Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
The alarm came early in the morning, before the sun had a chance to rise—a massive clanging bell, loud enough to wake the dead.
The sound ripped through the darkness of my sleeping mind (Lash’s lovemaking sessions had left me too exhausted for dreams, it seemed) and sent me shooting up in bed. In the shadows, I reached out across the mattress for Lash, but he was already up and pulling on his still sopping wet clothes.
“There’s an attack,” he said as I blinked, trying to shake the sleep out of my head and get my bearings.
“Nelissa?” I asked.
“It has to be.”
Who else? Even though there were a handful of other packs scattered along the coastal region, the chances of any of them daring to launch an unprovoked assault were almost nonexistent.
Just then, our bedroom door flung open. I pulled the bedsheets up over my bare chest, clinging to them tightly. Calindra strode into the room with her son Kyre at her side.
“Nelissa is attacking the gate,” Calindra told Lash. “She’s assembled all her forces at the front of the village. They’re focusing all their attention on trying to break through the barricade.”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
But before he could wrench on his boots, Kyre grabbed onto his arm. “What the hell happened? You told us Nelissa was waiting for our forces to leave the village unprotected.”
Even in the dim light of night, I could see Lash’s jaw tighten, his whole expression darkening.
“She obviously changed her plans,” he growled back. “She must have heard news of our arrival here yesterday and decided to attack before I could spill all of her secrets.”
“Or,” Kyre snarled. “This was your plan from the beginning—sneak your way back into the village and sabotage us from within.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I snapped from the bed. “That’s not what’s happening. Now stop being so paranoid, and go kill that bitch.”
While Kyre blinked in confusion at being shouted down by someone half his size, Calindra’s stare was far more measured.
“Felicity’s right,” she said. “There’s no time for squabbling. Nelissa must be stopped. Lash, follow Kyre to the front gate and see if you can give the alphas there any insight into what she might be planning next.”
Lash nodded before looking over at me. “And Felicity? I’m not going anywhere until you promise to protect her.”
“Of course.” Calindra looked insulted that he’d imagine her doing anything else. “I’ve brought Hannah and Sophia to the safety of the Main Hall. Felicity can join them there.”
Lash nodded. Then he strode back to the bed, wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, and pulled me in for a deep kiss. One that went on long enough that Calindra was forced to clear her throat to bring it to an end.
“I’ll be back here with you soon,” he promised before turning and following Kyre out of the room.
Once the door was shut, Calindra grabbed one of the dresses from the closet and walked it over to me.
“You’ll have to excuse my surprise,” she said, handing it over. “I’ve never seen Lash worry about anyone other than himself before.”
I accepted the dress and pulled it over my head. Something in Calindra’s gentle demeanor kept me from being offended by her words. The best I could muster was genuine curiosity.
“You really don’t like him, do you?” I asked.
Long, silver hair floated around her shoulders as she shook her head. “My personal feelings about those in this pack are far more complicated than simple like or dislike.”
“That’s a very diplomatic answer.” After tying the laces of the bodice closure, I threw back the covers and stood up.
“Diplomacy is important to a pack leader,” she said.
“But so is discernment, and regardless of whatever feelings I hold about Lash, I’ve found that I do like you, Felicity.
More than that, I’m glad the Fates saw fit to bind you and Lash together.
I can already sense how much of a good influence you are on him. ”
“Thank you,” I said, looking up from the soft pair of slippers I was pulling on. “Though I’m pretty sure nobody has ever described me as a good influence before. Just ask Sophia.”
Calindra smiled before holding open the bedroom door and leading me down the staircase to the Main Hall. Just like before, two guards stood by the door. Hannah and Sophia were waiting inside, seated in front of the fireplace.
“Sophia!” I rushed over to her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she assured me with a hug. “So is Hannah. Fortunately, she and Tauren were staying the night at my place, so they were inside the gate when the attack came.”
I pressed my lips together hard. Fortunate wasn’t the word I would have chosen. “If Nelissa’s forces break through the gate, you might wish you were on the other side.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Calindra assured me. “Her brutality might be frightening, but her forces are much smaller than ours. I don’t understand why she went ahead with this attack, despite knowing she was destined to fail.”
That was a good question. A damned good one.
“Who the hell knows why Nelissa does anything?” Hannah said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “The woman is a psycho.”
True—but she wasn’t an idiot.
I’d never stared into the eyes of someone more coldly calculating in my life.
“Well, now that all you omegas are safe,” Calindra said with a nod, “I need to get back to the gate and oversee the battle.”
“Of course,” I nodded.
Sophia pulled me toward the warmth of the fire as Calindra shut the door behind her, her fingers laced tight with mine. “I’m so sorry I was a jerk the last time we talked.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I could have done a better job of explaining what’s been going on inside me this past week. Instead, I lashed out at you.”
“So, you’re both sorry,” Hannah said, leaning her head back to rest against the high back of her chair. “Now stop wasting time, and kiss and make up already.”
I didn’t have to be asked twice. I pulled Sophia in for a hug and didn’t let go for several long seconds.
“I was so worried about you.” Her voice broke with emotion next to my ear. “Everyone kept telling me you were dead, but I knew it couldn’t be true.”
“You always were the only one who believed in me when no one else did,” I said.
Pulling back, she looked me in the eye, her expression serious.
“Listen, Hannah and I talked, and neither one of us is going to judge you,” she started. “We both know what it’s like to find yourself fated to a ferus. There’s so much out of our control.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I chuckled.
“But all I care about is if he treats you well,” she said. “Because if he doesn’t, I’ll?—“
“Cut off his balls and feed them back to him for breakfast?”
A laugh rolled out of me. Sophia had threatened every one of my deadbeat boyfriends since middle school that way. She didn’t mean it...at least I assumed she didn’t. It was just her way of letting me know she was looking out for me. That she would always have my back.
And I’d never felt the full force of her sisterly love more than now.
“Exactly,” she said.
“Well, you can stop sharpening your knives,” I told her. “Because he is good to me. I know it might be hard to believe, but I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do to protect me.”
“Actually, I do believe it,” Sophia said. “It’s like that with us, too. The connection we have with our alphas is unexplainable. It borders on magical.”
“It’s one of the reasons Nelissa hates us so much,” Hannah added. “She can’t stand the idea of a kirre taking the place of a ferus woman. She’d always believed her kind was superior. She’d rather see us all wiped out than admit we’re her equals.”
A twinge shot through my chest.
Hannah was right.
Right enough to give me pause.
From the very beginning, Lash had made it perfectly clear that was all Nelissa really cared about—capturing kirre, terrorizing us, torturing us, using our screams of pain as a warning to any other woman that might find herself pulled toward the wall.
Everything that had come after—my escape, Lash’s betrayal, the opportunity to take her revenge on this village—it was all secondary to her.
Those petty grievances weren’t the causes that brought floods of disillusioned alphas to her camp.
The cause remains. It is always at the center of everything I do.
Her words from the dream haunted me now.
Her true cause had always been and always would be hatred.
Of the outsider.
Of the kirre.
Of us.
Everything else was just a distraction…like the attack at the front of the village.
“Oh shit,” I muttered, pulling away. “I don’t think Calindra is actually attacking the gate.”
Sophia’s brows pulled together. “What are you talking about? Of course she is.”
“We heard her alphas pummeling it on the way here from Sophia’s house.”
“Right, I get that,” I said, shaking my head frantically. “But it’s like Calindra said—why the hell would Nelissa move ahead with a straightforward attack when she knows she can’t win?”
“Because she wants to go out in a blaze of glory?” Sophia tried.
But this time it was Hannah who shook her head.
“No,” she said. “You never met Nelissa. She’s not the martyr type. She’d do anything to save her own skin.”
“And everything to have the chance to personally peel off ours,” I added.
Hannah straightened her back. A look of concern crinkled the corners of her eyes. “You think the gate attack is just a distraction. A way to pull all the alphas to the front of the village.”
I nodded. “With all the alphas at the gate, it would be easy for her to slip a handful of her own men over the stockade. Then they’d just have to quietly make their way to the most likely place to find a trio of kirre during an attack. Some place like?—“
“The Main Hall.” Hannah gulped; her tone had gone completely cold.
“No, that would never happen,” Sophia said, sounding more concerned than her words let on. “But even if it did, we’re still safe. The guards?—“
Crack!
A thunderous crash sounded through the Hall as something heavy hit the double doors.