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When I hit the post button later that evening, it didn't give me any relief. Instead, I felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest.
My hands were shaking, and I found myself breathing through the incoming panic. Why was I so freaked out? I shouldn’t have been. I’d been writing articles—some even controversial—foryears, so even though this was a very personal story to tell, it shouldn’t have made me feel like this.
I closed my eyes, dragging my mate's pillow over my face for a moment to center myself. The sick feeling started to dissipate, so I sat up to glance back at the article I’d written.
It was done. I refused to take it back when the first little eye appeared in the corner, letting me know that someone had seen it.
The number two pinged beside it shortly after, then three, then four. I watched the first installment slowly garner the attention I knew it would for a few minutes before shutting the laptop again.
It was done.
Sariel didn’t seem to notice my small crisis when he flopped into bed with me a little later, making himself comfortable on his side of it without a word. He was another thing that was in need of my attention, no matter how hard the two of us tried to be where we’d been pre-Barimuz.
He was still hurting, and I still hadn’t worked out how to make it up to him. The black pit that I’d noticed when our bond was weaker had grown larger, somehow, weighing on him a little differently, yet still full of rage and pain. While I knew it wasn’talldirected at me, all those dark and gloomy thoughts that had been in him before had festered under Lucifer's care; I could sometimes feel them like slime on my skin when he wasn’t careful.
Sweet dreams, pup.
His voice filtering through our bond settled me somewhat. I leaned over to press a kiss to his bare shoulder.
Sariel was always going to be a little damaged, but I knew that. It didn’t make him any less to me—it just made me worry about him.
Warmth surrounded me in response.
Sweet dreams, Sariel.
6
THE FALLEN-BLOODS
SARIEL
Auren made the decision to publicize our attempts to heal the fallen-blood wolves shortly after we got backing from Elias.
It wasn’t exactly a shock or anything since common sense told us we would need more people to poke and prod at, but I had definitely thought he would wait a bit for the heat to die down—or, at the very least, have a discussion about the best way to go about it. Waiting was his forte, and it seemed almost impulsive for him to announce everything the way he had.
I trusted him, though. He’d been right so far, dragging us along for the ride and handing over credit like we’d earned it.
Iwassurprised by the sheer number of fallen wolves who took us up on the offer to join when Auren put out the word. Our compound wasn’t even a secret anymore; he’d just dropped the address and invited them in like it was no big deal, like we hadn’t been trying to stay off everyone’s radar for weeks.
“The Upper Council knows where we are,” he’d said when I’d grumbled about it. “The Free Kingdom probably does, too. There’s no reason to hide anymore.”
It made sense, but I was still wary. Trusting the outside world had gotten us into loads of shit so far, and I wasn’t keen on repeating any of it.
Pack Bastille had responded to the call first. Aria had pointed out to me that, of course, they would, since the promise of curing their madness was what had started their alliance with Azazel in the first place. Most of the ones who showed up were young—our age and their kids, I’d guessed—and all of them just looked scared. A few had haunted looks on their faces that I recognized, gazes darting around as Zuzanna waved her hands over their heads.
The ones who failed whatever witchy test she was performing were stopped at the gate and turned away, but none of the ones making it inside seemed to care. Occasionally, it would garner a wife or mother arguing on behalf of their husband or son, but Zuzanna was an expert at diffusion. In the end, the confrontations never escalated.
“It’s literally magic,” Marilyn explained, like she could hear my thoughts, sidling up to me with a slight smirk. “She specializes in the mind rather than any of the elements.”
“That seems like a more useful specialty than fire,” I quipped.
She shoulder-bumped me, giving me a playful glare before heading on toward Johnny while he spoke with some of our newcomers. “Definitely not.”
Officially, we were the welcoming committee, greeting all the new people as they were brought through and putting on a good show. Aria and Johnny were excelling per usual, beaming smiles at everyone they came into contact with.
Unofficially, we were all standing guard.
“More people came than I expected. We already have other packs asking to join up, too,” Auren murmured, arms folded across his chest as we watched.
