Fighting for equilibrium, I open my eyes and stand up on rocking feet. Roughly ten feet away,mi reinaand her father stand in the center of a violent cyclone with another cylinder of fire surrounding the bastard. Everything from broken furniture to the wooden slats that once made up the walls swirl around them in a barrier that will be difficult to breach. Her hair and dress billow out, caught on the fingers of the harsh wind as she stands with a singular focus—the torture and destruction of her father.
“You can’t do this!” the bastard screams, clutching the stone that hangs from his neck. “I’m protected from your magic.”
Callie’s laugh is dark and filled with malice. “It may protect you directly, but it doesn’t protect the floor beneath you, the air around you, or the clothing covering your skin.”
The stone in his hand pulses with blue light, and the fire parts as a blast of air shoots toward her. Whatever his intent, it backfires miserably as Callie holds out her hand and the ash-filled air swirls into a ball hovering above her palm.
Her face is a mask of cold detachment tinged with madness. “I thought you were smarter.” She holds her hand out from her lips and blows the swirling ball back, feeding the flames surrounding the bastard. “My magic would never harm me.” A sinister smile twists her lips. “But it hates you.”
He shrieks with pain as the scent of roasting meat and burnt fabric carries on the wind. Every time he tries to fight back with magic, it only feeds the fire more. When he tries to run through it, he slams into an invisible wall that traps him within the flames.
Seeingmi reniain all her glory is always an impressive sight, even more so now with the amount of control she’s wielding, as the storm and destruction seem to be localized to this cabin. However, I fear the darkness may consume her. Sinking into the mate bond, I reach for her to offer a lifeline through the darkness, a promise of love and safety. Instead, I find an abyss that is too deep to traverse. Terror ricochets throughout my body as I keep reaching deeper and deeper, instinct driving me to save my mate, but she’s lost to me—lost to the final battle with her past.
“Callie, my love, please come back,” Nolan begs from the direction that was once the doorway. “Felix needs you.”
Adrenaline spikes through my veins as I see Nolan clutching Felix’s limp body, his hand wrapped around Felix’sneck in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Shifting back into my human form, I scramble over to them, wincing as I’m pelted with pebble-sized hail that’s blasting through the missing walls of the cabin.
Nolan looks at me with panic-filled eyes. “I’ve tried to use my saliva to close the wounds, but he just keeps bleeding.” His gaze shifts to Callie, and tears drip down his face. “She can’t hear me. He’s dying, and I don’t know what to do.”
Felix’s breaths are shallow, blood gurgling through Nolan’s fingers with every rise and fall of his chest, and more blood continues to trickle from his other wounds.
“Make him a thrall?” I suggest, desperate for any solution that will keep Felix with us.
With a sad shake of his head, Nolan gazes down at our friend who is bleeding out in his arms. “Even if I knew how, I don’t think it would help. Being a thrall doesn’t offer this kind of healing.”
Felix grows limp in Nolan’s arms, his eyes losing focus as he starts to lose consciousness.No, I can’t lose him again!
Placing a hand on his head, I lean down so he can hear me. “I promise you won’t die.” I swallow heavily as the weight of what I’m about to do settles over me. “But for a little while, you may wish you could.”
Alarm crosses Nolan’s sharp features. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Turning him,” I answer, the corners of my lips pulling into a grim frown.
He shoves my shoulder with one hand while attempting to pull Felix away with the other. “Are you out of your mind? Youknow what it’s like for turned wolf shifters, how they are treated, and his life would never be fully his ever again.”
“You want him to die?” I roar, needing him to understand, needing him to agree that this is the only option we have.
“Of course not!” he hisses, glaring at me for daring to insinuate such a thing when he’s literally covered in Felix’s blood. “That’s why we need Callie. She can save him.”
Another round of raspy screams sounds behind me, followed by Callie shouting, “Every fucking birthday, you found new ways to torture me! How doyoulike fire? How doyoulike being burnt alive?”
“Already tried reaching for her through the bond,” I explain, angry that we’re wasting precious seconds that might be Felix’s last. “Until she gets her justice, she is lost to us.”
Nolan begins to shake while his eyes frantically search around him, as if the barely standing cabin will somehow hold a better answer. “I don’t want him to die, but… but Callie could bring him back… like she did before.”
“We were lucky last time,” I growl, and then I grunt as a particularly large piece of hail slams against my cheek. “No promise he’ll come back a second time. No promise we’ll find another body if she can’t heal this one. No promise she’ll even do it again.” I grab Nolan by the lapels of his jacket and pull him closer. “We need to make a choice now! Turn him or risk he’ll die forever.”
Nolan places his hand on Felix’s chest, seemingly to feel for his weak heartbeat. “You promise to protect him from all the wolf shifter bullshit? You promise to stay his alpha?”
“I promise.” Not waiting for any further argument, I half shift, looking more like the werewolves humans made up in movies.
Calling on my power as an alpha, and with my wolf, myself, and my power in perfect alignment, we take ownership of Felix’s life. We claim him as pack, forever marked as one of our own. Using a single claw, I slice the underside of my forearm and press the wound to Felix’s lips. As the blood trickles across his mouth, I sink my teeth into his bare shoulder, pouring the magic that will forever change him into his body.
The transition starts quickly. Felix’s injuries immediately heal as his body starts the brutal process of becoming a wolf shifter.
Relief takes over Nolan’s face as he witnesses the fresh pink skin replace the once mortal wounds, but the feeling is short lived when Felix begins shrieking in agony.
“He needs space,” I explain while picking Felix up from Nolan’s lap to place him on the ground between us, my words slurred around my massive wolf teeth. I make a general motion with my clawed hand to our surroundings. “Protect him with our bodies.”
