Rhiannon’s POVBefore either of us could make any sense of it, Stephen and Amelia were hauling us out of the landslide. It all felt like such a heady rush that I could barely process the warm press of clothes being forced over my head and the heat of Stephen’s body as he held me up.I tried to talk, but my teeth were chattering too hard and I bit my tongue. I winced.“Hey, hey,” soothed Stephen, adding a coat over the two jumpers he’d already shoved onto me. “We need to get you warmed up.”I wasn’t about to let him dress and mollycoddle me, no matter how cold I was. I gently peeled myself out of his arms and dressed in the rest of the clothes spilling from my bag. “Thanks for getting us out,” I said eventually, twisting around to see what Caleb and Amelia were doing.They were stood a bit too close together for my liking, their foreheads touching, Amelia’s hands on Caleb’s shoulders. I ground my jaw at the sight of them. “Well, we weren’t going to leave you under there,” said Stephe
Hyacinth’s POV‘It’s just a fly in the oink, sweet thing,’ said Dolly, with all the conviction of someone who wholeheartedly believed they were actually right.‘A fly in the oink?’ I lifted my head, barely able to muster up a laugh. ‘Like, the sound a pig makes?’‘Exactly! Why would a fly want to go into a pig’s nose? That poor pig.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘It must just ruin his day.’In a roundabout way, I supposed Dolly was right. This definitely was ruining my day. Not that they’d be all that great since I’d left Night Wind, anyway.I couldn’t take a single step forward. Not one. I tried, and tried again, and again – but nada. Nope. Nothing. It was like there was a wall of thick air ahead of me, following the curve of our territory line. But why?And how?I shook off the questions I wouldn’t be able to answer on my own and started pondering one I might have a chance at.What was I going to do now?‘You could turn back,’ Dolly suggested, her voice a little bit strained and a whol
Stephen’s POV Everything I’d been feeling – the good, the bad, the guilt – came to a head in that moment. When I saw Hyacinth there, looking so very small, curled up in the snow, I knew it was all true. All of it. Rhiannon had never been my true mate. Hyacinth was. Brian shifted out as I reached her. I fell to my knees at her side, carding my fingers through her hair, tracing the perfect pout of her too-pale lips. She was still, too still, and as I bent low over her, cupping her frozen cheeks, I felt my heart splinter. Distantly, I heard the others come over. Distantly, I knew they were asking me things, asking her things, trying to get close enough to feel for her breath, to feel for her pulse. I also knew they were the things I should’ve been doing – but I couldn’t. I was as frozen as she was, my hands barely warmer than her pallid cheeks, my wide eyes locked on her closed ones. Then her eyelids started to flicker. “Hyacinth?” I whispered, the sound desperate, pining. “Cin?” ‘
Rhiannon’s POVThere was a prickling feeling nudging at the nape of my neck. I twisted around; Tiger stiffened as I took control of her body, giving me the leeway I needed to investigate my Bad Feeling.It was too easy for me to do. She was still weary, still tiring too fast for me to feel entirely confident that she – and I – were back to normal. The prickling grew, eclipsing my worries about my wolf in an instant. We were only walking, but I stopped, narrowing my eyes at the barren, snow-dusted trees behind us. The skeletons of bushes gave some cover, but not enough to hide someone fully. I couldn’t see anyone – so why did I feel so convinced that we were being followed?Caleb slowed, coming to a halt beside me. ‘Are you all right?’‘Do you feel like there’s someone else here?’He paused; his hackles rose. ‘Yes.’I’d expected him to brush me off, to tell me I was letting my worry for my sister make me suspicious of everything. I’d half thought that myself. It would make sense; sinc
Amelia’s POV‘It’s him,’ said Maeve. Before I could fully process what she meant, my wolf came to an abrupt halt. Then I scented what she had. Carried on the winter wind was him: bravery and cleverness and silliness and wide, toothy grins and deep, dark, longing looks. Too-long legs and powerful muscles and calloused, gentle hands.Kieran. Distantly, I felt a body smack into my rear. I didn’t care; I didn’t even bother to look at who it was. They mindlinked me. I didn’t care.I shifted out, needing to go to him as myself. I wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to feel his bare skin against mine. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before, this need; it ate away at me, pulling at my soul as I turned back towards my love, my life, and drifted over to him on feather-light feet.It didn’t matter that I was naked. It didn’t matter that there were people watching me. I was barely aware of them. I just wanted him. My blood burned in my veins. I flexed my fingers; each joint ached to close arou
Caleb’s POVThe ground had frozen over when we got back to Night Wind. It was like stepping onto an ice rink and being unable to hop back onto the solid ground beside it. There were no barriers to grab and no way to get off it. And it was everywhere. It glittered in the dying sunlight, shining gold and scoring a path across the ice that pointed straight to the pack house. It didn’t even look slightly tempted to melt, despite the golden hour sun hitting it.It was just another problem to add to my increasingly long list.My head was scrambled. Between the messy bundle of emotions keeping Rhi at arm’s length and the fact that my so-called allies, Moon Chasm, who, by the way, were the literal parents of my Luna, were going to attack, kill me, and claim my land as their own, I was barely able to function.Let alone deal with the crowd of people that surrounded me as soon as I set foot back on my pack lands.“Alpha!”“Alpha!”“Alpha Caleb!”“Come quick!”Harley was in the crowd, pulling a
Caleb’s POV… And immediately fell on my ass. Groaning, I rubbed at my sore backside and tried to stand up. Only to slip over again. I gritted my teeth. For fuck’s sake. Knight laughed at me. ‘Come on, Alpha,’ he teased, ‘it’s only a bit of ice.’‘It’s not only a bit of ice, though, is it?’ I grunted. Before he could reply, I added, ‘Maybe you should shift out and see how you cope with it.’‘Get undressed, then.’‘Fine.’‘Fine.’I wrenched off my clothes and bundled them up into a ball so he could carry them in his mouth. He shifted out, his huge form bursting out of my human frame, and then his claws dug into the ice. They gripped it, cracking through its surface as he steadied himself, and then he was off.I huffed. ‘Show off.’‘Sorry, I think you meant to say, “Thank you, Knight, for being so helpful.”’‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’‘Stop being so salty. Nobody likes a salty prune.’‘Nobody likes you,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t know why you’re taking your bad mood out on me. Do you want to
Caleb’s POVI kicked off my shoes. My bare toes dug into the thick rug on the floor; its chill bit into my soles, the fire just starting to take in the hearth and not yet warm enough to fill the room with its heat.Rhiannon’s room was all her. Her scent was everywhere, pine needles and the air before a storm, perfumed with lime and basil. It clung to her checked bedding, to her curtains, to her. I inhaled deeply.She sat on the bed, looking up at me as she tugged off her boots, keeping her eyes on mine as she curled her socked feet under her and rested her hands in her lap. She looked innocent and inviting in equal measure; her breasts pressed together where she was leaning forward, their curves calling to me.‘So poetic,’ laughed Knight. ‘And all for breasts.’‘Do breasts not deserve to have poetry written about them?’‘They don’t do anything for me. A nice tail, however, or a good pair of ears…’My reply to him was eclipsed by her. She shifted back, slowly sliding her leggings down