She lifts her head, and the hair naturally falls to the side, revealing a white face with solid black eyes. I actually jerk backwards, as the ghost grins a black-toothed grin at me, seeming far too ominously excited.
My hackles rise, my instincts walk me back a step, and the ghost laughs loudly.
“You’re too late, wolf. It’s already done,” the demented ghost says to me with a scratchy, rasp voice.
The howling in the distance ceases for the first time, and my heart kicks in my chest. Without another second of hesitation, I launch myself through the ghost, racing toward the camp.
My feet pound the sloppy earth beneath me, the tension ratcheting up with every stride. My breath echoes back to my ears, as my heartbeat kicks up harder.
I slide through the mud, skidding to a halt in front of the safe-house.
My eyes widen and my nose burns against the overwhelming stench of…dead shifters.
The pads of my paws sink into the mud, as I move closer, too stunned to react just yet.
There are at least seventy, maybe more. It’s hard to count, considering how severely gory the field is.
It’s almost reminiscent of the infamous barn massacre, but with green blood instead of red.
Speaking of green blood…it drips from one body part or another, and I wade through the carnage, slowly turning in a circle to take in the many pieces littering the treetops as well.
My breath snakes out, and I turn to head toward the silent cabin before me. The door opens before I reach it, and Charlotte’s terrified, trembling form peers out.
“A-Alpha?” she says on a scared whisper.
I shift back to my skin, watching her eyes rise. Her gaze stops rising when she reaches my chin, and she stares at it instead of trying to meet my eyes.
“What happened here?” I ask, as the lightning crashes somewhere in the distance.
“Someth-th-thing stopped them,” she says, her body trembling that much harder.
“What stopped them?” I ask, turning in a circle, still counting pieces.
“I don’t know, Alpha. It must have been the vampire. I only saw it through the window. The shifters were so dominant, alpha. All of them. It was damn near suffocating, and every wolf was intimidated, even me. I’m so ashamed, but—”
“Arion did this? You’re sure?” I ask, my brow crinkled in disbelief.
“I can’t say for sure, Alpha. Tell him what you saw, Jacob,” she says, backing away, as her mate, and one of my human fathers, comes toward me with lowered eyes.
He bristles, uneasily darting a worried gaze around.
“I didn’t see much. I heard a woman’s voice saying something about shifters dying if they engaged in conflict with her, or something to that effect. But that was it.”
“A woman?” I echo, my mind flicking back to the creepy fucking ghost. “Marta? Perhaps my mother? Almost all the alphas are here today, so pick one.”
“I-I don’t know all the alphas well enough, but it was too fast to be a wolf, Alpha. I would have seen glimpses of fur at the very least.”
“Start at the beginning and tell me what you did see.”
“I was securing the cellar, and we were preparing to fend the outrageous squad of shifters off for as long as we could. All I could see was movement. No form. It moved too fast for me to see what it was, Alpha. I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of anything but a hint of red here and there.”
“Red?” I ask, certain Idun was wearing a red top. I think.
But she wouldn’t have killed her own shifters to save my wolves. She’s the one who would have ordered the slaughter.
“Just a streak here or there, Alpha. It could have just been blood I was seeing, but they were all dead with the first strike, so it should have only been green blood, so it’s hard to be certain. Not a single one had time to scream, and it was over within less than a minute. Nothing’s faster than the vampire besides Idun, right? And Idun wouldn’t have done this, so it has to be the vampire.”
The rambling ends when he swallows the rest of it, and I circle around once again, unsure what the hell to think. Then I gesture for them to follow me.
“Come on. Let’s get you to Sanctuary. They have a more fortified House.”
“Idun TV is back on!” someone shouts from inside, just as I drop to my knees, an instant, painful burning attacking me so intensely that it steals my breath and traps my howl.
Unbearable pain licks all the way up my spine, and my throat is too frozen to even release a sound. My skin feels like it’s bubbling off me, and my head swims, nausea sweeping through me with force.
Voices echo in my ears, as my face slams into the wet ground. I’m not sure how long I’m there, as Charlotte, Jacob and several of the others try to move me, only to have their hands burned.
I’m dropped back to the mud, as my mind floats into a fog, the pain too overwhelming to stand.
Then something just as unbearable builds in my core and damn near explodes outward.
A garbled sound barely escapes me, as the two bone-jarring pains war with each other.
What the fucking hell is happening to me?
Chapter 39
ARION
I knew better than to come here. I knew it would be missing. I knew it’d do me no good to ever attempt to hide it from her.
I stare at my empty safe with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Somehow, she knew where you hid it,” I tell a trembling Shera, who swallows so loud it echoes through the room.
“I swear, Alpha, I never told anyone—”
“She has a mind-reading gypsy freak beta, who can also skin-walk and shapeshift just like a Neopry alpha,” I interrupt, my voice calmer than the anger rising inside me.
“C-can I ask why that necklace is so powerful?” she asks, true terror in her voice.
Howls sound in the distance, wolves barking in panic and fear, as I stand in my cellar, staring down at the broken concrete and destroyed safe.
“It held the excess hope. It was meant to be given to Caroline to cherish and nurture. But Pandora should have known better. Once Idun saw its beauty, she had to have it. Once she tasted its power, she punished Caroline for keeping it a secret,” I answer on a tired exhale. “And I was stupid enough to fucking believe it held no power or meaning to her anymore. She was simply fucking waiting for her opportunity.”
“I-I swear I never even thought about where I hid it,” Shera stammers.
The room continues to chill the longer I stare at the empty safe.
“Demetria can skin-walk, but you still would have sensed her authority over yours…unless her Neopry alpha was close enough to cloak her,” I murmur to myself, nearly whispering the last part.
She whimpers, because whether she heard it or not, she still would have pieced it together for herself.
“Not once did you think about it?” I ask, as the wolves continue to howl in panic.
Surely Emit is tending to them. I have no idea why I’m itching to go aide the fucking wolves.
“There was once,” Shera says in a hushed tone, as though something’s just occurred to her. “It crossed my mind so briefly I almost forgot about it. I was preparing your new office with timeless, yet modernish pieces. I took a lot of time to put it together in hopes you’d appreciate it,” she says, seemingly unable to pass up an opportunity to point out her best deeds, even in a time of crisis.