Chapter 17 #2
Declan tenses. "Why should I trust you? You stood with Connor. Your wolves attacked mine."
"Because he lied to us." Graeme raises his head, and shame is written across his youthful face.
His left eye is bruised, and there's a fresh cut across his jaw.
He looks like someone who's been in a fight recently—maybe with his own people.
"He told us he wanted to restore the old ways, bring back traditional pack law.
He never mentioned unsealing the Fomori.
He never said anything about murdering innocents and sacrificing bloodline carriers.
When I found out what he's really trying to do.
.." His jaw clenches. "That's not strength. That's madness."
A younger male with copper-red hair steps forward from Graeme's group. "We won't follow him into darkness. Whatever our differences, this island is still our home. We won't let Connor destroy it."
"Some of Connor's wolves came last night," a woman with silver-streaked dark hair adds. "Told us what the ritual really does. What he's trying to unleash. We fought our own packmates to be here."
Graeme nods. "We fought some of Connor's wolves to get here. My pack is with me, MacRae. We stand ready."
Declan studies them. His wolf rises, assessing the threat, weighing options.
Jax moves closer, his voice low. "It could still be a trap. Connor's cunning enough to plant spies among them."
"It could," Declan agrees. "But we need every fighter we can get. And look at them—that bruising on Graeme's face is fresh. They fought to get here."
He looks at me. I give a slight nod. We need every ally we can get.
"Rise." Declan steps back. "You're welcome at my back, Northshore. Don't make me regret this."
Graeme stands, and relief flashes across his face before he schools it back to neutral. "You won't. I swear on my pack, on my ancestors, on everything I hold sacred—we stand with you against Connor. Until this is finished."
As Graeme and his wolves file inside, another vehicle pulls up the drive. Elena Southcove emerges with her own contingent—sleek, professional, deadly. The female Alpha who's stayed neutral through all the pack politics now picks a side.
"Connor's gone too far." She meets Declan's eyes. "My pack is with you."
Wolves keep arriving all morning. By noon, Clifftop House can barely contain them all.
Not just our allies, but former neutrals and even some of Connor's loyalists who've had enough.
They come in ones and twos at first, then in groups, all with the same story—Connor lied, Connor hid his true intentions, they won't be part of releasing an ancient evil.
I watch Declan coordinate them all, organizing defenses and attack strategies. This is what an Alpha looks like. Not just dominant and powerful, but a leader who inspires loyalty through actions rather than fear.
The afternoon passes in preparation. Weapons checked, strategies refined, positions assigned. Every shifter knows their role. Every weakness in our plan gets addressed and shored up.
The sun sinks lower. Time's running out.
"For you." Moira Flynn presses a leather pouch into my hands. Inside are what look like ordinary iron nails, but they hum with power. "Salt-forged. Blessed at the old stones. Iron and salt together—death to dark magic. You get one shot with each. Make them count."
"Thank you." I tuck the pouch into my jacket pocket carefully.
A hand grips my arm. Jax, pressing something cold into my palm. His silver knife. The one he used during the trials.
"I won't need it where we're going, but you might. Silver and salt—double protection."
I look up at the brother who once hated me, who attacked me, who now watches my back like I'm pack. "Jax...”
"Don't get mushy on me, journalist." But his grey eyes are warm. "Just don't die. Declan would never forgive me."
By sunset, we march.
Sixty shifters move through the twilight, their forms differentiating between human and beast. Some stay human to carry weapons. Others shift early, letting their animal instincts sharpen their senses for what's coming.
Grayson leads one flank in his bear form—massive and implacable.
Every step shakes the ground slightly. Kian despite his injuries, limps along in his tiger form, orange and black stripes rippling with coiled power.
He refused to stay behind, refused to let his broken leg keep him from this fight.
Rafe walks beside him, ready to assist and protect him if needed.
I glimpse Finn overhead in dragon form, his crimson scales gleaming in the fading light. Jax stalks near the front as a grey wolf, eyes constantly scanning for threats.
And me, a turned human, armed with salt-magic and silver. Walking beside the Storm Alpha as his mate and equal.
Declan hasn't let go of my hand since we left Clifftop House.
Even when he removes his clothes to shift briefly to test his connection to the storm.
When he shifts back and pulls on his clothing again, his fingers find mine immediately.
Everything he's feeling bleeds into me—determination, fury, love so fierce it steals my breath, and underneath it all, that persistent thread of concern.
Not for himself. Never for himself. For me.
"I can hear you worrying," I murmur as we crest a hill and see the standing stones come into view.
"I'm not worrying. I'm strategizing."
"You're worrying."
His hand tightens on mine. "Maybe a little."
The stones rise before us like sentinels, their surfaces dark against the dying light. Connor's message is still there, carved and dried to brown. The air feels thick here, heavy with something I can't quite name. Magic, maybe. Or just the weight of what's about to happen.
I can feel the convergence point even from here, a pulse of power that makes my teeth ache. My wolf snarls warnings I can barely suppress. Everything about this place screams wrong. Dangerous. Death.
"We can still run," Declan says quietly, though we both know we won't. "I could get you off this island right now. We'd have maybe three hours before...”
"Before innocent people start dying." I squeeze his hand. "Before Connor wins. Before everything you've fought to protect turns to ash." I stop walking, turn to face him. "I'm not running, Declan. Not from this. Not from him. Not ever."
He cups my face in his hands, his storm-grey eyes searching mine. "You're the bravest person I've ever met. And the most stubborn."
"I learned from the best." I rise on my toes to kiss him, soft and quick. "Now let's go kill this bastard and save our island."
"Our island," he repeats, something fierce and possessive lighting in his eyes. "I like the sound of that."
We climb the way up the rest of the hill together, sixty shifters at our backs, the mate bond thrumming between us like a second heartbeat. The stones loom larger with every step. I can see movement now at the center of the circle—wolves pacing, waiting.
Connor waits at the center of the circle with perhaps twenty wolves at his back. Fewer than I expected. Many must have defected.
But the ones who stayed look fanatical. Eager. Like they're waiting for salvation instead of slaughter.
"MacRae!" Connor's voice rings out across the stones. "You actually came. I'm impressed. And you brought an army."
"I brought my pack." Declan's voice is steady. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" Connor smiles, but there's madness in his eyes now.
The careful politician is gone, replaced by something desperate and dangerous.
"Last chance, Declan. Stand aside. Let the old world return.
The Fomori aren't monsters—they're our ancestors, our heritage.
They'll restore the natural order, bring back true power.
Or you can watch everyone you love die trying to preserve a broken system that's turned us into shadows of what we should be. "
"The only broken thing here is you." Declan's voice drops to a growl.
Around him, the air begins to crackle with electricity.
Storm clouds gather overhead despite the clear sunset.
"You've murdered innocents. Sacrificed the helpless.
Betrayed everything our people stand for.
There's no redemption for you, Connor. Only justice. "
"Justice?" Connor laughs. "There's no such thing. Only power and those too weak to take it."
"Come and take her then." Declan's eyes flash with storm light. "If you can."
Connor's smile is all teeth. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He shifts.
The transformation is wrong. His wolf form is massive, yes, but there's something twisted about it. Dark magic clings to his fur like oil, and his eyes glow with unnatural light. He's been using the ritual's power. Siphoning strength from the weakening seals.
Declan shifts in response, and lightning illuminates his magnificent black wolf. Storm power crackles around him, and thunder rolls like a war drum. The Storm Alpha in all his glory.
Connor's loyalists pour from the shadows—not twenty wolves, but thirty. Forty. Hidden reinforcements. More mercenaries, more fanatics, more killers drawn to Connor's cause.
Behind us, Graeme's wolves tense. Elena's pack spreads into defensive formation. The brotherhood moves to protect me, forming a living barrier between Connor's forces and their Alpha's mate.
The stones hum beneath my feet. Power rising, ancient and hungry. The convergence point activating.
I pull out Jax's silver knife in one hand, one of Moira's salt-forged nails in the other. Pride pulses through the mate bond, absolute faith that we'll survive this together.
Connor howls—a signal to his pack.
His wolves charge.
Lightning strikes so close I feel the heat on my skin, the sharp ozone smell burning in my nostrils.
The thunder that follows doesn't just sound—it hits like a physical blow, shaking the ground beneath my feet, rattling my bones.
My wolf is watchful and hesitant, recognizing something far more powerful than herself.
Declan.
The storm doesn't answer him anymore. He is the storm.
Lightning forks across the sky in a dozen places at once, illuminating the battlefield in stark white-blue flashes.
The air crackles with electricity. Every hair on my body stands on end.
The wind whips around us in a vortex that has Declan at its center, and the rain that begins to fall feels directed, purposeful, alive.
A grey wolf breaks from the pack, teeth bared, coming straight for me.
Good.
I step forward.