senses tell me correctly. And the prodigal son as well. How convenient for me.”
Kieran shifts to human form in one fluid motion, stepping between me and the fae lord. Even naked, he radiates power and authority, his head thrown back and his broad shoulders braced with strength and power. “Where is my father?”
“Preparing for his grand sacrifice, of course.” Hule’s smile shows too many teeth, sharp and gleaming in the moonlight, his tongue red as blood as he flicks it out to lick his lips like a snaketasting the air. “Soon he’ll be reunited with his beloved mate—in death, if not in life.”
More fae materialize around us, their forms shifting and rippling in ways that hurt my eyes. Some are beautiful like Hule, others monstrous with limbs made of shadow and vine. Our allies move into defensive positions, cold iron weapons glinting in the darkness, whatever Gran and I had distributed among them with instructions on where to hit to hurt the most.
“You’re lying to him,” I say, drawing my own daggers. The weight of them is familiar, comforting, the tinge of fae blood still running along the sharp edges. “You’re a fae, not a god. You can’t bring back the dead.”
“Of course not.” Hule laughs again, the sound grating in my ears. “But his death will give us what we truly want—control of these lands and all their lovely magic. Starting with Pack Onyx’s special gifts, delivered to us wrapped up like a present with a pretty little bow on top.”
He moves faster than thought, violet magic crackling around his hands. Kieran shoves me aside as a bolt of power tears through the space where I stood. The battle explodes around us in a chaos of snarls and magic that transforms our quiet streets into a war zone.
Dana fights at my back, her MMA training serving her well against the fae’s supernatural speed. We move together in the deadly dance she taught me, covering each other’s blind spots. Gran’s voice rings out with warnings and guidance, pointing out weak spots in fae armor, while her cold iron blade finds its mark again and again, her age doing nothing to slow her down after a lifetime of fighting the fae.
But our enemy is somehow endless, pouring out of shadows and doorways like a nightmare given form. For every one we take down, two more appear. A vine-armed creature catches Dana across the face, sending her stumbling. Another fae’sdarkness magic pins Gran against a wall, her weapons clattering uselessly to the ground.
The high fae and low fae seem to have come together for this battle, sending alarm through me after everything we discovered. The only reason they could have allied with each other was to take us down entirely—which means everything hangs in the balance in this battle. Knowing this, I fight with everything I’ve got, sparing more thought for the battle in front of me than my allies around me, praying they make it through this.
Then I see Kieran go down.
He’s fighting Lord Hule in wolf form, his massive bronze shape a blur of power and fury. For a moment, they seem evenly matched—Hule’s supernatural speed against Kieran’s raw strength and skill. But then the fae lord’s magic catches him mid-leap, violet energy crackling around his midsection. The sound of his body hitting the building makes me scream. Through our bond, I feel his pain like it’s my own, sharp and biting.
“How disappointing,” Hule sighs, gathering more magic around his hands. Violet light dances between his fingers as he stalks toward my fallen mate. “I expected more from Cade’s heir. A little entertainment would’ve been nice, if nothing else.”
Something deep inside me fractures at the sight of Kieran struggling to rise to his feet. A lifetime of suppression, of being told I’m broken and wrong, shatters like glass in the face of possibly losing my mate just when I found him. The magic of Pack Onyx lands surges through my blood, no longer held back by doubt or fear, by denial or shame. Everything I felt while walking my ancestral grounds—that sense of belonging, of coming home—floods through me all at once, snapping into place with a rightness that I didn’t know existed.
And beneath it all, I feel her.
My wolf. She’s always been there, waiting behind barriers I couldn’t break through, behind spells for protection and my own self-doubt. Waiting for me to accept myself completely, to stop seeing myself through others’ eyes. Now, watching my mate in danger, feeling the pack lands’ magic singing in my veins, those barriers finally crumble.
