I left those words hanging in the air as I shifted back to my wolf form, saving Sylvie from having to answer as she climbed on. Once she was settled on top, and my wolf was finally calmed, I set off at an intermediate pace. There was no need to move at breakneck speed now, but I also didn’t want to dawdle.
My people had been attacked, and I needed to get back to them. After the fires were out, the wounded tended to, shelter found for those who had lost it all, and the dead acknowledged, we could turn to Sylvie and what to do.
That plan went to shit the instant I stepped into the den and saw the wall of elders waiting for us. Behind them, and to the side, Rome stood as well. When my eyes landed on him, he shifted uncomfortably.
Damn. So much for sleep.
I slowed to a halt. Sylvie slid from my back and waited as I shifted, my bones reshaping themselves and reknitting into a bipedal form.
“What is this?” I growled as my snout shrunk and became my nose. “There are still fires going on. People need tending to. We wereattacked. Why are you waiting here?”
“You know why,” Elder Germander said calmly, taking the lead.
“Do you know what it means?” I asked, referring to the dual magics within Sylvie.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “But between that unknown and the danger and pain she has brought to us this night, we cannot allow her to return to our lands.”
My growl echoed out across the den. Many more heads turned to face the confrontation between the elders and me.
“You don’t have the authority,” I snarled. “
Iam alpha here. Not any of you.”
Elder Jackson sighed. “You are only alpha if there is a pack to support you. Look around, Lincoln. They’re scared. Uncertain. They don’t want her here. She only brings more danger. More destruction. Moredeath.”
I bared my teeth in challenge.
“We recognize that she did not do so willingly. That she fought back, and was even instrumental in the destruction of the Chained’s chosen servant. That is why we will not seek her death.”
Theat this time was all but shouted into the silence that followed.
“But she is not to remain here,” Elder Germander said firmly. “Not after what has happened.”
Flames from one of the burning cabins rose higher into the night, emphasizing his point about what had happened.
“I am alpha,” I rumbled.
“If you do this, the pack will fracture,” Elder Germander said warningly. “You have supporters still, yes. But the majority do not want her here. If you challenge us, you will harm them. You will break friendships and even family bonds. You will force them to take a side while many are still mourning. Don’t do this.”
“What would you have me do?” I asked of them.
“Let her go,” Elder Germander said softly. “Side with us and tell her to leave. She is nothing.”
“She iseverything
!” I shouted, stepping forward. “I cannot just let her go. She is so much more than nothing. She is the one I ache for. The one I need. She is the moon that my wolf cries for in the night.”
I snatched up Sylvie’s hand, staring daggers at Elder Jackson, fully aware he was the one behind all this. The one forcing me to make a decision that would tear me apart in the depths of night-a decision I could not do anything but make, for one simple reason. “She is my mate.”
“What are you doing?” Elder Germander demanded.
“
We are leaving.”
Sylvia
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe and staring into my grandmother’s sitting room.
I didn’t go in. With the big oak gone now, the second-floor sunroom had lost some of its former aura. Now when I glanced out the window, all I saw was the blackened grass and empty place where the tree had once stood. So many happy memories now overshadowed by the evil thing that had burst from within.
At least we had solved the mystery of the bones that fell from it. After leaving his pack, we had come back to the house to stay while we tried to come up with a plan for what to do next. Lincoln had continued to burn the remains, and in doing so, had come across a memorial plaque.
The tree had been planted many years ago over the grave of one of my great-great-grandmothers. We weren’t sure how many generations back since there was no date, just a name. Florence Anne Wilson.
I knew that Anne was a common middle name in our family, but seeing it there was a little eerie, knowing I was connected that far back.
“Yes. We can’t stay here for much longer,” Lincoln said. “We should keep moving.”
“You make it sound like we’re fugitives.” I sighed, scanning the room one last time.
My eyes landed on the table next to the window. There on it was my grandmother’s journal. It had fallen there after the lightning strike, and I had never moved it. I entered the room now, picking it up and turning my back on the window so I didn’t have to see the image outside.
I carefully thumbed the pages, but as always, I came back to that final entry. The one I had been reading when everything, my entire worldview, exploded in one giant lightning strike.
Is that it, Grandma? Is that why you couldn’t just up and tell me what was going on? You knew I wouldn’t believe it. That I would, as you said, call you crazy. You were right. Again.
I absolutely would have labeled the message as crazy if it had said something like “go into the woods and find the man who can change into a wolf, and look out for the tree-monster that will try to snatch you in the dark. Oh, you also have magical powers.”
My grandmother knew me better than that. She was fully aware she’d have to slowly lead me to water, that I couldn’t be trusted to make the connection on my own. Who could blame me, though? It still felt crazy two days later.
I looked at my hands once more, turning over the one not holding the journal, as if the other side would somehow hold clues. I’d not been able to replicate a single thing I’d done that night, despite trying until I gave myself a headache and sorethroat. I still possessed my sense of danger, but that was it. Nothing more. It was in there, but I couldn’t access it.
“We’re not fugitives,” Lincoln said, coming to the doorway. “I just don’t trust some of the pack not to … follow us.”
“You fear they’ll act against you.”
His jaw worked. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. With me gone, Noel will have assumed the position of alpha. I can’t trust him, and that alone is good enough reason to move on. For now.”
“Or,” I said, pointing a finger suggestively, “you could just go back. Leave me here.”
“
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