Page 158 of Wrath

Mate.

As I continued to envision Z, more and more of my rage left me, trickling out of me steadily like water through a strainer. I grabbed a hold of coherence with both hands and pulled with all my might. I couldn’t lose myself to the anger again. Z needed me.

My brothers needed me.

Z.

My brothers.

Z.

My brothers.

I lowered my head to the ground as tremors worked their way through me.

You can do this, Lupe! Youhaveto do this!

I thought of Z, and my brothers, and my love for them… And steadily, the last of my anger left me. I felt like I could finally breathe again, could finally suck in air through the iron vise enclosing my throat.

In the distance, I swore I saw a figure watching the scene unfold, and my brain mentally supplied me a name.

Lilith.

I didn’t know how I knew it was her, only that I did. I wondered if she wanted me to know she was watching, assessing, judging.

Before I could make a noise or alert the others to her presence, the figure vanished, and I pondered if I imagined her to begin with.

But something had definitely changed within me. I felt…whole, for the first time in my life. The weights of my anger and rage had dissolved into nothing but dust.

Had I just…completed Lilith’s trial?

By letting go of the remnants of my anger?

I whimpered and dropped to the ground, my body changing and distorting. My limbs shrank, and my fur receded. Onesecond, I was a two-hundred-pound, pissed-off bear, and the next, I was me again.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Ryland breathed.

My shadow brother stood directly in front of me, relief painted across his face.

“Ryland?” I blinked up at him, struggling to orient myself to my surroundings.

I waited for the familiar tendrils of rage to coil around my heart, tightening and constricting, but they never came. I was free.

“Hey, buddy.” Ryland extended a hand for me to take, which I did. “Glad to have you back.”

I released him and scratched at the inside of my wrist, trying to ignore the fact I was completely naked. “I don’t know what happened. I was so…angry. I didn’t even recognize myself. Or you, for that matter. But then you mentioned Z and…”

“You came back to yourself.” Ryland’s eyes shone with pride—pride for me. “Here.”

He tossed me a pair of pants, which I slipped on gratefully.

“Not only that, but he completed Lilith’s trial,” a soft voice announced.

Ryland and I both turned to see Atta zipping up Mali’s coat, her cheeks flushed and twigs in her hair.

All of the shifters had reverted to their human forms. They stood, naked and confused, covered in blood and dirt. They blinked at each other, as if unable to comprehend that less than a few minutes ago, they’d been at each other’s throats.

“We follow the rightful king,” Jolene—the old healer—said reverently, bowing her head.

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