by S. M. Reine
And Elise certainly didn’t deserve it, no more than she deserved to carry Eve’s memories and voice.
Nash could only think of one person who deserved the ring.
The bedroom door opened, and Summer stepped out. Despite their rush, she had dressed herself beautifully. She wore a knee-length white dress that bared her shapely upper arms and had pulled her hair back with a few rhinestone clips. With her Amazonian height, she could have almost been an angel herself.
“Is it okay?” she asked.
He couldn’t resist it. He had to kiss her again. “You are perfection.”
Summer rolled her eyes, but he knew she liked it. She kissed Sir Lumpy on the top of his furry head. He nuzzled her chin and left drool behind on her skin.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Nash wrapped his arms around Summer, and for the first time in far too long, he stepped into Shamain.
“We’re going to have to fight,” Abel announced.
The pack exchanged looks, seated in a cluster beside the lake. Rylie had seldom called meetings before, and Abel never had, not once. Nobody had known what to expect when he brought everyone together. And there was no way that anyone could have guessed it would be a declaration of war. For many of the werewolves, it was the first time that they had seen him since Seth’s death. Now he had returned with hate in his eyes and his blood boiling for violence. Backed by the crashing waterfall, he was an impressive sight to behold, pacing and tense with flashing golden eyes.
Rylie could only bring herself to glance at him occasionally. It was hard to look at him when he was this angry, like flying too close to the sun. And he had been like this ever since Nash left, when she and Abel had argued for over an hour. Rylie had agreed with the angel. She thought that it would be safest to evacuate.
Abel had disagreed. Vehemently. He had seemed affronted by the idea of backing away, like it was a personal insult.
“I can lead the pack to help destroy the bridge,” Abel had said. “I can be a good leader.”
He didn’t understand that wasn’t Rylie’s fear at all. No, she was worried that he would lead too well—and lead them all into death.
After Rylie gave up arguing with him, Abel had asked her to stand with him during this meeting. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to look into those forty trusting faces and tell them, “Yes, I agree with my mate’s bloodlust. Seth just died to protect us and I want to ruin his sacrifice by putting all of you in danger now, too.”
So she was curled on a damp, mossy rock a few feet into the lake, arms hugging her knees to her chest, trying not to listen but unable to tune out Abel’s growling baritone.
Crystal stood, breaking the stunned silence following Abel’s announcement. Even with the dropping temperatures of winter, she was wearing cutoffs and a tank top. It was a miracle she wore anything at all. She was naked more often than not these days. “Let me get this straight. You think that we should try to fight the demons pouring out of this crack that leads into Hell. That’s seriously what you’re saying?”
“What part of ‘we’re going to have to fight’ was hard for you to wrap your head around?” Abel asked, biting out each word.
“The part where you think that we’re fighters,” she said. She spread her arms wide to indicate the cottages behind them. “I thought this was supposed to be our sanctuary. Like, permanent retirement so we don’t have to fight anymore.”
Abel stepped up to Crystal, bringing all six-plus feet of intimidation to bear. “They killed my brother. They’ve killed a lot of peoples’ brothers, sisters, moms, and dads. People out west are evacuating. The demons have already taken a lot of our country. Now they’ve built a bridge that’s going to let an entire army march on us, and they’re going to take our land, too.” He turned from Crystal to address the others. Abel had never been much for speeches, but he put so much passion into it that it came out in the way he shook his fists, the light in his eyes. “We can wait for Hell to fuck with us, or we can fuck with them first.”
Abram stepped up to Abel. He looked a lot like his father, though he moved with quiet tension, like a whip waiting to crack. He thrust his hand toward Abel. “I agree,” Abram said. “We need to fight. We need to carve out our safety.”
Abel gave his hand a short shake, and nodded once in silent thanks.
Rylie’s heart felt like it was breaking. The sight of her son and her mate standing together, both so determined to go out and place themselves in front of Death, was like a nightmare come to life.
They looked so fierce. Hunter and werewolf. Killers, the both of them. But they were so much more than that, too. They were smart and tough and funny and sweet. They were hers. They were the only reason she was still breathing, and she couldn’t stand the idea of losing them.
“We’ve got the wards,” Paetrick pointed out. He was standing in the back, leaning casually against a tree as if immune to the tension of the debate. “They’re tough. We don’t have to go out. We can batten down the hatches, so to speak, and hold our ground here. Taking a defensive position isn’t cowardly.”
“You want to do that? You want to hide?” Abel asked.
“Not hide, but…” Paetrick shrugged. “Crystal’s right. We’re not fighters. We came here to avoid that.”
“What do you think?” Crystal asked, turning imploring eyes to Rylie.
Rylie blinked. Trying to bring herself out of her haze to join the conversation was too hard, like she was being crushed under the weight of the boulder she sat on instead of being on top of it. She was suddenly aware of the waterfall’s cold mist spraying her shoulders and she shivered. “Why are you asking me?”
Crystal scoffed. “Uh, maybe because you’re Alpha?”
Everyone was looking at her. Abel was looking at her.
He never looked at anyone else the way he looked at her. There was pain in him, vulnerability. She thought that if she said the truth of what she was thinking, he might shatter under it.
Rylie didn’t want to be the strong one.
She drew in a shuddering breath and let it out again. “Abel’s my mate, and…and I stand behind his choices.” It hurt to say it.
Murmurs rose among the pack again. Abel didn’t look satisfied. His brow creased as he gazed at Rylie, like the rest of the world had vanished, leaving nothing but the two of them behind. He didn’t want her to stand behind him. He wanted her at his side, just as angry about Seth, just as eager for vengeance.
Rylie blinked first. She ducked her head against her knees.
“We’re going to have to guard Northgate,” Abel said to the pack. “I’m going into town tonight. You don’t gotta vote over it. This is happening. Anyone that wants to help secure the fissure, you come with me at sundown.”
And with that, he shot a final look at Rylie and walked away from the pack. Alpha or not, he looked like a wolf standing alone—a man making a final stand.
Rylie slipped off of the rock and splashed into shallow, icy water.
“Nobody has to do anything they don’t want to,” she said softly, knowing the pack would hear her. “Nobody will think less of you if you aren’t prepared to fight.”
But they seemed to have made their decision. People were nodding. Trevin looked flushed and excited. He was brave—he had probably been itching for an excuse to fight.
They were all Rylie’s family. And that night, the pack was going to war.
Rylie caught up with her mate at his cottage. Abel spent little time there; he had always preferred to bunk with Rylie or in no bunk at all, resting among the trees under the stars. Consequently, his cottage looked like one of the empty buildings that hadn’t been claimed yet. When Rylie peered through the window, she could see the furniture that they bought for everyone without a single decoration to make it his own. It didn’t even smell like Abel.
She called out to him when he was halfway through the door. “Hey!” He froze without turning around, one hand on the doorframe, back muscles tense. Rylie stopp
ed at the bottom of the steps, gazing up at him. “We’ve got to talk about this, Abel. We can’t just run into Northgate for a fight like this.”
Abel walked silently into his cottage. She hurried to follow.
The bedroom door stood open, and she could see that it was just as empty as his living room. He had a pile of clothes next to the bed. Guns were spread across his bed along with rags, oils, little picks to help clean the small parts. It was an armory, not a living space.
Abel didn’t shut the door behind her. He kept his hand on the frame.
“You never said how Seth died,” Abel said.
Rylie’s heart wrenched into a knot. She had come expecting to argue about what the pack should do about the fissure in Northgate—again—not talk about Seth. “You told me that you didn’t want to know,” she said. “You didn’t want to hear how it happened.”
“But you haven’t told anyone.” Abel stared at the night sky outside as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. There wasn’t much to see. The smoke had thickened so that the treetops faded into steely gray. Everything smelled like campfire. “Makes me think you’re hiding something. It makes me think something happened that you’re ashamed of.”
He couldn’t possibly know, could he? He couldn’t know what Rylie had done to Seth. He couldn’t.
She drew in a shuddering breath and let it out. “I didn’t come to talk about that. It’s the pack, Abel. As much as I hate to say it, Crystal was right—we’re not soldiers, and we can’t fight against demons.”
“We can, and you know it,” Abel said. “I fucked up those nightmares down there with Nash. An entire pack of us can take down anything. All we gotta do is be Alpha and show them the way.” He finally looked at her. There was a whole world of pain in his gold eyes. “I thought you’d want to help Elise. I thought you guys were best friends now.”
Friends? With Elise? They hadn’t even spoken in weeks. “I do want to help Elise,” Rylie said tentatively.
“This is how we do it. We fight.” He glared at her. “Do you regret choosing me?”
Shock slapped her in the face.
That was what he meant about shame. He thought that she had changed her mind about which brother she had chosen. Maybe he wondered if Seth and Rylie had gotten back together while in Las Vegas.
It was true that Rylie would always love Seth. They had shared a long history together. He was the one who had gotten her through her first changes as a werewolf, brought her into this scary new world. But Seth was her past. Abel was her future. Rylie had never burned for Seth the way she did for his brother.
“Do I regret choosing you? God, no, Abel. I could never regret that.” She could regret a thousand other things—the fact that she had ever become a werewolf, being chosen as Alpha, the fact that she was too weak to deal with it. She regretted a lot of things. On some days, she regretted everything—except Abel. Never Abel.
He pushed her back against the wall, dipping his head to smell along her neck, the hair behind her ear, down her shoulder. It was a wolf gesture, far more animal than man. “Then why wouldn’t you stand with me?” he growled against her throat.
Rylie put her hands on his shoulders. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to cling to him or push him away. There was danger in his voice, the promise of violence. “Because I don’t agree with you,” she said. “We can do that. Just because we’re mates doesn’t mean we share a brain.”
“It undermines my authority.”
“This isn’t a dictatorship, Abel,” Rylie said.
He braced his hands on the wall at either side of her head, and his face filled her vision, all hard lines and burning eyes. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
She felt like she was talking in circles. Rylie pressed her hand to his cheek, feeling the hard stubble, the ridges of scar tissue underneath. “I am on your side. Always. I love you, Abel. Nothing’s changed that. But we’ve already lost Seth.” He opened his mouth to speak, and Rylie pushed on. “I’m afraid that we could lose Nash any time he goes to fight. If the whole pack goes to war—Abel, I just don’t think I could survive losing all of them.” She bit her bottom lip. “I can’t survive losing you.”
“I ain’t gonna die.”
“You know you can’t promise that,” Rylie said.
There was a long, tense moment where it felt like anything could happen—like Abel might kiss her, or hit her, and all Rylie could do was hold strong against the weight of his gaze.
Finally, he stepped away.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Abel muttered, blowing out a breath. “I can’t be Seth. I’m not a leader.”
God, that hurt to hear. He had been right when he said everything was about Seth—everything was about Seth…for him.
Rylie wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his back so that she could listen to his heartbeat. He just stood there and took the affection, arms limp at his sides. Even though they looked alike, Abel felt nothing like his brother; it was a lot like hugging a stack of cinderblocks. A big stack of cinderblocks. She didn’t even come up to his shoulder blades.
“Nobody expects you to be Seth,” Rylie said, closing her eyes so that she could be consumed by his smell, the sounds of his body, the feeling of him against her.
“He’d know what to do with this. You’d have stood with him.”
She opened her mouth to argue, and then shut it again. Yeah, she probably would have done whatever Seth said. Seth had always made the right decisions. It was easy to follow him.
Was questioning Abel in front of the pack as good as telling all of them that he wasn’t ready to lead?
“Me and the pack, anyone who’s willing to go, are going to head down to the fissure tonight,” Abel said when she remained silent. “That’s how it’s gonna be, Rylie.”
“Then I’m going to come, too,” she said.
He stiffened. “No.”
She stepped around Abel to face him. “I would rather die with you than be alone.”
Even stretched onto her toes, she was too short to kiss him. She had to link her hands behind his neck and pull him toward her. Their lips met, and even though kissing was a very human interaction, there was nothing but beast about Abel. The force of the kiss hurt. He was instantly full of fire. He grabbed her arms, pulling her against him, growling deep in his throat. He tasted like meat and smelled like the wilderness. Abel was all wolf now. His anger had carried away the last shreds of humanity.
And then he dropped her, staring down at her as if to memorize her face.
“If I’m gonna be good enough to be your mate, I need to be good enough to lead, too,” he said. He released her. “I’ll be out soon.”
She knew a dismissal when she heard one.
Rylie stepped into the night. It hadn’t felt cold to her before, but now that her skin was hot from Abel’s touch, she was freezing.
A snowflake landed on the back of her hand and immediately melted.
She lifted her eyes to the sky. It was actual snow—mixed with some of the ash, yes, but still snow.
Rylie was tempted to go inside and tell Abel. They had always celebrated the first snowfall together when they lived at the Gresham Ranch, usually by going for a run together as wolves, and always ending in a playful fight in the snowdrifts. But there was none of that carefree fun in Abel anymore. It felt like Rylie had lost that part of him forever.
She sniffed and found the smell of brimstone thick in the air. This was snow, but it wasn’t a snow that meant oncoming winter, the joy of sweaters and scarves and impending holidays.
It was a snow that meant the world was dying.
Even though Elise was in Hell—Hell, of all places, doing God only knew what—Rylie felt connected to her by the secret. They were the only two people that knew why Rylie was so ashamed. The only ones who knew why Seth was never going to come home. The only two people who had witnessed the instant of the Breaking from the top of the fissure, as though the world had begun to die at the sam
e time that Seth had.
Rylie felt closer to Elise than anyone in the pack, and it was a horribly lonely feeling.
Nash thought they should evacuate, and she agreed. But Abel was going to stand for Northgate, which meant standing for Elise, whether or not that was the reason that Abel had made that decision. The entire pack would stand for Elise.
So Rylie would, too.
Nash had intended to appear on the streets of Shamain near its center, where the temples honoring the glory of Eve had been erected after her death.
Instead, he and Summer appeared in the courthouse on the raised dais at the center—and the ethereal coalition was already gathered.
“Oh, wow,” Summer breathed, stepping away from Nash so that she could look around them.
The courthouse in Shamain was large enough to hold every angel that Eve had ever birthed. A brightly painted fresco of the garden decorated the ceiling. The white stones on the floor were laid in radiating swirls from the center, where Summer stood. Tall columns opened into the city beyond. Glistening white skyscrapers brushed a pale cerulean sky beyond.
Though the room was big enough to hold everyone in Heaven, many angels had died in the First War, and it had been a long time since Eve had hatched new young. The floor was more than half empty. The radiance of that many gathered wings was still impressive, filling the courthouse with a brilliant glow, but it was only a fraction of the brilliance that Nash remembered. Still, it was enough to make him nervous, no matter how awed Summer might have been.
“We’ve been expecting you, Nashriel, guard of Adam,” said a feminine voice that Nash couldn’t place. “Uriel told us that you went to Hell. Take the pulpit and explain yourself.”
For an instant, Nash considered leaving. He didn’t owe any explanations for his behavior. They had no right to pull him directly into the courthouse the first time that he came home in so many long years. The bastards could discover what Hell had planned when it showed up on their doorstep for all he cared.
Summer’s hand brushed against his, and she smiled. Her eyes were watering from the intensity of the light, but her glow was far brighter than that of the angels.
