The Power

LORELAI

“Is it safe to come out now?” a voice said from across the lobby.

Ryleigh poked her head out with Vaughn stepping out of the door that led to the human quarters. They were both blushing, and I laughed.

“You saw that, huh?” I asked, and she shook her head, her eyes wide, dashing to Brax and back again.

Her stomach was swollen too, and we had built some kind of camaraderie over that stress. Physical and emotional.

“No, but we heard it. I think the vamps might have even heard it,” Vaughn teased.

I laughed, and Brax gave a tight smile.

“Smart choice to stay out of the way then,” Brax said, and I rolled my eyes at his high-handedness. He didn’t budge though.

Ryleigh rubbed her stomach and frowned hard.

“Are you okay?” I asked, and she winced, nodding with small breaths.

“We were just going to ask if we could borrow the doctor you are using? Ryleigh has been having some pains, and we were hoping to get her checked just in case,” Vaughn asked.

Before I could even answer, Galen was striding inside, his tall, brooding body boasting impeccable posture and meticulously groomed hair and facial hair.

“I’d be happy to help,” he said.

I smiled. Maybe he wasn’t as scary as everyone seemed to think. The wolves certainly gave him a wide berth. Even my alphas seemed to placate him out of something I could only describe as fear.

I used to think it was respect, but since he had been living in the mansion, I had changed my mind.

“This way,” he said, striding away with his hands behind him before looking over his shoulder.

“Braxton. I would be grateful for your assistance,” he said and eyed Brax, who nodded once.

Galen, Ryleigh, and Vaughn left toward the infirmary, and Brax turned to the door as I frowned.

“You’re going outside again? I thought they needed your help?”

Brax opened the door for me, and I strode through as he answered.

“Galen didn’t mean help with them. He wants me out here keeping an eye on your mother. I agreed to stay out here with her as long as she is,” he said, and I raised a brow at him.

“Oh. He likes her.”

Brax nodded. “Galen hates that word, but he is…infatuated with her.” He grimaced, but I didn’t get it.

“And that isn’t a good thing?” I asked.

He sat us down on the bench behind where Anetta was teaching the humans still.

“It could be. But he gets obsessive, and when he gets that way…everyone is in the firing line. One wrong look, one wrong comment and he’ll snap. It makes us nervous,” he admitted.

I nodded. I understood it. Maybe they didn’t see it the way I did but I knew of three alphas who were eerily similar to that sentiment.

“Well, I guess we’ll see. I don’t even know if my mother will be very receptive to a werewolf trying to seduce her in any way,” I said, and he frowned.

“Another reason we are worried. Her rejection could tip his control. The heat could. Pretty much anything that got in the way of having her.”

“Is she in danger?” I asked, sitting up, tensing as I thought of their rooms so close in the mansion.

She didn’t stay with the others anymore, she had her purple suite from before, and Galen had specifically demanded a room next door. Now I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.

“No, of course not. We wouldn’t let that happen. Everyone else, though? Not a certainty. But we can’t deter him now, so we have to let it play out.”

“He seems so nice though.”

“He is, until you get on his bad side. Then he is terrifying.”

“Coming from you, that is scary,” I breathed out, and he smirked.

“He couldn’t beat all three of us together, but individually? He’d snap us as easy as a wishbone.”

Brax laughed, but I did not see the funny side. Be wary with Galen, got it.

“Don’t fear him. He will sense that, and he’ll probably find it amusing to toy with. Although you may get away with more than most since you hold the key to your mother’s heart.

“She loves with more compassion than most humans, and I think that light is drawing him in.”

“And we just let it?”

“Yes. They’ll figure out what makes them happy, and we’ll try to stop anyone from getting killed while they do.” He shrugged, smirking again.

I leaned back into him and left it at that.

***

I watched the others train for over an hour until the cold was too much and we had to call it a day.

The sky was so dark, so full of cloud that not even the permanent realm sun could peek through. The wind was picking up, and I shuddered as it bit into me.

Anetta waved goodbye from the edge of the clearing once all the humans had gone inside, and I nodded.

It was so I would let her through the barrier, but really she could sense my humanness, my baby, my magic, and it made her control slip a little more, so she avoided me more.

I missed seeing her for tea, but I had to be realistic in the times we were in.

With just my mom and Brax left, I stood up.

“How was that?” I asked, and my mom beamed at me.

“Oh, sweetie, this was such a great idea. It really helped the ladies feel more at home, didn’t it? I could see it on their faces,” she said, looking at Brax for confirmation.

He nodded once, then wrapped his arm around me.

I was about to talk, to tell her that I could see it too, that I was glad they were all getting involved and at least trying it out, but I didn’t get a chance because my arm burned.

I hissed and pulled away from Brax. He frowned and looked down at me as I grabbed my arm, the burn getting worse.

Then my heart clenched, hard and painful.

“Kai,” I breathed, knowing without a doubt that it was his pain I had felt.

“Ambush,” Brax growled as his eyes went white.

“No,” I breathed, tears prickling at my eyes as the pain in my body grew.

And then I felt the tug to go to him. It was suffocating. I wasn’t going to ignore it.

“I have to go,” I urged, but Brax shook his head.

“No. You can’t leave the mansion, let alone the city,” he snapped.

I shook free of his hold. “And if it was me out there, would you listen to those rules?” I argued.

He growled again. “The humans are attacking them. I can’t let you walk into that. I won’t.”

“I wasn’t asking,” I bit back, and stormed out, clutching my stomach as it ached with the emotions and pain bleeding in through the mating link.

“Spitfire. Stop.”

“If you’re that worried then come with me,” I urged, but he winced.

“I can’t. I’m bound to my word with Galen. I have to stay with your mother until he returns,” he said under his breath, anger falling off him.

“Then I’m sorry, Brax, but I have to go. He’s in pain. He needs me, I can feel it.”

I grabbed my skirts and ran toward the door of the mansion, my mind on Kai and how much he needed me, how badly his soul was crying for mine, the burning pain that was filling me.

Tears streamed and I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t get to him in time. That poison they had was working faster and faster, and I had no idea what that meant for an alpha.

I did know that if I could get to him, I could draw that poison from him.

I had done it so many times for the ones that had made it back the other times, my magic beating the humans easily, but not if I wasn’t there.

~“Lorelai!”~ Kai’s voice screamed in my head, and I dropped to my knees at the door.

~“Kai,”~ I cried, blinking my tears away.

Dizziness consumed me, and I opened my eyes again.

The doors to the mansion were gone, Brax’s growling was gone, even my mother’s soothing influence was gone.

Instead, I was in the middle of a forest. There was screaming in the distance, crying out, howling, and growling. The ambush.

I ran toward the noises as fast as my pregnant-as-hell body could. I didn’t know where Kai was, but I was following the pull in my mating link. I was guessing that was what had brought me to him.

I was concentrating on not tripping on roots and trees when my spine tingled, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I was being watched. And by the warning in my shadows, I knew they were getting ready to stop me from getting anywhere near the fight.

Humans.

I sensed the poison in the arrow they sent at me, turning right as it reached me and grabbing it. I snapped it in two and chucked it to the ground, glaring at the figure between two trees behind me.

I recognized him from my luxurious stay in the men’s village and wasn’t prepared to grant him any kind of mercy.

Magic warmed my hands, and I knew it was with me. I knew it would bend to my will; it would let me use it for what I needed.

I aimed it at the vines of the forest, bringing them down around the figure, and before he could cry out or react, he was wrapped in vine.

I covered his mouth and kept them tight on him. As much as I wanted to go over to him, say what I wanted to him, get a message to my father, it would have to wait because I couldn’t.

I had to get to Kai. He didn’t have the time for my revenge.

I took off running again, leaving my human vine burrito wriggling like a worm on the forest floor, but I’d cook him later, or I’d give him to my alphas, who did revenge so much better than me.

I felt more humans getting closer and I knew I didn’t have long, so I threw up a shield around me and ran straight through the carnage to where Derik had hauled Kai behind a huge boulder.

His arm had a gash through it, bleeding black ooze, the edges sizzling, eating through more of his flesh.

“Kai,” I breathed, bending down to him, puffing as Derik nocked an arrow and let it fly out from our spot behind the boulder, wincing against the following consequential scream from the human it hit.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kai breathed, flinching as he gripped his arm.

“I heard you scream. I can help,” I said.

Derik growled. “You should be at the mansion.”

“Well, I’m not,” I snapped, and grabbed Kai’s arm. “I’m helping.”

I held my hand over his arm. It was a bigger arm than I’d ever drawn poison out of, but I loved that arm and all the other body parts too much to let it be a problem.

I healed him fast, our mating bond glowing inside me, the poison dissipating, leaving a tiny scar across his skin. He let out a breath, then grinned.

“My little human, saving the big bad wolf,” he teased before pulling me in and kissing me.

I laughed against his kiss despite the screaming and roaring that was raging on the other side of the boulder.

“Derik, cover us,” Kai teased, and I laughed as Derik huffed.

“Celebrate the nonending of your life once we’re back in the city and our pregnant mate isn’t surrounded by enemies, hmm?” Derik said.

He was right, I was getting distracted, but Kai was hard to resist. So was Derik, especially when they were all sweaty and dangerous.

I was so damaged to be thinking it, but I wouldn’t mind taking a little time-out for some better ways to spend time together.

“Don’t tempt us, beautiful. You being here is already a distraction we cannot afford,” Derik said, then reared up and jumped onto the rock, howling up into the air.

An arrow came flying up at him, but I saw it in time, throwing my magic at it, dissolving it midair.

He looked down at me, then winked. “Stay with Kai, beautiful,” he said, then leapt from the rock and burst into his giant-ass wolf.

It was impressive, and I licked my lips, peering over the boulder. Bad idea.

The sight pierced my heart. Blood covered the trees, the forest floor. Dead bodies littered it. Human and wolf.

It was the bloodbath my mates talked of, but seeing it in person was harder than I thought it would be. I had been so focused on Kai before I hadn’t taken it in, but I was now, and I hated it.

We needed to stop this. It wasn’t doing anything but getting both sides killed.

“I hate this,” I whispered, and Kai came up behind me.

“So do we, but we can’t back down or they will end us,” he said, and I knew that, but it was harder to see in person than know the truth of it in theory.

I stood up and shook my head. I had power literally at my fingertips. I had to use it.

“Don’t be a hero, Little Human. I’ll spank your ass raw,” Kai warned, and I grinned over my shoulder.

“You and I both know that is no threat because we would both enjoy it. You know I can’t sit back and let this happen,” I said, and he nodded once.

“I know. I just had to say it so Derik wouldn’t bite my head off once we’re back home for not trying to stop you.” He grinned.

I laughed, then walked into the middle of the wolves fighting, swords and arrows flying, my shield strong, rebounding everything that came at me.

I had been practicing with Cain, I had just had Brax’s bite, his toxin strong in me, our connection still ripe in my blood, I had the favor of the border magic. The humans were not getting through what I had.

At least that is what I told myself.

Until my father rode in on a horse, holding his hand up, ceasing his men’s part in the fight. The humans all stopped, falling back as the arrows stopped flying.

The pack growled and sneered, panting in their wolf forms, lining up behind me, flanking me, Derik as a wolf on my left, Kai on my right in human form. But my shield separated us all.

I wasn’t sure if I could use my magic on him yet, but if he was retreating, I would let him. Or I’d lose my shit and kill him, destroying whatever hope I had for the goodness inside me to win.

But maybe that innocence wasn’t worth it.

Because staring at my father’s stoic face made me see red, his entire demeanor one of arrogance, like he still believed what he was doing was right despite standing on the blood of his own, not just his enemies.

I curled my hands into fists as he curled his lip back.

My next move depended on the poisonous words that were about to fall from his lips. If they weren’t what I wanted to hear, then I couldn’t promise I was going to hold back.

I had no idea whether that was a good thing or not anymore.