Pack Ruin (The Splintered Bond #3)

40. One Dark Thread

40

One Dark Thread

FLOR

S ergeant’s pack and the unranked females moved into the Pack House that night. I spent it in the cave with Glen, curled up in front of the small fire on a rug made of deerskins. Someone had washed him off and put clean clothes on him, before I arrived. He still smelled a little like gasoline, but I didn’t care.

We were safe, it was quiet, and when he woke up just before dawn, we were able to hold each other and cry without anyone seeing.

Well, anyone besides Bo and Leroy. Bo had greeted me at the cave the night before by falling at my feet and thanking me so profusely for saving Delia that I was embarrassed. I had to threaten to kick him to get him to stop trying to kiss my feet.

He’d said I could kick him to the moon if I wanted to, but he was never gonna stop looking for ways to show his gratitude. “I’ll even make you some more piles of guts, Miss Florida,” he’d vowed, his eyes wide. “I’d do anythin’ for you.” Leroy had finally pulled Bo away, and I’d ordered them to guard the cave from the outside, so I could sleep.

I had nightmares for all four hours I lay next to Glen, visions of Brand dropping from the sky, and Luke being pinned to a table and cut apart by witches. Finnick making love to dozens of women, one after the other, each one more beautiful than the last. And Grigor, dead and crumbling into silvery ash.

I woke to soft fingers in my hair, and blinked my eyes open to see a pair of ocean-blue ones smiling down at me. “Hey, Dream Girl,” Glen rasped. “We’re alive.”

I scrambled to sit, and poured some water from the pitcher the boys had filled. “Just barely,” I muttered, handing him the cup.

“How?” He beckoned me to him. As soon as I was close enough, he pulled my face to his and kissed me sweetly, gently, as if I were the most precious treasure in the world.

After a moment, he sat up as well, running a hand over his torso. The bullet holes were all healed, but the flesh was pink where each one had gone in, and where he’d taken wounds from blades and claws.

“How, princess?”

“Sergeant says it’s a witch thing,” I whispered, not sure what Bo and Leroy might think. “That the way those kinds of bonds work is different. Wolves have solid connections, but the other ones…”

“The moonblessed side,” he supplied.

“Sure.” I shrugged. “That’s how Brand was able to send all that healing through the bonds. Normal shifters can’t do that, right?” I checked in on my bonds. Grigor was still absent, Finnick felt the same, and Luke was… Huh. Luke felt contorted, like the bond was twisting around. It didn’t hurt, but it was peculiar. But Brand?—

I gasped as I felt him close. Really close.

Glen didn’t notice that my attention had drifted. “...never heard of it anyway. Mates can share a little. Alphas and their mates, of course, share and increase power. But not healing, not from thousands of miles aw?—”

The voice that interrupted him was deep and rich, and filled with emotion. “I’m not thousands of miles away.”

Brand stood at the entrance to the cave, dressed in nothing but a pair of ruined, torn trousers. In one hand, he held Leroy off the ground by the collar of his shirt. Under his other arm, he had tucked Bo tightly against his side. Both of the boys looked like they’d been knocked out.

“Bearman!” I shouted and ran across the cave floor. “Put those idiots down and kiss me.”

Instantly, he dropped the boys, who I didn’t think were hurt, mostly just stunned. They’d obviously been playing possum, too, since they both scrambled to their feet instantly.

Leroy whispered, “Ghost eyes,” gaping at Brand for no more than a second before he and Bo started backing out of the cave.

Those odd, white eyes met mine as I jumped up into his arms. “I missed you,” I mumbled before I couldn’t speak any more.His kisses were wild, desperate, hungry. They felt savage, almost, and when I explored his mouth with my tongue, his teeth were definitely sharper than human.

Since he was supporting my entire weight, I held onto his face, then ran my hands lower as the kiss lengthened. His beard was oddly furry, and so were his shoulders and arms. Even his chest was furrier than normal. What was up?

I pulled back to catch my breath. “Did you just shift or something?”

He made a sound that was half despair and half delight as he wrapped his arms even more tightly around me—definitely furry arms—and buried his face in my neck, inhaling deeply.“I did,” he growled, his voice breaking. “I needed you… Flor! You were hurt.” He held me away now, off the ground, inspecting me for injuries.

“It was my back.” I wriggled to be put down. “I got shot, and then there was a huge battle, and my back was broken again, and if you hadn’t been sending all that mojo— uh-oh .”

I guess telling him all of that wasn’t exactly smart. Brand started growling and dropped to all fours, his nose elongating into a snout.

“Ah, they’re all dead, if that helps?” I finished, ignoring Glen’s soft laughter behind me.

“Never again,” Brand said, or at least that’s what I thought he said. By the end of the last word, he’d transformed completely into the familiar, dark chocolate-brown shape of his wolf.

Though I was almost certain he hadn’t been this big the last time I’d seen him.

“Holy cow,” I breathed, as Brand circled me, scent-marking me with his fur everywhere he could. Which was pretty much from my chin down, since he was almost as tall as me.

“No, holy wolf.” Glen eased up next to me, Brand’s wolf growling slightly as Glen embraced me from behind. “Brother, I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for healing her, and all of us.” He led me by the hand back to the furs, where the three of us sank down, wrapped around each other.

“I need to tell you what happened. Can you shift back?” I whispered.

Brand whined slightly.

Can you understand me? I thought. I took the lick he gave my chin as a yes, and told him—and Glen—everything that had happened in the night.

By the end of the story, Glen looked almost as enraged as Brand’s wolf.“If they weren’t all dead, I’d go now and kill them.”

“They’re not. I think Torran got away. And Finnick’s parents have Luke,” I reminded them. “They have Finnick, and Luke… and Grigor. We have to rescue them.”

Brand’s growl reappeared, and his face was suddenly in front of mine, his pearly eyes glowing. “Don’t you start,” I said, bopping him on the nose. He looked at his own nose cross-eyed, like he couldn’t believe I’d done that. “Grigor isn’t all bad.”

“He’s ninety-nine and a half percent bad, Flor,” Glen said, before he got up and began rummaging around in the crates for food. He came back with jerky, handing some to me and Brand, then taking a piece for himself. Neither one of them would eat until I’d taken a bite. I rolled my eyes and started chewing. Brand ate his piece in one big bite, and I would’ve put money on him imagining it was Grigor’s face or something.

“Okay, he’s not a good guy. But he’s not pure evil. He’s had a hard life.”

“A hard, immortal life, killing thousands upon thousands of shifters?—”

“He gave that up,” I argued. “And we all make mistakes.” They both stared at me like I’d lost my very last marble. “Whatever. The point is, we need to get the guys out of there.” I wiped my eyes, annoyed at the tears. This wasn’t the time to cry. This was the time to kick ass. “They’re gonna torture them, maybe even kill them. We have to go now. He was just healing, not even back to full strength, and then was shot?—”

Before I could finish, Brand had transformed and pulled me into his human arms. “We’ll rescue him, I promise. But we need to plan. Finn isn’t in danger. I don’t think they have any idea he’s mated to you. He wouldn’t have told them, and his mate mark is on his tongue, remember?”

I nodded.

He hummed. “I don’t think they’ll hurt Luke either. Or at least, they won’t kill him. They’ve called an emergency Council meeting in three days to vote on Aidan’s position as Head, as well as sentencing for Margarette and Bradley, for killing their own Enforcers without cause.”

Glen and I both cursed a blue streak at that. Glen started to pace as he thought aloud. “They won’t kill Luke as long as they think they can force him to vote their way. Since Northern is implicated in the sentencing, they’ll be recused from the vote. All they need is one of the other main packs—Southern, since they must know you won’t vote their way, Brand—to ally with them, and they’ll have the majority.”

“Don’t underestimate Aidan McDonnell,” Brand growled. “He’s called me to Eastern as well, no later than the day before the emergency meeting, to submit to the Council’s leadership, as my father did. As all of the other recognized Alphas have.” He sighed heavily. “They know you’re my mate. They suspect you’re also Glen’s. If they know that you’re tied to Luke, or Finn, I might be forced to…”

“No,” I gasped.

His jaw hardened. “If I must pledge to the Council in order to keep you alive, or keep them alive, I might.”

“You won’t. You can’t ,” I said softly. “You’re going to follow the old ways.”

Brand’s eyes flared, then dimmed. “That is my plan.”

I didn’t like the way he’d said that, like there was some question as to what he would do. I turned his face toward me and mock-glared at him. “Brand Becker, one of the things I love most about you is how much you are like your pack’s name. Your integrity, your character, is as solid as a mountain. Following the old ways, following the moon, is the only way we’ll get all this shit sorted out. It’s how you were able to take on being Alpha without killing your dad, and how Glen and Luke and I are still alive. You channeled all that energy to me, and through me, right? You were able to do that because of this.”

I moved higher on his lap and kissed his eyelids softly, then stared into them. “We’re going to get Luke and Finnick free,” I whispered, silently tacking on Grigor’s name, though I knew Brand could hear my thoughts. I ignored his silent snarl. “I mean it. If I have to chop every Eastern head off myself, I’m getting them back. Then we’re going to the fucking lake. All of us.”

“The fucking lake?” Glen murmured in my ear. “Are we renaming it? Wait. That’s your safe word, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Brand’s lips twitched. “Little flower, are you saying lake?”

“No, I’m pretty sure she said fucking. What a great idea.” I laughed as Glen picked me up from behind and spun me around. “Fucking first, then saving all our brother mates, then the lake?”

“I like your priorities,” Brand agreed, before he stole me back, laid me down on the deerskins, and showed me—one kiss, one touch, and one whispered word at a time—just where his priorities lay.

My world was still a trash fire. My other mates were in danger. But for the next few hours, these two stood between the uncertain future and me, blocking out every worry about tomorrow. Replacing the fear with desire, and stoking the flames of our passion until they roared brighter than the darkness that threatened us all.

And somewhere in those hours, I felt four connections blaze to life, the energy of our joining supplying them with strength… and one dark thread snap.