Page 1 of Pack Rage
Chapter 1
Anguish and Allies
FLOR
There were some kinds of pain you could avoid, and others you could ignore. But the kind of pain I carried in me now, since Grigor’s tenuous connection to me had snapped, was the sort I’d only felt once before, when I’d found out Del had been murdered.
The kind that would never fade.
“No, wildflower,” Brand said quietly. “You also felt this way when Luke was suffering.”
“When he was dying, you mean,” I gasped, as I hunted around on the cave floor for some clothing. The shorts and shirt that came to hand first was stuff I’d been given by Iris. She was an unranked Southern badass who’d helped all the other women escape from the compound, only to lead them all right back in, to fight the Eastern Enforcers with mops, brooms, steak knives, and sticks.
Fucking crazy women, all of them. I’d fallen in love with every wild-eyed, revenge-obsessed one of them, even before they’d executed Holly in the bathroom of my old dorm. Fucking Holly deserved it.
But remembering her brought it all back, and when I glanced down at the shirt, I noticed blood. Then, when I took a breath, I smelled a hint of the gasoline the Enforcers had used to try and burn me and Glen.
Shitfire, I’d come damned close to being burned alive. I shivered and dropped those clothes like I’d grabbed a handful of copperheads. I had brought a bag from Mountain…There!I found the small pack that held my sword, a few books, and a change of clothing that smelled like Mountain.
Like home. Well, Brand’s home, anyway, and the only place I’d ever felt safe. Where I’d felt loved.
My fingers trembled on the button of my jeans shorts as I thought of the others I was in love with… or at least halfway there, even against my better judgment. Luke had been stolen away, taken back to Eastern. Finnick was trapped there already. And Grigor…
I swallowed a sob, then cursed, giving up on the button.Brand’s massive hands were there almost instantly, taking over. Taking care of me. My Mountain mate was always doing that, even if it meant sacrificing everyone else. Giving up on gathering power, leaving his pack in the middle of his Alpha ascension rituals…
Two fingers traced a path from my temple, down one cheek, then tucked under my chin, lifting my face to his. I always felt small standing beside my Bearman, my five-foot-one next to his seven-foot-plus height probably making us look like the oddest couple.
The truth was that our real mismatch was on the inside. Brand was everything good, strong, powerful, and kind in our world. I was a mess. A scrappy fighter, sure, and I knew right from wrong. But I’d been raised at Southern and, to paraphrase the saying, you could take the wolf girl out of Southern, but you could never get the stink off.
I was just glad Brand didn’t seem to notice how far beneath him I was. I sure as hell wasn’t gonna be the one to clue him in.
An odd surge of emotion hummed in the bond that connected us, and I pressed one hand to the place on my shoulder where Brand’s mating claim lay. “You are the best of us all, little one. And Luke didn’t die. You can’t lose hope.”
I forced a grin. “Can’t lose something you never had.” I had a hate-hate relationship with hoping. It had never gotten me in anything but trouble.
Brand’s words interrupted me. “Well, I have hope enough for both of us. Right now, we don’t know”—he hesitated, and I peeked up to see his jaw working under his dark beard, his nose wrinkling like he’d smelled a skunk—“that Grigor is dead. You can’t feel him in the… nonconsensual bond he made with you. That doesn’t mean he’s dead.”
“I can’t feel him in the fully consensual bond we have together either, Dream Girl, but I’m almost certain he’s not dead,” Glen said softly from the fire he’d been banking in the center of the cavern floor. We’d made love all night, ever since Brand arrived, then slept. At some point, Glen had woken up and cooked us a meal. It had felt for a few hours like we’d slipped into another world. A private hideaway, where we could take a moment to grieve our losses, take a well-deserved nap, and make love. At Mountain, new couples got two months alone to do nothing but fuck.
But all three of us had known it was time to get back to the compound, and make a plan.
Within the next two days, Brand had to report to the Council headquarters, the Eastern pack’s Mansion outside New York City. He was required to vow his allegiance to the Council, and then he would be permitted to take part in the Council vote on whether Glen’s father, Bradley Hillier, would be allowed toreclaim his seat as the Council Head, or if that position would be permanently filled by another.
Namely, Finnick’s father, Aidan McDonnell.
To make things more worrying, Glen’s parents were also facing trumped-up charges that they’d unjustly killed their own Enforcers—even though they’d only done so when the unranked women of Northern bravely shared that those Enforcers had been systematically harassing, even brutalizing, the women for years.
I crossed the floor to Glen’s side and ran my fingers through his shaggy blond hair. He had a new scar on his collarbone from a machete that had almost taken his head, and had taken a chunk of his curls. Trying not to think of how close I’d come to losing him, I pressed a kiss to his head before he stood and returned the gesture. “You really think Grigor’s alive. Why?”
“Well, the way I see it, you may have an incomplete mate bond withJoaquin.” He stressed the name, which made me smile. For some reason, Glen couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Grigor Dimitrivich, the legendary serial killer and magical boogeyman of all wolf shifters, was the same guy who he’d bonded with only a few days before. “I have a deeper bond, at least right now. His soul… it’s numb. But it’s not dead. It can’t be.” His gaze rose to Brand’s face, Glen’s blue eyes flashing white for an instant, reminding me of Brand’s moonblessed ones. “Because if Joaquin had died, I’d be dead, too.”
Brand let out a soft curse. “He bound you?—”
“Our souls, yeah,” Glen said, rubbing the back of his neck almost sheepishly. “Um, when we were… making love to Flor, just now. Didn’t you feel it?”
Brand’s cheeks flushed as he pulled his clothing on as well, or tried to. He’d shifted into wolf form when he found me that morning, and had torn his clothing to shreds.
Speaking of which…“Brand, when you shifted. Your wolf form was, ah, different.”
