Chapter 3 #2
“There are no shifters in the human realm with magic,” Tank said, his deep voice cutting through the silence that had fallen after Fizzle’s name.
He was watching me with those steady eyes that always seemed to see too much.
“Not that I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve been around longer than the rest of you.
Why are you asking about shifters, Dean? ”
I shrugged, trying to play it off as casual curiosity even though my mind was racing.
“Just thinking. It’s strange, isn’t it? That we all have magic tied to the different courts.
Tank has Spring. Maddox has Summer now.” I looked down at my own hands, feeling the cold that always lurked beneath my skin now, the ice that wanted to crawl up my veins.
“I’ve got whatever this Winter magic is.
And Ryder’s got his storms, tying him to Autumn. ”
I paused, the thought crystallising into something sharper. “Four brothers. Four courts. All with impossible magic that shouldn’t exist. Don’t you think that’s a hell of a coincidence? We never really figured any reason out before.”
No one answered. But I caught Tank giving Maddox a look. Something passing between them, some silent communication I wasn’t privy to. A flash of anger burned through me, hot and immediate. Since the alpha had taken root inside me, the fury always burned brighter now, harder to control.
But I pushed it aside. If it was something I needed to know, Maddox would tell me. He always did. I had to trust that.
I stood abruptly, needing to move, needing to escape the weight of the fire and the silence and my own spiralling thoughts. There were too many questions and no answers to be found tonight. “I’m going to scout the perimeter.”
Part of me wanted to shift and run as my wolf.
It was a strange new feeling, this urge that felt almost like freedom, like I could leave all of this behind if I just let the beast take over.
All the guilt and the grief and the impossible decisions waiting for me.
.. the wolf didn’t care about any of that. He just wanted to run.
But instead of comforting me, it made me feel more uneasy. I was still getting used to having another consciousness sharing space in my head, still learning where I ended and the wolf began. The idea of letting him take control, even for a little while...
I strode away before any of the others could offer to come with me. I wanted to be alone. Needed it.
I told myself it was about security. Making sure the perimeter was clear. Keeping everyone safe.
But really, I was avoiding them. Avoiding their feelings and their grief and the weight of their expectations, all of which made me deeply uncomfortable.
I didn’t know how to help them. I didn’t know how to be what they needed.
And that what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t protect them if I couldn’t figure it out and protecting them was a need set so deep inside me that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
I never really had been able to before either, but I supposed it was easy to try and ignore back then.
But the worst part of this confusing situation we were all in now was that I was avoiding where Damon sat watching over those children like he was some kind of saviour instead of a ticking time bomb.
What bugged me most was that I couldn’t read him anymore.
I used to know Damon better than I knew myself.
We’d been through hell together, literally and figuratively.
I could read his moods in the set of his shoulders, predict his thoughts from the look in his eyes.
He was my brother in every way that mattered, the first person who’d ever made me feel like I belonged somewhere.
The first person to stand up and treat me like I was worth more than nothing.
Now I had no idea what was going through his head. No idea if it was even him in there most of the time. No idea if I’d be talking to my brother or to the monster wearing his face.
The wolf stirred again, confused by my avoidance. He kept pulling at me, trying to turn my feet toward Damon.
Pack, he insisted. That is pack.
He’s not Damon right now, I argued. He’s dangerous.
Pack, the wolf repeated, like that one word answered everything. Pack needs alpha. Pack is hurting.
But the wolf didn’t understand possession. He didn’t understand that the body sitting over there might not contain my brother anymore. He just knew that a member of our pack was in trouble, was in pain, and that his alpha should be there to help.
It wasn’t that simple. Nothing was ever that simple anymore.
I found myself at the edge of camp, staring out at the darkness beyond our small circle of firelight.
Damon was just as much a danger to us as he was anything else right now.
Unpredictable. And if there was one thing in this world that I hated, it was unpredictability.
I needed to know what I was dealing with.
I needed to be able to plan, to prepare, to protect.
How was I supposed to do any of that when I couldn’t even tell if my brother was still in there?
Getting rid of the nightmare was the only option.
We needed a solution fast, because Damon wasn’t the type to sit around and accept that he was a danger to the people he loved.
He’d end things himself before he’d risk hurting any of us.
I knew that with bone-deep certainty. He’d done it before.
Put himself in harm’s way to protect us.
He’d do it again. Permanently, this time, if we didn’t find another way.
The bite felt like a risk. A huge one.
I didn’t even know if my wolf was strong enough to turn Damon into a shifter. They’d told us that the bite didn’t always take. Sometimes it just killed. And even if it worked, who knew what would happen when you tried to turn someone who already had something else living inside their head?
My wolf huffed in outrage at the back of my mind, deeply offended by the suggestion that he might not be strong enough. His indignation was so sharp I almost smiled.
But I knew myself well enough to recognise the truth: I was making excuses. Looking for reasons why it couldn’t be me who had to do it.
Why did it have to be me?
I owed Damon everything. He’d saved me when I was just a feral kid with nowhere to go. He’d given me a home, a family, a purpose. He’d been the first person to look at me and see something worth saving.
Why did I have to be the one who might kill him?
We didn’t even know if he was strong enough to survive the change.
The nightmare could have broken him down into nothing but a shell of himself by now.
The way Damon seemed to be getting stronger lately, more lucid, it could all be a lie.
Just the nightmare fucking with us for fun, making us hope before it ripped that hope away.
For all we knew, Damon was already gone. Fighting a losing battle inside his own head while we stood around debating options that wouldn’t matter anyway.
Holden would know what to do.
The thought came unbidden, and I almost laughed at the bitter irony of it. Holden, the general who’d trained us, led us, sent Damon to this realm in the first place. The man I’d followed without question for years.
Even if he was the one who’d gotten Damon into this mess.
Maybe he’d had a plan for Nymeria. Maybe he would have known how to save Damon.
He had to have had something in mind, right?
I’d followed him for years, trusted him with my life and the lives of my brothers.
Holden would never have sent his men into a situation like this without some kind of plan.
Without an exit strategy. That wasn’t who he was.
But the man Alyssa described, the general who’d betrayed her, who’d used her and manipulated her and thrown her away when she stopped being useful, that didn’t line up with the man we’d known. The man we’d trusted.
Had he been playing us the whole time?
He couldn’t have been. There was no possible way he could have known it would all turn out like this. No way he could have predicted that we’d end up here, in this realm, fighting a war that wasn’t ours, watching our brother get eaten alive from the inside by something we didn’t understand.
Right?
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts. It didn’t matter now. Holden wasn’t here, and we had no way of contacting him. Whatever his plans had been, we were on our own.
I’d been walking without paying attention to where I was going, and when I looked up, I realised I’d wandered away from the perimeter entirely. My feet had carried me back toward the centre of camp, toward where Damon sat with the children.
The wolf had been pulling me there the whole time. Subtle, insistent pressure that I hadn’t even noticed until now.
Pack, he said again, softer this time. Hurting. Needs us.
I stopped. Stared at Damon’s back, at the familiar set of his shoulders, at the way he sat so still and watchful.
I couldn’t do it. Not yet.
I turned away.
Instead, I found myself walking toward a figure standing alone at the far edge of camp.
Alyssa. She was watching the distant glow of the pyres on the horizon, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold her pieces together.
The orange light painted her profile in shades of fire and shadow.
She didn’t turn when I approached, but I knew she’d sensed me. The bond between us hummed with awareness, a warm pulse of recognition that I was still getting used to.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked, coming to stand beside her.
“Can’t stop thinking.”
I understood that. My own thoughts had been chasing themselves in circles since the battle ended, never settling, never letting me rest.