Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
I clasp it.
One by one, the other alphas follow, bears approaching to make a pact and a promise, that in this yard, on this day, we are not fractured. We’re many. We’re united.
“We need to send scouts,” my father says.
“Bears and wolves together,” Hunter agrees. “Mix the teams. Let them cover each other's blind spots. Learn to trust each other.”
I nod, and we dispatch the fastest runners. As they disappear into the trees, we talk about strategy. The wind shifts as the sun dips behind the treetops, and the air stirs as Cami approaches, cloaked in ash gray, moving silently through the makeshift camp with the old bear mystic at her side. They move with gravity, drawn toward Scarlet and Ahya like iron filings to a lodestone.
They find their way to Scarlet’s side, where she sits watching the gathering with the wariness of a mother bird with a single precious egg in her nest. The mystics kneel beside her without ceremony, their bodies bending like old branches, their attention locked on the child who laughs as she claps her hands and shifts, not once, but twice, first into a bear cub with thick fur and black paws, then into her human form again, and finally, with a glimmer of silver light, into a tiny gray wolf.
A hush falls across the lumberyard.
I watch as hardened warriors, bear and wolf alike, turn to look with wonder and awe.
“She’s already growing in strength and control,” Cami says softly, her voice carrying power despite its low volume.
The bear mystic’s eyes never leave Ahya. “She walks the line between bloods as a guide.”
“Or a weapon?” Scarlet whispers. I wince, but the mystics do not chastise her, and the rest of the gathering group are too busy to take in her warning.
***
The scouts return faster than expected. Two wolves and a bear sprint into the clearing, sweat shining on their chests, faces grim and hollow eyed as they dress hastily.
They cross the yard quickly, heading straight for the cluster of alphas near the center.
“Gregory’s gathering,” one of them reports, voice low but urgent. “They’re not hiding. He wants this fight. Sixty, maybe more.”
“Numbers we expected,” Hunter says. “But?”
The scout hesitates, glancing up. “There’s something else. Something—
“What?” I bark. “Spit it out.”
“We weren’t sure at first,” the scout says. “But then we heard it. Something massive. The sound of it…” The scout swallows, his Adam’s apple shifting. His head lifts, eyes wide and fearful as he scans the sky above us.
My blood runs cold. “The sound of what?”
“We don’t know,” the bear shifter says, rubbing the center of his brows. His barrel chest heaves, and his eyes dart upto the sky, as wide and fearful.
“A bird?” I ask. “Something in the sky?”
I sound like I’m playing charades, but no one is giving me answers.
How dangerous could a bird be?
“No feathers,” the bear says.
“No feathers,” I repeat, confusion surging. What kind of bird doesn’t have feathers? They can’t mean…
The bear mystic’s head lifts sharply. “A creature of ruin.”
Cami’s face is grave. “No. It can’t be.”
“We saw it,” Harry, the youngest but fastest wolf shifter in my father’s pack, says. “At least, I think we saw it.”
He doesn’t sound sure.
“Whatever you saw, is it with Gregory?”
He shrugs and I growl with frustration. “I… I don’t know, Nixon. It was a glimpse… the noise of it.”
I turn to Cami, desperate to understand what’s happening.
“The child is born of magic,” Cami says. “And dragons were always the oldest protectors of magic. If one has awakened... maybe it senses what is to come.”
“Gregory can’t control a dragon,” I say, searching their faces for confirmation. “Right?”
“No,” Cami says. “But he may have awakened it. Or worse, angered it.”
I run my hands over my face as the tense silence strangles the camp. The world seems thinner now, stretched too tight, like the membrane between what we know and what we fear is about to tear.
“We deal with what’s in front of us, and we stay ready for the rest,” my father says. “That’s all we can do. Dragon talk isn’t helpful right now. “
“Okay.”
I clap him on the shoulder, relieved to have his guidance again, and move past to take Scarlet’s face in my hands.
“Keep Ahya with you at all times. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Her eyes swell with tears that I wipe away with my thumbs before pressing a kiss onto her lips. “You carry life inside you,” I whisper. “I love you. I will come back.”
Her face crumples as she shakes her head. I touch her flat belly, already sensing the change within her; the warm sweetness of her pregnant scent and the magic of life growing within. “You are strong, Scarlet. My love. My mate.”
I straighten quickly and walk away before the desperate way she clutches at me fractures my heart.