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“There. I warded the meeting hall. It won’t be able to find us now.”
“No! Undo it. Unmake it right now!” Rafe says.
“What? Why?”
Drago looks to the ceiling, seeming to see beyond it and into the very stars. “The scourge is attracted to power. To magic and greed. You just turned us into a flashing red light.”
Rook’s eyes go wide, but he absorbs the ward with a single flick of his wrist. “I didn’t know. I—”
It starts like tree branches clacking together in a winter wind. The hollow thwacking is almost comforting, reminding me of so many winters in this beautiful place.
But the dull woody sounds build slowly until they aren’t peaceful at all but more like hundreds of trees whipping about in a storm.
The whole room looks around, trying to find the source of the noise.
Everyone except the witches, still intently focused on making me nauseous and getting their magic.
It’s only when gales of wind whip around the hall that we collectively look in the right direction.
The ceiling.
Being peeled back, log by log, by the Wendigo.
Rafe lunges for me, but Jonah and Rook stop him. “You can’t interfere, man. It’ll kill you. And if you die, Willa dies, then the witches don’t get their ancestral knowledge,” Jonah says.
Anger explodes in my head. Rafe’s anger turns everything crimson, and I want to howl and shift and tear to shreds anything that keeps me from him.
But it’s more than that. More than anger and possessiveness.
It’s frustration. It’s powerlessness. It’s the fear of losing me because he wasn’t able to protect me.
It’s an Alpha’s worst nightmare.
I have to pull out of his head. It’s too much. His emotions are too big, too wild.
And I thought I was the squishy, overly emotional one.
Instead, I sink deep into Jonah.
His calm sigma energy bathes me in a metaphysical nest, and from there, from that state of quiet assuredness, I reach out to my first mate.
My first love.
You have to let them finish, Rafe. We can’t let the scourge get their ancestral power.
His eyes flash with rage that I now understand is actually pain.
But Rafe stops fighting Jonah and Rook.
Just as the scourge rips the entire roof off our meeting house.
The wolves scatter, hiding under the tables and chairs piled by the windows, while my pack plus Eden, Sunny, and Lily stand defensively around the witch circle.
Drago stands directly in the Wendigo’s sight line as it descends and fills the meeting hall with the stench of rot and death.
“The Champion.” Its voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, chilling me through and through and making me want to retch even more than the stupid witch magic.
Lily stays right at Emilia’s back, whispering to her.
