“He has no choice,” Sarah said. “And I know how highly he values his life. From what little I’ve seen, the pack respects Forest, and they’ll respect the decision, even if he wasn’t the one to make it. I’m proud of you, honey.” She reached toward my hair, sweeping some of it behind my ear. “But now that you’ve fully shifted, there are some things we should talk about.”
Somehow, I knew where she was going with this. I stepped back, shaking my head. “Mom, I really don’t think…”
But she went on, talking over me, “Now that you’re a wolf, you’ll have some of her instincts. You’ll start to have new feelings inside, start to want to…submit to your intended mates and your…alpha—” It was almost like she was having a difficult time talking. It must’ve been as hard for her as it was for me to listen.
“Yuck, Mom. Okay, I get it. Please just stop,” I interrupted. “Before I barf. Seriously.” A teenage way of responding, but I could think of no other ways. It was ridiculous. As if I wanted to have the talk with her when I was basically twenty years old.
Sarah smiled. “All right, but if you ever have questions, you know you can always come to me. Even if…” She bit back a grimace. “…well, let’s just agree never to use names.” The last bit had to be in reference to Forest.
Now that was something I could agree to.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Addie
After agreeing to come to Sarah if I had any questions about anything involving being a full-fledged wolf, I found myself gravitating towards Forest’s room. I closed the door and drew the curtains before crawling onto the bed. The sheets had been changed after he’d gotten up, not a bit of blood on them from earlier.
I buried my nose in the pillow, inhaling as I rolled around. Kind of like a dog. But I couldn’t help it—the sheets were clean, but it still smelled like Forest. Just his smell made my insides burn in the best way. How badly I wanted not to be alone in this wide, king-sized bed. It was nearly wide enough to fit all my mates on it, I realized, giggling quietly to myself as I slid my legs beneath the sheer white covers.
Not a picture I ever thought I’d have, but then again, before Crystal Lake, before finding out I was part shifter and part witch, I never imagined having more than one boyfriend at a time. Not even just the one, actually. It still blew my mind when I thought about it.
The guys were downstairs, probably trying to come up with a battle plan against Clay. Who knew how much time we had before he showed his face? I would join them in a few hours, after taking a quick catnap. Or dognap. Whatever. I did not want to sleep the whole day away, though, so I set the clock on Forest’s nightstand to go off in three hours.
Yes, because the manly alpha still somehow had a need for an alarm clock. Go figure.
I let out a smooth exhale, closing my eyes. It was hard for me not to feel the absence of…something inside me. A nameless thing, my ability with magic. Just…gone. Vanished the moment the wolf took over, now that my mom’s genetics had full control. I knew it was gone, deep down, though I would never be able to describe how it was I knew. I just did. Instinctual, like with my wolf.
I must’ve dozed off, for the next thing I knew, the alarm clock was ringing at full volume, jerking me awake. I rolled to the edge of the bed, slamming my hand on the button to stop the noise, fumbling only a little bit because it’d been years since I’d used anything but my phone as an alarm.
My body felt heavy, like I didn’t want to get up, but I had to. There were things I needed to help plan. A lot of stuff that needed doing. My mind was so groggy, it took me a while to remember what those things and stuff were.
Mainly Clay, and beating his sorry ass into the ground, where he belonged.
I swung my legs off the bed and made my way out of the bedroom. I ran a hand through my hair to make sure I didn’t look like someone who’d just woken up—my bedhead was the worst, not cute in the slightest—and headed downstairs, expecting to hear the guys talking, or Sarah interjecting. Something. Anything.
But I heard not a single sound, even as my feet were flat on the first floor, the stairwell behind me. Odd for it to be so quiet.
Peeking in the living room, I found not a trace of the guys. I went to the kitchen and found yet another empty room. I crossed my arms over my chest, lost in thought as I pondered where the heck they all could’ve gone. I heard not a single sound in the house, and their scents…
Their scents were gone, almost as if they never existed in the first place.
“What in the hell…” I spoke aloud, cringing at the sound of my own voice, the way it shattered the silence of the house. Intrusive in every way. I moved to the front door, its yellow seeming less bright and lively and more old and worn. Was it always so dull?
The outside air was cooler than I thought it would be, and I shivered as I stepped onto the porch, the door behind me swinging closed. My heart caught in my throat the instant I gazed upon the front lawn.
Where there should’ve been green grass, there was nothing but red, a thick and viscous liquid coating the individual blades. What should’ve been a serene, peaceful yard was nothing but a macabre painting of blood and body parts, all strewn about. From the look of the mess of haphazardly thrown limbs, they were cut apart evenly, as if with a blade.
Some of them weren’t human. Some were shifted, wolf limbs missing the rest of their bodies. I spotted a few wolf heads strewn about, none I recognized, but all the same, my heart ached.
“No,” I whispered, nearly falling to my knees as I stumbled off the porch, my bare feet stepping into the bloodied grass. This couldn’t be. I would’ve heard this happening, would’ve woken up to try to stop this…
How did this happen?
I stumbled along, making it to the street, which was also drenched in blood. About an inch of it, running like a miniature river toward the heart of the town, toward the lake. I followed the course of the stream that was not water, calling out for my guys, for my mom. For anyone.
It took me ten minutes to make it past the park and to the lake’s shore. The normally clear water was tinged a dark red, from both the blood running into it, and the headless bodies floating in it. As I moved closer, I felt the instant urge to vomit. Those bodies, the floaters…their clothes, their body shape, their smell—I knew them. Knew who they were.
They were mine.
Four pikes stuck out of the ground, right before the dock. Four pikes each holding a single severed head. Maze, Dylan, Landon, and Forest, all caught with the same expression, their eyes turned upwards, their mouths hanging slightly ajar.
Tears welled in my eyes, my heart breaking into a thousand tiny pieces, pieces I knew I’d never recover, even if I lived through this. I fell to my knees, the hopelessness threatening to take over completely.
A red mist started to seep from the bloody lake water, rising as something started lifting in the center. A shadow behind me blocked out the sun, a smooth, eerie voice creeping into my brain, “You didn’t think daddy would save you forever, did you?”
Clay.
I closed my eyes, squeezing them hard as the tears began to roll down my cheeks. A primal fear took hold of me, one I could not fight. I was scared, scared to die, just like the rest of them.
I didn’t care that I knelt in a stream of blood, could hardly focus on whatever tentacled thing was rising out of the lake. All I knew was that we failed…they were all dead. My mates, desiccated, their bodies disrespected in the worst way. And that damned voice, seemingly unspoken, as if it entered my brain of its own accord.
“Persistence pays off,” Clay went on as a hand snaked from behind me, wrapping around my neck. He forced me to stand, and as my eyes opened, I spotted what had risen from the lake.
My mom. In pieces, each bit of her held up by a blood-red tentacle.
“No,” I cried, but he squeezed my throat harshly, throwing me to the ground. My back collided with the stream of blood flowing into the lake, the rocky shore under me. Some of the rocks were too sharp,
cutting into my skin effortlessly, but I was already in too much pain. At this point, I just wanted it to end.
“You didn’t think I’d forget you, did you?” Clay straddled me, grinning. His teeth were a stark contrast to the blackness of his painted flesh, nearly as white as the line that traveled down his forehead, a straight shot down his entire body. His black hair was slicked back, in an old-fashioned greaser style. He wore a suit, like always, black pants with a dark red shirt beneath the suit’s jacket. “How could I ever forget your pretty face?” His hand started choking me, and I gasped for air that would not come.
This was hopeless.
“My, my. It seems you’ve lost the bit of magic you used to have,” he went on, lowering his face to mine, his dark figure blocking out the entire sky. “It’s all right, though. My master has everything he needs from you. Soon enough, he’ll have it from her, too.”
Her? I couldn’t even ask, for the hand around my neck was too tight.
“And then he’ll be one step closer to the ultimate hybrid, a creature with the strengths of all and the weaknesses of none. I know I’m not going to be around to see it, but I am a little jealous. Can you imagine my magic, unfettered by death’s self-imposed limits? The world will never be the same.” Clay started laughing, and it was a haunting and maniacal laugh that settled deep within my bones.
Death magic with no limits. That was definitely not something I wanted to see—although at this rate, I wouldn’t be living too far into the future, anyway.
I did manage to mutter as my vision turned blurry, “Odon.”
My mention of his master’s name caused the grip on my neck to loosen, and I inhaled a great big gasp, trying to recoup all the air I’d lost. Clay stared at me, his brown eyes anything but warm. They were a cruel and cold type of brown, calculating and frenzied. “So you have learned a bit in the time we’ve been apart. Good. I still don’t think you know the whole story, though.”
His grip on me remained slack as he brought his face down, his nose leaning against my cheek, his flesh freezing on mine, even with all the warm blood beneath and around me. “You were not the only one,” Clay whispered.
Not the only hybrid? Well, obviously. I highly doubted I was the first of my kind in all of history. Genetics were bound to cross, much as they did between shifters and humans, and mutations happened all the time. It was what made evolution so…evolutionary.
“Now, you see, I know you’re not understanding what I’m saying, because that’s not the reaction you should have,” Clay said. “So, let’s try again.” This time his mouth grazed my earlobe, and he whispered, “You think you know all the details? After they hid everything from you, do you really think they told you the truth? No, pup, they hid something else from you. Or, should I perhaps say, someone?”
I tried to make sense of it, I did, but it was hard to concentrate knowing everyone I ever cared about was dead. The whole pack, dead. My mates, deader than dead. My mom…torn apart by some tentacled monster.
“Does the saying you’re not the only one mean something different now? No? Still not clear enough, I suppose. Let me give it to you straight.” Clay smirked, the twitch of his smile grating against my cheek. “Mommy and daddy ran away together, betrayed my master in the worst way. Nine months later, you were born.”
Okay, I knew all of that. What on earth was—
“On that same day, someone else was born, too. Your other half. Your sister. You, Adeline Smithson, are but one half of a whole. Little shifter, you have a twin.”
The words hit me like a brick wall, and I found I could not speak, even though the hand on my neck no longer choked me. My first instinct was to call him a liar, but I knew he had no reason to lie to me, not about this.
But if what he said was true…why didn’t Arthur or Sarah tell me? Hadn’t I told them not to lie to me anymore? Did I not ask them if I finally had the whole story?
A twin. Somewhere out there, in the great, big, horrifying world, there was another girl who looked exactly like me. A girl whose fate was sealed. A girl who probably had no idea what horror was in store for her once another one of Odon’s minions got ahold of her.
“It doesn’t matter now, though,” Clay murmured, his fingers tightening around my throat. “Because you won’t live to meet her.” When he grinned, his teeth were almost a blinding white. “Oh, what my master has planned for her. It’s going to be great—I wish I could be around to see it…but I’ll settle for taking care of you.”
What Clay didn’t seem to realize was that the knowledge I had a sister did not further dampen my spirits. While I was angry at my parents for hiding yet another thing, it was just one more secret added to the list. What instead dominated my mind as Clay choked me was that now I had someone to live for, something to fight for.
I would make Clay regret ever spilling the beans to me.
I felt a growl rise in my chest, and even though I couldn’t breathe, it still echoed through the air. As Clay laughed at my helplessness, a strange sound rose in the back of my mind. A rhythmic noise, sharp and jarring, and completely annoying and out of place.
An…alarm clock?
What the…
I couldn’t think before the world of blood and gore was taken from me—or was I plucked from the world? Either way, the last thing I remembered was the sudden redness of Clay’s stare.
I would not escape him for long.
Chapter Twenty-Four – Addie
Eyes flying open, my gaze focused on the alarm clock ringing nonstop on the nightstand. One of my arms struggled to get out from under the sheets, smacking it a few times as I tried to find the button to turn it off, to make the world quiet once more. Once I had it off, I stared hard at the clock.
Right. I’d set an alarm to not sleep the whole day away since I was up all night during my first turn. Everything that had happened—the body parts, my mates on pikes near the lake, the creature in the water with my torn-apart mother—it was all a dream. Clay had gotten into my head…
…which meant Arthur’s spell was weak enough for him to break through. Crystal Lake was no longer safe from Clay’s influence or his death spells.
I sat up, swinging my feet off the bed. I heaved a heavy sigh, knowing this was it. Clay wouldn’t wait to come. Now that he could break through, he’d come in, full-force, and there was nothing we could do besides stand and fight him as one. As a pack.
I didn’t bother tugging on my ankle-high boots; I left them near the bed as I exited the room, taking the stairs two at a time. I could hear multiple conversations being had in the house, though I couldn’t focus on any of them. my heightened senses weren’t attuned or practiced yet, and they’d probably take a while to get to the level they should be.
My mom was in the kitchen with Dylan, and they were planning some kind of meal. I stood under the archway that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house, causing them to look at me. I probably looked a mess; my hair, my wrinkled clothes. None of it mattered.
I wanted to bring up the whole twin thing, because honestly it was something I still was shocked about, but I was smart enough to know now wasn’t the time to bicker. There would be plenty of time to demand answers later—assuming we lived through this, that we beat Clay for good.
Meaning, we killed him.
Arthur and Zak better be having good luck at the assembly, I hoped, otherwise we’d never be able to beat Clay, even as a pack.
“Living room,” I said. “Now.” Without another word, I spun on my heel and marched into the living room, where the others were.
Forest had his arms crossed, listening to whatever Landon was saying. Maze lounged on the couch, mindlessly fiddling with his own hair, trying to give himself a fauxhawk without any gel.
Once everyone was in the living room, once they were all staring at me with wide, curious eyes, I breathed in, readying myself. I could explain the whole dream, but really, there was only one important bit, so I settled for that.
“Clay
’s here,” I said simply. Nothing was simple when it came to Clay, but time was not on our side.
“He’s what?” Maze asked, glancing at his twin and then at Forest. “I thought the scary warlock was keeping him out, yeah?” The scary warlock, meaning Arthur. Meaning my father. I would’ve laughed, if the situation wasn’t so dire.
It was Sarah who said, “No warlock or witch can hold a spell indefinitely. Even the high warlock of power has limits.” Anxiety grew on her face, making her seem older than the thirty-six years she was.
“How do you know he’s here?” Landon asked.
“He was in my head, in my dream. The only reason I’m awake right now is because I set an alarm,” I said. “He’s here, and he wants me. Some stupid payback or something for escaping, or maybe just to kill me for Odon since he got what he needed from me.” Spreading my toes on the floor, I wiggled them, feeling the sudden need to turn, to shift and run. “I’m going to the lake to draw him out.”
Forest shook his head. “No.”
He was my alpha—I could feel it now, the sense of authority radiating from him. The power and the respect he had. Half of me wanted to bow down and agree with whatever he said, but the other half knew better.
“Yes,” I said, fighting the urge to submit. “He wants me, so he’ll get me.”
The room erupted into an argument, every single wolf in the room telling me why this was a bad idea. I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.
“While I’m distracting him, you guys will gather the pack. Everyone who wants to fight. Bring them to the lake. With any luck, I’ll still be alive,” I explained, doing my best to nullify most of the points of their arguing.
“If Arthur didn’t convince the assembly,” Sarah warned, “this could all be for nothing.”
“If the assembly won’t sever Clay’s connection to death, it won’t matter,” I told her, “he’ll come for me anyway.” And then, who knew? He might go after every single member of this pack anyway, because he was one crazy bastard.
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