by R. A. Boyd
Willow rolled her eyes until her pupils disappeared. “Correction, you idiot. That’s your woman destroying those shifters,” she said, motioning toward Audra.
Zeke looked up just in time to see Audra holding a severed bear arm from her mouth while she beat a bleeding wolf against a tree over and over like she was beating the dust from an old rug. The other wolf was already dead on the ground beside the still one-armed bear.
Well damn. That was fast.
Chills rippled across Zeke’s skin as Audra turned around and pinned him with her glowing amber gaze. She was beautiful. Blood and flesh dripped from her teeth. Her lips curled up in a hiss, but Zeke had the notion she was smiling at him. That was sweet. He just wished she would spit the arm out first.
As if she could hear his thoughts, she probably could, Audra dropped the arm from her mouth and then shrank back into her human skin. Her head lifted to the side as if she heard something.
“Someone just peeled off in a truck farther up the road,” she yelled as she walked toward them. She was naked and covered in blood but she didn’t seem to have a scratch on her. “Well that was awesome.” Looking over their shoulders she said, “You guys missed all the fun.”
Zeke turned to see Jax, Damon, and Cass walking toward them. He turned back and looked at Audra. She was awesome. She was a brawling, badass, ferocious saber-tooth cat. She was all his and he had the honor and pleasure of being hers.
His smile faltered as the name the shifter said echoed through is head. Samiyah. “We have a problem.”
“Are you sure?” Willow asked Zeke.
Audra sat next to him, eating a bowl of beef stew. She had to get the taste of bear fur from her mouth. It was gross and no amount of toothpaste or mouthwash had done the trick.
Zeke nodded and rubbed Audra’s thigh, sending tendrils of pleasure up her leg. She liked that.
“Yeah. I’m sure that’s what they said. I don’t know of too many Samiyah’s walking around who happen to be witches and has access to Heaven’s Flame. Not that they said that specifically. I’m only guessing.”
“Who’s Samiyah?” Aiden asked. He sat with his legs stretched out and a beer bottle in his large hand. He shook the bottle at Audra, silently asking if she wanted one.
She nodded and went back to eating, noticing how Zeke’s hand tightened on her thigh as he spoke. He was worried.
Willow accepted a beer from Aiden and gave him a nod of thanks. “He was a member of the coven, but he left years ago. Very powerful. He joined the coven centuries ago and helped us set up the laws that govern the Coven of the Fallen. He was one of the witches that helped capture your brother, Ronan.”
Audra’s stomach knotted up at the mention of her brother. She wasn’t the only one who felt the sting of his name. The rest of her brothers quieted and looked around, their gaze finally resting on her. Ronan was always a sore subject.
“Not that I knew your brother,” Cass said, breaking the silence. “But I’ve heard enough about him to think that maybe—”
“That what he did is the reason we’re being targeted,” Audra murmured as Aiden put a dark bottle of beer in front of her. “The shifter from the pub said that the rogue pack has pretty much been waiting for us to start finding our mates for years. And that a witch did not want us operating at full capacity. But why now? He could have made it easier on himself and done it before we started pairing up.”
A clang rang out as Audra dropped her spoon in the bowl. Always back to that fucking night in Ireland. She would never escape it.
Zeke took hold of Audra’s hand as she tried to stand. “Audra, please. It’s not your fault.”
“No,” Damon said to her from across the dining table. “It’s not your fault. You have to stop thinking that. What he did was his choice and there was nothing you could do to stop it. It may not even have been his choice. Out of everyone here you know best what he went through. Stop taking Ronan’s actions onto yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t there that night. He hadn’t seen what she saw. And he didn’t wake up three days later with the ghost of his beast haunting him because he had failed.
Audra sighed and shrugged. “So. Back to Samiyah. Can you make sure it’s the one you’re thinking of before we go searching for a person who has nothing to do with this? And if it is the same person, how much trouble are we talking?”
Sitting back in her chair Willow puffed out her cheeks and shook her head. “Big trouble. Samiyah changed his name when he chose to fall.”
Audra looked from Willow to Zeke and noticed a silent exchange. They were nervous. Who the hell was Samiyah?
She turned to Zeke and touched his face. “Just tell us. Maybe we can handle this better if we know,” she said, smoothing away the worry lines from between his eyebrows.
A humorless chuckle brought Audra’s attention back to Willow.
“Jophiel,” Willow said. The name fell from her lips like a stone sending ripples through a pond.
“Shit,” Simon murmured.
A ripple do fear tore through Audra and she instantly lost her appetite. Jophiel. They were in trouble.
Riley looked back and forth between them. “Who the fuck is that?”
“An archangel,” Aiden said through a whispered breath. “One of the highest ranking angels in all existence. A very powerful being.”
“Yes,” Willow agreed. “Powerful enough that even after his fall from grace he was able to travel through realms, Heaven and Hell included. He was one of the most powerful witches in the coven. When he left he said he was tired of this life and wanted to live alone. And then he left.”
They were screwed. Archangels were powerful. They were the first angels made by the Creator. They had power. They were made of pure energy. And one wanted them all dead.
Riley stood up from where she sat in Teague’s lap and walked toward the stove. “So, he saw what you were capable of and decided he didn’t like it. He might be an archangel but you guys are angels too. You can’t get together and… stop him?”
“How?” Willow said, her voice going high with something akin to anger. “Are we supposed to kill him? He’s a fellow angel. We can’t kill him.”
“But he’s trying to kill us,” Zeke interrupted.
“Or,” Riley said, weaving her way back to the table with a hot bowl of stew. “He could be trying to put you all on ice. They were trying to take Audra and Zeke, and when the rogues came to my house for Teague I heard them talk about loading us up to take us with them. If he was trying to kill you he wouldn’t be trying to abduct you. Unless he doesn’t know how to kill you.”
“He knows exactly how to do it,” Simon said, rubbing his hand over his mostly bald head. He’d cut his hair last night and Audra could see his scalp. “What the fuck are we going to do?”
“Exactly what we’ve been doing.” Audra reached over and put her hand on Willow’s. “Being here for each other. Gaining allies. We won’t let the fear of what’s going to happen next stop us from living. We have each other. That’s what matters.”
Willow’s smile was sad. She was still worried. Audra didn’t blame her.
Despite the shit storm that had taken over their little community in such a short amount of time, Audra breathed a deep sigh of relief and happiness as she looked around at her family. She was so freaking happy to be alive; to be whole again. Nothing, not even the threat of an archangel’s wrath, could take away from who they were. From what they were becoming.
They were here together, and that’s what mattered. The Gold Wing raven shifters stood with them, and so did many of the other clans in New Rose. They would have to break out of their tiny shell and let the other shifters know that they were just like them. Yeah, they used to be angels, but now they were shifters who wanted what every other shifter wanted. A clan, a family, a mate who would love and accept them for who they were. That’s what made life worth living, regardless of whether they were shifter, fallen angel, or human.
She looked over at Zeke and smiled. She still got floaty butterflies inside when she looked at him, and her heart would always pool with joy when she thought of her family.
“Audra,” Zeke said, interrupting her thoughts. “Can you come outside with me for a moment?”
She couldn’t feel his thoughts as he spoke, and that bothered her. The others in the clan couldn’t sense their mate’s thoughts, and that’s what let Audra know that Zeke had been meant for her since the beginning of time. He was blocking her.
Audra stood up and followed him to the door.
Once they were outside he turned to her. The frown on his face made her uncomfortable.
She reached up and put her hands on either side of his face. “Zeke, it’s okay. We’ll make it through this. I know we will.”
He looked down and took her hands into his. “I know. I know. I just wanted to talk to you.” He leaned over and kissed her softly. “You mean the world to me and I am honored to be yours, and I just wanted you to know that.”
“I know. I love you too.”
“Things may get hard. They might get scary. But before they do I just need to know something.” He glanced behind her at their family sitting inside the common hall. “You are powerful and I know you can do anything. There might come a time where I don’t want you to get involved because I’m afraid of what might happen to you, but I need you to be patient with me. I want you to be happy.”
“Zeke, I am happy. You have no freaking idea how happy I am.” She took one hand and slid it up his handsome face, enjoying the rough feel of the stubble growing, and then moved it to his hair. She tousled the soft dark strands and then grabbed a handful, pushing his head back until she was able to kiss his chin. “You have no idea. Let’s go home and do the grown-up. Right now.”
He chuckled and brought his lips down to kiss her. “In a minute. I just need to know something.”
Audra gasped as Zeke dropped down to one knee in front of her and grabbed her left hand. “Audra Defoe. Will you be my wife?”
Tears fell from her eyes as she nodded. “Yes. I will,” she said as he slipped a beautiful diamond covered gold band over her finger.
He stood and lifted her off her feet, holding her so close she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t need air. She had Zeke. And her family.
This was it. This was what she’d been waiting for for so long. Things may get rough and they may have to kill a few ass-hats along the way, but at least they would do it together. All of them.
Her brothers were finding their mates and she had found hers. This feeling right now, right here, was what they were promised millennia ago. It was worth the wait. Worth the fight. Worth the fear of losing her sanity and who she was, and finding it all over again. This was living. No one, not an archangel, not a shifter, and not a witch would take it from her.
She would rip their asshole out through their mouths if they tried. That sounded like fun.
The End
Up Next in the Ghost Shifter Series
Aiden Samuels gets his story in
The Shifter's Fight
Coming April 2019
A note from the author
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review. It helps us authors out tremendously and I would appreciate it very much. Plus, I get a pretty unicorn if I get enough reviews.
Other works by R.A. Boyd
The Line of Lilith Series
Hunted by Angels
Lady and the Pack (coming soon)
