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I run to my bathroom and rip off Chase’s shirt. I start to throw my hair up in a clip as I turn and look at myself in the mirror. My jaw drops, and my long hair slips from my hands and falls in tangles behind my back. I step closer to my mirror, disbelieving, and place my own hand on top of a tattoo right between my breasts. I handprint, large as a man’s, so detailed that I can see the rings of his fingerprints.
My heart hammers in my chest. I haven't left my bed since that nightmare last night, tossing and turning until the sun came up and I drifted into a fitful sleep. There was no mark on my chest when I crawled into bed, but it’s here now. I look down, disbelieving, but it’s all too real. The hand is so much bigger than mine, permanently soaked into my skin like I’ve been marked by Raina herself. The mark of a traitor? I shudder in fear and put my bra on as fast as I can, hiding the handprint between my breasts, but just in case? Turtleneck it is.
I hurry to dress, throwing my hair up properly and throwing on a new puffer jacket before running down the stairs so fast I slip down the last two and collide with my brother. I start to apologize but my words die in my throat. He’s riddled with bite marks, his skin torn and shredded but healing already, and behind him Jeremy and Abraham carry Jax through the door. He’s unconscious, his body torn so badly he hardly looks like a man anymore.
Before I can ask anything, my mother is there with her hands on Jax. She’s in nothing but a cotton robe, her hair wet and the material hanging off a bare shoulder. She mutters in Latin, following step by step as the men carry Jax to the kitchen.
“What…” I whisper.
Cole takes my hands off his shoulders and clasps them between his own hands. “Someone, or something, killed a Dark Moon pup and left him in Raina’s sacred place,” Cole begins, and my hands fly to my mouth as I gasp in shock. The pup Chase was looking for? Oh my moon! He’s dead? My mind races and my eyes burn with unshed tears. “Chase and Ryder found him before we could, they think—” He takes a deep breath, his eyes locking on mine, “They think we did it, Ruby.”
“What? We would never! That’s insane!”
“Your favorite Dark Moon mutt did that to Jax, and they blame us for monstrous things?”
Tears fall freely from my eyes as my gaze is torn to the kitchen where Jax screams. I can see men holding him down as Mother tries to heal him, but her eyes find mine and she shakes her head. It’s bad, real bad. Chase promised me he would tear anyone apart who dared to touch me that day he fought the bear. He didn’t think I heard, but…
“You have to choose, Ruby,” Cole says, his voice low. “This fascination with the enemy or loyalty to your pack.” He turns away just as howls sound outside.
Wolves pour out of the tree line, Ryder and Chase leading the pack, and they stop on the edge of our driveway, snarling as their yellow gazes seem to bore straight at me. Ryder shifts, storming forward, an avenging knight. He’s covered with my brother’s blood, his long hair stuck to his soaking wet chest. He raises his hand and points at…me.
My whole world stops as everyone turns and looks at me. My blood runs cold, the walls seem to be closing on me. A tunnel forms in my vision, all I can see is blurred except a straight line to Ryder and the tip of his summoning finger. He’s claiming me for his pack, demanding my surrender. I swallow hard, stepping forward, the will of the Alpha pulling me like a magnet to his pack.
“No!” Cole screams, stepping in front of me.
Ryder tilts his head to the side, a powerful grin spreading over his face as more and more wolves fill the woods behind him. His smile is chilling, he has the upper hand, he has more wolves. His glittering grin says he won’t hesitate to come and take me if Cole doesn’t surrender. He’ll come for me, and tear everyone in his path to ribbons.
I feel the shift in my chest, my loyalties snapping like a broken rubber band. Ryder is my Alpha now, and every instinct in me is telling me to fight to get to my pack.
“She’s coming with us, Cole. She belongs with us now,” Ryder snarls, his voice so quiet in the storm, but somehow echoing in the minds of everyone as his order reverberates through my brain.
Chase steps around him baring his teeth ominously, as a man the image of his lips rolled back over his teeth is haunting.
“You can’t stand against us, Cole,” Ryder continues. “Do that and I will demolish you, and every member of your pack you’ve gathered here. Chase and Ruby have mated, and she belongs with him, or will you deny Raina herself?”
Lightning flashes furiously above the house, thunder echoing so loudly it shakes me to my bones. Ryder raises his arms to the storm as if to say, “Can’t you see I’m right? Raina’s storms demand you obey.”
Cole turns to me, gripping my shirt and shaking me hard. I hear Chase snarl and the sound of dozens of men and women shifting. I see it begin behind Cole, Chase launches himself at The Silver Dawn pack, his fury consuming my attention even as Cole shakes me.
“This isn’t true! Tell me he’s lying!” Cole screams at me, his voice breaking my focus on my man as he fights to get to me.
Mother runs up, her hands on Cole as she tries to get between us. Cole snarls, shifting right in my face, fury defining his every muscle. As he transforms, his claws grow and tear my shirt to ribbons.
I fall to the ground and scream and everything stops, time itself freezes. The fighting outside stills and Chase pushes his body through the fallen and injured wolves, walking up the stairs to step behind me. Every wolf, friend and foe alike, parts in his wake. A wolf’s mate was attacked, the Princess of Silver Dawn has had blood drawn in her own home. Chase pushes by Cole’s wolf form without even looking at him. His fury fills my body with warmth and love, but my mother’s face is the picture of horror as she holds my brother back and looks at me.
I look down and see the handprint on my chest is showing, and I gasp. There’s no time for questions, no time to talk to Mom. Chase slips his head between my legs and pulls me onto his back. I clutch fistfuls of his fur as he darts out the door with me riding him. My brother howls for me, but when I turn I see Mom holding him back, tears covering her own face. There's a look of…peace? She has a slight smile on her lips, and I feel a flow of happiness from her before she disappears behind the trees and the backs of the Dark Moon pack as they sweep me away from my home.
A female wolf runs beside us, her reddish fur illuminated with every flash of lighting, and she looks at me through gold eyes. Rachel. She seems to understand, seems to know now what made me act the way that I did, and she howls as she runs away to join her brother. Everyone howls with her, the entire pack as one, and my spirit is filled with the need to join them. I’ve only ever felt this calling with my own pack, but as my brother’s resounding howl echoes behind us I feel no connection to him.
My pack has changed, shifted irrevocably. I belong to Dark Moon now.
The race back to town is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, the power of so many wolves moving as one gives me chills. The night seems brighter than ever before, the storm enhancing the weight of this momentous change in our history. The backs of the pack around me glisten in the rain, shining like diamonds in the darkness, and I feel a kinship towards them like nothing I've ever felt before.
We run through town and the wolves disperse until it is just Chase and me running through the storm. He takes me to the cluster of trailers behind the bar and stops by where I took the shirt. I slip off his back and he shifts so fast it looks painful. We stand there in the rain for a moment looking at each other, both of us with handprints on our chest. I raise my hand to his and it’s a perfect match. When I look up he’s grinning wildly at me.
He looks amazing, so wet that his body reflects the light of the bar behind us. He’s rugged, bestial, wild.
He’s mine.
