I screamed and fell to my knees. I could feel my heart turning inside out.
Strong arms wrapped around me, and the next moment, Alarick’s pine and ocean scent invaded me, bringing cool comfort through the pain. I screamed into his neck, writhing against him, clinging to him desperately, as if only he could anchor me inside the storm of pain ripping me apart from within.
“Timberlyn!” His voice was desperate, the panic in it barely registering.
Not wanting to scare him, I forced myself to stifle the next scream. But I couldn’t stop the flood of anguish pouring from me. I held onto him as sobs wracked my body until I thought I’d implode under their weight.
Alarick held me. For minutes, hours, until I was too exhausted to go on. When at last I could breathe again, I felt empty, hollow. Something had been taken from me that could never be replaced. This was more than pain. It was grief.
At last, I stared up at the sliver of moon overhead, my eyes scratchy and empty from crying.
“Where’s Ravenwood?” Alarick asked, raking my damp hair back from my flushed cheeks. I spotted his brothers sitting along the edge of the damaged lighthouse, waiting patiently for their alpha’s direction.
“Dead,” I said, almost choking on the word as more tears somehow squeezed from my parched eyes. The tears weren’t for Mr. Ravenwood, but I couldn’t speak the truth yet. It was too terrible.
“Do you want me to take you home?” Alarick asked.
Yes. I wanted to go home. I wanted everything to be normal again for one night, for one day. I wanted to pretend this hadn’t happened, that life was as simple as it had been before Ravenwood Academy.
But I knew that part of my life was over. Mr. Ravenwood might be gone, but there were more. They might carry out his plan, or they might not. But they would be after me. I had killed a member of their Council. I would see my family again, but not now. I’d have to call them and explain, but I couldn’t go home tonight. I’d learned my lesson about leading danger to those I loved. I would never go home again without careful consideration.
“Let’s go to the witches,” I said after thinking it over. And so, we all shifted into wolves, and at last, I fell in line with the Wolf boys.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I think that’s it,” I said, shouldering my backpack—this time without blood packets. I’d run out after the big battle with the vampires. The Wolf brothers all knew I fed from Alarick now, and they’d even agreed to feed me if something happened to him. I refused to think about losing him. I’d already lost too many people I loved. But if he was injured, he might need his strength to heal and not be able to feed me.
“Then let’s get going,” Brooklyn said, tugging her hair from inside the neck of her jacket and adjusting her own pack.
“Give me a minute?” I said.
She shrugged. “Sure.”
As she left the bedroom I’d been using for the past month, I turned to Sagely. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s the least we could do,” she said. “For our daughter.” Her smile was tentative, almost shy, which was unlike the kickass lady I knew.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m still your daughter, even if I don’t call you mom,” I said. “And if you hadn’t been here… Well, please just know how grateful we are.”
We’d stayed with the witches ever since the big battle. They’d arrived late to the fight and taken care of business, and they didn’t seem to blame us as the Lunessa Pack had every right to. The witches hadn’t lost any of their coven, and only a few had sustained minor injuries, which they were able to heal without leaving the valley. I was relieved, remembering Mr. Ravenwood’s story about following Sagely when she left her valley.
The witches had their own doctor, who’d pronounced that I had some broken ribs, a torn rotator cuff, and a dislocated shoulder. The Wolf brothers all had a few broken bones as well, but the doctor prescribed only rest and nourishment along with her splints, saying our natural healing abilities would kick in and take care of them. And she was right. The other injuries, our mental and emotional traumas, would last longer.
Still, after a few weeks of hunkering down, we’d all healed up and gotten restless. We’d helped to demolish the unstable lighthouse on the mountain, which was full of holes from where wolves and vampires had hit it during the battle. The witches had no problem putting us to work after we’d healed, so we’d helped around the coven. Turned out, the Wolf boys were great at chopping wood, and they’d soon started a competition with each other that only ended when one of the wood piles reached the roof of the house.
But we couldn’t stay forever. It was nice to see the boys laughing and competing, and I knew that being useful made them feel good, especially since the unmarried witches were all too happy to thank them. And it had been genuinely hilarious when Adolf tried to hit on half a dozen of my sisters, telling them they could be his future wives, only to find out that the polygamy practiced here always featured a woman with multiple men. He ended up in the doghouse with several angry redheads.
Still, the threat of vampires always loomed in my mind. I knew they couldn’t find me anymore. Not only was Mr. Ravenwood gone, but no one had a blood tie to me anymore, so even under duress, no one could be forced to trace me here. But that wasn’t the only problem. If we wanted the stop
