by May Dawson
He buried his face in my hair before he said, “I was so scared when the shield came through the portal, and you didn’t.”
“Can’t get rid of me, Lex,” I said. For some reason, I thought of some of our first moments back at the academy together when I came here at the start of the year, and the way I’d tried to trap him in my room, desperate to talk through things.
I felt like I’d left that desperate, lovesick girl in the past. I’d found my way to become someone better, with these men at my side. We all made each other better.
Lex kissed me fiercely, and I kissed him back. Then he said, “Come on. I don’t know if you’ll be able to shift again now that you’re back, since you weren’t here when Penn did the spell. But we’ll get you straightened out.”
“Maddie can already shift,” Jensen told him.
“What? How? Can you all shift?”
Jensen nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face that filled me with joy. I was so glad he could shift again, because it obviously meant so much to him.
“I’ve got a theory about that,” Tyson said. “Well, a prophecy, and a theory.”
“You’re the one who fed the Greyworld that prophecy, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have their own prophecy.”
“What was that?”
“Our girl here is the Warbreaker, according to the Delphine,” Tyson said. “She can absorb other people’s magic.”
“What?” I asked.
“That would explain why she was able to shift, and why even before that, she won at the gambling table,” Silas said. “She was so much more powerful after being in the Fae world. She must have walked off with some of their magic.”
Great, so I really was an Otherworlder criminal. I’d stolen their magic.
“Can I do it on purpose?” I said.
“Supposedly, the Warbreaker can take anyone’s magic,” Tyson said.
I could imagine how quickly that would end the wars between the packs and with the covens. If everyone could be turned into a human, their magical powers neutralized, they would have high incentive to make peace. No one wanted to be a mere human.
“That’s what the Dark Crown does,” Tyson said. “I learned everything I could about the conflict between Fae and the shifters in that world. For so many years, there was peace, because anyone who broke the peace accords between shifters and Fae lost their power.”
“Let’s get Maddie that crown, then,” Rafe said.
I’d been skimming magic from others through the Fae world and the Greyworld. The thought that now I’d be able to take it—all of it—from someone, the same way I’d accidentally stolen the power from my fellow wolves, was overwhelming.
But a desperate fight was still raging across campus.
“Okay,” I said, even though my heart pounded at the thought of putting that damned crown on again. Part of me wondered if the people surrounding me were really my friends, or if this was some kind of elaborate trick.
We raced across campus and Penn darted into the building, reappearing with the dark crown in his hands.
I hesitated. “It is worth the risk when you all can shift already?”
Penn stared grimly over my shoulder. I turned to see the fight that was still raging. Piper and her pack were fighting, alongside Clearborn’s pack and others. As I watched, Callum fell under a witch’s attack. He curled onto one side, trying to raise a shield as the witch headed toward him.
“I’m on it,” Penn said, throwing the crown at me and racing to help Callum.
I caught the heavy metal crown. It felt too heavy in my hands, and I would never forget the devastation I’d felt the moment after I last wore it, when I destroyed our wolves.
“Try it,” Lex said, turning that gaze on me. “I was able to shift. Try to drain my magic and we’ll see if I can still shift back.”
“What if I can’t figure out how to give your power back?” I asked.
“It’s a risk worth taking,” Lex said confidently. “If you can take the power from the shifters who allied with the witches, the academy will be safe.”
He always had so much faith in me.
“Okay,” I said. I could try to have as much faith in myself. “Okay.”
I lifted the crown and put it reluctantly onto my head.
Magical power washed through me. Had it been contained within the crown all this time? I’d felt drained of magic after I used it, until my magic slowly began to come back.
Lex stepped toward me confidently. I could imagine all too well stealing his wolf from him and not being able to give it back, when he’d just been reunited. I knew now just how much my own wolf meant to me.
“Tyson, Silas, any ideas on how I do this?”
I put my hands on the sides of Lex’s face, but I didn’t need coaching after all. Now that I had my intention, when I touched Lex’s face, his magic began to drain out of him. He swayed and I took a step back, feeling a sudden surge of power myself.
Lex tried to shift, his muscles rippling, and then shook his head. He looked uncomfortable with the realization he could no longer shift in the midst of a battle, but he didn’t complain.
“Try giving it back,” Tyson urged.
I rested my hands on his chiseled chest and imagined that power pouring back into him.
Lex tried, and then he was once again the white wolf. Even in wolf form, he managed to grin at me, then darted off into the fray to help.
Silas gave me a nod. “Let’s see what you can do, Warbreaker.”
I walked into the battle.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Rafe
Clearborn was still human—the better to control the fighting—and he was dwarfed by the wolves who surrounded him. He was fighting desperately to protect himself as they snarled and lunged at him.
Maddie plunged into the fray.
She formed what seemed like a shield of magic in her hands, but when it exploded outward, it slammed into the wolves of the other packs that were rushing toward us. They were blown backward—and it was naked men who rolled over and over, screaming as they transformed suddenly from wolves back into humans. That had to hurt.
She was already moving on, sending bolts of magic flying toward the wolves that attacked Clearborn. One of them lunged at his throat, only to let out a squeal of pain before it dropped to the ground at Clearborn’s feet.
He stared at Maddie in amazement. She was still wearing that strange metal crown and the tattered remnants of the blue gown Silas had knit for her. She looked like a deranged prom queen.
“I’m back,” she said quietly. “Couldn’t miss my sophomore year.”
Then she plunged on into the fight, drawing the magic of witches away as they were mid-attack, forcing wolves to fall into their human form in agony.
Clearborn still looked shocked as he turned to me, but only for a second.
“You sent the shield through,” Clearborn said.
“We did,” I said, “but it turns out we didn’t even really need the shield. We needed Maddie.”
“Explain,” he said, frowning.
“She can take their ability to shift away,” I said. “And she can give it back.”
Clearborn studied the scene in front of us; the battlefield was rapidly changing. The men whose wolves had been stripped away were frantically running, retreating off campus.
“Does she have to know that?” he asked. “We don’t need unbearable first years.”
“Technically, she’s a rising second now.”
“Or I could just put you all in one patrol so you all stop being such a pain in my ass,” he said.
“Wouldn’t our patrol still be under your leadership?”
“Good point, Mr. Hunt. As long as you’re all certain to be a hassle, perhaps I should keep Ms. Northsea and the others on a tighter leash for now.” But he looked at me with a mischievous glint in your eye. “How did it go over there? Did you manage to kee
p them on a tighter leash?”
After what had happened in the Fae world, I’d been afraid I would be unworthy to lead them, that they wouldn’t trust me, that they wouldn’t obey.
“Maybe I’ll never need a leash at all,” I said. “We all work well together.”
Clearborn looked out at the scene in front of us. “Maybe you do, Mr. Hunt. Maybe the packs need you. But don’t tell them that.”
He went back to giving orders, making the most of the changing tide of war as the last wolves and witches—now just humans—fled the campus or were taken down by our forces. I went to work helping to gather up the wounded, helping Callum off the field to the infirmary.
“How’d our girl do out there?” he asked.
“Amazing,” I said.
He smiled as if he’d never expected anything less. “She’s so much like her sister.”
I knew he meant that as a compliment, but I couldn’t help saying how I felt. “Maddie Northsea isn’t like anyone else.”
She was the love of my life, even if we would spend the rest of our lives driving each other crazy.
And I was going to be thankful for every day of my life with that girl, with her cockeyed crown and her easy smile.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Maddie
When the battle was over, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. The crown was so heavy that it hurt my head, and I pulled it off eagerly. When I threw it over my arm to carry it, it reminded me so much of the first time I’d carried it that way, right after I’d destroyed all our wolves. Then the crown had felt heavy with shame and loss, as I fought my father and the rest of the Coven of the Day.
I found Clearborn in the infirmary, checking on our wounded. I meant to ask him what he wanted me to do with the damned thing, but then I saw Callum sitting amidst the injured, and I rushed to hug him.
He hugged me back hard, as he had hundreds of time since Piper brought him and the others into our lives. “I’m so proud of you,” he murmured into my ear. But then he always was.
I didn’t know where to even begin telling him thank you, so I just hugged him back hard. “I’ve been so lucky to have all of you in my life.”
“Have you?” he asked, giving me a skeptical look as I pulled back.
“Not everyone would love the ninth wheel,” I reminded him.
He shook his head. “Maddie, I don’t know where you got the idea you were the ninth wheel, but none of us ever felt that way. You weren’t someone we accepted because you came along with Piper. You brought so much goodness into our lives in your own right, and I can’t imagine our family without you.”
Sudden tears flooded my eyes, and I hugged him again. He laughed and hugged me again, patting my back comfortingly.
There was something surreal about being the one who had just ended the battle between wolves and witches, and still needing my family. But I guess we all need our people who love us and believe in us, no matter what we can do.
“I’d better go check on the guys,” I told Callum.
He nodded, but his gaze flickered to someone beside me, and I realized Clearborn had just come to stand next to me.
“Do you want this, sir?” I asked, offering him the crown. I was eager to get rid of the priceless relic.
“I can lock it up for you,” Clearborn said. “But I think for better or worse, it belongs to you, Ms. Northsea.”
He held out his hand, and I passed it to him, but he was right. I still felt the weight of the power I wielded when I had the crown, and what it meant for wolves and witches alike.
“Good job out there,” he told me. “You and your friends should get some rest. We’ve got it from here.”
As I headed down the halls of the academic building, fatigue seemed to settle into my bones. Clearborn was absolutely right—I was exhausted. We all were. It had been one crazy year, and it had been capped off by a few crazy weeks as we fought to protect the packs.
But as I walked down the stairs, I saw Silas coming toward me, and for a moment, all that exhaustion fled. I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him yet—to really talk to him—and I was worried about him.
Silas smiled at me when he saw me, though, his eyes brightening in a way that no one could fake, as if I lit up his world.
“Maddie,” he said, wrapping me up in a hug. He hugged me as if he needed me, but when I looked up at him, he gripped the back of my neck and kissed me hard. Silas’s fingers on the back of my neck reminded me of Echo, but then, Silas was Echo too. He was complicated.
And he was mine.
He kissed me breathless, and when we pulled apart, I told him, “I’m glad you’re here.”
It was an understatement. I was amazed he was here, after all his debate about which world he truly belonged in.
“Me too,” he said.
“Are you sad too?”
His lips tilted up at the corners. “Yes. It turns out happy endings can be… complicated.”
He studied my face, then told me, “But I’m more happy than sad.”
“That’s a start,” I said.
“That’s a start,” he agreed. He kissed me again, a soft, tender kiss this time. “Let’s go find our…”
He trailed off. Friends? They were so much more than friends.
Family?
Whatever he and the other men were, we belonged together.
That night, we all gathered at Chase’s house for a big dinner. Skyla and Blake were there too, and we all talked about what had happened over the past few weeks. I knew they still had a big adjustment ahead of them, but we’d manage it together, as a family. For their parts, they both seemed tough—just like I’d expect from Chase’s younger siblings.
The house felt full of love and laughter, and as Silas grinned and toasted and laughed with them, I hoped he was starting to feel peace with the choice he’d had to make. I knew Silas would always do what had to be done.
But our boy wonder deserved to be happy too.
Afterward, Chase and Skyla conspicuously made themselves absent, and I changed into my swimsuit. When I stepped out onto the deck, night had fallen. The stars dotting the sky weren’t as bright as they were over the Fae world or the Greyworld, places that were more unspoiled and light-polluted than our own world, but that was okay.
This was our home, and it didn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.
I padded across the deck to the hot tub and found Penn and Tyson were already there.
“I missed this,” I said as I climbed into the water. “And I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Tyson said, at the same time as Penn said, “Come over here and let me show you how much I missed you.”
Ty shook his head at Penn, who smiled his incorrigible smile. But I was already wading through the water to them both, and I slipped in between them. The hot tub hadn’t been turned on in weeks and the water was still lukewarm, but I rapidly heated up when I was sandwiched between two shifters, trading steamy kisses with them both.
“Come here,” Tyson demanded, gripping my hips and pulling me over to straddle him.
“Someone still thinks he’s a king,” Penn teased him as I ground down on Tyson, feeling his cock press against me through his swimsuit and mine.
“Someone… is still an alpha,” Tyson shot back, losing some momentum along the way.
Penn had moved behind me, but he stilled with his hands on my hips. More seriously, he said, “You are still a king, Tyson. Even if you surrendered the throne to be here with us.”
“You don’t have to say that,” Tyson said. “I’m not jealous anymore. You’re a good alpha, Penn. The pack’s lucky to have you.”
Penn rolled his eyes. “The Kierney pack might not agree.”
“You’ll win them over,” Tyson assured him. “You always do.”
“Are you going to miss your throne when you’re running around with us to class?” I asked Tyson, genuinely curious.
“Not a bit,” he said. “At least, I don’t thin
k so. Besides, it seems like I kept part of my royal Fae magic.”
“My overpowered prince,” I teased as I leaned toward him.
“King, thank you very much,” he said, right before his lips met mine.
It wasn’t long before the three of us were kissing wildly. Their hands roamed my body, Penn sliding my bathing suit bottoms down as Tyson managed to unlatch my top. But I protested the unfairness, so soon their bathing suits were getting tossed on to the deck too.
I straddled Tyson’s lap again, his cock teasing against me, then felt Penn’s cock gliding over the curve of my ass. I pushed back against him, as he buried his face in the curve of my neck and kissed me.
I grabbed Tyson’s cock and pressed him against me. “I want you both inside me,” I breathed into his ear.
“Claiming us as yours?” Penn teased me.
“I don’t have to,” I said.
They knew it.
I turned my face to kiss Penn, trading kisses with him as I slid down onto Tyson’s cock. I could feel him stretching me, filling me, but I wanted even more; I wanted them both. I was glad the two of them had made up. They had always been so close.
I pressed my ass against Penn’s cock, swaying against him.
“Are you sure?” Penn murmured into my ear.
“I’m so very sure,” I said, which made them both smile faintly. Penn pressed into me, slowly filling me; I let out a low moan at the sense of being completely, utterly filled.
When the three of us began to move together, it took only the slightest movement to feel overwhelming. I was so full that they couldn’t help but press against my g-spot, my clit, and the sensation was amazing. From the way they moaned into my ears as we moved in tandem, the sensations were just as powerful for them. But they kept on kissing me, touching me, fondling my nipples.
It was sensation overload, and it was amazing. I began to tremble, my thighs tense with the power of the release that was coming, and the two of them stilled in tandem. Then they began to move again, teasing me, moving in sync so that an even more powerful trembling began to take over my body. They brought me to the edge of orgasm over and over, and then finally, we all rushed over the edge together, both of them letting out a shout as they filled me.
