AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I get you anything?” I offered. She looked at me as if she were surprised but shook her head no.
“I’m fine. I’ll be staying the night with him at the very least,” she said. Her tone held an edge to it as if she were daring anyone to challenge her but no one would. “But I did find this.”
She extended her hand and uncurled her fingers, exposing the small paper sitting in her palm.
“Where?” Nyx asked. He’d walked back in at the commotion. He was on high alert now. “He was in wolf form. Not exactly pockets or anything.”
She gave Nyx an annoyed look before looking at Callum to answer like he’d been the one to ask. “It was in his mouth. His jaw unclenched as whatever herbs you gave him set it.”
Callum took the paper and unraveled it. He stared down at the words for a moment before nodding.
“Thank you, Nora. I’ll have food, drinks, and a cot brought in,” he promised. She blinked her eyes against new tears and nodded.
“Thanks, Alpha,” was all she got out before she hurried back into the room. Once the door was closed behind her she finally let her sob escape. My heart ached for the pain she was feeling, my own knowing it a bit too well, but there was nothing any of us could do for her. Except taking revenge on the one who hurt him.
“What does it say?” Leven asked when her cries quieted. Callum held it out for us to read, the three words were far creepier when coming straight from the wolf who was torturing us mentally at this point.
‘Don’t forget me.’
“It seems Vanya was right,” Callum said. His voice was calm… a bit too calm. That meant he was already using his anger productively, likely finding ways to prevent this from happening again. We already felt like caged animals, more restrictions wouldn’t help. “Training. That’s our first step.”
“I can agree with that,” Leven said. “I’ll have the security guys who aren’t on duty out there helping me teach techniques. We’ll stick to evasive maneuvers since even our strongest shifters are no match for this volatile magic.”
“Agreed,” Callum said. His shoulders relaxed now that we were putting some of his previous plans into place. “And I want meals together and everyone moving into a few select houses. Ours can be for security and us. Then the Rivera twins can share theirs with whoever claims rooms. I want as few houses as possible to be in use and the pavilion, that’s it.”
“That won’t stop him from entering,” Nyx said bitterly.
“No,” Callum agreed with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t do things to make his job harder. If he comes, it’s a whole lot harder to be stealthy with ten wolves in a house, half of which will be up all night.”
“That’s a fair point,” Leven said. “Night shift and day shift.”
“Emma, Ava, Waylen, Brent, and I can do what we can in the kitchens. But for two sleep schedules we’d have to have around five meals a day. That’s a lot,” I reminded him.
“Then we do one full meal for each and the rest prepare like we usually do with premade food,” he said. This was sounding more and more militaristic and I was ready to scream.
“No.”
Callum, Leven, and Nyx all looked up at me like they were surprised I’d said anything. They should know me better than that by now.
“I can get behind some training. We can all use tips and practice to up our games, especially those of us who weren’t raised to be the pack warrior or security. But to have everyone forced on a food schedule is nuts. Emma doesn’t need to be working around the clock and you’re not sticking me in the kitchen to stay ‘safe’ while you work yourself to death. Fuck that. You wanted a Luna? Well here I fucking am. Everyone in our pack is capable of feeding themselves. I’m okay with one meal a day together, make it breakfast so it can overlap with both shifts, but not like that. This isn’t the military and we can’t just indefinitely live like that. They need freedom.”
“Fine,” Callum said. He didn’t sound happy about it but for some reason didn’t oppose me. I narrowed my eyes at him, waiting for him to finish whatever he was holding back. “We give it a week to implement training, but if there are more attacks, all bets are off.”
“Deal,” I said, satisfied now.
Leven let out a low whistle. “Damn, did she just change our alpha’s mind?”
“That’s called compromising,” Callum said with an annoyed glance at Leven. “Try it sometime.”
“No thanks,” Leven snorted. “Now, I have some training routines to get settled and I believe you two have some food and a cot to get for our pack member in there.”
“Make it two cots. I’ll be in and out far too much,” Nyx said absently. He was thumbing through what looked like a handwritten manual.
“Stay with him,” Callum mouthed to me. I didn’t hesitate to agree. Nyx was worrying me too. From the way he glared at the pages, he was taking this one to heart. I couldn’t blame him but he couldn’t feel guilty for what that asshole did to Lance.
When everyone cleared out, I reached out and took Nyx’s hand. He curled his fingers around mine but didn’t even glance away from the book. Instead, he shifted it on his lap. I read over his shoulder for a second and realized he was looking for poison cleansing salves. Yeah, he was ready to drive himself mad on this one.
“Hey,” I said softly. He glanced up for a second and nodded when I met him with a pointed look.
