Rhiannon’s POVDespite Tiger telling me that thinking of what ifs and if onlys wouldn’t help anything, I couldn’t help but think of them. My mind heaved and spun as we shifted out and headed towards Moon Chasm.As we neared the border between our packs, almost two days after we’d left Night Wind despite the rapid pace we’d set off at and the lack of breaks we’d taken, Luna Amelia ordered the rest of us – Kieran, Harley, and I – to hide behind her, a good distance away.Kieran replied to her group mindlink. ‘No. No way, Ames. We need to stay close so we can protect you.’She snorted at that. ‘I can protect myself, thanks.’‘We don’t know what their plan is. They could be anywhere. We have to be ready for anything. I just think–’He cut off in the middle of his sentence. The conversation ended as abruptly as that, and I figured that Amelia had started mindlinking just him. After all, there was no point in Harley and I listening to their bickering.But awh – wasn’t it sweet? I tried desp
Amelia’s POVI stared down every wolf lining the border. Bastards, the lot of them. ‘Amelia!’ gasped Maeve. And, sure, I rarely swore – but this situation more than called for it.It was like they wanted to be stuck in a constant cycle of bloodshed. Who wanted to be at war? For the sake of some extra land? Especially land that was currently stuck in winter?I could feel my anger rising, a hot ball lodging itself firmly in my chest and breathing flames up my throat. Needing to keep my cool before this conversation – I could see Mum and Dad marching through the ranks, heading towards me – I glanced back towards where I knew Kieran was. I couldn’t see him, but I could see the bush he was stationed behind.And even just seeing that was a balm to my rage. I smiled at it, sure he could see me even though I couldn’t quite see him, and then turned back, took a deep breath, and prepared for a battle unlike any I’d ever untaken before.This would be a battle of diplomacy, of words. And it woul
Kieran’s POV“It’s always been Kieran,” said Amelia, and I thought my heart might burst. Not only had she said it to herself, and to me, but she was telling her family. Her whole old pack. She had accepted me. She had accepted us.But it was too late.We couldn’t be together. She’d rejected me. The mate bond between us was shattered and painful, the link binding our souls like a livewire that shocked us whenever we got too close.That didn’t matter to me, though, not now. I just crossed my fingers and toes and even my eyes that we made it out of this alive.That she made it out of this alive.My heart thumped every second that Ames faced down her parents. I told myself, and Bo told me, over and over and over again, that they wouldn’t hurt their daughter. I knew her, and I knew them. Not well, but I knew them.They wouldn’t hurt her. Oh, goddess, please say they wouldn’t hurt her.But the scars of the past ran deep, and Amelia had just revealed herself to be a traitor. Kind of. Not to
Rhiannon’s POVLuna Fiona shifted back in an instant, her eyes wide, her chin quivering. Her hand came up to cover her mouth as she fell to her knees beside her daughter.I expected her to cry out, to sob, to wail, as my dad would’ve – but there was a flicker of remorse, a muscle leapt in her jaw, and then she squashed her emotions before the world could witness them.I skidded to halt a second too late. I stared at Amelia, adrenaline pounding through me, not quite able to comprehend what I was seeing.Maeve, her big black wolf, was crumpled on the ground. There was blood hissing from her neck, pooling on the earth beneath her. Her eyes rolled, fluttered, closed.She was dead.And, if I’d been quick enough, that would’ve been me. My heart twisted with remorse. I hadn’t been quick enough.Her dad cried out. He stumbled forward a step. “No,” he rasped, something shattering in his dark eyes. He shuttered them, reeling, and when he opened them again…What I saw in them terrified me. It wa
Rhiannon’s POVPaws battered my side, my neck, my cheek. Red-hot pain lanced across each of those places. Alpha Liam was too fast for me; he clawed me, pulled back, clawed me. I could barely see his movements before he landed each strike.‘Move!’ Caleb screamed into my mind. 'Move now, Rhi!'I darted back, letting Tiger take over as Alpha Liam lunged at us again. She ducked down, narrowly escaping the slash of his teeth, the lock of his jaw. I heard his teeth clack together above my head and shivered.Blood rolled down my side, burning hot against my chilled fur.I was, to put it frankly, fucked.“No, Liam!” cried Luna Fiona, from somewhere off to the side. “This isn’t right!”I turned to look at her, confused by her seeming to side with me, and saw her bowed over Amelia, her face set in a cold mask. The only emotion was in her eyes – and they were swimming with agony.I’d let myself be distracted a moment too long. Teeth clamped down around my neck.That was it, then. I squeezed my e
Caleb’s POVI watched Rhi fall to the ground in slow motion. It was eternal, that moment, as her body slumped, her weight suddenly too much for her to hold up, and she fell to the earth. Her limbs cartwheeled; blood poured from her neck.I reached her as she hit the ground. “Rhi,” I rasped, pressing my bound hands to her wolven shoulder and shaking it gently, terrified of hurting her more. “Fuck, Rhi, oh, goddess, fuck.” I couldn’t think properly, couldn’t say anything more useful than the string of mumbled curses falling from my trembling lips.“Liam, enough!” roared Luna Fiona. “This is wrong! The war is over; we should never have… never have…” Her throat closed around a sob as she looked down at her daughter.But Alpha Liam wasn’t listening.And then he turned his attention to me.I snarled at him. My heart was beating so hard I couldn’t hear myself think, but I stared him down, in his huge wolf form, his jaws stained with my mate’s blood, and I knew – I knew – that if it came to i
Rhiannon’s POV “Rhiannon?” Caleb cupped my cheeks. His hands felt a million miles away. “Rhiannon, this isn’t funny. Wake up,” panic leaked into his voice, “please, Rhi, wake up!” I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hold onto him. I wanted… I wanted… What did I want? The darkness was closing in. There was no way out of it, this time. That knowledge settled deep in me, heavy as a stone sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Even the pain of my wounds was starting to ebb away. My neck had been one burning, pulsing, point of red-hot pain, so sore that even the flow of blood over my torn skin had hurt, but now it felt more like the after-ache of getting a piercing. Soft, gentle, but still a little sore. Not the ripped-to-shreds agony of having my throat torn out of my neck. Instead of comforting me, it panicked me. The further from the pain I got, the closer I got to leaving my life behind. Caleb. Hyacinth. Stephen. Even Amelia and Kieran. And, oh my goddess, little Foxy Spangles.
Kieran’s POVI stared down at Maeve. I tried to see around the blood drying across her fur. I tried to see past the slack way her jaw was hinged, past the tiny sliver of glazed eye peeking out beneath her closed eyelids.I couldn’t. Not anymore. Those things were focal points now, the only parts of her I could really see. There was no life left in her. There was only death.My hands curled into fists in her fur. Another sob tore apart my throat. I didn’t feel like a person anymore; I was an empty shell, the wreckage of a ship left to drown. I was a scattered hull and deck, planks of wood and metal, all floating separately to drown in the darkness of an unforgiving sea.Gentle hands touched my shoulders, breathing a mimicry of life into my lungs. “Kieran? Kieran, is she…”I twisted around, my eyes as glazed as Ames’s as I looked up at Rhiannon. I would’ve frowned, had I been alive enough to do so. I hadn’t registered much in the last… how long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Day