CHAPTER 2 #3
Silence reigned in the aftermath. Was it over? I couldn’t tell. There was a stillness in the air that felt unnatural. Like it was only an illusion of calm. I shook my head to clear the ringing from my ears and then blinked my eyes to chase away the stars that danced across them.
“Was that it?” someone asked from a few rows in front of me.
A cry rose up from the hollow floor. Then another. Sounds of joy erupted from the crowd gathered there. I looked down to see wolves pulling themselves up from the ground to rush at others.
I searched among them for Gia. She let out a whoop and collided with the woman who had been the first to offer up her blood. Tears streamed from the woman’s face as she hugged my best friend. I slumped in relief, shaking with spent adrenaline. Gia had a mate. Goddess be praised.
This was nothing like the first ritual I attended, where the drone of chanting had lasted nearly an hour and one at a time wolves were bonded to each other.
“Antoinette!” Audrey cried.
She rose from her seat and sprinted toward the dais. A limp form sprawled across the plinth, white hair fanning over the granite. I thought she was dead at first, but then her chest moved with a labored breath.
“Is it safe?” someone called out.
“It’s over,” a mystic I didn’t recognized answered. “You can join your loved ones.”
I stood and quickly made my way down into the fray. “Gia!” I called, my voice swallowed by hundreds of similar hails.
“Layla!” I heard her shout.
I beelined toward the sound of her voice, brushing past Nathaniel Kolbeck and his new mate, a woman half his size, just before I reached her.
“Congratulations!” I yelled over the din.
She hugged me with one arm, her other thrown over the shoulders of her new mate. “This is Natalie!”
“Hi, Natalie!” I slung my other arm around her so that I hugged them both. “I’m so happy for you!”
Natalie grinned when I released them, wiping tears from her face. “Thank you! Why can’t I stop crying?”
Gia, also crying, pulled her in for another hug.
“What the hell was that, though?” Natalie asked when they broke apart.
“No clue,” I said. “But it seems like it all worked out in the end.”
Sounds of celebration echoed over the clearing.
The sunshine smell of happiness filled my nose.
From the looks of it, every single wolf had been bonded, and the crowd was raucously loud in their relief.
So loud that at first, we didn’t hear the sound of the wind picking back up.
It was only when it started to tug on our clothes and lift our hair that we realized something was wrong.
The cries of joy turned to fear.
“Out! Everyone out!” a sonorous male voice boomed.
But it was too late.
Power roared through the clearing. I grabbed my head and clenched my jaw to keep from screaming. It felt like someone had drilled into my brain and was using a blowtorch to sear my nerve endings. I couldn’t think around it, couldn’t breathe around it.
Unable to hold against the onslaught, I collapsed to the ground and curled into a ball, trying to make myself into a smaller target.
The pain was excruciating. Black spots danced across my vision, threatening to drag me into their depths.
It felt like an eternity passed while I fought to remain conscious.
“Layla!” Gia called, her voice sounding far away.
Slowly this time, the magic began to dissipate.
I cracked my jaw open and groaned when it finally released its hold on me. “Ow.”
“Are you okay?” Gia asked.
She and Natalie stood above me, looking down. They seemed fine. Like they hadn’t just been run over by a metaphysical truck.
“Not okay,” I said, the words garbled.
It took both of them to pull me up. I swayed within their grip, my heart beating a million miles per hour, adrenaline and heat coursing through my veins.
As the residual magic faded, I became aware of other things.
Sounds of outrage and confusion rose around me.
The smell of terrified werewolves filled my nose.
And there, in the back of my freshly ripped-open mind, something else, trotting ever closer on four silent paws.
No, not something.
Someone.
I felt a tug on my psyche. Unbidden, deep confusion became my dominant emotion, where a second ago it had been fear. I tried to shake it off, but it grew stronger instead.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
The emotion was… other.
Not mine.
My head seemed to turn of its own volition, to the right, my gaze passing over innumerable shifters before it came to a stop.
On Michael Kolbeck.
He kneeled on the ground a few feet away, one foot beneath him like he was trying to rise.
Our gazes met. Something snapped between us like an elastic band ricocheting.
The reverberation fell away and left a deep sense of peace in its wake, like I had come home after a prolonged journey. Like he was my home now.
“No,” I croaked.
“Layla?” Gia asked, tone frantic as she looked between us. “Layla, what is it?”
I choked back a sob. “We’re bonded.”
Michael pushed himself up. He tightened his tie and then ran a hand over his head, smoothing back his hair.
“Well,” he said, looking and feeling slightly annoyed when he met my gaze. “This is an unfortunate turn of events.”