by Leigh Kelsey
“Here,” Jack answered for me, slipping the phone from my clenched fingers. “What should I do, alpha?”
I couldn’t hear Cas’s response but I jumped as Jack’s solid hand settled on my lower back, though it did make me feel a bit safer. I wasn’t alone here.
The rogue sidled a step closer—and every patron, every regular, every customer in the place stood up as one. I almost sobbed but I couldn’t afford even that. Still my lungs demanded air and I was forced to suck in a shallow stream, even that tiny movement hammering on my instincts, telling me to freeze, stay still, play dead.
He would hurt me, hurt Jack, like those wolves had had my parents. I would lose him, too. This wolf was a predator and I was powerless. I was prey.
I flinched as the lone wolf moved, a sudden motion that jarred my fight or flight instinct and sent me scurrying back into Jack, slamming him against bottles of vodka and boxes of crisps. “Easy,” he said in that steady voice of his. “It’s okay, Lyra.” But I kept scrambling back even as his arms banded around me, my phone falling to the floor as he held me in place, murmuring comforting words in my ear.
I was thrown back into my memories, to quivering in fear, every breath a wrecked gasp as three wolves of a rival pack held me down, forcing me to watch as their alpha male strode through our forest to where my parents were being made to kneel.
“Let her go,” Mum ordered in a whip-hard voice I’d never heard her use before. “Kill us but let her run.”
The alpha laughed, a sound I hadn’t been able to get out of my head since, and I shook, gasping desperately for breath at that word—kill. They weren’t going to… They couldn’t… No! Not my mum and dad! I fought harder against the wolves holding me but they didn’t budge and tears of frustration joined my terrified sobbing. “An eight-year-old wolf, alone in the wild?” the alpha sneered. “Fine, I’ll let her live. She’ll die within days.”
I’d screwed my eyes shut, ducking my head, but the sounds kept coming. His gloating, their pleading and bargaining, and finally the fleshy thuds of an ancient Wolf Bone Sword carving through both their necks.
“Lyra.” Jack jostled me, bringing me back. The rogue’s savage green eyes were still fixed on me, and while I’d zoned out, a group of our regulars—three witches and a hag—had been knocked out cold on the floor. I watched as, without breaking his fixated stare on me, the wolf took out seven shifters, a kitsune, and a faerie. He kept fighting, kept coming. Only the bar protected me and Jack, whose solid grip had turned to an attempt at comfort as his hand rubbed circles on my belly. It didn’t work. My breathing ran wild, shallow enough that dizziness swirled through my head again, tipping me back.
“Shit,” Jack breathed. He never swore—and it was enough to kick me into action. Or as much action as I could manage. My memories got locked back in their dark Narnia, along with my fears of being taken by this rogue. I wasn’t going to lose Jack. No way in hell.
“Fire extinguisher,” I whispered, uncurling my fingers from their locked position. Gods, that hurt. I breathed hard, pushing off the aches. Jack didn’t need telling twice; he darted into the back where we kept overflow of crisps, nuts, and pork scratchings, and returned with the fire extinguisher that hung next to the door, his features set in determination. Seeing his resolve settled me a bit more.
Before the rogue could act, partly distracted by the hag who’d got back to her feet and sunk her rotten teeth into his arm, Jack pulled the pin and discharged the fire extinguisher, spraying the wolf with enough carbon dioxide to shock him if nothing else. I grabbed the hose from him, propping the tank against my hip and shoving Jack away. He wobbled but he was so muscular that I didn’t manage to shove him out of the way, only an inch if I was lucky. “Find my phone. Get Cas, Gray, anyone.”
It felt a lot like catharsis to spray the lone wolf with a jet of co2 gas and watch him stagger back as it hit him in the snarling mouth. That stumble helped my now-forever-treasured patrons to get him onto the floor and hold him there. I lifted my finger off the trigger, panting hard, shivering with exertion, fear, and adrenaline. Memories hovered at the edge of my awareness, waiting to drag me into a black sea of misery and grief and hate.
“You alright, love?” an ageing lynx shifter asked, wobbling over to me, his wrinkled hands still curled into fists.
I gave him a pathetic attempt at a smile and rasped, “Thanks.”
He took off his weathered farmer’s jacket and settled it around my shoulders as Jack very calmly explained everything that had happened to whoever was on the other end of the line. I wasn’t cold but maybe this was the Whitby shifter version of those tin-foil jackets paramedics put you into for shock. The canvas material smelled of salt and brine and the sharp scent of home, of Whitby’s sea. It cleared my head, calmed me until I felt my shoulders dropping from where they’d hunched under my ears.
I hated it, how scared I’d been, and disappointment in myself burned like acid in my belly.
“What a tosser,” the old man said in his gruff, rasping voice and I barked out a laugh, a grin stretching my face.
“Yeah,” I agreed, looking at the twelve people pinning the lone wolf to the floor so he couldn’t get to me. “What a serious tosser.”
LYRA
Cas arrived five minutes after that, finding me sat at a table with the farmer-sailor-lynx-whatever-he-was who’d given me his coat, nursing a half pint and shivering uncontrollably. Jack and the others had managed to truss up the lone wolf using cable ties and a length of rope the hag had presented. No one had asked about its origins or use, and I didn’t want to know, either. Now Jack stood glaring at the rogue, his bulging arms crossed over his chest and his jaw set. Jack did serious and pissed off better than anyone I knew, even Casimir. Cas was more an I’m furious right now and I could punch a hole in the wall but it probably won’t last type. Jack was the type to nurse a cold fury for twenty years. I knew which I found scarier.
I expected Cas to storm up to me and demand to know what had happened but he just took firm hold of my elbow, pulled me to my feet, and wrenched me into his arms. The hug dwarfed me, and as his pine and fur scent hit my nose, I collapsed against him. I didn’t like this kind of neediness, but I didn’t care right now. I needed this, needed my alpha to hold me. And he was holding me—clinging to me, I’d be tempted to call it. His fingers were buried in my hair and his strong arms locked around me. I wasn’t sure he’d ever let me go.
“I should have been here,” he rumbled, his voice a good few octaves deeper than normal, full of his wolf’s protective violence.
“It’s fine.”
His grip tightened, pressing on my ribs, flattening me against him.
“It’s fine, Cas. Nothing happened. I’m okay.” Ish.
He let me go a fraction but only so he could look hard at me, scan my face for signs of deception. I met his silver eyes, feeling my heart rate settle back to normal. Cas nodded and let go, and I thought that would be the end of it, that we’d move onto getting rid of the lone wolf and making sure the bastard never came back, but he skimmed my cheek with the back of his finger. His caress moved all the way to my chin and down a lock of hair that’d escaped my ponytail, and a shudder worked through me—not through my skin, my body, but through my soul.
I hated to be so hopeful, but there was nothing platonic in that touch. I didn’t think. I didn’t know. I sighed and stepped back. I wanted to read something into his concern so badly, I could easily be making it up.
Gray spared me of coming up with an excuse to put space between us by throwing the front door open and storming over to me, squeezing me so tight my ribs protested.
“Gray! Ow!”
He released me and scowled, his eyes a little frantic, his long dark hair wild like he’d been pulling at it. “I’m never leaving you here alone again.”
“Thanks,” Jack muttered, one eye on us, the other on the rogue.
“Yeah, don’t be a dick.” I play-punched Gray. Maybe a little too hard judging by th
e way he winced. “Jack was awesome.” I met Jack’s solemn brown gaze then, and before I could rethink it, I approached him and squeezed him in a hug. His arms came around me, and I was glad there was no panic or fear crippling me this time. It felt pretty nice. “Thanks. I wouldn’t have got through that without you.”
He nodded when I stepped back, his gaze as serious as ever, but there was a smile on his dark face. “I’m just glad we’re both fine.”
“Yeah.” I looked at the people around us, watching, concerned still. This is what happened when you were responsible for people’s alcohol intake; you became their friends. “Thanks a lot, guys. We owe you big time.”
“It’s no bother,” said my farmer-sailor friend.
“A round of drinks on us,” I decided, and because I needed to do something that felt like normal, I slipped back behind the bar and began racking up glasses.
CAS
I should not be this angry. I’d been alpha for four years and my pack had been through many rough times. I’d lost more members than I kept—to better, bigger packs, to safer cities. I should not be furious because one wolf threatened Lyra—he had not touched, had not drawn her blood. But I had enough anger to shift now on spot. Not that shifting was possible. Shifters could choose to shift, but I was bound to full moon like all werewolves.
Instead of shifting, burning away my anger with a run on four legs, I left Gray, Jack, and Lyra together and jogged to the gym at bottom of road. As I sweated through my normal work out, pushing myself too hard, making my thoughts silent, I couldn’t lie to myself. I wasn’t angry because she was younger than me and needed my protection. Or because she was female and wolf instincts didn’t know she was fierce and deadly too. Or because she was my best friend.
I couldn’t believe lies when my heart pounded hard behind my ribs, my pack bond with Lyra wound tight around it, a cage of copper fire. That was how she felt to me—like fires of hell, but with sparks of moonlight that were a mystery. I knew she had a temper, and pain in her past, but I didn’t know what the moonlight was. And I wanted to.
That was problem.
I breathed hard as I lifted more weight than normal, hoping the fury would leave my body like sweat. By the end, I was calmer, but my anger had hardened to cold determination. I gulped down a bottle of water, wondering how I could to do what I needed. The lone wolf needed dealing with. And I needed to mark our territory again. That was my job—keep them safe—and I would do anything, everything, to keep danger away from my pack. Especially Lyra. The one my wolf screamed to claim as my own, my mate.
LYRA
Three hours after I’d calmed down and accepted I was safe again, I found Cas holding his bleeding wrist over the flat, grassy hill above Saltwick Bay, just outside Whitby and a minute away from the cottage. It was pretty damn clear he was at the end of the boundary because he was unnaturally pale—and for Cas, whose skin was usually as white as his hair, that was an achievement—his face was slicked with sweat, and his grey shirt was dripping. Oh, and he was dead on his feet, stumbling and swaying over the field.
“Dumbass,” I muttered loud enough for him to hear and ducked under his arm, supporting him as he wobbled again. He groaned, leaning hard on me and struggling to lift his arm high enough to let the blood drip in a steady line. He never let us help, even though we’d all volunteered to help him mark the boundary dozens of times. He had to be macho and do it all himself. Typical man. “How far left?”
“Just a few minutes,” he slurred, his eyelids dropping to half-mast.
I turned, putting the craggy face of Saltwick Nab behind us, the low cliff jutting into the sea. We were walking into the wind, which was fucking typical, and I stumbled under the weight of my idiot alpha.
As much as I grumbled at him the rest of the way, I was grateful for him protecting us. With his blood along the territory lines, any other wolves would think twice before crossing it. Of course, he didn’t have to bleed himself dry to mark out the boundaries—he could just piss along the line, any genetic material would do—but he had too much pride for that. And valued that weird thing called dignity. I’d have peed and kept my blood in my body, but hey.
Cas shuddered in my arms as we got to the next dip in the cliff face and I stopped, heaving a breath. His job done, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out. All his weight hit my arms. It was a battle not to stumble and fall right through the meagre wire fence along the cliff’s edge and onto the beach below. With that fall … best case scenario would be a broken leg. Probably a broken neck. But I dug my boots into the sand-swept grass and managed to stay upright.
“You’ve just got to be difficult, haven’t you?” I grunted, throwing an insult at his unconscious face.
The three-minute walk to the cottage hurt me worse than a five-mile run in wolf form would have. My legs were built for running but my arms sure as shit weren’t meant for holding up two-hundred-pounds of stubborn muscle.
“Again?” Gray sighed as I stumbled through the door, ‘accidentally’ hitting Cas’s pale head on the ageing door. If he woke up with a headache, well, it was better than finding himself passed out on the cliff. “Stubborn arse.”
“You’re telling me,” I growled, swinging my glare at Gray when he didn’t immediately rush to help me. As soon as his wiry-strong arms were under Cas, I let go and stepped back, letting him take over carrying Cas to his room. Opposite mine. Not that I’d ever calculated the precise number of steps I’d need to reach it. Or constantly fought myself against the desire to run from my room to his at night, saucily clad in a band shirt and black lacy knickers. Nope.
“Son of a,” Gray swore, dragging Cas to his bed and dumping him onto the duvet. I turned Cas’s face so he didn’t suffocate in his own pillow, ignoring the feel of his soft hair on my fingertips. I flexed my hand to get rid of the tingles. “How the hell does he get those muscles?” Gray asked, shaking his head and flinging shaggy brown hair into his face.
“Effort?” I shrugged. “Where’s Jack?”
“Hunting down our rogue’s name.”
I drew up to my full height, suspicious. “Why?”
“Cause if we’re right and he’s a lone, fine. If we’re not and he has a whole family about to follow him…”
“Good point.” I shook out my arms to get some feeling back into them. “Though why the hell would another pack want to claim Whitby? It’s full of shifters and witches and vampires.”
Gray shut Cas’s bedroom door behind him. “That could be why,” he replied, and when I frowned, added, “Bit weird, innit? That we’ve got so many different species here?”
I shrugged. Whitby had always been like that. I got why, though—this was the home of paranormal Britain. Dracula and all that. It wasn’t a surprise we’d be drawn here. “Not really.”
He snorted. “Have you never heard the phrase ‘open mind’?”
I gave him a blank look. “Nope. What does that mean?”
He shoved me in the shoulder, grinning. “Think about it. Vampires, I get. But the rest of us? Why the hell are we here?”
“Tourist industry?” I offered, heading for our cosy, homely shit-tip of a kitchen and ransacking the fridge. I took out a lump of cheese, a tub of coleslaw, and some raw bacon, drawing on the ever-effective puppy-wolf eyes as I turned to Gray.
He scowled, pointing at me. “Fine, but on one condition. Hear me out.”
Hear his wild theory in exchange for getting my bacon fried perfectly, as opposed to the blackened crisp I’d produce? I was getting way more than he was in this deal but I wasn’t complaining. I motioned for him to continue as I dug into the coleslaw with a fork.
“I just think it’s weird,” he said, tenderly laying strips of bacon in a frying pan. “Take Birmingham. That’s a wolf-only place. And Manchester.”
“Witches,” I input.
“Inverness.”
“Faeries. Although I did hear that a coven of hags had eaten a few of the fae families.” He levelled me w
ith a look. “Go on, wise conspiracist,” I said, trying not to smile and shoving more food in my mouth.
“But here we’ve got a bit of everything. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately, about why we’re all drawn here. It’s probably nothing.”
“It’s definitely nothing,” I muttered, then bit off a sizeable chunk of cheese.
“But since that light, and the pulse, it seems like anything can be possible.”
“And the fact the church was flattened,” I added, then realised I was adding evidence to his theory. Dammit.
“Exactly!” He flipped bacon with enthusiasm, the smell of sizzling meat hitting my nose and making my stomach growl despite the food I’d already given it. It seemed that lately I couldn’t eat enough to satisfy my hunger. That’d better not be another knock-on from the red light. Although it was probably more to do with my period coming up … three weeks ago.
I swear three weeks ago.
I put down the coleslaw and cheese and went to the calendar hanging on the wall, my heart beating so hard. I wasn’t pregnant—chance would be a fine thing—but that wasn’t what I was worried about. Gods, please, no, I thought, counting from my last period. Gray watched me but said nothing as I did the calculations. Yep. Three weeks late.
Without turning, my shoulders drooped, I said, “You didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah.” His voice was guarded as hell. “Wondered when you’d figure it out.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I repeated, anger finding its way through the shock. I spun so I could glare the full force of it at Gray’s guilty, red face. He busied himself putting the bacon on a plate as I growled at him. “I’m in season, and none of you bastards thought to tell me?”
LYRA
