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His eyes instantly flicked to my neck, telling me what he had chosen, even if he was still processing what I was saying.
“Bite me, Jack, if that’s what you want. Make me your mate, bind me to you and to Hawk.”
He shifted in his chair, so that the two of us faced each other. One of my legs was now curled up against the back of the seat, the other splayed wide and trailing down to the floor, and his eyes were drawn down again. His fingers edged towards where his eyes dwelled, sliding up my thigh.
I let my sigh out really slowly, so as not to spook him again, and finally he looked up.
“What if this doesn’t work?”
What? The bite? Us? Him and the guys? I had a lot of questions, but couldn’t ask them. He might sit there, for all intents and purposes looking like a guy very into what was happening between us, but hitting him with a deluge of qualifiers was just as likely to send him running. I looked at his eyes and realised all of the above applied, and a whole lot more. He might rampage through life acting like a prick, but Jack was no stranger to anxiety. I took a breath, remembering the peace and quiet of the bower, and then all those beautiful, horrible, little scraps of a love that had been torn to pieces, but endured in that rusty old box.
“Jack,” I said, knowing what needed to be said now. “The pack is a bower.”
I could count the times I surprised Jack into this kind of open, vulnerable expression on one hand, but I treasured each of them. Those sharp green eyes that saw everything searched mine, a terrible kind of hope growing there, side by side with his customary wariness.
Let me be able to live up to this, I prayed fervently, to who, I didn’t know. Don’t let me be the one to take this hope away.
“It’ll be a bower we build together, a bower that no one but us can break. It’ll live, shine within each and every one of us, and all of us will be able to protect it. You won’t have to fight on your own.”
Jack’s eyes stared into mine for god knows how long, shifting from the already grass green to the luminous of his Tirian. His beast looked out at me, and I stared back.
I was strong, but I was untrained. I was organised, but I’d never had to lead anyone other myself and my dog through anything. I was walking with the guys into certain danger with not enough planning, strategies, weapons or any other predictor of success. I was—the pack was—on paper hopeless, and yet I could meet Jack’s gaze squarely and know we’d all do our fucking damnedest to make sure we all made
it out alive. And Jack had to make the call, to choose this or walk away. I couldn’t do anything else.
So when he yanked me close, branding my mouth with his, I was surprised, relieved, and elated by turns. Jack had made his big gesture at the ruins, opened his heart, but it was only now that I knew this was going to be permanent. A deep satisfaction I hadn’t expected to feel welled up. It dominated my thoughts and my feelings as I moved, as he moved. Hands dragging through hair or sliding up thighs, it didn’t much matter. I felt a powerful throb within me with each of my guys today, but it seemed fitting that Jack would be the finale. He might always be the show pony, but he delivered. When we finally pulled back, panting as we regarded the other, he nodded. “Now, Jules.”
I pulled my hair away from my neck in response, and he drew me closer so I straddled his hips. He held his cock with one hand, shuffling our bodies to line us up, and then pulled me down in one incredible stroke. As I gasped at the sudden intrusion, his mouth sought my neck, teeth and lips teasing the skin there for a moment as his hips shifted in small strokes, and then he bit me.
We chased the black sun, the great obsidian orb rising and rising, while we sprinted faster and faster to try and catch it. It would burn us whole, consume with no thought, but we strove with everything we had to reach it. We got to the water’s edge, saw the star begin to rise, and then we leapt. Our fangs closed around that swirling mass of black fire, and then it all exploded.
We were spiralling, up and up and up, seven points of light careening around each other, bouncing off each other as we streamed. We were reaching for the stars, every petty fight and struggle left behind, burned away by the fire within us. When I glanced back, I saw a dim red light, far below on the ground, tethered by whatever it was that held it down.
Sylvan, I thought. He was like a tiny anchor, trying to drag us back. Not deliberately, there was no intent there, just the unconscious purpose that thrummed within him. As if summoned by my conceptualisation of him as an anchor, a thin thread that bound me to him appeared, slowing me down. I still flew through the air with my pack, but I lagged, dropping lower and lower. My heart screamed as I watched my men fly past me, feeling and tasting each one of their particular essences as they passed. I glanced down again at the rope, and felt a godawful anger.
Sylvan was a fucking millstone around my neck, literally. The ache of that first fucking bite, where he’d bit me while I was still human, flared again hard, as if to keep me where I was supposed to be.
Fuck that.
I’d been jerked around by him, by prophecies, by unknown genetic quirks, by seers, by psychic attacks, even by mysterious wolf gods since I got to Sanctuary. I was done. I transformed from a ball of light into human form, still lit from within, my hands an unearthly green as I grabbed the rope and tugged. I grit my teeth, feeling like a furnace flared within me, burning hot as I put everything I had into this—breaking the bond or pulling Sylvan along with us.
Then I remembered the green-eyed woman I’d seen in his dreams. He was already bonded to whoever the fuck Branwen was, this link between us an artificial one created for some mystical bullshit reason, and I was done with it. I let the fire inside me burn hotter and hotter, my whole being now one of heat and light. Then, the bond broke.
I shot through the darkness, arrowing through space beyond countless stars, to join the radiant constellation of my mates. But I didn’t slow when I reached them. Instead, I swept past, catching them in my wake as we kept flying higher. There was nothing to see here, nothing but blackness and pinpricks of lights, yet some internal compass had me flying up. Then those great red eyes appeared.
I felt twinges of fear, of protectiveness at the sight of them. Unlike the Great Black Wolf I’d seen in visions, this one encompassed the whole sky. His mouth opened, his tongue lolling out in a wolfish smile, his white teeth shining brighter than the stars.
I should have been terrified. This was a Wolf God. He looked like galaxies hid like fleas within the sable of his coat, but for some reason, I hung in the space before him with the guys at my sides, and felt no such sensible fear. We were fucking pack. Nothing was going to take us down now, not even divine creatures. I threw back my head and howled my disdain, now in Tirian form, the guys joining in. Our howls rose, twining together to become one note, ringing out throughout the universe. We were giving the Black Wolf notice. We were here, and we were done cringing away from this fucking shit.
The Great Wolf reacted predictably, straightening up from wherever he stood on the fundaments of known space, the hunch of his shoulder, the angle of his head indicating an attack was imminent. I felt the clamouring whispers of concern, of worry, but I held firm. I was not bowing down before these motherfuckers. We were strong, so fucking strong. We were a Great Wolf in ourselves.
Thought controlled reality here as I felt the lot of us meld and mesh until we were just that. It was a confusing thing as suddenly my brain was full of a million clamouring thoughts and feelings. I eyed the Great Black Wolf taking ponderous steps towards us as I struggled to hold on under the onslaught. Run, stay, fight, stop, hide, fade, go back to reality, howl, cry, rock in the corner, snarl our disdain—each thought or feeling smashed into me, screaming that it was the way forward.
Enough!
I nearly cried from the relief the command brought, but it was not mine. Instead, I felt the warm woody presence of Finn and his alpha control bring order. We now faced down the Black Wolf united.
We ran towards the great beast, paws somehow gaining traction on the great nothingness we hovered in, while the Great Black Wolf tossed his head and then did the same. It was then that I saw the error of our ways. We might be a Great Wolf now, combined of the essences of the seven of us, but he was so much more. Having been fed on the souls of countless people, they were like tiny winking stars within his coat as he approached, growing larger and larger. It was then the constant thread of fear burst through, the new evidence of threat forcing it past Finn’s order.
