by Reine, SM
Seth patted Abel on the shoulder. It wasn’t enough to show his gratitude, but he had to try.
The wolf shied away from him.
Biting back his annoyance, Seth focused instead on Cain. “Give it up. You’re alone, and you’re not getting out of here with Rylie.”
“Oh, I’m not alone,” he said in a rasping gurgle, almost a growl. Blood bubbled in his furry throat. “You might have won this battle against me, but you’re going to lose the war, little man. I let Eleanor out, and she’s finishing off your wife as we speak.”
Seth stared. “What?”
“If I can’t have my pure race, nobody can,” Cain hissed.
And then the blood loss was too much. His eyes glazed over, and he passed out.
Seth wiped the sweat off his upper lip with his sleeve. If a gunshot wound to the forehead hadn’t killed Cain, then a combination of blood loss and strangulation wouldn’t, either.
But he couldn’t linger and keep trying to kill Cain. Not if Eleanor was after Rylie.
Abel had already made his decision. He released Cain and tore down the hill in a black blur.
“I’ll watch Cain,” Yasir said, pushing Seth’s shoulder. “Find Rylie. Go!”
Rylie hugged her knees to her chest and shivered in the snow. It was quiet out on the ranch now, but she didn’t know if it was safe to emerge.
If her side had won, wouldn’t someone come to get her?
She was so busy arguing with herself over the idea of leaving that she almost didn’t notice when something else shifted in the burned remnants of the barn.
Eleanor dragged herself out of the shadows of what used to be a bedroom, and staggered toward Rylie.
Her right leg was missing below the ankle, and her spine was weirdly bowed, like it could no longer support her weight. But she could support a huge knife. It had a spiked blade that looked like it would hurt going in, and be impossible to remove without serious damage.
Rylie struggled to stand in her dress. “Eleanor?”
The woman limped toward her. “Did you do it?” Eleanor asked. Her words were jumbled, a little too fast. “Did you lasso my boy at long last?”
Fear made Rylie’s heart pound. But she couldn’t lose herself in the comfort of the wolf’s merciless anger, even though it tried to rise within her—Abel had said that shapeshifting would make her lose the baby.
But she also couldn’t fight Eleanor as a human, unarmed and alone.
She backed away slowly. “Wait,” Rylie said, swallowing down her wolf. “Don’t—”
Her foot caught on the train of her dress, and she tripped backwards. She landed hard on her butt. Her temple smacked into a broken board, sending her head spinning.
Eleanor lurched forward.
“Temptress,” she whispered, ichor dribbling down her lip. “Whore.”
Kicking her feet free of her dress, Rylie struggled to stand again. But Eleanor was strangely fast, for a woman who was falling apart. She lifted the knife.
Rylie was going to have to change. She had to.
She pressed a hand to her belly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
A shotgun blast rang out.
Eleanor shrieked, and Rylie’s eyes flew open.
Gwyn stood a few feet away, gun braced against her shoulder. She had blasted away part of Eleanor’s ribcage.
The knife slipped from Eleanor’s fingers and bounced across the burned ground.
“You keep the hell away from my niece,” Gwyn said.
“You can’t kill me,” Eleanor said scornfully. “I’m as immortal as you are!”
Gwyn lowered the shotgun and pulled something out of her pocket.
The animal skull.
Eleanor’s eyes widened as Gwyn lifted the tiny animal skull over her head.
“Immortal? I don’t think so. You’ve already walked this earth about thirty years too long, Eleanor.”
“It will kill you, too!”
But Gwyneth brought the skull crashing down on the wall. The bauble shattered. The skull exploded into a thousand fragments.
“No!” Rylie screamed.
Her cries mingled with Eleanor’s. It shook dust from the crumbling rafters of the barn.
Seth’s mother collapsed in an instant, as if she was nothing more than a bag of bones. But the life—and the anger—remained in her face. Her one good eye stared up at the rafters.
“Monsters,” Eleanor whispered.
Then she was gone.
FOURTEEN
The Reception
As soon as Rylie was sure that Eleanor’s remains were done twitching, she ran to Gwyneth. “Oh my God,” Rylie breathed, grabbing her aunt by the shoulders to look at her. “Are you okay?”
Gwyn chuckled. “I’m fine, babe.”
“But the skull—”
Gwyn patted her back. “I was brought back by a charm, not black magic. I knew I’d survive breaking the skull.”
“Did you? Really?”
“Well… no.” She winked. “But I had a pretty good feeling.”
A laugh burst out of Rylie’s chest—one that was more relief than actual happiness. She threw her arms around Gwyn and squeezed her tightly. But not too tight.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered against her aunt’s shoulder.
“Well, I’m not totally unscathed.” Gwyn drew back and turned to show Rylie a wound on her back—a circle of human teeth over her ribcage. “A couple members of the pack sided with Cain, and they fight nasty. Good thing I’m already dead, or the next three months sure wouldn’t be fun.”
Rylie clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh no.”
“It’s all right. Just a flesh wound.”
“But you can’t heal that!”
Gwyn shrugged. “You’re okay, and the baby’s okay. That’s all that matters.”
She looped her arm around Rylie’s shoulders and steered her out of the barn.
A black wolf came rushing down the hill and stopped just in front of Rylie. Abel butted his broad nose into her side. His hot breath snuffled over her hands and neck.
“I’m fine,” Rylie said, pushing his head down. He laved his tongue over her face, and she giggled. “Seriously, I’m fine.”
Abel touched his nose to her belly, as if to make sure that was also okay, and her smile faded a fraction.
“Yes,” Gwyn said. “That’s fine, too.”
Rylie stroked her hand over his massive head and released the transformation. Abel shifted back quickly. He stood naked and steaming in the snow. “Eleanor?” he asked.
Gwyn jerked her head toward the barn. “Dead. For good this time, I think.”
“Rylie!”
Seth was just a few yards behind his brother. Gwyn released her, and Rylie pushed past Abel to run to him as best she could in all of her skirts.
He caught her up in a hug, and Rylie buried her face in his neck.
She might not have gotten married, but she had survived—and so had the baby. Seth and Gwyn were safe, Abel was home, and Eleanor was dead.
She couldn’t ask for anything more.
Yasir loaded Cain’s unconscious form into the back of a van with the surviving Union traitors. There weren’t many left—Levi had gone wild with fury, and it was only because of Bekah’s intervention that any survivors were left at all.
“What will you do with Cain if he can’t die?” Seth asked Yasir, keeping an eye on the twin werewolves still wrestling with each other at the bottom of the hill. It looked like Bekah was starting to wear Levi down.
Yasir slammed the door shut and locked it. “The Union has a special prison. And now that we have control of Cain, the traitors shouldn’t be a problem—I hope. I’m going to take him straight to HQ until I can get him to give me the names of all of his followers.”
“You don’t think this is over?” Seth asked.
The commander shook his head. “Not even close.”
He climbed into the van and drove away. Seth watched t
hem go, and he felt a little bit less safe than he had before speaking to Yasir.
Abel sat down at a chair next to the toppled table of presents. He pulled a box into his lap and opened it.
“China set,” he said. “Nice.”
“Those aren’t for you,” Seth said.
His brother ignored him. He dropped the china, grabbed another bag, and ripped out the tissue paper. “Who the hell gave you a fishbowl?”
Seth rolled his eyes and decided not to remark on it.
The rest of the surviving pack members were helping clean the bodies and tear down the decorations, which had been thoroughly destroyed in the fight. But all Abel seemed to want to do was be annoying.
“Did you get my message?” Seth asked. “I left you a voicemail.”
“Naw. I lost my phone somewhere between getting kidnapped and fork torture. Why? What did you say?”
Seth swallowed hard. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Are they gone?” Rylie asked, emerging from the house. She had changed from her dress into a pair of jeans, but her hair and makeup was still perfect. She looked incredible.
He caught her hand and pulled her against his chest.
“They’re gone,” Seth said firmly. “You’re safe.”
She sighed and leaned against him. “That wasn’t what I expected to happen when I said we should get married.”
He rubbed his hands over her shoulders. “Well, we still have the license. All we need is a ceremony.”
Abel stood up.
“No,” he said.
Seth lifted his eyebrows. “No?”
“No,” Abel repeated, pushing his way in between them. “You can’t get married.”
“Abel…” Rylie said warningly.
Seth reached out to take her hand. “It’s okay, Rylie. Abel knows that you’ve made your choice. He’s not going to do anything stupid… right, Abel?”
His brother’s golden eyes glimmered. “That’s the thing. She did make her choice, and she can’t marry you. Rylie is pregnant with my baby.”
THIS ISN’T THE END OF THE STORY!
I had originally planned on just four episodes of this serial, but as you can probably tell, I have a lot more story to tell! Who’s the father of Rylie’s baby? What’s going to happen to Gwyn? Is anyone going to end up getting married? Please join me on my Facebook and help me decide where to go from here!
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I can’t wait to find out what happens next!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thanks for reading. I hope you’re having fun with my werewolves! I’m a full-time writer these days, so I really appreciate all your help spreading the word about my books. If you want to get involved, go ahead and…
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~Sara (SM Reine)
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