Broken Moon by Laken Cane

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In a matter of seconds, the clearing went from quiet and still to full of shifted wolves and growls, snarls, and blood. I knew my strengths and fighting as a human in the midst of two warring groups of wolves was definitely not one of my strengths.

Despite what Adam Thorne believed, I was not stupid.

My mother raced to me, fighting her shift to save her daughter. When she grabbed my arm, I was reminded of her enormous strength. Wolves were physically strong. I was half as strong as her, but once my wolf was free, I’d be bursting with power.

Right now, though, I needed to find shelter and get the hell out of the vicious battle. My mother dragged me along with her, and the last thing I saw before the trees closed around me was the huge, gray wolf rushing the equally huge, white wolf.

Gray Shadow fighting Stone Moon.

It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before, and it would happen again—if one of them didn’t kill the other.

Stone Moon warriors rushed from the shadows to collide with Gray Shadow warriors, and I knew that though Jared’s wolves wouldn’t fight for me, they would fight to the death for their alpha.

“Where are we going?” I asked my mother, since she was taking us in the opposite direction of the house. We were going deeper into the woods, but I didn’t resist. I figured she knew what she was doing in her own woods.

“He’ll send Frick and Frack after us,” she muttered, “but I’m prepared.”

“Frick and Frack?” I glance behind us as we ran on, but I didn’t see anyone. They were coming, though.

“Dumb and Dumber,” she said, as though that cleared anything up. “They’ll be coming for us.”

“What are you—oh. Edgar and Greg. Mom, are you okay? They didn’t hurt you?”

“No, no. I didn’t fight them.” She darted her head one way and then the other, then tightened her grip. “This way. Hurry.”

“What’s out here,” I asked. “Did you build an underground bunker? A secret treehouse?”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “That would injure the tree. I’ve stashed a getaway car.”

“Would it happen to be in this county?”

“There.” She pointed, ignoring my smartassery. “You run, I’ll hold them off.”

“Hold them off? Mom, I can’t shift, but I can fight.” I pulled my blade. “You’re coming or I’m not going.”

“There’s no time, honey,” she said, and then she shoved me. Hard. “Run!” Then she burst into her shift as Adam’s two goons rushed toward us, still in their human forms. But when she shifted, they did as well, and they went for my mom.

“Oh hell no,” I yelled, and I yanked my second blade from its sheath. I threw it, hard, and it sliced through the air and embedded itself right between one of the wolf’s eyes. Edgar, I was nearly certain.

He gave a yelp of pain and loped away shaking his head, as though he could shake the knife loose. He couldn’t shift to his human form and grab the knife, because he’d likely die. His body would reject it and push it out, but that would take a while. Meanwhile, the odds were a little better for my mother.

I gripped my demon blade and waited for a chance to use it. Distance was good when it came to fighting wolves. If he got near me with his huge claws, he’d shred me into bloody pieces.

I needed my gun. It was believed the magic inside a shifter protected them from guns, but all that protection would go away if I shot a shifter with my gun—I used silver in my shotshells. Silver affected a wolf for the same reason a person could so easily shove a wooden stake through a vampire’s heart. Magic. To a vampire, wooden stakes were essentially little spears of concentrated sunshine, and they’d slide through a vamp’s chest wall like a fork through cake.

The sounds of the fight across the woods carried, though the wolves were habitually managing their noise. We’d learned over time to be quiet. My mother and Greg fought almost silently, eerily savage there in the night.

I followed them, instead of running for the car like she wanted me to. Of course I wouldn’t leave her. But she and the alpha’s wolf tumbled through the night, and I lost sight of them.

I scanned the ground as I ran, tracking them, but moments later, I heard a high-pitched keen of pain. I knew it was my mom. The brutish warrior had hurt her.

And if I was too late, he was going to do more than that.

“Mom,” I screamed, no longer thinking about maintaining the silence. “Mom!” I ran as fast as I could, which was fast, and forced myself to calm down and follow the trail they’d left and the smell of blood in the air. I had to be close.

I was. My mother lay crumpled against the base of a tree, and Greg crouched over her, his body twice as big as hers and almost as bloody. He opened his mouth, growling, and prepared to rip out her throat. He was going to kill her, which meant his alpha had not forbidden him to. More than likely, he’d told his warriors to kill us if we gave them trouble.

Now I could use my demon blade, and I didn’t hesitate. I flung it at the wolf’s head. I’d been honing my knife throwing skills since I was six years old, and my aim was true. The wolf didn’t just roar and stagger off into the shadows as his brother had done. His brother hadn’t been stuck with a demon blade, though. He would heal. Greg wouldn’t.

The blade forced a grunt from him, and then he simply listed to the side, fell to the ground, and was dead.

“Fuck you,” I whispered hoarsely. I pulled my blade and wiped it clean on his fur before sliding it into its sheath. Then I knelt beside my mother. In her unconscious state, she’d shifted back to her human form.

Greg, killed as a wolf, would stay a wolf in death. If humans were to find his body before Stone Moon wolves could retrieve it, they would not see a murdered human—only an extremely large wolf.

“Mom,” I said. She was wounded, but not fatally. Greg had clawed her up and had bitten chunks from her, but she would heal. She’d heal even faster if I could get her conscious so she could shift.

She’d been right to worry about Adam Thorne.

I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her pale, bloody body, then stood before leaning down to lift her into my arms. She was small, and I was strong. I could carry her home without struggling to do it.

The fight between the two packs had been vicious but quick. As I walked through the woods with my mother, Jared, dressed in whatever tattered clothing he could find, loped toward me. He was surrounded by three of his warriors and his beta Eli, and I knew the others would be patrolling through the shadows, watching for threats. None of them had left the fight without injury.

Jared surprised me by taking my mother from me—I would have expected him to deliver that task to one of his warriors. He swept his gaze over me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. How many did we lose?”

He hesitated, a surprised and pleased gleam in his eyes. I already thought of his pack as my own. “No deaths,” he said. “And our injured will recover.”

“I know of at least one death on the Stone Moon side,” I said, still angry and frightened over my mother’s attack. “Two wolves attacked her.” I gestured at my mother’s unconscious form. “I injured one of them and killed the other.”

Again that gleam of surprise lit his eyes. “Imagine what you can do when your wolf is free. You’re already a force. You will be unstoppable.” He looked down at me. “Your mother will be fine. I feel her energy, strong and wild like her daughter’s.”

For a few seconds he held my stare, then my mother stirred in his arms as she awakened, and he let her slide to the ground.

“Mom,” I said, gripping her arms. “Are you okay?”

She put her hand to the back of her head and it came away bloody. “That dude harshed my mellow,” she said.

I sighed, then grinned. “She’s okay,” I told Jared, but he could see the worry in my face. Her words were thick and her eyes were dazed, and I knew she’d sustained some damage to her head. It was likely she had a pretty severe concussion, at the very least. Sometimes when a wolf took damage to her head, it could take her a while to pull up the energy to find her shift.

Jared took her shoulders and turned her gently to face him. “Mrs. Silver, I’m going to help you shift, and then my beta will take you back to Shadowfield. You’ll be safe there.”

She focused on his face. “We’re your wolves now?”

I held my breath.

“Yes,” he said, his voice strong and steady. “You’re my wolves now.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and I had to turn away to dash the water from my own. We had a pack. He’d said it, and his warriors and his beta had witnessed his words. We were Pack.

She offered him her hand, palm up. “I accept you, Alpha.”

He lifted her palm to his mouth, striking quickly. He marked her, creating a bond and sealing a promise that only he would ever be able to break. The alpha’s mark would only fade if his wolf were later rejected. Any wolf from any pack she came into contact with would know she was claimed and protected.

His warriors and his beta stood quietly and stoically, with not so much as a flicker of resentment in their eyes. They might feel it, deep down, but they would not dare show it. Not in front of their alpha, anyway.

My mother drew her hand to her mouth, unable to contain her sobs, and my own heart swelled with hers. I had not yet been officially claimed, but it was coming.

“My house,” she said, finally. “There are those I take care of…”

“You will sort that out tomorrow,” he told her. “When I’m sure Adam Thorne and his pack are no threat to you, you can return to your land. You can choose to stay there or move permanently to Shadowfield. We will be honored to have you.”

I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat.

She reached for my hand. “Come along, Kait,” she said, as though I were a six-year-old child.

“Kait will see you soon,” Jared told her, but gently. “I’ll call your wolf and then you will go with my beta. I promise you will be safe.”

“But what of my daughter?” she asked, swaying on her feet. “What if Adam comes back for her?”

“I am about to free her wolf,” he told her quietly. “And she has a new alpha. Let him come.”

I started shivering and couldn’t stop. I kissed my mother’s forehead, then stepped back. My heart was beating so hard and fast it made my chest hurt. My stomach was tight, my mouth dry, my head pounding. I wanted to cry and scream and run to release some of the unbearable energy building inside me.

My wolf knew what was about to happen. The time had finally come.

But first, my mother needed to heal.

She groaned and once again put her hand to her head, and then Jared took control. She screamed, which was more of a forceful wheeze, and I could only stand back with my fingers over my mouth as her alpha brought her wolf.

The jacket I’d draped over her shoulders fell to the ground and she shifted almost seamlessly. Her wounds would be nothing to her wolf. She nosed the alpha’s palm, and he placed his hand on her head as she melted into his attentions. It had been so very long. For both of us.

She sprawled out on the ground, finally, panting slightly as her wolf’s body dealt with her injuries, and when I glanced away from her, waiting for her to heal and shift back, my stare landed on one of the warrior’s unguarded faces.

Despite his best efforts, there was hostility in his eyes. When he saw me watching him he blanked his eyes, but it was too late to hide what he was thinking.

“Alpha,” I said.

Jared moved a little closer to me, making me forget, for a few seconds, what I’d been about to say. “Kait?”

I lifted my chin. I did not want to make trouble for his wolves or cause them to be even more resentful, but I needed to make sure my mother was safe—not just from Adam Thorne, but from her own pack. “Your wolves,” I said quietly, “are going to be…upset. I can handle myself, but I’m worried about my mother.”

“My wolves,” he said, “understand what it will mean for them if they dare to harm or disrespect your mother. Or you.”

I wanted to believe him, but I’d been on the receiving end of his pack’s anger. “But before—”

“Before, I was not clear in my intentions. They will cause you no harm. Unless,” he said, looking at his warriors with ice in his stare, “they wish to be cast out of their pack.”

I gave a sharp nod. They would carry his words back to the pack, and my mother would be safe. Eventually, when they overcame their resentment and got to know her, they would love her.

But that was going to take a while.

When my mother returned to her human form, she was nearly completely healed. She once again donned my jacket, then pulled me to her for a hard hug. “We are Pack,” she whispered fiercely. “My darling, how I wish I could watch you finally become your wolf.”

But things would happen that night that a mother shouldn’t witness, and we both understood that. This wouldn’t be the usual experience where a fifteen-year-old came into her shift. This was a tortured, horribly abused and twisted wolf about to be free after years of torment. It was going to be…hard. My wolf was as broken as the moon tattoo on my hand, and part of me was afraid that not even the alpha could control her.

Finally, my mother pulled away. There had been enough delays and she knew what was waiting for me. There would be some difficulty, yes—but it wouldn’t compare to the absolutely blissful perfection achieving my shift would bring.

I unbuckled the belt that held my demon blade and handed it to my mother. “Don’t let it out of your sight,” I said, my voice as shaky as my hands.

“I’ll guard it with my life.” She looked at Jared. “As you will guard her.”

He narrowed his eyes, and she dropped her gaze before turning and walking away, the silent Eli at her side. The warriors went with them, and any warriors remaining in the woods would patrol the area, keeping us safe while the alpha put all his concentration on me.

Finally, we were alone.

“Take off your clothes,” he told me. “You’ll want something to wear when this is over.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I’d been away from the life for so long that getting naked in front of the alpha was a big fucking deal, at least to me. But I wouldn’t show it. I couldn’t. Hoping he didn’t notice the way I wouldn’t meet his stare or the way my hands trembled or the way I moved so slowly it was more like a striptease than a matter-of-fact necessity, I started with my boots and removed every piece of clothing I wore until I stood naked and cold before him. I wished I’d taken my hair from its customary long braid. It could have done much to preserve my foolish modesty. I’d be damned if I’d hide behind my hands. Wolves ended up naked—a lot. I needed to get used to it.

Still, I couldn’t look at him.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and his voice held only gentleness.

Carefully, I slid my stare to his, and the gentleness in his voice did not extend to his eyes. They blazed hot and hungry and savage, and even if I might resist him, my feral wolf would not. Not in a million years. She would give him anything he wanted—because she wanted it too. Dammit, I wanted it.

Suddenly, I was more afraid than excited. I did not want to lose control. I held up my hand. “Wait. Alpha, wait.”

But he would not wait. He grabbed my shoulders and yanked me to him, and with a somewhat brutal and primal growl, he bit me. Not hard, not painfully, but he marked me as his wolf, and the very second he did, my wolf began to struggle in her chains. She began to fight like she’d always fought, but this time, it was different. This time, her alpha was there to help her.

He stepped back, reached inside me, and began to rip the chains from her body. It was…agonizing. It was the worst thing I’d ever felt.

It was the best thing, as well.

I wasn’t sure I could survive it, honestly. I wasn’t. But we had to try. Oh God, it hurt. My bones broke and then reknit, blood vessels burst, my heart exploded. My shoulders dislocated, my organs shifted, and the pressure behind my eyes was so extreme that I thought they would pop from their sockets. My face twisted and elongated, my teeth lengthened and grew sharp. I was dying. Surely, I was dying.

I opened my mouth to scream, to beg him to stop, to ask for death, but I did not scream.

I howled.

Suddenly, I was not the girl. I was the wolf. And everything I’d ever gone through, including the last few minutes of sheer incomprehensible hell, was worth it. It had gotten me to this moment.

I survived, and I shifted.

For the first time in my life, I was the wolf.

At last.