by Reders, E. M
Hearing Kaia’s words, my father began giving orders to the pack, directing the males to their guard posts, and the unmated females to the lookout posts up on the roof. Mated females didn’t fight unless necessary due to the possessive nature of their mates. While the pack moved into position, Kaia and the other witches began chanting, sending their own kind of magic out, pushing the evil back.
“Ethan, stay with your mate,” my father shouted as he headed for the door. “I'm going to check with the current guard to see if there have been any reports of unusual activity, anyone hanging around who shouldn’t be.”
Moving over to the window where Zak and Frankie were stood, I looked out over the grounds, still keeping a close eye on Kaia. “It was fucking crazy, man. One minute she was riding my dick hard, and the next moment she was sprinting for the door, screaming, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’ She would have run in here butt naked had I not managed to shove that damn t-shirt on her just before she got here,” Zak explained.
“Tell me, have you guys done anything but fuck the whole time you’ve been hold in up there?” Frankie asked, a little bit of the jealousy he felt slipping through.
“Of course we haven’t,” Zak smirked. “My mate is insatiable. And anyway, there is plenty of time to talk later.”
“Not if we don’t put a stop to this spell there won’t be,” Grace spoke as the girls finished their chanting and rushed towards the doors. Catching up easily, we positioned ourselves around the three women, guarding them, my arm wrapped tightly around Kaia’s waist, keeping her held tight to my side.
“Where are we going?” Frankie asked as we headed outside and through the courtyard towards the gardens.
“The spell is being cast from inside the property. If it’s completed, the spells we cast would be useless, the demon would appear right here inside the protective shield.”
“But how could someone get passed all the guards the Alpha has set up? He’s more than doubled the number on duty since Kaia arrived,” Zak commented.
That he had. It was now impossible for anyone to get on or off pack lands unnoticed, or without permission. That could only mean one thing. “It’s someone already on the inside,” I growled in anger. Whoever it was had just earned themselves a one-way ticket to Hell… by my hand.
Frankie stumbling slightly as we diverted from the path and headed further away from the house, towards the old gardens. “But who would do that? All the coven members that came to the celebration were inside when it started.”
“You don’t have to be Wiccan to summon a demon,” Kaia said, reaching out to take my hand, needing the physical connection between us as much as I did. “You just need a few ingredients and the right words.”
“The right words. Fuck! Kaia, there was a book in the vault, a book on that demon of yours. It was filled with all sorts, but right at the back, there was a chapter on how to summon him.”
Picking up the pace, we raced one. Turning a corner, I saw the old hedge maze ahead of us. It had been years since anyone had bothered to tame it. What had once been a work of art, all the hedges perfectly sculptured, a large rose garden in the centre, was now overgrown and dark, most of the pathways blocked off completely.
“We’re never going to find our way through that?” Dyanna commented as we got closer, seeing the full extent of the neglect.
“You’re right, we’re not,” Kaia spoke up from beside me, pulling her hand from mine as we stopped before the maze. There was an odd happiness to her voice as she said it, the tiniest of smiles pulling at her lips.
“Are you sure?” Grace asked. “You know what it will mean, Kaia.”
“I'm positive. Even if we stop the summoning spell from being completed he would have sensed it by now. I can do this and have a chance of stopping him from getting here, or we can try and get through the old fashioned way and face him a hell of a lot sooner than we want to. Personally, I would like to never have to face him at all, but if given the choice, I choose later.”
“Then do your thing… Earth,” the ancient woman smiled, stepping back to give her room.
Walking forward, Kaia placed her hands upon the large, overgrown hedge before her. The whole world seeming to go silent, hold its breath as if waiting for something to happen. For a moment nothing did, my heart beating wildly in my chest, but suddenly the ground began to shake.
“Wow! You feel that?” Frankie gasped.
“No,” Zak replied sarcastically. “I can’t feel the Earth quaking beneath my feet. Twat.”
Before our very eyes the branches began to move, to almost draw back into the hedge, creating a clear path into the maze. I was about to mention that even with the maze cleared it would still take some time to navigate our way around it when the reason for the ground shaking became apparent. Straight through the middle of the maze, the hedges began to move aside, creating a whole new path straight to the middle.
When the new path was complete and she stepped back, I could sense that Kaia was about to collapse. Racing forward, I caught her only inches from the ground. Strangely enough, the ground seemed to sprout more blades of grass as if hoping to cushion the blow. Weird!
The shaking of the ground had alerted the pack, causing them to rush over and gather at the maze, everyone staring on in disbelief. “What the hell?” I heard the deep voice of my father shout as he raced around the corner.
“The summoning is happening in the middle of the maze,” Grace explained. “Kaia has given us a way in, now go.” My father didn’t need telling twice.
The pack rushed forward following the Alpha, surging down the path Kaia had made, some shifting into their wolves as they went. I knew the second my father had reached the centre of the maze, his howl of rage filling the air. Slowly Kaia began to awaken, her beautiful eyes fluttering as she came to. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I’ve got you,” I whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to her soft lips.
“Ethan!” Frankie shouted, running out of the maze shortly after having followed the rest of the pack in. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Standing up, I pulled Kaia to her feet, worried when she swayed a little. “I've got her,” Dyanna said, wrapping her arm around Kaia's waist and taking her weight.
“Okay, but stay here, don't move her anywhere without letting me know first,” I warned, kissing Kaia’s sweet lips one more time and nodding to Zak before following Frankie down into the maze. Zak would take care of them. He was just as much concerned for his own mates safety as I was for Kaia, and I had a feeling that wherever one went, the other was sure to follow.
I had expected many things when I had stepped through the crowd of wolves snarling and growling angrily at the traitor being pinned to the floor by Ryan, but I had never expected this. Looking down at the traitor struggling beneath the Beta, I didn’t sense a male, but a female pack member.
“Chelsea?” I gasped, recognising the long blonde curls falling over her face, the white musk perfume she always wore scenting the air around her as she continued to struggle.
Hearing my voice, she looked up, a look of relief crossing over her features. “Oh thank God. Tell them, Ethan, tell them that we are mates.”
She really was crazy.
Looking over at my father, his face filled with anger at what she had just done, the danger she had not only caused to Kaia but to the whole pack, I knew what was coming. The sadness I saw in his eyes – though you had to look really closely to find it – let me know exactly what would happen next. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Had she been a little older the punishment for her crime would have been immediate death, but at this time, at her young age, the price for what she had done was banishment. It wasn't very often that someone was banished from the pack, but when they were, if they had family still within it, it wasn't pretty.
I sensed her before I saw her, my wolf and I not knowing whether to be happy of her presence or pissed at her for not staying put out of harm’s way. Slowly making her way through the crowd, an unhappy Dyanna helping her al
ong, not looking very impressed as Zak snarled at anyone that got too near to his mate, Kaia smiled up at me.
“Sorry Ethan,” Dyanna said, “she wouldn't stay back there.”
Taking Kaia from her friend, I wrapped her in my arms. She was still weak, barely able to support her own weight. I needed to get her back to the house to rest. “Sweetheart, you shouldn't be down here. It’s not safe.”
Laying her head against my chest, she sighed, relaxing into my hold. “I know, but I couldn't stand to be away from you,” she breathed just loud enough for me to hear. My heart literally skipped a beat at her words. My wolf howled with happiness inside of me. The words ‘I love you’ were on the tip of my tongue, about to spill over any second, and more than likely would have if it had not been for the violent screeching coming from Chelsea the moment she saw Kaia.
“You bitch! I’ll kill you! Get the fuck away from my mate.” She kept going, but the more she screamed the less it made any sense as her wolf was slowly taking over.
Turning her eyes to the female, a strange look came over Kaia’s face, kind of like how she’d looked at Zak when he had lost it after meeting Dyanna. Shaking her head, she looked up at me confused. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked. “Her wolf is so… feral.”
“What do you mean?” my father asked, coming towards us.
“Well, when I spoke to Zak’s wolf I was able to communicate pretty easily, but hers just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like… I don’t know, crazed.”
“Hold on, you’re saying you actually spoke to my wolf?” Zak asked wide eyed. “Even I don’t hear him; none of us hear our wolves.”
“Really?” she asked, tilting her head, looking up at me for confirmation.
“Really. We get a sense of what our wolves want, need, but never have they spoken to us… not in human terms anyway.”
It was amazing. If Kaia could really speak to our wolves, even before our mating, she would make a fantastic Alpha Female.
“This female previously known as Chelsea, is hereby disowned by the pack. All that speak to her, help her, will risk the same fate,” my father stated, turning away from us and addressing the pack. Casting his angry gaze down upon Chelsea, his voice took on the power of the Alpha. “For crimes against the pack, you will be marked as a traitor, stripped of your place in the pack and cast out into the wild. You have four hours in which to leave our lands, should you be found within our lands at any time after those four hours, you will be killed on the spot. You will have no contact with any member of the pack from here on out, anything you have to say do so now or hold your tongue for eternity.”
I expected to see some degree of emotion in her at the knowledge that she was being banished. Her father was pack. But there was nothing as she turned her head and looked upon the male that had brought her up alone after her mother died in childbirth. Turning her head to me, Kaia held tightly in my arms, the anger within her flared to life. “You’ve been tricked, Ethan. That bitch’s spell has enslaved you. She’s not your mate. I am!”
I didn’t want to listen to this, and I certainly didn’t want Kaia to have to hear her vile. “Come on, sweetheart, we’ve seen enough. We don’t need to be here to witness what’s to come.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Kaia asked me as we began making our way slowly down the path.
“The marking. Part of the punishment for treachery is being marked as a traitor. The Alpha and Beta will mark her in both human and wolf form, scarring her for all to see. No pack will ever accept her.” She would be a lone wolf from here on out. Wolves were not meant to be alone, they were pack animals by nature. It was very likely that Chelsea’s state of mind would worsen even more in exile.
I could see Kaia losing the battle with her exhaustion, struggling more and more to hold her weight. As Chelsea continued to shout insults after us, I scooped her up into my arms, leaving the pack behind to watch the marking and carried her back to the house. Before we even made it to the end of the path and out of the maze, she was asleep in my arms.
Chapter Eighteen
~
Kaia
All my training had been about holding my powers back, keeping them hidden, locked away deep inside me. Apart from the brief sessions I’d had over the years in the Circle, or in Grace’s protected barn, I had never been able to release my powers completely. And in recent years, with my powers growing stronger, even then I’d had to hold back. Finally being able to release them had sent a feeling of euphoria flowing through me. I’d been so happy to have that connection to the life around me that I might have used a little too much of my powers. I wasn’t at my strongest yet, not with the bond between Ethan and I being incomplete. But once it was, hopefully, I wouldn’t pass out.
The demon would find me now, of that I was certain. But without using my abilities to get through the maze, he wouldn’t have just known where I was, but would have been transported almost straight to me. At least now I have some time before he arrived.
Opening my eyes, I found myself back in Ethan’s room, wrapped in his arms, my head laid against his bare chest. Closing my eyes again, I snuggled closer, breathing in his scent.
This felt right. This was where I belonged.
I drifted back off to sleep for a while before the light press of lips and the flick of a tongue at the corner of my mouth awoke me. I opened my eyes, smiling as I was greeted with Ethan’s loving gaze before he continued to trail his lips over my jaw and down my neck.
“Hey,” he whispered, a slight growl to his voice. Tingles of pleasure pulsed through me, all the way down to my core as his kisses moved further south, nibbling and licking over the swell of my breasts. “I love the smell of your arousal,” he growled, “It drives my wolf crazy.”
I could tell. I could feel him.
“And while I would love nothing more than to indulge in the fantasies you invoke in me and my wolf, I have to be down in the vault in five minutes.”
He didn’t make it. It took over twenty minutes before he finally left, or should I say dragged out the door by Zak. He had to leave his mate. So as far as Zak was concerned, Ethan had to leave me too.
Over the hours since Ethan had been gone, I was shocked to find many of the pack females at the door, coming by to check how I was. They seemed to be genuinely concerned about me. No one had ever cared before. I had pushed everyone away so well that no one had cared if I lived or died. And now here I was, being accepted by the pack.
They all seemed genuinely happy for me to be there, that I was going to be mated to their future Alpha Female. Well, apart from Chelsea. But she was long gone now, thrown out of the pack as a traitor. I think Ethan was still in shock by what she had done, and to tell the truth, so was I.
Hearing a light tap at the door, I went to answer it, finding Jennifer on the other side. “Hey,” she said, a nervous tinge to her voice. “Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”
“Of course not. What's up?” I asked, leading her over to the seating area and sinking down into the plush leather. I was still a little worn out from the large expanse of magic I had used and it felt like heaven to get off my feet and just relax. I felt like I could do that with her. I was more comfortable in her presence than the other females in the pack.
“I just wanted to apologise,” she explained, taking a seat beside me, “for what Chelsea did.”
“There’s no need. That was Chelsea, not you. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I know, but I feel like I should have done something, should have told the Alpha or even Ethan how crazy she was after what she did the other day. I never expected her to do something like that. I still can't believe she did.”
“Me neither. But you do not need to be apologising for her behaviour. You stopped her from hurting me the other day, and I'm in no doubt that had you known what she was up to, you would have done everything in your power to stop her again. Don't take the guilt of what she did upon your shoulders; it’s not your guilt to bear.”
>
She took a little more persuading, but eventually, she stopped trying to apologise. Jennifer agreeing to keep me company until Ethan returned from his session of punishment down in the vault, and we ended up having a pretty good time. You would think that after everything that had happened, his father would give him a break, but no such luck.
Getting to know Jennifer a little bit better, I realised how much I liked her. She was a few months younger than me and had only recently moved back to the packhouse after college.
“I haven't really spent much time here since I finished college. I get on with most of the females, but some of the males can be a little weird with me because I'm not Were. I tend to hang out at my dad’s place down south a lot,” she explained.
“How do the males act weird around you?” I asked. So far everyone had been fine with me.
“It's hard to explain. At first, they all seemed really friendly, constantly coming up to me, talking, asking how I had been, what I had been up to. Then I noticed them watching me strangely when I walked by and scenting me when they got close. Then after a while, they just stopped talking to me altogether, seemed not to notice me. A few are still friendly, but most just ignore me nowadays.”
“That's really weird.”
“Tell me about it. I think the only ones that never went all creepy on me were Ethan, Zak and Frankie, but to be honest, I've never really spent that much time with them.”
The way she spoke, her body language, gave me the feeling she wished otherwise. Did she have a thing for one of them?
Well, with me being with Ethan, I doubted she would talk about it with me if it was him she liked. And Dyanna was my best friend, so it couldn't be Zak she had a thing for, surely? Did she like Frankie? “Why not?” I asked, not sure if she would open up to me enough to tell me. I mean, we had only recently met.
“It’s silly really.” Pushing her hair out of her face in a nervous gesture, she explained. “It’s just that I kind of had a pretty bad crush on Frankie when we were kids, and it's never really gone away. I get so terrified by just the thought of being near him that I tend to find excuses to leave as soon as he turns up. Which is most of the time. He's never far behind when you see Ethan or Zak, so I tend to avoid them too.”
