Chapter 1: Orion
The hours since she was taken feel stretched into years.
I never thought I’d get a mate like Mona. I always assumed we’d eventually settle down with some powerful alpha or beta. She’d have pleasing features and a great scent, maybe come from another clan and have influence, notoriety. Someone dominant who commanded respect, yet remained soft and family-oriented. She’d fit into our lifestyle with ease, and nothing would be difficult or complicated.
What we got was Mona. A wrecking ball of epic proportions, she crashed into our lives and imploded our simple life. She’s beautiful chaos, funny, easy to annoy, a menace to our Lune, and I fell for her instantly—and I realized, quite quickly, that I don’t want someone who fits neatly into a box.
I wanther. I want my mate.
But she’s gone.
She wanted to come with us to fight the witches—shebegged. We said no, and she stayed behind. And now we’ve lost her, and I have to live with that decision.
There’s a well dug inside me, and it’s only growing deeper. My mind is shaky, my hands are sweating. I can’t think straight.
“Joey doesn’t remember anything. The kid’s terrified.” The last anyone saw of my mate was when Cynthia, Kellen, and Mona found Joey, injured and spelled, in the woods near our home. Mona, being Mona, rushed to help him. Cynthia took the boy and ran to the hospital, while Kellen and Mona returned to the cabin to call for backup. That’s what was supposed to happen, anyway.
Grayson flexes his bloody fingers. It’s his own dried blood, though I know he wishes it was someone else’s. The wall took a beating. Mona wouldn’t approve.
Thoughts of her threaten to drown me again. I swallow and ask, “He okay? Healed?”
Gray nods, voice layered with the same exhaustion I feel in my bones. “He’s fine. Doc cleared the magic from his system, his shifter healing took over. I think he’s more traumatized than anything. Heather is beside herself.”
“Kellen?” I ask.
Gray shakes his head. “He doesn’t remember anything. Was hit with a powerful knockout spell. Came to pretty quick, but by then, they’d already dragged Mona off. Andrea…” He flexes his fist again, but I reach over and rest my palm over his. He flinches but doesn’t pull away. “This whole fucking time she wanted Mona gone. She betrayed us. Our clan, our pack, our omega.”
Grayson gets up and slams his fist into the wall again, not that it does him any good. His alpha’s control is teetering, and I’m the only one aside from Kendrick that can stand to be in the same room with him without wanting to fall to my knees and choke on his rage.
After we got back from Deidre’s compound, we interviewed anyone who might have seen Mona before she was taken, or knew anything at all. Hilde told us about a confrontation between Andrea and Mona, where she explicitly told Mona she wanted her gone.
“I’m going to fucking kill her,” Grayson says, pacing. “I’m going to make her bleed, and talk, and after we get Mona back, I’m going to fucking kill her.”
Normally, I’m the one talking him off the ledge. “We have to find her first. She’s our only lead.”
Kendrick walks into the kitchen, stiff but deceptively calm.
“Lily?” I ask, and he shakes his head.
“She’s still unconscious. Doc says, physically, she’ll be fine. She’d been starved for so long though, and whatever magic they put her through, it could be weeks before she’s able to get up and move around.”
Physically, she should be fine. Mentally? Emotionally? I can’t imagine what Lily went through. What Silas went through…
We scented Silas at Deidre’s compound, we saw that fucking basement. And now we’re all compartmentalizing, focusing on what we can control.
“Andrea was one of my top enforcers. It never occurred to me that one of our own would turn on us. We won’t make that mistake again,” Grayson snarls.
“Don’t punish the rest of your wolves for the mistake of one,” Kendrick warns and takes a seat, looking old and weary for a man who could pass for thirty-five.
“Mistake?” I fume.
“Don’t go down this path. Don’t start losing trust in your people. That’s when they lose trust in you. For now, we focus onfindingAndrea.”
We followed the scent of Andrea and Mona out past the cliffside. They had UTVs and drove through the mountains toevade capture. There were no other scents, the witches erased all traces of themselves.
Grayson’s phone vibrates in his pocket. Typically, shifters are too sensitive to have notifications turned on, but with Mona missing—he digs it out. “Yeah.”
I hear Eli’s words on the other line perfectly. And I move before he does. My clothes are half off and I’m shifted before I even reach the porch steps. My wolf bounds down the dirt road, around the bend. I hear Grayson’s feet pad behind me.
