The Vision

LORELAI

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Derik asked for the millionth time, and I nodded.

I was ready. If me and my child could both really survive and I trusted in myself and my alphas to lead our baby into a good life, then how could I just let the border collapse, knowing the consequences?

I still cared about the humans. Okay, mostly my mom, but until she was ready to come to the wolves’ city with me then I had to do what I could to make her safe.

Not to mention the fact that I was going to be the luna of the pack soon. The link would open for me, and the wolves that had been so wary of me were going to be my family.

I had to make sure I still had a family to go to.

“I’m sure. Tabby said I wouldn’t be drained or anything. Just touch the thing, right?” I asked, and Derik nodded.

I smiled. That would be easy enough.

The carriage ride was rough, bumpy, and dark as we went through the forest, the denseness making the air a little thicker, but I didn’t mind it. It reminded me of Derik.

“You’ll feel it soon,” Kai warned, and I nodded, my senses prickling on the edge of my mind. Like they were anticipating, knowing something was going to happen.

I had been assured it wouldn’t hurt, but I was getting even more curious to know what it would feel like.

“Like ecstasy.” Kai grinned, and I returned the gesture.

Well, I knew what that felt like. I had three big alphas with big cocks that kept me there half of my waking life.

Brax snickered at that, his thumb drawing lazy circles over my hand where he held it.

It was an amazing sensation, the touch of him, the feel of comfort and closeness. Our connection was one I could barely breathe through half the time and yet, today, it felt so free.

“That’s the magic. It’s feeling…different.” Derik craned his neck to one side and then the other, as if trying to relieve it of pressure.

I frowned at his actions, not sure if he was being sarcastic or not. “The magic from the border?”

“No. We can feel the broken magic. Keeping the border up is only one part of so many problems now, beautiful,” Derik admitted, and I nodded, chewing my lip, a little deflated.

I had hoped I was helping, but maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe he was right and the border was only going to prolong the inevitable crazies.

“It’s still helpful, Little Human,” Kai reassured me, glaring at Derik.

I was going to reply but before I could, a sharp pang of everything light and safe pierced me. It wasn’t painful, but it was so intense it had me sucking in a breath, clutching Brax’s hand.

He pulled me closer. “We’re close, Spitfire. Don’t fight how it feels,” he whispered.

I nodded, focusing on releasing the tension in my body. One by one, my muscles unlocked, immediately filling with the feeling.

I sighed as the carriage came to a stop. I opened my eyes and the darkness was gone. In its place, the whole carriage was bathed in a purple glow.

I blew out a breath, the sight making me feel weirdly ethereal. Like it was calling to me, but not in a demanding way. In a luring, siren-call type of way.

I wanted to go to it, I wanted to touch it, and I hadn’t even seen the fucking thing yet.

Normally I waited for the alphas to open the door (they liked to scope the area first), but I couldn’t wait. They were moving so slow.

I surged from the door, stepping onto a moss bed, my feet sinking in slightly. It wasn’t gross; it was another sensation that felt amazing and added to the beauty happening in my body.

It was a sensual feeling, a call that I couldn’t resist, almost desire but a deeper feeling, not superficial.

I took deep breaths, my mind on some kind of trip. I looked around the dense, dark forest, looking for the purple glow that I could feel brushing along my skin.

“Where is it?” I breathed, stepping forward on the moss floor. My feet felt the cold, but it didn’t make me shiver, it didn’t give me goosebumps, like the warmth of the magic I could feel was stronger.

My shadows didn’t feel like shadows as they stirred in me, and little flutters moved in my stomach. I held it and walked forward, not sure if my alphas had answered me.

I couldn’t hear them; I could only feel. I was led, by what, I had no idea. All I knew was I had to follow its pull.

And then it was there. It was transparent, a wavering sheen cutting through the forest, but I felt it. So deep and powerful within me.

I went toward it, stopping in front of it.

It was just forest on the other side, but it felt darker. Like my body was warning me against stepping past it. I wasn’t there to go through it though, I was there to help.

“Lorelai,” Derik said, his voice firm, breaking me from my entranced admiration of the magic in front of me, a shimmering waver that I was desperate to touch.

Like it knew I could make it stronger.

I grinned back at him as Kai stood next to me, Brax hovering close, looking over his shoulder. The pack came out of the trees then in their wolf forms, but they were all wide-eyed and wary, staring at me.

“They came,” I whispered, the bond between them and my alphas leaking into me.

“The pack is a part of this,” Kai said, and I nodded.

“And the mating brand?” I asked, hating that it was what my mind went to first.

A flicker of pain highlighted his eyes, and he clenched his jaw. “I have to be here. And so do they. It’s a risk that I have no choice in,” he bit.

I smiled tightly, grabbing his hand and kissing it. I hated that it was opening up our relationship to the idea of him mating, but we couldn’t do anything about it.

He was right, he had to be there, and so did the pack. We were all a part of the consequences if it failed.

I took a deep breath, the pressure of what I was going to do making me feel somehow exposed. What if it didn’t work? What if I couldn’t do what I needed to keep them all safe?

So much rested on me being able to keep the magic in the border.

“Just touch it, Spitfire. As easy as that. The magic will do the rest, and we’ll be here. Draw on us if you have to,” Brax reassured me, and I nodded, a smile playing on my lips.

I wanted to touch the magic, and I could.

I held my hand up, and everyone tensed, but I was teasing the power, seeing how it felt radiating against my palm.

It felt amazing.

I sucked in the feeling, closing my eyes before inching closer, my palm slowly pressing against the border.

As soon as my skin touched it, power rushed through my body. I heard the gasps and the howls, but I didn’t turn, I didn’t open my eyes.

I just absorbed it, every sound, feeling, and ribbon of magic that pulsed through me. It was everywhere. My shadows joined it, like they were dancing, like they were free, but in the best way.

I kept my hand against it, grinning as the power kept pouring. I wasn’t sure which way it was flowing, maybe it was both, but I felt unlocked. Like the whole time I had been forcing it but now it was as easy as breathing.

It was mine, but I was pure power. It was so intense, making my grin widen again.

My hand was warm, the texture like water, but I wasn’t looking at it. Something told me the experience would be better without seeing it.

And I wanted to feel everything about it.

My body grew stronger, my power grew stronger, and I knew it was working. I could feel the entire expansion of the border, every particle of magic that made it, and I could feel it communicating with the magic in me too.

“Is this what it feels like when you take the virgins?” I whispered, not surprised they did it every year if it felt so damn good. Like a high I never wanted to come down from. Like living in the orgasms my alphas gave me.

“I suspect not, beautiful. Not even virgins can provide the border with the kind of power you’re giving it,” he said, his voice full of awe.

That had my eyelids peeling open, my gaze landing on my alphas, all standing there watching.

The purple of the border, just a subtle tinge in the air before, was a vibrant mist around us all. I sucked in a breath, the piercing look from my alphas taking me even higher.

Their magic met mine, and then I felt it all. The pack, the humans, the earth they walked on, the air they breathed, the magic that existed in every part of them.

It was intoxicating, it was beautiful, it was recreating everything inside of me until I was closing my eyes again, falling into the oblivion the magic was providing me with.

Everything fell away. I couldn’t see them or hear them, I could only feel the magic, and it made everything okay.

I didn’t care that my father was being an asshole, I didn’t care about the balance, because I felt the balance and I knew I could get it back.

~I~ was the balance, I was the answer, the question, the solution in those moments, and it was the most powerful I had ever felt.

I breathed through it, preparing to pull my hand back, knowing the border was safe for now.

But a picture flashed in my mind. A young child, shifting into a wolf and running with three strong alphas.

I sucked in a breath. They were running toward me. It wasn’t crystal clear, the edges of the scene faded, but it gave me hope, it felt like hope.

It fell away then, changing to a picture of us on three thrones, me on Derik’s lap, facing the dining hall full of the pack, laughing, eating.

Their joy filled me, their safety, their love and devotion. It was everything I wanted in our future, and I wasn’t sure if it was me telling the border that or the border feeding me the possibility of it.

I so badly wanted it to be the latter.

Then it fell away again, and I sucked in another breath. It was dark and twisted, blood everywhere as I stepped through what I thought used to be my village.

The huts were burned, my mother’s included, the sky angry and full of a brewing storm. I stepped through the carnage, the air strangely silent, unnerving me, and I looked around for my alphas.

But I couldn’t feel them or see them.

I shivered as the cold bit into my bare arms and through my dirty, torn dress, taking my breath away. There was blood all over my clothes. All over my hands.

Panic consumed me and my chest tightened just as snow started falling. I looked up to the sky and the tiny, innocent white puffs of ice fell to the ground, covering the destruction with a deceptive cleanliness and purity.

But it was all a lie. Had I done this? Destroyed the village? I looked around for the answer, but there was nothing, no one. I was alone, and that was the hardest hurt to face.

I shuddered at the possibility of the vision being another future for us.

I padded my freezing feet through the snow and mud. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt like there was something else I had to see. The picture wasn’t fading away like the other ones had; that had to mean something.

I kept walking through the huts, the snow still falling, the cold still biting, and the sky still thundering, the dark aura I felt covering the desecrated village making my stomach turn.

I made it to the middle of the village, where my ceremony had changed my entire life, coming to a stop as that life crumbled away.

Bodies, bloodied and lifeless, lay all over the courtyard, but it was the pale creatures with red eyes and long fangs that stole my breath.

They had blood running from their teeth, over their jaw, down their chests, and their hands were clasped around the women of my village.

Some of the women were undressed, some were fully clothed, but they were all dead. There was no sign of my father’s men.

But it was the woman in Silas’s hand that caught my attention. Her hair was dark and long, her eyes as blue as my own. Her slender frame had been brutalized, her neck pierced by the fangs that now dripped with her blood.

“No,” I whispered, and my heart deflated.

Everything I thought was holding me up, my alphas, my shadows, my magic, fell away at the sight of my mother’s lifeless body in the arms of our enemy.

My fists clenched.

“No!” I cried, and Silas looked up, then fucking grinned and nodded toward the men’s village.

“That’s not all, little winter born. Want to see your alphas’ corpses too?” he said.

I shook my head, the air leaving my chest, the pain so tight and visceral inside me. And then I was running.

But the scene fell away, and I gasped. The pain still there, but nowhere near as soul-crushing. I had no idea what the vision meant, but I needed to figure it out.

Was that a warning or a probability? Was it the witches telling me the future was already set? Or could I change it?

I needed to know. It was everything in that moment.

I kept my hand against the border, begging for another vision, one that gave me some kind of hope after what I had seen. I didn’t want that to be the thing that took Elias’s place in my nightmares.

My cheeks were sticky and wet with tears I hadn’t known I’d shed, and I wiped them away, taking a deep shuddering breath.

I was still connected to the border when something sharp pierced my face. I yanked away from the magic and spun to find out what it was, wondering how it had gotten through my alphas, who were meant to be standing next to me.

But they weren’t.

They were fighting against Garrett and Taylor, the pack in a circle around them, howling and growling, their paws padding the ground, their anger palpable.

My alphas were circling Garrett and Taylor, who were scowling, eyeing me as I glared back.

Kai had a cut across his cheek, the one I had felt, and my glare hardened on them. I was still alive on magic from the border, and I had no idea what was happening, but I could guess.

A challenge.

I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t heard it or felt it while connected, but I was back now, and I wasn’t a fan of any of them taking advantage of the fact that I was too busy saving their ungrateful asses.

My fingers tingled, the magic brushing my fingers, caressing them, and I knew I could use it.

I was unlocked, my magic and shadows one force now that hated seeing the alphas challenged just as much as I did.

It was the blood dripping down Kai’s cheek that had me stepping toward them. Kai turned his head to me with a smirk.

“It’s okay, Little Human. These two are not a threat. They are about to be made an example of,” he reassured me, and I hesitated, standing on the edge of the circle, the wolves around me giving me a quick sniff before bowing their heads and moving a little farther back.

I looked down to what they were sniffing, frowning at the small bump that seemed even more visible than before.

But it wasn’t the fact that it had grown that got me, it was the purple mist that hovered around it and the creepy strokes of it against my stomach.

My head was so full of visions and my child that when a feral growl ripped through the air, it gave me a fright.

My head snapped up, and I watched as my three alphas dove on Garrett and Taylor, who both burst into wolf form and snarled back, fighting them.

They were so fast, it was hard for my human eyes to keep up, but I was pretty sure my alphas were making sure the two who had challenged them were never going to make that mistake again.

The mist along my body grew thicker, its caresses stronger, like it was urging me to do something. It didn’t like what was happening. I felt it down to my soul.

I stepped forward, and a wolf stepped in front of me, not in anger but almost protectively, nudging me gently back.

I smiled and gave it a pat on the head, having to reach up to do so. I had no idea who it was, but I felt its loyalty, and that alone had me reassuring it.

Not that I knew the customs when it came to wolves. Did they even like being patted?

I gasped as I was scooped up around the waist. A kiss landed on my mouth, and I felt Kai in it.

He held me close, sliding his tongue along mine as I sighed into him, kissing him back, not caring that he was meant to be fighting with Derik and Brax. I had every faith they could handle Garrett and Taylor.

My magic stirred again at that, and I pulled back. Kai grinned down at me, tracing my forehead with his lips.

“Little Human, your brain is going a million miles a minute. It is distracting me while I make a meal of my betas. Shush your worries for a little while longer.” He kissed me again, and I smirked.

Oops.

He put me down, nodded to the wolf beside me, I think in thanks, then stepped away. He gave me one last look over his shoulder. “And yes, we like it.”

He smirked before he strode toward the four wolves in the clearing. Two on each side. Kai snarled, and they all turned back to human.

“Enough!” Derik boomed, his face twisted into a dominant alpha, darkness clouding his eyes at the betrayal of his betas.

Kai just looked like he was having fun, barely breaking a sweat, while Brax looked just as pissed as Derik. Garrett and Taylor were covered in open gashes and bite marks, blood flowing down them.

“One chance. You have this single moment to back the fuck down,” Brax offered, stepping forward, ready to get back into it if they disagreed.

Their bleeding, bruised faces turned to me, their eyes flashing with hatred. I stepped back, and Kai snarled at them. They flinched but their glare stayed.

“She is our downfall. You have brought Fractum on us, Alphas. If you had chosen a wolf, not a human, as your lover, if you’d played by the rules, then none of this would be happening.

“It’s your fault. You don’t deserve to be our alphas, not when you are looking out for her best interests, not ours,” Taylor warned back.

I let her words process. They pissed my alphas off, but when I thought about it, they were true. Of course the pack would be scared having me there, having all these unknowns suddenly clouding every decision.

Objectively, it did happen when I arrived, but it wasn’t because of me, it was my idiot of a father playing his hand at being the alpha of my race. But from the outside, I supposed it did look a little coincidental.

Derik met my eyes and I could tell he had been listening to my thoughts. He let out a breath, then stood straighter, less confrontational.

“We are not your enemy. At the moment, the humans who are trying to take us out are,” he said, and Taylor shut her mouth until Garett sneered at me.

“She’s human.”

I stepped forward then and shook my head.

“I used to be, but I’m not anymore. I have your toxin in my blood, I have your heir in my stomach, and I have your alphas’ hearts in mine.

“No human can keep the border alive with magic, no human can survive a winter as a baby on their own, and no human can take on a dark winter born and survive,” I breathed.

A fierce loyalty was growing inside me, to the pack, to my alphas, to the future I had seen—the good one.

I needed to make sure that was the future our child was born for, not the other one, and the magic that swirled through me told me it was by keeping the pack together that I was going to do that.

They couldn’t fight each other, they couldn’t doubt each other, they had to stay strong. I had to make the others see that.

I went to stand in front of Taylor and Garrett, somehow knowing what I needed to do. Kai and Brax came closer, tense as anything but letting me do this. Derik hung back, seeing everything on the edges.

I was grateful for their protection, but I wasn’t sure I needed it, not with Taylor and Garrett keeping quiet.

They flinched when I grabbed their hands but they didn’t yank them away, their eyes meeting Kai’s before going back to me.

I let the magic guide me, let it tell me what to do, because without it, I had no idea. And even then, I was kind of winging it, hoping that what I had to say was going to be enough to make them see the future I saw.

It was pure happiness, everything we all wanted for the pack and everything I wanted for our future.

“We’re weaker when we fight each other. I can promise you, the alphas only want what is best for all of us. When they look after the pack’s best interests, I’m included in that, and so are you. We all are, together.

“I know it sounds like bullshit, but what I just saw at the border was not. Look, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, maybe I’m just the alphas’ toy, as you so eloquently put it, but I do know that the entire time you were fighting each other, the magic I was just given was going crazy, wanting me to stop it.”

“It doesn’t want you doing that to each other, and neither do I. Why should we be the ones bleeding? Why should the wolves pay the price for the humans’ choice?” I breathed, anger lacing my words as I thought of what my father had done and what it was going to bring down.

I wouldn’t let him win, but I had to make sure that I wasn’t fighting the wolves too. I wanted to fight ~with~ them, against the ones who had done this. We needed every wolf focused on that.

Garrett stepped back, pulling his hand from mine slowly, his face frowning hard as he looked over me. His eyes settled on my stomach, then went back up.

“You mean that,” he stated, frowning like he didn’t understand it.

I nodded, then looked at Taylor. She pursed her lips, her throat swallowing the bitter pill of letting me in.

I had a feeling that bitterness was more than just because we were being targeted by humans though. I got the distinct impression it had everything to do with how good Kai’s cock felt.

Kai let out a booming laugh behind me and stepped forward, kissing my cheek before grabbing my hand and pulling me over to the border. Derik and Brax stood on either side of me and the pack turned to us, watching, their wolf forms huge and dominating the clearing.

“She’s your luna now, wolves, and when you bow to us, you bow to her too. Either you accept it or we keep ripping each other apart so the humans don’t have to,” Derik announced, and a ripple went through the pack.

As it did, they bowed.

Row by row, the wolves bowed their heads, until it got to Taylor and Garrett.

They hesitated a second before Garrett dropped to his knee, hanging his head low. Taylor clenched her jaw before the fight left her eyes and she dropped too.

The ripple came back, dousing us in the unity of the movement, and I grinned, hope filling my chest. We needed this. We needed to be a pack, not parts of one.

I rubbed my stomach, the flutters a little stronger, the magic sinking into my skin, the purple mist covering the border. It was strong, it would hold, and I had some of the power it held.

My father stood no chance. I wasn’t sure what had given him the confidence to think he did, but it was a mistake he wasn’t going to get a chance to regret because my family was kneeling in front of me.

He was nothing but a dead man walking.

“Let us claim you, Spitfire. In front of our pack,” Brax whispered, coming up behind me, his face nuzzling in my neck, his teeth grazing my skin.

I let out a breath, tilting my head to the side, giving him access. “Do it,” I breathed, just before his teeth pierced my skin.