“Ladies and gentleman, thank you for meeting with us tonight,” I say, my voice low and serious. “I’m glad to see you here, and I wish you peace in the wake of our shared tragedy.”
A rumble of agreement passes among the elders.
“Getting back to the business of running our packs is imperative,” I add gently, “though I know many of us are still grieving. First and foremost, I want to make it clear that you are welcome on East Pack lands for as long as you desire to stay. And in that vein, I wanted to begin a discussion about the future of our packs.”
The room is silent. More than two dozen pairs of eyes are fixed on me, and my heart beats quickly as I broach the delicate subject.
“I propose that our three packs remain together indefinitely,” I say before I can lose my nerve. A ripple of surprise passes over the elders’ faces, but I forge ahead. “Together, we are stronger, as we saw while battling the witches yesterday. We could certainly split up again—you could return to your respective lands, and we’ll maintain our treaty, stay in touch, support one another as we’ve always done. Or… we could become one.”
I let them murmur to each other for a few seconds before continuing.
“We mustn’t forget the truth. This fight may be over, but the war isn’t. The witches won’t stop, and they’ll likely return one day to finish what they started. At that point, in my opinion, I believe we would be better served by remaining together, rather than being separated by so much space.”
A few of the elders look thoughtful at that, and I wonder if any of them have ever considered this possibility. I hope they have. It’ll make it easier to convince them it’s the right choice.
“Alpha Archer,” one of my own elders calls out. Elder Carter, a man my father considered a great friend. He eyes me appraisingly, almost proudly. “I’d like to second your motion for us to remain as one cohesive pack.”
“It would be a logistical nightmare,” Elder Marianne states. She’s one of mine too, and always pragmatic, so it doesn’t surprise me she’d leap directly to the question of, how the hell will we all fit in one village?
Ridge clears his throat and steps up to stand by my side. “Alpha Archer, if I may?”
I nod. “Of course.”
“We’ve been discussing this particular obstacle,” he says, addressing the room. He glances at Marianne. “You’re not wrong that it will be logistically difficult. We’ll have to decide if we want to build out one of our existing communities or settle in an entirely new location, and that will depend partially on witch activity. If we…”
As he continues to speak, a small noise across the room catches my attention. It’s not loud, just a sharp inhale of breath, but something about it makes my skin prickle, some instinctual warning that something is wrong.
I glance over quickly, my gaze going directly to Sable.
Her face is pale, her eyes wide. I open my mouth to ask if she’s all right, worry flaring inside me as I start to take a step toward her.
But before I can speak, before I can move, the black sigils flare to life across her skin.
Her eyes roll back into her head, and she collapses.
28
Sable
I thought I was just tired.
I mean, we did just fight a war. I used magic to hurt people—to help kill them—and that’s not something that’s easy to bounce back from.
It’s not that I regret my actions. They were necessary for the good of my packs. But two months ago, I was a naive teenager living in an abusive home with an “uncle” who barely let me leave the house.
Now? I’m sleeping with wolves. Killing witches.
It could get to a girl.
And if I slept last night at all, it was scattered and light and full of nightmares about a woman with long red nails like claws. So the fact that I was dizzy and hot, swaying on my feet like I drank a heavy pour of whiskey before coming here, didn’t really strike me as that odd. I just thought I needed this meeting to wrap up so I could go back to Archer’s house and sleep for a week.
But then the dizzy, hot feeling morphed into something even stranger. A tickling at my senses, like static between my ears. I shook my head, trying to chase away the fuzzy feeling, but it only grew stronger. It grew and grew, until I couldn’t even hear Ridge speaking anymore. I watched his lips move, watched him forming words as he addressed the elders about the logistics of joining the packs, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing.
This wasn’t like my panic attacks. This wasn’t coming from inside me, from my own insecurities and anxiety. It was an attack from some outside force.
I wasn’t alone in my own head.
Someone else was there.
Then, with a sharp and painful jerk, imaginary claws sank into me and wrenched me from my body.
Now I’m… I don’t know where I am.
For a long moment, everything around my consciousness dips and swirls. I’m tumbling head over heels, arms and legs flailing even though I’m no longer in my body. Those sharp claws keep hold of me, tugging me through time and space into a dark, cavernous place.
The claws release me, and I land on my feet, stumbling several steps across slick rock. I catch my balance, my breaths coming hard and fast, and glance quickly at my surroundings.
I’m nowhere and everywhere,
