Chapter 1 - Sean
Present
Curling and uncurling my fists as I cross the border into Silverfang territory, I can hardly take a breath of relief when I don’t feel like myself.
Not even as I head home into the pack territory where I rule as the alpha.
Something feels off, and it’s not just because my friends and I are facing the greatest danger we’ve ever dealt with.
It’s something else, and perhaps it’s because I find myself heading back home alone.
Emily isn’t here.
It’s a sentiment I’ve been mulling over mentally since I left for Wells this morning, throughout the meeting, and now, as I head home in the evening. Not having her with me today feels strange, like a part of me is missing.
“It’s because she’s an integral part of the squad,” I mutter under my breath as consolation, as if it’s the reminder I need to detach from how I feel personally.
I shouldn’t have any personal feelings, but my inner wolf doesn’t waste the chance to remind me that I do, in fact, have them.
“She’s an integral part of your life…” it purrs, much to my dismay. I curl my fists tighter, and by the time I’m out of the Smuggler’s Notch State Park, ambling toward the massive house on the south perimeter of Stowe, I’m losing my patience.
I can’t tell if it’s because my inner wolf won’t stop chiding me about Emily, or because I’m just irritated that she made some pathetic excuse about not being able to accompany me to today’s meeting.
A meeting with our friends—allies turned friends because of the close bonds we made during our time in black ops.
Does it mean nothing to her?
Do I mean—
“Alpha! There you are!” Dustin, the beta of Silverfang, comes jogging over, catching me off guard and forcing me to quickly slip on the face of the alpha.
It’s a face I wear so I can cover up the shattered pieces of myself that threaten to hang on my sleeve. Like armor, a charming smile forms across my lips, a dimple popping in both cheeks for extra measure.
That does it. It always does.
“Yo, Dusty!” I chirp, patting him on the shoulder when he stops in front of me. “I was just about to come look for you.”
“Don’t lie, Sean,” Dustin says, rolling his eyes. He’s the only one aware that this cheerfulness is an act. It’s his duty, after all, to track my behavior for the sake of smooth-running pack dynamics, like he’s my therapist or something.
I don’t like it.
“Don’t act smart with me, Beta,” I say bluntly, reminding him of his position.
This doesn’t seem to faze him since he’s used to my antics. “Are you gonna kick me off the squad, Sean?”
“Don’t tempt me, Dusty,” I snigger as I wrap my arm over his shoulders, and he folds his arms with an air of haughtiness.
“Yeah, right! You’d never be able to replace me!”
“Unfortunately, you’re right,” I sigh, letting the mask slip momentarily as I remind myself that Dustin is the only one who’ll ever know that I’m not as unbothered about things as I pretend to be. “The team knows about Merlin Grimes’s whereabouts. We suspect the previous war took place there.”
“You think his remains are left there?” Dustin speculates, and I shrug.
“We don’t know what to think. You know, we cross-referenced all the Golden Tree archives, and all we know is that the witch, Azura, sacrificed herself in a blast that consumed Grimes. But now he’s back.”
“In his body?”
“No idea. There shouldn’t be a body. He should have been obliterated. Evaporated.”
“He has faithful disciples, Sean. There must be something keeping him bound to this realm.”
“You’re right,” I lament, nodding thoughtfully as we turn toward my house. Beyond it, Mount Mansfield is illuminated by the full moon hanging prettily in the sky, calling out to me, tempting me.
But it’s not just the face of the moon I see in the sky.
There’s another face…
“Emily’s still in her office,” Dustin informs me, as if answering a question I didn’t ask.
Frowning, I turn to him slowly, cocking my head to one side.
“I didn’t ask for her whereabouts,” I say in a stern tone, but again, Dustin sees through me.
“You might as well have asked,” he sneers. “I’m sure you want to update her about the meeting, right? It’s the first one she hasn’t attended with you. She was as much a part of black ops as you. That’s what you always said.”
Pausing as I watch him through narrowed eyes, I’m not sure if my beta knows more than I’ve ever told him, or if he’s just being straightforward.
He is right, though. I should be going to see Emily to give her an update about the meeting, even if I’m irritated that she didn’t accompany me to Wells.
It’s the first time she’s made an excuse not to join me, but she’s been acting strange since our last battle against the dark lord’s minion—a witch named Morganna—who was using a friend of Donna’s to get to us by poisoning his mind.
Donna defeated her by wiping her out, but not without some strain. We all felt it—Nicholas’s taste of death, Donna’s determination to save her mate and her friends, Tobias’s sacrifice, and our collective frustration that the warlock is still out there, plotting his next move.
All that’s left is to find the fifth witch from the prophecy shared amongst our witches, which foretells that five witches will emerge from the Golden Tree Sisters' bloodline and together defeat Merlin Grimes once and for all.
In the meantime, have Emily’s feet gone cold? Is this how she distances herself from danger?
If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that Emily is no coward.
She’s stared danger in the face before, and I don’t doubt that she’d do it all again.
Apart from Delilah, Emily was the only other she-wolf to join our squad back then as the dedicated medic and healer for the team, but unlike Delilah, she had no prior combat training and still had no fear of the unknown.
So, what’s going on with her now?
“I’ll catch up with ya later, Dustin,” I tell the beta, patting him on the shoulder before walking off toward the pack clinic. He bids me goodbye and returns to his patrol duty, leaving me to my thoughts and my insistent inner wolf again.
Ignoring what it’s trying to whisper like the devil on my shoulder, I keep my focus on the shadowy silhouette of myself walking beside me toward the clinic, wondering if I’m still carrying the dark omen from the past.
Is that how Emily sees me? A big, bulky guy with a mop of unruly dark curls, a charming smile weaponized for manipulation—only in life-or-death situations—and a pair of ocean-blue eyes, which again, I only use to charm my way out of sticky situations.
Does that make me evil?
Or is what I did in the past just completely unforgivable?
It’s no reason for her not to be part of this fight against the dark lord when she’s fought so closely with us all this time.
If anything, it’s Emily’s behavior that’s out of the ordinary, shady, even, for her not to attend the meeting today—a crucial meeting that traced Merlin Grimes to Swan's Island. We’re on the brink of taking down the warlock, and Emily chooses today of all days to stay back.
The scent of cinnamon hits me like a breadcrumb trail leading to the other side of her office door, a gentle note of sweetness like roses, making me pause outside just as I’m about to reach for the handle.
I cock my head to the side like a curious cat, spotting her swirling a vial of murky liquid in front of her face.
Inside, powder glitters like gold dust, mixing with pink glowing leaves.
I become mesmerized by another scent—a fainter one—evident behind the spicy notes, and almost missable if not for my wolf’s heightened senses. It’s a scent that reminds me of home, a scent that’s always with me even when I’m not in Stowe.
Jasmine….
Emily brings the vial up to her lips, and something inside me snaps.
It’s not unusual for Emily Hudson, the resident healer of Silverfang, to mix herbal medicines to cure ailments among werewolves. It’s not even out of the ordinary for her to be testing the efficacy of her mixtures on herself.
Emily even went as far as developing a scent-masking serum that allows us to hide our wolf scents and successfully infiltrate areas and situations without being sniffed out. I’ve seen her with my own eyes throughout the years, measuring, mixing, and brewing herbs and spices to make medicine.
So why does tonight feel so different?
I burst into her office, eyes like accusatory daggers thrown her way as she looks up at me and gasps.
Something overtakes me—that shadowy figure I saw outside, or my inner wolf with its intrusive thoughts—and before she can let out her breath, I grab the vial of medicinal herbs and spices with one hand, grabbing her wrist with the other.
“Sean?!” she exclaims, her bold, sapphire-blue eyes locking with mine and freezing me on the spot.
Suddenly, I’m transported through a tunnel of brilliant blue light as if I’d just walked through a portal in Emily’s eyes.
I can’t say a word, can’t move my body, and I can’t even feel it, but at the end of this tunnel, I stop, only for the white light to turn into a canvas on which a memory is painted in my vision.
It’s Emily, kneeling beside my mother’s rocking chair, feeding her a spoonful of porridge while my mother is hooked to an IV drip.
I’m walking into the room, and that’s when Emily turns, her eyes lighting up with a sincere, radiant smile on her face.
A halo of luminescent gold encircles her head, her long, blonde hair flowing down mid-back like gentle waves on a Sunday morning.
My heart stops, and I’m enchanted, captivated by her fierce blue eyes, and swept off my feet as if her presence overpowers me. I pause in the doorway, only to take in the sight before me, beholding an angel before my eyes.
Angel…
The word echoes in my mind as I’m jolted back to reality by the electric pulses coursing through my arm where I’m holding her wrist. Those sapphire crystal eyes glare at me with livid force, but I feel my lips curling into a smile in response to her mere presence.