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1
RAIKA
The last quartermoon shone bright in the cloudless night sky amid a heavy blanket of bright stars.
A beautiful night to say goodbye.
Wearing white slacks and a button-up shirt, Shane faced the large pyre erected in the center of the renovated main square. His new betas, Dom and Vallin, stood proudly by his side. Minsi and Tyren were a few yards to his right, Killian and Lavinia were to his left, and the rest of the pack surrounded them.
This time though, I was among them. Nestled between Rue and Roman and far from Serge and his friends, but I was here. With the rest of the pack for the first time in my life.
Shane picked up the torch from the floor. He extended it to the side, in Lavinia’s direction. A second later, fire caught on the torch’s top end.
I heard a few gasps go around the crowd. After the experience we had, most people here were wary of witches. Because of that, Shane always reminded everyone that Lavinia was now a vampire—with witch powers.
It had been seven days since the attack, five since the full moon was gone and Shane left the prison. I'd had lots of interaction with Lavinia since then. It was easy to talk to her and be around her because she looked and acted like a vampire most of the time. But then she did something like light a torch on fire with her magic and my gut clenched. I knew she wasn’t like the Nightmist witches. Hell, she told me she had had a bad encounter with them last year, which was when she and Killian found Shane and helped him get away from them, but it was still hard to accept a witch was among us now.
The last time we allowed witches in our midst, things had gone terribly wrong.
I pushed past my prejudiced fears. Not all witches were the same, just like not all wolves were. I couldn’t judge an entire species on the mistake of one group.
Shane held the torch high. “Tonight, we honor those who have fallen before. Their deaths won’t be in vain.” He lowered the torch. “Be with the moon.”
He touched the torch to the pyre and the flames spread fast, becoming a huge white fire—the effect from a magical powder Lavinia added to the pyre.
“It eases spiritual pain,” she had said.
We were all in need of that.
The pyre also had firewood the kids had collected yesterday with Rue and Vianna, and a bunch of other wolves and vampires—no one went anywhere without backup now. They went back to the library with the firewood and spent the day painting the names of the fallen and decorating them.
Shane lowered his head and we all followed his lead, giving our dead one full minute of silence and respect. I remembered my mother. She had been my best friend and died trying to protect me. I missed her dearly. I also forced myself to remember the others who had fallen in the first battle a year ago, and in the second a few days ago. Despite their hatred of me, I truly wished for them to find peace in death.
In silence, we watched as the pyre burned, embers flickering to the night sky.
I couldn’t help but look at the handsome alpha standing behind the pyre. The flames gave his golden skin a deeper tone, and created shadows around the sharp angles of his face, making them look even sharper. The new alpha was too handsome for his own good.
Across the pyre and the crowd, his warm brown eyes met mine.
My breath caught.
In the five days he had been out of the prison, we'd barely had time alone. As alpha, everyone wanted to talk to him, ask him what to do next, and get his suggestions. To help him carry the weight of leadership, Dom and Vallin, one of the older wolves who had been good friends with his father, became his betas, and he had restored the council, which now consisted of only three wolves instead of ten. He wanted to appoint more wolves to the seats, but with only fitfy-ish wolves in the pack and one-fifth of those being kids, it wasn’t like there were many choices. He appointed Killian as a temporary honorary council member because we needed the help.
Unfortunately, Serge was on the council and his first demand was to have me banished from the pack. His second was to send all the vampires away.
“We don’t need trash in our midst, or vampires to help out,” he said. “We are Nightshade wolves. We are strong. We don’t need anyone else.”
I hadn’t been there, since I wasn’t on the council, but Killian told me Shane almost lost it. But Shane replied that I was staying, with an elevated rank, and the vampires were welcome and would stay. An argument started about Shane not listening to his council, and that he was too young and skewed by vampires and witches to lead us well, and that he was a forsaken Shadow Wolf who could turn against his people at any time.
Things weren’t looking well in the Nightshade pack.
Besides all of that, Shane was a little disappointed with me. I had moved out of his house right when he moved in. He had argued with me, saying I could stay there with him and his siblings, that he wanted me there with them. He even used the Minsi-needs-you-here card.
The bastard. That had swayed me, but not enough. The three of them needed time alone, as a family, to reconnect and start over. Me being there would only make things awkward, messy.
We hadn’t been truly alone since the day he told me about his curse when he was still in the cells underneath the town hall. I had been to his office a few times to deliver reports or get assignments, but people were always there. I had also dropped by their house when Minsi got anxious, but again, we had been with Minsi and sometimes with Tyren.
And that was another argument we had: our relationship.
