~ Shea found Marx on the roof of Lochlan's house. From the front, all you could see were trees spread out without much of a view. "Expecting company?" she asked, going to stand beside him. She hadn't seen her surrogate father in almost five years. With her being on the run, and him being a recluse, this was a reunion long overdue. "They don't need to come back here," Marx's voice sounded distant. It was a simple, cold fact. They had dealt the death blow. Shea knew Marx suspected they had meant the poison for him. Poison was personal. And whoever made it went through a hell of a lot to make sure it was undetectable, which made it incurable. They could do nothing for Lochlan now, but minimize his pain, and wait for the inevitable. "I haven't had a good hard fight in a

~ The Mountain was getting crowded. Outside of the seven who stayed inside the house, there were nine others camped out in the woods in tents. Bryan, Zack, Nico, and his mate had finally turned up with the good news that the word was spreading like wildfire. Marx thought back to Penny, and how such a minor situation could link to such a big conspiracy.  Everything was unraveling faster than he could piece the madness together. There were things they still didn't know, like Penny's purpose. It was a unanimous consensus that she had to be a part of all this. How big a part… Shea was off helping to figure that out. He could hear laughter ringing in the night. That had never happened here before; such a large gathering of werewolves. They hunted, cooking over open fire pits, sipping beer and swapping stories. It was like an impromptu family reunion. Mar

~ By sunset the following day, none of them had come to their senses. Martha, with the help of Shea, set up for the ceremony at the front of the house. It was the only open space big enough for the massive circle they made, lined off with stones. Between each stone, Shea half-buried candlesticks right around. Marx had hoped at least half of them would have backed out and made a run for it. Who would have blamed them? Instead, he was stuck with a group of mostly untrained werewolves and the heavy task of being their Alpha. Uncomfortable was how it felt, standing in the middle of the circle. Everyone watched as Martha painted old rune symbols across his torso, placing a single mark on his forehead. While she did so, she mumbled a bunch of strange words, the flickering lights of the candles playing over her face. He had expected the ritual to be simple. No more than maybe five minutes long, tops. It tur

~ They decided a convoy was to be sent out to Pentorium.  The situation was mushrooming into a much larger problem that involved every—literally—living soul. Dempsey became the ambassador, as he did business on a semi-regular basis with the five families. Werewolves and vampires weren't enemies, but they preferred to give each other a wide berth. Together they had been the destruction of their homeworld, and peacefully they lived apart in the new one. "What about the natives?" Shea asked. "Shouldn't we give them a heads up too?" "And would you like to go down there and tell them?" Marx gave her a side look, brow raised. "I guess they'll see the fires," Shea said

~ The night held its breath. After the initial alarm, there was nothing. The pack stood firm, their wolves moving among them. A movement had Daniel looking off to the left. A shadow shifted, then blended away. Another passed overhead; it was gone by the time they looked up. They were not alone, but no one could lock in on the intruder. One thing was for sure, though, they were not up against werewolves. From above a shadow came swooping down in front of Daniel, taking form only long enough to say, "Get down." And just like that, the surrounding shadows moved. Wispy streaks of black dashing back and forth. One shadow wrapped around Daniel's throat, picking him up off the ground. Several other werewolves faced off with their attackers, but like Daniel, they couldn't fight what they could not touch. He could fe