by Raye Wagner
Hysteria bubbled up inside of me. “You make that sound like the easiest thing in the world.”
“Nai, I’ll help you.” He closed his eyes so I closed mine too. “Now think of Honor.”
Honor. Sweet Honor.
I thought of him sitting at the edge of the lake in the Realm of the Dead, staring out at the vast expanse. I thought of him telling me that he was going to train me to shift. And how he told his brothers to stop teasing me at the beach.
Honor? Where are you? I felt for his energy, but what did his “energy” feel like? What did anyone’s energy feel like?
Honor was peaceful and calm. He was thoughtful and deep. If Rage’s energy was the sun, Honor’s was … like that lake. Cool, calm, soothing, and still.
Breathing in and out, I noticed light starting to flicker behind my closed eyelids, and then I felt a tug like someone had hooked a cord to my bellybutton and pulled. Then, I was floating, I could no longer feel the ground under me; everything felt light and free. My eyelids snapped open, and a shriek tore from my throat.
“I’m flying!” I screamed into the dark empty air.
“You’re free of your body, Nai,” Grandpa chuckled beside me, and I looked over at his soul. It was younger—like he was maybe forty, but the lighthearted expression quickly disappeared.
“Let’s go. We’re running out of time,” he said.
Right.
I let Gramps lead, and together we flew across a familiar landscape. The lake came into view with the Keeper’s castle on the hilltop. Glancing to my right, I gasped when I saw my body was semitransparent. I was a freaking ghost! Or a soul, or whatever. Just like Gramps.
Before I could process any further, the ground rushed up to meet us, and with Geoff’s help, I landed on my feet. I scanned the area and saw thousands of souls lazing about near the lake.
“Honor!” I shouted, running up to a young man sitting on a picnic blanket, but when he turned, I saw he wasn’t my friend but someone who looked like him. How much time did we have left? Was I too late? Should I go up to the castle and demand Honor—?
‘Stop. Don’t panic. Feel for him.’ Grandpa Geoff’s voice was in my head in the same way Rage and I spoke.
Letting out a shaky breath, I tried once more to feel for Honor’s energy. If I couldn’t see him with my eyes, was there another way to sense him? I knew the answer as soon as I thought the question. I needed to use my magic. I unwound the ball of magic “thread” in my chest, but instead of reaching for fire or water … or exhaling air, I sent magic feelers out into the realm of the dead like a net—a special Honor Midnight net.
Boom!
I felt him then, a large energetic presence to my right.
My eyes popped open and zeroed in on him. Honor was walking along the lakeshore with his father, and with them were my biological parents.
My mind blanked, and for a second I forgot why I was here.
“Mom!” I yelled.
‘No!’ Grandpa warned. ‘There’s no time. Honor’s soul is getting heavier.’ With a shake of his head, Grandpa added, ‘It may be too late. He may not go with you now.’
I spared my parents one more look, my heart breaking when my mom waved, her eyes filling with tears. I wanted to run to her, to hug her and ask her and my bio dad a hundred different things, but … I had to focus on Honor. ‘What do you mean Honor may not come with me?’
‘We’ve waited until the last possible moment. He feels rooted here now, and he may not want to leave.’
‘But—’
‘You need his permission,’ Gramps said. ‘Everyone has free will.’
No flippin’ way would Honor not want to come home and be with his brothers. Right? I booked it across the grassy lawn and then onto the sandy beach, racing until I crashed right into Honor.
His mouth popped open. “Nai?” His surprise turned to anguish, and he wrapped his arms around me. “Oh no.”
“Honor,” I sobbed, holding him tight.
He stroked my hair. “Damn, girl. Who killed you?”
I pulled back, shaking my head, and wrestled my emotions under control. He seemed better, more coherent. Happy … like he would want to stay here.
No. No. No.
“No. No one killed me. I … have the gift of spirit walking. I can come and go from here in this form, but I’m not dead.” Pretty sure that made no sense. “I came to bring you home.”
I forced a smile for him, my attention bouncing from Honor to Valor, Rage’s dad, who watched me keenly. My mother and uncle Mackay approached, arms around each other, but my mom still had that sad look on her face and they kept their distance as we worked this out.
“But I am home.” Honor pulled away and then stared out at the lake. “Why would you want to take all this happiness away from me?”
He walked away. From me, his father … everyone, and headed toward the water.
Panic thrummed through me, and I tore after him. “No, Honor. Please? Everyone is waiting for you to come back. I can bring you back. Noble is going to give you his wolf form, and we can all be together again.”
He turned to face me, and his brows drew together. “You want me to go back? But, Nai, here no one can hurt me. Ever again. No more pain. No more limp. No more suffering.”
There was so much in those words, so much about his life I didn’t know … like what being burned alive did to someone’s soul.
Emotion racked my body, and even though I didn’t need to breathe, I forced several mental deep ones so I wouldn’t break into sobs again. “Honor, I won’t ever, ever let anything like that happen to you again.”
He frowned and reached out to touch my cheek. “Better me than you.”
I grabbed his hand and blurted the raw truth. “Honor, the king killed your dad. Declan’s coming for us now, in Montana. Rage is going to fight him for alpha king. I messed everything up, but I can fix this—sort of. We all miss you so much—I miss you.” I openly wept as I pleaded with my dead friend. “The king, the high mages, they pretty much all want to kill me. It’s crazy up there, and we need you. I need you.”
He looked back at his father, who gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded once. “You need to live up to your name, son. If your brothers need you, if Rage’s mate needs you…”
Honor pulled me in for a side hug and kissed the top of my head. “Okay, Nai. I’ll come back—for you.”
I threw my arms around his waist, relief filling me when he pulled me closer. We held each other tightly and then we floated up. Higher and higher we flew, clinging to each other.
When I peeked down and saw my parents waving at me, my heart clenched again. “I’ll be back to speak to you!” I shouted.
We would have our time, but it wasn’t now.
As we floated up past the castle, I noticed the Keeper on the balcony, leaning against the railing. When my gaze met his, he nodded once and then snapped his fingers.
Everything went black.
My jaw clenched, and my eyelids snapped open. I was back in the cabin, in solid form, and Noble was screaming in pain.
“Nai, help!”
Holy mother…
Noble’s wolf was … ripping away from him. Not his wolf’s soul—or whatever that transparent spirit thing was, but his actual furry wolf. It peeled away from his skin as my grandfather stood firmly at Noble’s head, his wolf held by the jaws, and yanked upward away from Noble’s face. Honor’s new wolf was practically crawling out of Noble’s body. Getting to my feet, I reached around Honor’s black furry belly and heaved with a grunt.
Noble screamed bloody murder, thrashing against Rage and Justice, who still pinned him down. With a lurch, I tumbled back as Honor fully separated from Noble. Still holding on to his wolf, I braced for impact. I crashed into the couch and then I fell backward with Honor on top of me. After a stumble, he got on all fours and stared into my eyes. I could see it in his hazel eyes. I could see him.
“Honor?” I croaked.
Leaning forward, he
licked my cheek and then sat back on his haunches with a wolfish grin.
I burst into laughter and tears, wrapping my arms around his neck. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
Rage stumbled forward, “I hear him. It’s him.”
Honor spun, looked Rage in the eyes, and then jumped up on his hind legs and licked his brother’s face.
Grandpa Geoff helped Noble sit up, and Justice held out the bottle of the healing elixir I’d made earlier.
“Noble,” Grandpa said. “You okay?”
Noble swallowed some of the healing elixir, his eyes wide and wild, but he nodded. “Honor?”
The black wolf bounded across the room, licking each of us before settling at Noble’s side. All of the brothers embraced the black wolf, and Grandpa Geoff looked at me and smiled.
“Thank you.” I squeezed his hand. “If there is anything I can ever do for you—”
Grandpa Geoff leaned forward. “There is one thing…”
Okay, he kind of jumped on that favor quickly. It must be urgent.
“Anything,” I assured him. This man had my back from day one, I wouldn’t deny him.
“Nai, I need you to—”
The cabin door burst open and Kaja came in panting. “The king and his men are here.”
Chapter 12
Even knowing King Declan would come eventually didn’t prevent my heart from thundering against my ribs at Kaja’s declaration.
“Now?” I muttered, grinding my teeth. I glanced at Rage, the muscles in his neck corded and taut as he rose. Why couldn’t we catch a break and have Declan get struck by lightning or something?
“Let him come,” Rage snarled, his voice more wolf than human. “He needs to pay for all he’s done.”
Speaking of that … I turned to my grandfather. “Declan had Surlama put a curse on Rage’s mother.”
The more I explained, the more the high mage shook his head.
“Is there any way you can help us break it?” I asked—begged, in fact.
“With Surlama dead, the only way…” He pursed his lips. “I’ll have to go back to the mage lands. I have plenty of spellbreaker root in my workroom. With Dark Row burned down … it’s the only place I know where to get some.” He gave Justice a withering glare.
Justice winced. “Sorry about that.”
I frowned. “About what?”
Justice ran a hand through his dark hair. “When Declan showed up at Surlama’s and it was clear they were in league together … I sort of flipped out … and burnt her tent down.”
A sly grin pulled across my face, and Rage clapped him on the back.
“But I didn’t mean for the entire place to catch fire!”
“Funny thing about fire, it’s hard to control,” Grandpa wisely stated before turning to me. “Nai, if I leave, I can’t help with the fight here.”
I nodded. “I know, but if we don’t break the curse, Rage can’t kill Declan.”
“True.” Geoff turned to Reyna. “We won’t have time to return through the mage portals. I’ll have to make one for us.”
Say what? I realized then that I didn’t even know the full extent of my grandfather’s powers.
She blanched but then nodded.
“Are you well enough to do that? I mean—”
“Where will you be?” he asked, completely ignoring my question. “Tell me, and I’ll meet you there once I have the root.”
“The main lodge, right next to my house where you met my dad,” I said, thinking it was a good meeting spot. If I met him all the way out here, I couldn’t help out with the fight either.
Grandpa pulled his redheaded shield to the side, and I turned to find Rage leaning into Kaja.
“Tell Crescent to hold Declan off as long as possible. We need to break the curse before I can kill him.”
Kaja nodded to him and then flashed me a wicked grin. “Never a dull moment.” She winked. “I’ll see you in the field!”
Then she raced from the porch, shifting back into her wolf midstride.
Justice stood with Honor’s black wolf at his side, and panic clawed through me as my gaze landed on the very human form of the third Midnight heir.
“Do you still have your magic?” I asked Noble, who gingerly climbed to his feet. Losing his wolf had definitely changed the slope of his shoulders, but to lose the power over his element too…?
It would be unthinkable.
“If you don’t, you can’t go out there. You could be killed…” Rage’s order became a shout of triumph as Noble pulled a sphere of water from the air.
Relief crashed through me. I wasn’t sure he’d even be allowed to return to the magic lands if he were human, let alone survive with all of the danger there.
“Let’s go kick Declan’s ass,” Noble said, standing tall once more.
I waved goodbye to Grandpa Geoff, and then together, with Honor on my left and Rage on my right, the five of us stepped through the cabin door and out into—
Holy-frickin-Mother-Mage.
Acrid smoke singed my nostrils and burned my eyes, and a dark plume billowed into the air just above the gap in the trees where the pack lodge and family cabin would be. My stomach tied into knots as a strange, eerie glow lit the sky. If that asshole Declan burned down even one of our pack houses, I was going to lose it. He needed to die, pronto.
We raced through the path, but even hampered by distance and trees, I could smell them. Midnight Pack wolves. Hundreds of them.
The low hum of their collective growl filled the air as pervasive as the smoke. Even here, I knew Declan had brought a significant force. Were they all following him willingly or did he compel them? And what of Dad? And Lon? Did we have anyone still in the lodge? Because I was pretty sure, from the direction of the flames, that’s what was burning.
‘Crescent, protect home,’ my dad snarled, his voice pulling at all of the wolves in our pack. I could feel them racing through the trees toward the lodge.
The Midnight brothers and I stepped out of the woods and ran through the field.
Time seemed to slow as I absorbed the scene.
Four huge Greyhound buses sat parked on the road leading to the lodge.
Declan stood, surrounded by his wolves, with a ball of fire in each hand.
With a shout, he shot another blaze of heat at the side of the wolf lodge where we gathered for meetings, weddings, and funerals. That building was our place of community, the very heart of our pack. A vice squeezed my chest as the light licked along the sides of the building, illuminating the king’s vicious expression, one I could see even twenty paces away. Behind him, more Midnight wolves stepped out of the trees as they formed a sea of moving fur, hackles raised and teeth bared.
My heart jumped into my throat at the number of them. There must have been at least five hundred, nearly triple our pack.
‘That is a lot of wolves,’ I said to Rage.
‘Nearly the entire pack.’
Mother Mage.
“Where are you, Crescent trash?” Declan yelled, throwing another bigger sphere of fire at the lodge, dousing the entire roof in liquid flames.
That fricking bastard! I lunged forward, to reveal where I was tucked into the tree line, when Rage reached out and stopped me.
Noble raised his hands beside me and grunted.
“What’s wrong?” I looked at the … mage? What was Noble now?
“I’m trying to pull rain and snow over the building, but Declan has it shielded.”
My heart broke then into a million pieces. It was going to burn, and there was nothing we could do about it.
My father’s dark gray wolf stepped out from the woods on the other side of the field from us, shifting from wolf to man in less than a heartbeat. Like Rage, my father could use his magic to keep his clothes. Barefoot and wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, my father moved with lithe grace and confidence as he crossed the frozen land. “What are you doing on my land, Declan!”
The alpha king sneered and hurled a
stream of fire in response —right at my father.
My breath hitched as I looked on in horror. My father ducked, tucking into a roll, and spun out of the way of the fire. When he popped back up into a crouched position, two streams of fire, like blowtorches, burst from his hands and headed right for the king.
Go, Dad!
The two alphas went head to head, throwing fire and dodging while the Midnight pack watched and waited for Declan’s command. Crescent wolves filed out of the woods, surrounding my father in a semi-circle as the two men battled with their element. Luckily, the woods being blanketed in snow meant our land wouldn’t catch fire, but the lodge was nearly gone. Long streams of orange flames licked across the sky and kissed my childhood home as I watched on in terror.
We needed to end this, now.
I reached for my magic to help my father with Declan as the king prepared to throw another stream of fire, only to discover … exhaustion. What the hell? Terror bubbled up from my chest, and I looked to Rage as if he could help. ‘My magic won’t work!’
Had Grandpa Geoff said something about this and I’d somehow missed it? Maybe.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve got your back,’ Noble said—in my mind.
What the mage!
How—? I swallowed. How was it possible that I could hear Noble?
Oh. Understanding dawned. Similar to the mental link Rage and I shared, my mate had said he and his brothers had one. Somehow, I now shared that link too, probably through our mate bond. Wow. Only 6.2% freaky … considering.
Noble raised his hand, and with a flick of his wrist, the light flurry of snowflakes drifting in the sky moved en masse toward his uncle like flecks of metal pulled to a magnet. With a hiss of steam, Declan’s fire extinguished.
Rage grinned. “He can’t hold a shield over himself and the house. He needs to pick one.”
Hmm, shield studies must be a second- or third-year thing because I’d only heard of them from my dad, not any of my teachers.
I wanted to do something to help, but I was weak without my magic, and I needed to conserve strength for when Grandpa got back with the spellbreaker herb. Dad—thankfully—seemed to be holding his own. My father thrust both hands out, and two fireballs headed right for Declan’s face.
