Of Savage and Sin (Wolves of Ossary #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

–Naya–

JUST WHEN I thought my day couldn’t get any better when I married Bain or more fearful because he was doomed to die at the end of our Fated Mate Cycle, the day lobbed another whammy at me. I don’t say that lightly either because the moment Callum and Ceara permitted me to leave their castle, thanks to the lusty little male pup that knew shit was going down, I was living in yet another nightmare.

Not the I Lost My Parents At Sea one, or the I Got Bitten By A Werewolf doozy, but one far worse when I headed into pure hell. It wasn’t the hell of rushing into a battle, either. That I understood. That I could handle.

Seeing Bain lying dead beside Niall on the forest floor? Fuck, no.

Yet there he was, gone to me, and I felt it bone-deep. Soul-drenchingly deep. Like my heart had been ripped out and cut into a million pieces deep. As if every bad moment in my life and every awful nightmare was child’s play compared to it. I had known it was coming and tried to prepare myself but failed miserably because no one could truly prep for this kind of hurt, whether you had a few days or years.

If you had your whole damn life.

I might be new to this love thing, but it was powerful, crippling even, because I nearly fell to my knees at the weight of losing it. The heavy, cloying, sinking sensation of your whole world crumbling in grief and sadness.

Yet with it came anger, too. Boatloads of it.

Unwavering, unfiltered, crazy destructive rage that didn’t just bubble up slowly but roared to the surface because I wanted every last person affiliated with Niall or Tadc dead. Oddly, however, as I unsheathed the Viking dagger at my waist and roared into the mayhem, eager to cut down the bad guys, my blade turned into a sword suited to my size, and time slowed.

Literally.

Or so it seemed because warriors crashing together mid-battle faded into a slow, uneven blur, and the area around Bain’s prone body sharpened. I swore I saw two wolf pups cuddled close to him when it did. A blink later, they were gone, but not the sensation that warmed my womb.

Nor the certainty that I was pregnant.

Pregnant when it was impossible.

Just like that, my entire world morphed, and everything I thought I knew about myself changed. I had felt a growing attachment to my new pack up to this point, but now it was a thousandfold as the pups took root.

They, my pack and fated mate, became absolutely everything.

Every last bit of selfishness my human half might have possessed vanished, and my ability to love crested to a new high. I felt reborn and alive in a whole new way. It was as if every moment I had lived up to this point was meant to put me where I was right now.

And I wouldn’t waste it because I had more to defend than ever. Bain might seem dead, but I would not have seen the pups by his side—ghosts of what would come—if there still wasn’t a chance to save him.

So when more of Tadc’s warriors poured into the battle, I saw red. Not cool blue, serenity green, or warm orange, but red, hot, flaming red, and I raced to Bain, stood over him, and protected him with everything in me. Or should I say our sons helped me protect him because I felt them right there with me, doing the best they could as warriors came at us, roaring in fury, but we cut down every last one of them. Cut them down with a fierce ruthlessness until we stood in a sea of broken, bloodied bodies and knew we had won.

In fact, I knew it so strongly as I dropped to my knees beside Bain and cradled his head in my lap, praying he would make it, that I didn’t doubt he would return to me. Us. He had to because we’d come so far, past the curses and stormy oceans of our past to the freeing sky-high sunlight streaming down on us now.

And we did. He did.

It was a fight. I felt it all around me even though the swords had stopped swinging because he needed to fight on his end too, but thankfully, as I roared at him across the dark waters of my mind and pulled him to our mental shore, we came together at last and saved each other.

Now, here we were, with him alive, sitting in a medieval Irish woodland, ready to face yet another battle because Tadc had betrayed Niall and sent one of his men to the future to be his frontman for a unification of packs across the centuries.

“I’ll handle this,”

I assured Tréan and Kaia, ready to take down Bran because I knew he had been Niall’s weakest link. A scrawny swine who had long wanted to fill Niall’s shoes. One that had taken the bait when Tadc dangled it in front of him. It was bait, too, because he was nothing more than a useful tool.

“You both will handle this,”

Tréan agreed when Bain made it clear he was going with me. My alpha’s gaze lingered on me as he weighed just how dangerous this would be for us and the pups I carried. The future of the Wolves of Ossary. “I should deny you both because you carry precious pack members with you, but Kaia assures me you are the best one to handle this, Naya. That you, above all, can bring more into our ranks and cease any further development for Tadc in the future.”

“I can,”

I vowed, looking at my cousin, thankful for her confidence in me because I knew how much my pups already meant to the pack. “I won’t let you or our pack down.”

“We know,”

Kaia said, speaking for them both when she nodded at me, clearly not doubting my abilities. “Go, then. Check on Storm and make Niall’s pack ours. We’ll see you soon.”

I nodded at her and Tréan and painlessly shifted into my wolf without a thought now. Then, I met Bain’s wolf eyes when he shifted too, feeling our bond and offspring even more profoundly in this form as our gazes connected.

“Are you really ready for this, mate?”

I asked. “It means you’ll need to adjust to my era.”

“I will adjust in any way you need me to, mo chara is gaire,”

he assured me, clearly by my side no matter where we were or what we faced. He meant it, too, as our gazes lingered on each other.

He would stand by my side no matter the era.

So we raced into the forest and straight at a large oak tree only to emerge from the old oak in front of the Colonial. Bain looked at me after we shifted back, reiterating what he had said along with the strength I needed to see in his eyes. “I will always adjust in any way you need.”

“We’re glad to hear that,”

Adlin said, standing at the front door with Storm as if they had been expecting us. Once again, he wore long white wizard robes, and his pale blue eyes were serious when he looked from me to Bain. “Because, as you know, your battle isn’t over just yet.”

“We know,”

Bain assured.

“Storm,”

I acknowledged in greeting, grateful to find her safe with Adlin. Even though I’d been told the Scottish wizard protected her, I felt such overwhelming relief at seeing her that I embraced her tightly. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

I was relieved to find her well for obvious reasons, but it felt like more as I held onto her, and she embraced me just as tightly. It felt like she knew how big all of this would be long before me and Kaia. I called her on it, too, when we separated.

“You knew all this was coming, didn’t you?”

I said, noting her relatively calm demeanor as she stood there with her thick, auburn-tinted hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. Her large, luminous, thickly lashed, emerald eyes were almost as calm and accepting as Callum’s had been when talking about her before his wolf roared to the surface and ordered me to help Bain.

“I knew enough.”

Storm congratulated us on our marriage and pregnancy, offering Bain a warm smile and hello, not daunted by his medieval appearance, but why should she be? She’d already met Tréan and had been spending plenty of time with Adlin, who came from who knows what century in Scotland these days, so she was a seasoned time traveler without having stepped foot outside of the twenty-first century.

Bain surprised me when he dropped to a knee in front of Storm, lowered his head, and stood again, offering her a warm smile as he greeted and said goodbye to her because we had to keep moving. “Until we meet again, and you come home to your pack.”

She would, too, wouldn’t she? For the first time since we were children, I saw more than a shy kid turned standoffish woman when I looked at her. I couldn’t lock down what that more was, other than she might not be as batty and different from me as I had thought.

She was, however, still destined for someone she could never have.

“You need to get to Boston,”

Storm said to us, the look in her eyes not worried but steadfast and strong. The look of a leader in her own right. “You need to deal with them...for all of us.”

I didn’t need to ask what she meant. Like Kaia, she wanted me to wipe out what Niall had built. Then, she wanted me to rebuild and own it. Transform it. Make it better so it helped us rather than worked against us.

“And Uncle Conner?” I asked.

“There waiting with Gráinne.”

A small smile curled Storm’s mouth. “Ready for you and Bain to bring back order.”

Again, no need to ask what she meant because I felt it ripple through my inner wolf right back to Uncle Conner. He had been on a roller coaster ride, not with Niall’s werewolf faction of the Irish Boston Mafia but trying to keep Gráinne off the grid because she was ready to clean house and kill them all where he meant to take over and keep them alive.

“We’ve got this.”

I gave Bain a look, letting him know his world was about to change yet again. “Right?”

“Ta,”

he said without hesitation, and I liked that because somehow, along the way to becoming a medieval Irish wolf’s fated mate and queen, I had learned the nifty trick of chanting another into what suited them. And hell, if I didn’t excel at it from the get-go, too, when I chanted Bain into such a hot look, I about fell to my knees in front of him and reminded him just how spectacular our life would be together.

“Wow,”

Storm mouthed, and I didn’t blame her.

Bain looked beyond delicious in the latest, most expensive black dress pants, highlighting his long muscular legs just right and a black shirt buttoned down just enough to offer a glimpse of his muscular chest. Add to that how his broad shoulders strained against the material trying to contain him, and any hot-blooded woman would drool over him.

While at first, he might have eyed his new attire with a furrowed brow, his discomfort and grumblings were swept away within the hour as we bid Adlin and Storm goodbye and screamed up Route Ninety-Three toward Boston in my luxury sports car.

Instead, as he took in this new advanced world, no longer caught in dreams and nightmares, and his eyes widened at the city's bright lights in the distance with more awe than he’d already displayed while riding in my car, I realized we were more aligned than I could have ever imagined. In sync across the centuries. Maybe because he had been part of me for so long, or maybe not. Maybe Bain was just a pioneer in his own right, finally getting a glimpse of all that lay ahead.

Yet, rightfully so, he was all business too.

“Where is he?”

he said, his voice dangerously soft. “Where is the man Tadc sent? Where is Bran?”

“Heading toward my place,”

I replied, my voice just as dangerously soft as I sensed everything going on via Uncle Conner. “My uncle’s lured him there.”

“Right.”

Bain’s gaze turned hard in a way that seriously worked for me had the outline of his cock not already been doing it all the way from New Hampshire. A far longer commute than I ever realized.

“So I am to handle this a certain way, then?”

Bain went on, his hand resting on the gun I’d ensured was holstered at his waist.

“No.”

I tightened my jaw, so ready for this it hurt, and rested my hand on the Viking blade at my waist. “I’ll be handling this.”

I winked at him. “You're just my backup.”

I thought he might fight me, but he didn’t. Instead, he was the best backup a girl could have asked for. In fact, he was so good, too good, that things didn’t go as I had anticipated, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Not at all.