Page 96 of Locke

“Why?” My mate hissed. “I haven’t seen her. I want to know where she is.”

“She’s indisposed,” Bones says. “She can’t be present, but I promise you she is alright.”

“Why?” My mate demanded.

I grabbed my mate’s chin. “She will be a distraction, and I need your full attention. This is serious, Emm.”

“Indeed, it is.” Tajah let out a long breath, “because we can’t perform this unless our luna is a full shifter and of the same strength as our alpha.”

My body stiffened, and my eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I meant what I said; to form a pack, we need an alpha and luna of the same strength to form the ties of a new pack. This means that Emm will need to force shift into a wolf of equal caliber. That’s why you didn’t see many new packs formed in Elysian. It was difficult to find lunas and alphas of the same strength. In fact, it was hardly heard of.”

I growled and stomped toward Tajah. “No, I won’t allow it. That is fucking painful, ask Journey. She almost fucking died when she forced a shift.”

And this time, Emm wouldn’t be force-shifting into a wolf—but a Lycan. The highest form.

Journey stepped forward, Grim beside her with his arm around her. “It’s true, she will have to shift.” Journey’s eyes glazed over bright blue until they faded back to their normal color and she gasped. “Goddess!” She covered her mouth.

“The Goddess must have shown her what you truly are,”My wolf spoke, deeply.Our secret will finally be set free.”

I forcefully ran my fingers through my disheveled hair, feeling the strands tangle and knot beneath my touch. With each step I took around the crackling fire, the ground trembled beneath my feet, echoing the fury that consumed me. My eyes, ablaze with an inferno of rage, reflected the torment that awaited her.

The impending shift would put her in an enormous amount of unimaginable pain. I dread the thought of witnessing her agony, of seeing her body contort and transform from human to wolf, and then to Lycan. It was an ordeal I had endured before as a pup, being an adult is a whole new experience they say.

But when I made the transition to Lycan, it felt like a death sentence. The excruciating torment was beyond anything I had ever known, a visceral torment that tested the limits of my endurance. I couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting my mate tosuch suffering, to watch her endure the same indescribable pain that had nearly broken me.

Emm has undergone enough emotional trauma of my past in just a few days, and now I’m asking her to go through physical pain as well?

I gazed over the mated and the unmated. I started this club for them, to give them hope. A part of me wanted to save those that were like me—rejected and alone. I’d give it all up for her, I’ve told her many times, but now that my mate has given me her heart, part of her soul—I still wanted to save them too.

Emm stared at me from across the fire. She showed no weakness, just determination in her eyes. She slowly walked around the fire, her gaze set on me.

“You don’t have to do this,”I linked her.“They can live with the pain just a while longer until you can shift into a wolf. We can get you used to that form and then—”

Her eyes fluttered when I first used our own personal link. And understanding how it worked quickly filtered through her mind.

“I don’t half-ass things,”she said back to me,“and I will not start now.”

“You have no idea how much fucking pain you are going to be in.”My wolf snarled when she came closer. The air was thick with tension, and everyone who had surrounded the fire backed away. “Like your body is glass and then rearranges itself—”

“Stop,”she whispered to me.“It’s sweet you are trying to save me from the pain, but I said we are in this together, didn’t I? My sister is a part of this, our friends, our family. We need to do this. What if Idris comes?”

She was right. We were vulnerable with the mated experiencing pain, but what about my mate?

Emm rubbed her hand up my cheek.“You’ve been through pain, I’m here to match it. We are supposed to be equals, right?”she chuckled.

I wrapped my hand around her throat and gave her a rough kiss. It was desperate, and it was painful, but I needed it. “I’ll be here. Through all of it.” I rasped into her lips.

“I know.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Emm

Isucked in a breath, making sure my bravado didn’t waver.

I knew I was in over my head, but I wasn’t a quitter.

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