Charmed Wolf by Aimee Easterling (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

I had several. And I very much didn’t want to use them on this child who trusted me above everyone except his mother.

But I was Alpha. I would do what I had to.

I nodded and led Kale to my minivan.

RUNE WAITED TO PULL out until I was already on the road, after which I could feel his eyes boring into us all the way back to pack central. The times I glanced in the mirror, however, his mouth was moving and Natalie’s gaze was trained on him. She wasn’t being left in the dark.

Meanwhile, Kale fidgeted with his seat belt, pulling the shoulder strap out then letting it snap back into place time after time. The noise was maddening. The anxiety that fueled it was heart-wrenching. To fix both problems, I gave the kid something to do.

“Hey, will you pull out my phone and call Willa?”

Dealing with technology steadied the child. By the time my Beta answered, the scent of fear within the car had subsided by a full notch.

The bark of Willa’s voice, though, made him jump a little. “Alpha.”

Kale needed soothing but Willa demanded terseness. I pursed my lips then fell into our customary banter. “Assemble the pack by the gatehouse. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“The entire pack? Babies?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll need the code if you want me to bring Ash along.”

Ash—or the fae pretending to be Ash—would be dealt with later. I shook my head, then remembered that Willa couldn’t see me. “Leave Ash where he is, but I want everyone else waiting.”

Because the time for secrecy was over. Our greatest strength was pack, and I intended to tap into that asset.

And, yes, I understood that the bonds between us could be used by fae to infiltrate and suck out our power. But I had a plan to prevent such a parasitic attack.

Pulling Kale along in my wake, I unfurled that plan the moment the van stopped in front of my assembled pack mates. Rune and Natalie were thirty seconds behind us, but I didn’t wait for them as I stalked toward the crowd of chattering werewolves. “Clan Whelan is in immediate danger,” I started.

My voice wasn’t raised, but only the first syllable was lost amid the murmur of voices. After that, they realized their Alpha was speaking. Dozens of eyes struck me. None of the babies dared to shriek.

“Until further notice, everyone will have a buddy assigned and switched at random intervals,” I continued as the sound of a car door promised Rune, Natalie, and the baby had joined us. “If you notice strange behavior from your buddy, you will ping me immediately. There’s a chance fae could be impersonating any member of this pack.”

No one spoke, but a rustle of movement swayed through them. This was bad and the clan knew it. They needed reassurance. Unfortunately, I had no reassurance to give.

Rune did however. He didn’t speak aloud—doing so would have weakened my position. But his voice in my head was clear as he provided additional information. “Mate bonds aren’t accessible by the fae.”

Ah. That made our defense a little easier. “Mates,” I continued, “ping your partner at frequent intervals. Your connection is safe.”

Shoulders relaxed in front of me. The mood of the pack warmed considerably. With that one tool at our disposal, we could hold our ground.

Next, I rattled off names and duties, choosing patrollers for the borders more as a way of keeping the clan busy than because I thought a fae would be unable to slip past them. Finally: “Are there any questions?”

For a moment, the crowd was completely silent. Then someone in the back called, “The cut on your neck, Alpha....”

“I contacted the Guardian.” That was all they needed to know about it.

For a moment, I thought someone had picked up more information down the pack bond. Why else had heads cocked and shoulders stiffened?

Their reaction had nothing to do with my neck, I realized a millisecond later. Instead, they were listening to a rumbling I hadn’t noticed while focused on the shifters in front of me. The sound was low, more felt than heard. A grinding of stone against soil....

Pack mates turned in a wave of horror to see what I was already seeing. The mansion—our ancestral home built brick by brick by my grandfather—collapsed into a buckling mass of heaving earth.

Chapter 32

I had no time to speak, so I sent out a wordless plea to the only one I trusted implicitly. “Can you guard Natalie’s family?”

“Yes.”

Rune’s silent agreement had barely materialized before I was sprinting toward the cloud of dust rising from where our clan’s home used to be. Our clan’s home...and Ash, the only pack member who’d been left behind when Willa gathered others to hear my announcement.

It was too late to change the past, but I still stretched my legs to run faster. If Ash was in there...he’d be crushed. I knew that rationally, but emotionally I wasn’t ready to admit the obvious.

Instead, I sprinted until the hole yawned before me. Skidded to a halt at the edge, my foot nudging a pebble to slide down into nothing. Then I waited, straining to hear above my own breathing.

There was no sound to prove a bottom had been hit.

Until, finally, sound came. Not the tinkle of a pebble, but stone grating against stone as the earth trembled beneath me. A huge slab of rock slid sideways, closing off the hole from the sky above it. I was in its path....

I stumbled backwards, arms pinwheeling even as I sent out mental tendrils to nearby pack mates. Too many had followed me far too quickly for their safety. “Back!” I commanded down the tethers that bound us together. I could feel the immobility of shock in several, so I cracked the tethers like a whip to slap them into motion. Ash was gone, but I wasn’t losing any other members of my pack to this disaster....

Wasn’t losing anybody except, potentially, myself. Because helping pack