Chapter 1 #2
My head shakes, jaw stiff. “I’ve done nothing to you.”
She smirks. “I never said you were a nuisance to me. Credit where it’s due, your mother’s bleeding-heart crusade and this pitiful sanctuary have made things mildly inconvenient for us, but we’ve adapted.
Thalassa rescued a few strays, her allies razed a handful of our sites, and yet, our operation stands.
Pressure only sharpens a blade, after all.
But no, you’re not my gnat. Someone far less tolerant than me seems to have grown tired of your buzzing and that is why we have been sent here.
” She hums, finding pure satisfaction in this hellscape. “We’re simply…pest control.”
The Nightingale program my mother built, the one I’ve fought to keep breathing, was never meant as a way to make friends with the ones who’d see it burned to ash.
The sanctuary carved beneath this old manor was created to get omegas out.
Out of cages. Out of forced bonds and oppressive packs.
Out of the hands of the vile people who believe softness is something that can be owned.
I’ve never been na?ve enough to think this mission came without consequences.
I’ve seen the fury in an alpha’s eyes when they had shown up at our borders having tracked what they thought belonged to them here.
I’ve seen what an omega’s desperation looks like up close.
Ripped skin, broken nails, bodies flung through windows just to get away.
Some of them didn’t care if they lived, as long as they got out.
I’ve cleaned the blood off more trembling bodies than I care to count, I’ve promised safety to more lost souls than I ever should have had to.
I know what we do here threatens the wrong kind of people—creates enemies—but I never thought one of them would launch an attack on me and my people like this.
Up until eight months ago, I wasn’t even the one carrying this place.
That was my mother. And after what I’ve learned about her recently, I’m not stupid enough to believe I ever knew the whole of her.
She kept secrets like they were sacred and was capable of things I didn’t think possible.
For all I know, someone she crossed in her shaded past finally decided they’d had enough.
But that’s not what the witch said.
This isn’t about the program. Or my mother’s dealings. The witch made that clear. This was about me. Something I did, something I touched, was enough to leave blood and a body at my feet.
In my adrenaline-soaked mind, I scramble for purpose.
For an idea of who could have orchestrated this.
And in the end, there’s only one person I can think of who might wish this level of hurt upon me, but the idea that she’d go through all this trouble when she’s already won—won him—feels as far-fetched as the possibility she somehow has connections to witches.
I find my voice. It’s hoarse, but I manage to push the words out. “If you’re here for me like you say you are, why did you kill her? Lowri?” There’s no way around it, her name is nothing more than a croak. “What could she have done to you or your…people, to warrant her execution?”
Execution. It’s the right word to use, but it still tastes like ash on my tongue.
The witch shrugs her sharp shoulders. “She was in the way,” she says, like it was a simple answer I should have seen myself.
“Patrolling too close to where I peeled away your Priestess’s protective spell.
She tried to interfere—brave, but pointless.
Even an Alpha like her can’t stand against a compeller.
My sister Evara’s gift is words. A real silver tongue, that one.
A single whisper, and most minds fold. Most. Of course, you’d be immune.
The perk of being crossborn, I suppose.” Crossborn.
An archaic term. Mostly forgotten and only spoken by the ones who still cling to the idea that the coven of witches who mated with wolves generations ago committed some sacred crime.
Creating a taint on the sanctity of both bloodlines.
The rest of the world calls us what we are.
Charmers. But to the purists, we’re crossborn.
“The Alpha female didn’t even have time to warn her pack before she was under our control.
She led us right to your quaint little home and the sweet, innocent lives you left unattended here.
” Her straight nose wrinkles as she scans me.
“Though, from the waves of rot currently coming off of you, I don’t get the impression you would have been much help to them. ”
She’s right. The rejected mate syndrome festering beneath my skin has left me weak, but the adrenaline and fury coursing through my system has me feeling stronger than I have since it took root in my mating bond’s absence.
Weak or strong, I would do anything in my power to protect the ones I love, something the witch seems to be overlooking.
I’ve been fighting the urge to look again since she stepped out of the dark nesting room, but the moment she mentions my people, I can’t stop myself.
My gaze darts around the space that once felt hallowed.
Now it feels wrong, stained, not just by Lowri’s spilled blood, but by what it signifies.
Someone got in. Got past every line of defense we’ve ever put our trust in.
That’s never happened. Not once since this place was formed.
I do another sweep of the shadows, hoping for a morsel of something.
Movement, breath, a familiar silhouette.
But there’s no sign of Seren, Edie, Siggy, or Rhosyn.
The witch observes my frantic searching with amusement glittering in her too light eyes.
Somewhere in the shadowed dwelling, a door creaks open and my heart skips a beat at the first indication of life.
“Enough foreplay, Malvina,” a frigid voice reprimands from the darkness. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
I turn my head in time to watch the door swing the rest of the way open.
Everything in me recoils. That’s Siggy’s nest. Her refuge.
Her first real safe space since her courageous escape from the sex trafficking ring.
A room she has only just started believing belongs to her.
The chalkboard next to the door still has her name on it, written in Edie’s bright, goofy cursive.
It’s still perfect, still whole. But everything inside that room has been desecrated.
Touched by poison. Another fragment of peace torn apart by these witches.
Two figures step from the darkness first, and my muscles seize. They look just like the witch holding Ivey.
Triplets.
They have to be, with their matching near-translucent skin and the same inky dark hair, though each styled differently to set them apart.
One of the new arrivals wears hers in a long, twisted braid down her back.
Her expression utterly devoid of emotion.
There’s no light in her pale eyes. No flicker of thought.
They’re nothing but vacant marbles. Polished and empty.
The other has a tousled pixie cut that should give her a sense of whimsy.
Instead, it makes her look feral. She moves with a giddy bounce in her step, her grin so wide and bright it verges on manic.
Where the witch holding Ivey—Malvina—is calm and collected, unsettling in her control, this one practically vibrates with barely contained chaos.
She immediately puts me more on edge than the other two.
And then I see them.
My girls.