Page 104 of Pack Rage
Every night, we’d filled the Eastern ring with music and laughter, replacing some of the terrible memories with good ones. Watching the square dancers swing past each other, one after another, and then stopping all of a sudden as a mate bond formed, did something to heal everyone who watched. Even Margarette, whose eyes I still couldn’t meet without wanting to burst into tears.
“I have to go,” she said one night, after two more females had found their other halves. This time, one had been a mature shifter from Northern who hadn’t ever left her packlands.Her mate had been part of Cilian’s pack, just over the border. Something about the two middle-aged shifters meeting like that had sent Margarette into a tailspin.
“Where are you heading?” I asked after I’d finished hugging her and gotten myself under control. Glen stood at my shoulder, listening. Her eyes lingered on us, then moved to the shifter from her pack, who was smiling so brightly, the nearly full moon couldn’t compete.
“Western,” she answered, shifting her backpack over one shoulder. Her hair was long stubble, and she wore a knitted cap Ida had sent her for the cold. “I was wrong about so much, for so long. I have to assume everything I learned about your mother’s pack was just as wrong. I’m going to look for what’s left, or who.”
“All you have to do is call,” I told her. “We’ll come, if you need us.”
“I need you to stay, to build this new pack on the ashes of the old.” Her voice broke, and she gave Glen a fierce hug, whispering something in his ear for a moment, sobbed at his reply, then turned and jogged into the forest.
“What did she say?” I asked that night.
“She told me I’d made the right decision, to give up being Alpha. That the only thing worth fighting for in this world is love.” He kissed my head. “I told her I’d learned that from her.”
That full moon, Glen transferred the power of Alpha to his brother, and no one died, though Patrick’s face when he got a call the next day from Northern, made me think someone had. “Kristin left,” was all he said, before he shifted into his wolf form like a total idiot, and ran straight to Canada.
Sergeant had made a deal with all the Alphas, that any rogues they found be duct taped and shipped to my old pack’sfront gate, for him to rehabilitate. When he heard some might already be on the way, he left, too, taking the Tenebris boys and their mates back to Meridion—nobody called it Southern anymore—to rebuild.
We would follow soon enough. With Verona’s help, Sergeant and Luke had patched together a ceremony of sorts to perform under anewmoon, weirdly enough, that they thought would work to combine the remains of my old pack and the Tenebris ones. As long as the old Southern pack members wanted to belong to Meridion, and were willing to give up their ties to Luke, Sergeant said, it would be a bloodless transition.
“By the time you get there to consolidate the packs, I’ll have them straightened out,” he promised. “By hook or by crook.” I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t sound entirely bloodless.
“Good,” Brand agreed, scowling at Sergeant’s slightly bloodthirsty grin. “We can’t lose any more.”
“I can’t lose my only great-uncle either,” I warned him as we said our goodbyes. Bo and Leroy were waiting in the van, grinning like idiots, glad to be going back to the hellhole. I grinned back. “Say hello to Iris and Delia and the girls for me. Tell ‘em I’ll see them soon.” I wasn’t about to let Luke and Sergeant do some experimental ceremony without me there.
“You’re coming back, too? You promise, Miss Flor?” Leroy asked, eyes wide.
I laughed. The one place I’d never wanted to go back to kept pulling me in. I guess even if it was a shithole, it was my shithole. “Yeah, I promise. I gotta check on my flower arrangements, don’t I?”
Sergeant grumbled the whole way home about those arrangements, according to Bo, who texted later.
And the month after that, I had my very first real date.
Chapter 49
First Date Forgiveness
FINNICK
Ipeered across the darkened private box at my mate, taking in her profile as she listened to “Vissi d’Arte,” my favorite aria in the world. I’d wondered if she would enjoy the opera—she’d seemed slightly hesitant when she found out where we were going.
“First for dinner at Skyline, then Tosca,” I’d told her when I brought her gown to her room that afternoon. The others had all made themselves scarce, but her friend Vanya and one other maid were there to help her dress and do her hair. “Just the two of us.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. The others had promised not to join us in the box, but I knew they’d all followed us into the city.
“Opera is fancy,” Flor had admitted in the limousine on the way to dinner. “I’m not sure I’ll know how to act.”
I’d loved her even more for the honest admission, but I’d assured her we’d be in my pack’s private box, and there was no need for acting. “People like to think opera is sophisticated. But it’s the purest, rawest form of emotion I ever encountered growing up. Talented opera singers can take pain and turn itinto the most beautiful music. I think you’ll like it.” I hoped she would.
She will,Grigor had assured me. He’d insisted on staying close, though out of sight.
He’d been giving Flor and me lessons in wielding magic, and didn’t want to leave us without a magical chaperone. He’d shared before the date that he had confidence in us, but we’d been working on setting and extinguishing small fires.
“When you’re first learning control, mistakes can be frightening. And with the levels of power you both have, there’s the chance you could burn down the city without meaning to. My own mother didn’t let me leave her side for three months after I learned the spell for fire. Good thing, too.” He hadn’t shared more, but I’d accepted his shadowy presence for the evening without needing to know.
Flor had been grateful. After the battle—or perhaps after she’d mated Grigor—the magic she’d inherited had become obvious, giving her a… presence. She was still slight and short, and wore an ear tag, but there was no mistaking her for anything but shifter royalty. Every shifter could feel her power, and they unconsciously dropped their gazes and even bowed when she ran past, not that she noticed.
