Even though I was used to it, I still jolted in response. Austin and Eli didn’t, of course.
Jerks.
By the time we made it back to the packhouse, even though it wasn’t that far away, I was yawning as we moved through the front door and down into the hall.
Our bedroom was a communal space, and it was pretty much the only place we’d changed since I’d become omega of the Highbanks pack.
With time, I’d change more and more things, because in all honesty, I hated the formality here. All the antiques and the fancy shit made me scared to break things.
I’d prefer to donate all the crap to an auction house, ask them to get the highest bids, and donate it to charity, but this was Eli’s stuff. His inheritance.
And what was I supposed to do in the interim? Go to Home Depot or Ikea and just buy a mass of flat pack furniture?
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
While I was more than happy with flat pack furniture, we were the leaders of the pack.
We lived in a frickin’ mansion. It would be like riding around in a Ford Focus that had been modeled to look like a Ferrari—just not right.
As we trudged up the steps, I could feel my eyes drooping, and I sighed with delight when I smelled Ethan.
He was awake.
He didn’t say anything though, just curled into me when Eli plopped me on the bed.
Eli always slept to my left, and Ethan and Austin tended to alternate between laying to my right.
I didn’t think they’d admit it, but I knew they slept better too, now that we were tumbled together like this.
There wasn’t anything weird about it, but the twin bond ran deeper than anyone knew, even them. The ties between them were links they often messed with, and I knew they didn’t always see eye to eye, but there was no denying how much more restful they were since we’d knocked down the wall between my bedroom and Eli’s and had made this our room. One bed for all of us to share. One place for all of us to wake up.
Unless I went wandering in the middle of the night, of course.
If that was the case, then one of my guys would always go wandering with me.
I knew that was to keep me safe, not so that they could get some one-on-one time, but I figured it was a good opportunity for a bit of both, and I saw nothing wrong with that.
We were busy people, the leaders of a growing, powerful pack as shifters drifted toward us, seeking a home for their family, with an alpha and an omega who were fair and just. And I was only one woman. My nighttime forays were a way of keeping us all bound together, and even when it was cold like tonight, I knew that was why they never grumbled.
It was our time. No one else’s. And I knew they loved that as much as me.
When Ethan curved an arm over the swell of my belly, I felt the baby respond. He didn’t kick, just twisted inside me, like he was pushing into Ethan’s hand. Ethan let out a soft chuckle, because I knew all the men were getting used to the tactileness of our child. But he didn’t say anything, just anointed my cheek with a kiss, snuggled into me, then rested.
To the sounds of Eli stripping off and Austin clambering onto the bed behind his twin, I drifted off too.
Only to be awoken by a howl.
Berry.
I jerked upright as she howled into my mind, “Attack. Twenty of them. Useless. Traitors.”
The disjointed words had me rubbing my temple.
Useless?
What did she mean by that?
And traitors?
Then, it hit me.
The old councilors. The women who’d always sniped at me, the men who were bitter about being replaced with everyday folk in the pack… she’d always called them ‘useless’ because they were all talk and no action.
I sent my thoughts to my mates, and when they slid into wakefulness, already half-cocked for a fight, I knew I’d never seen anything hotter than the three of them pumped up with an aggression I’d only ever witnessed when there was a challenge. We’d had a few of them since Eli had turned the pack on its head, but this was different.
This was underhanded.
This was not how the pack worked.
“Stay here,” Austin snarled, and his hard tone, so unlike my mate, had me jerking a little in response.
“I will.”
“Don’t move from the bed,” Eli ground out. “They’re in the house. You can’t get to the safe room.”
“Fuck. We need to get one installed on this level,” Ethan growled, head tilted to the side as he used all his senses to key him into the invaders’ intent. “I never thought they’d get into the house. Someone must have let them in.”
Austin rasped, “They’ll die before the night is over.”
They each shared a look, nodding as if transforming the statement into an oath.
Glancing over at me, rage and fire in his eyes, Eli repeated, “Don’t. Move.”
I knew why—for me to move was tantamount to admitting that they couldn’t protect me, keep me safe. So I nodded quickly, and promised, “I won’t.”
I wasn’t a fighter. My role was not to fight, but to nurture, so I decided to help them the best I could.
Behind my eyes, I could call upon the energy of every single member of the pack.
The only issue?
As the wave of shifters approached, I could feel the disconnection.
They were no longer pack in my mind.
Their energies no longer resonated with me.
My mouth worked as I realized I couldn’t help my men, and then when I heard a snarl, one that echoed in my mind, I opened my eyes because I knew my men didn’t need any help.
Not against twenty-two imbeciles who’d torn themselves from the pack by their own volition. I hadn’t even known that could happen. That by their will and deed, they could rupture the bonds between us.
I stayed there, still and watchful, listening, unable to help and hating it, then Berry did something—I knew it was her, because I couldn’t have done this in a million years—and out of nowhere, I felt a blur of light hit my eyes, making me wince until it cleared some. The angles were strange, wrong…more like what I saw when I was shifted. That notion had me flinching, because no way in hell could I see through her eyes.
No way.
No. Frickin’. Way.
And yet…
It was more than just sight.
I could…feel through her senses. Kali Sara. I could hear what she heard and scent what she scented.
The whisper of the wind as a wolf howled in pain, the scent of fresh blood spurting, and death—
Bewildered and slow to process this new ability, I wasted precious moments as I tried to focus, then finally, managed to take in the sight of the hall where Eli was surrounded by three wolves, four downed corpses littered the carpet like so much trash. Already.
They’d barely gone downstairs five minutes ago!
By the front door, Ethan was fighting four, with two of them bleeding out the last drops of lifeblood, and Austin was outside in the yard. He had seven around him, with three of them down, and four still actively tearing into him.
My stomach twisted and turned, and I knew that was both my nerves as well as the baby moving, responding to what Berry showed us. Weird, no?
I blew out a breath, trying not to panic, trying not to worry that whatever the she-wolf was doing would stop. I didn’t want to blink, but my eyes burned as I kept them wide open. However, when I did, the image didn’t disappear.