Page 2 of Pack Ruin
I’d loved Brand’s father, Samuel, when I met him before. I hoped he would at least listen to what we had to say before making any decisions.But Samuel was waiting in the Alpha’s Den, Brand’s childhood home, and all visiting shifters had to cleanse themselves in the water of the pack, take fur, and run on four feet to be welcomed by the Alpha.
“If I can’t shift, you should go on without me.”
Brand and Glen were both silent for a long moment, then burst into laughter. I scooped up a handful of water and threw it at them. Glen rose, shaking himself. “You’re getting closer, Flor. Don’t stress. Want to watch me shift again?” Without waiting for an answer, he began his own shift, his limbs growing more slender, his neck longer, hair unfurling all over his flesh.
His shift was quick and shockingly beautiful, as his blond curls seemed to ripple and lengthen, covering his entire body until he wore a gorgeous gray pelt. In less than a minute, he was completely transformed, but his playful nature was every bit thesame. He jumped through the shallow water, licking my face, then chasing after a brown trout that darted past.
“He makes it look easy,” I grumbled.
“It should be,” Brand said softly. “If you can’t shift, we can walk to the Den together in human form. I think Dad would use his Alpha command to help you shift, if you asked him.”
“But he’s not my Al—” I began, then stopped, blinking. “He is, though. I’m your mate, and he’s my Alpha.” I almost smiled. For once, I had an Alpha who might be worth the title.
Brand’s mouth twitched under his beard. “Try once more. Let me use our connection?” I nodded. “Ground yourself in our bond, reach for me, and I’ll help you envision the shift.”
My heart lighter, I agreed, taking his hands. I closed my eyes, picturing the bond between us—a glowing, golden cord that connected to my heart and pumped energy and love into my center. I took it in my hand, then noted a few hazy shimmers in the corner of my mind’s eye.
Next to Brand’s bond, there was a smudged place that felt like the opposite of Brand’s connection to me. It was siphoning energy away from my core, but the connection was tenuous. The steady, leaking stream of energy from my spirit to that one was obvious.
And obviously weakening my wolf. I let myself taste the flavor of the silver smudge, and my mouth filled with rot.
Decay, death. Blood clotting and meat going bad.
Panic had me struggling to find my wolf, to connect somehow. I smelled my own blood as my nail beds sliced open and my teeth emerged too fast.
“She’s doing it!” Glen shouted.
“No. Something’s wrong,” Brand growled.
Something was very wrong. I knew at once who was taking from me. It was like a string had been plucked, and was humming with the last few notes of a song that was ending.
Luke. Luke was dying.
My wolf howled inside.Not dying, she mourned silently.Not dying.
Dead.
2
Live
BRAND
My blood turned to ice, colder than the water around my feet, as my little mate—caught in the earliest stage of her shift—shuddered, foam collecting at her mouth and blood seeping from her eyes.
She stopped breathing, and I shouted, “No!”
Glen was beside me as I laid her on the bank inside the Mountain border, weakness filling my own limbs, my own soul, as she began to pull energy from me down our bond.
“Take it,” I whispered, though it felt like knives slicing away my soul. “Take all of me, but live, my love. Live.”
Glen had pressed his hand to the center of her scarred chest, and was doing compressions, chanting the same word I was sending down the bond. “Live. Live. Live.”
Her blood flowed, thanks to him. But she was growing colder, more still.
Forcing myself to adjust my position so that her head was in my lap, I closed my eyes, praying for insight. I breathed deeply, focusing on what had happened. Whatever it was, the attack hadnot come from the physical world. She was dying from a spiritual wound.
I knew more about those than most. I’d watched my father slipping away from the world when my mother died. I understood now how he’d felt then. If she wasn’t alive, he didn’t want to be. He’d admitted once that it had felt like his soul was bleeding to death. That he’d cauterized it, and stayed, but only for me.
