Chapter 114

Goosebumps lift my wolf’s fur, a chill racing up his back. 
After a long and hard blink of Kral’s eyes, as her radiant light nearly blinds him, every rogue around him collapses unconscious to the ground.
Another slow blink, and suddenly, she’s desperately sprinting toward my wolf, who’s lying on his side on the ground. Her eyes are no longer all dark.
Kral blinks again, and then she is already at his side, kneeling on the ground with tears in her bright meadow green gaze.
She frantically raises her hand to pet Kral, and he licks the blood from her wrist. 
The pupil of my wolf’s eye instantly *widens*.
Kral licks her wrist again. 
And again. 
She leans a little back to look at him in puzzlement. 
I sense the poison in Kral’s knife wounds begin to dissipate the moment her sweet blood touches my wolf’s tongue, and he tastes it.
Looking at her thin wrist, Kral and I realize at the same time that although the wound hasn’t healed, it has stopped bleeding.
My wolf shifts his gaze to her aura.
From the very first time I laid eyes on my fated mate, what caught my attention the most about her was her brilliant aura.
My Little Dove is always a good girl. She’s pure. And her aura shows it.
However, despite the countless variations of her aura with her moods, it never looked like it’s looking now. Perhaps only twice did it come close to this. 
The first was when she showed up at my packhouse injured after her son of a bitch ex-husband beat her. The second was when she shot me five fucking times after finding out I had lied to her.
These two times I’ve witnessed it, her aura had looked like a black cloak, tempered by big peek-a-boos damn near blinding rays of light.
But when that black light was covering her body, her lovely eyes, her aura didn’t have any kind of peek-a-boo rays of light. Instead, her usual sun-bright aura was all and completely black. Like a cloak of death.
What happened to my Little Dove? 
Who is she?
The last time I saw a female bite her wrist before pointing at someone… she wasn’t a human. 
She was a witch.
Kral keeps staring at her intensely as her eyes dart around to the rogues already in their human form. None of them are alive.
I notice the exact moment she realizes they’re dead, and immediately, her hands start to shake. My wolf senses her panic and begins to rub against her, desperately to calm her down.
“It-It’s my fault!” She cries, her fragile body shaking nonstop. “What have I done? Oh God!”
Tears come out of her eyes; her breathing becomes labored as if she can no longer get air into her lungs. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh, God! I killed them!”
Kral tries frantically to calm her down. He manages to make her body stop shaking, but she’s still desperate like she was having a panic attack. When he looks at her aura, we realize that it has changed.
My mate’s aura has shifted to her usual one, well, it isn’t completely like her sun-bright aura, but it starts to morph into that, the radiant light hugging her like a well-loved child.
I shift and drag her onto my lap. “Mate.” I hug her tightly. “My mate.” I run my fingers through her soft hair. 
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t control it!” she confesses between sobs. “When I saw they were going to kill you, something in me snapped and, and, and—” she cries loudly, pressing her face into my bare chest.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know. I’m all right.” I stroke her back. “Love, please calm down. You’re going to make yourself sick like this.” 
She draws back just enough to look up into my eyes. “How can I calm down? Didn’t you see what I did?” 
I wipe the tears from her right cheek. “Did you know you could do that?” I ask and she hesitates for a second. 
When I raise an eyebrow, she confesses, “No. I don’t know how to explain all of that... but I had to defend you. I swear, I still don’t even understand how I did that. I swear, I swear! If I knew what happened, what that was, I would have told you already.” 
“Then why didn’t you ever tell me something wasn’t right?” I ask, trying to control my temper. “No more lies, remember? It should go both ways.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” More tears wet her cheeks, where I’ve just wiped away. “I knew something was wrong with me, but I swear, Ethan, I swear on my son’s life that I didn’t know this would happen.” 
Her wide eyes beg me to believe her. 
Her aura tells me she’s telling the truth. 
But the sight of her biting her wrist is something I can’t just forget. 
“We’ll talk about this once the pack is safe again,” I say. 
“Okay,” she whispers, crying. My heart hurts to see her like this.
“Shh. You’re all right. You’re all right. You’re all right,” I mutter, grabbing her by the back of her neck. I’m not certain if I’m talking to her or myself.
“I-I’m so scared!” Her chin trembles. She looks at the dead rogues beside us, and then she stops breathing. 
“Hey, hey, look at me. That’s it. Everything is going to be alright, okay? You did good, love. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” I hug her tightly. 
“I’m so scared. Of everything! Of me. Of you abandoning me...”
Fuck me. She’s going through all this, and I’m here thinking about how *I* feel once again.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Little Dove. I swear to Goddess,” I promise, my grip tightening, and her crying finally subsides. “You’re my mate, and I will always be by your side. Do you hear me? We will figure this out together. And I’m not going anywhere, love.” I plead with my eyes. “You got it?”
After a moment, much calmer, she says in a soft voice, “Yes.”
Wiping the tears from her face, my hands end up smearing some of the blood that had gotten on her when she hugged me. I assure her, “It’s safe around here for now. I need to go find Vi.” I lean in and kiss her. “Stay here, okay? Or else your perky ass will be paying later!” 
She gapes at me. Her face flushes red, but she still smiles, making me calm down. Her lips are just inches from mine as she speaks, “Okay, my Alpha Bossy Bastard.” Then she kisses me.
I let out a low chuckle close to her lips before I say, “I told you before. It’s Alpha Bossy Husband to you.”
She pulls back a little further to look at me. “Wait.” Our eyes meet again. “If you think that’s a proposal, you better think again, Alpha Ethan! Because you will be proposing properly. Understand?” 
My mouth opens, then shuts. Weddings are considered just a bureaucratic thing for us Werewolves—they are something we have to do but not something we truly celebrate. What we really celebrate is our mate bond. But I assume it’s different for her. My female has been married for almost a decade, for her, marriage does hold importance. “Yes, Little Dove. I completely understand you,” I say, suppressing my laugh. 
“Well,” she says hastily, crossing her arms, still sitting on my lap. “If you propose and if I say yes—” 
“Wait a second!” I interrupt her. If! IF?” enraged, I ask through clenched teeth. 
“Yes, you heard me right! If. Nothing is guaranteed. I got to ensure you make that proposal good. I don’t want anything half-assed.” She tilts back her head. 
“What makes you think I’d do half-assed?” 
“Well, you just thought that telling me you are my husband was you proposing, wasn’t it?” 
Well, hell.
“Oh. Right... Okay then.”
She uncrosses her arms with a radiant smile and wraps her arms around my neck. 
“You’ll be the death of me.” I shake my head. 
“I love you, my Alpha.”
“I love you, too, my Luna.”

🐺 🐺 🐺

Despite saying I was going after Vi, I went to kill the wolves distant from the bunker, and when I make sure that everything is safe, I mindlink the former Alpha, ‘Dad, how are things there?’
‘All clear, son. Josh is double-checking the border. Your mother is here with me.’
‘Good. All good here, too,’ I answer to him, and then mindlink Josh’s mate. ‘Maggie, get the Omegas to clear out those rogue bodies in front of the bunker. No kids allowed out until it’s done. Send a team to the gates and another to the packhouse to help those who are already there.’
‘Yes, Alpha.’
To my sister, I mindlink, ‘Where are you?’
‘Packhouse, Ian.’
My wolf runs faster in that direction. I’m further away from there than I was before.
Before I can answer, she goes on impatiently, ‘Jordan is here with me.’
From her upset tone, they must be fighting again. For Goddess’ sake! Seriously? Right now?
‘What about Kelly?’
‘He said he mindlinked his sister, and she’s on her way here too.’
Before I can answer, I hear another voice.
‘Alpha, Allie wants to join the teams.’ Maggie mindlinks me. ‘She said it’s her duty, and frankly... my wolf refuses to stop her future Luna.’
I growl and don’t answer her. Kral stomps his feet harder as he races. ‘Are you sure everything’s clear out there?’ I ask my father again.
‘Yes,’ he answers shortly.
And then I get to Maggie’s mind. ‘Fine. She can help. Get her to drive one of the cars. Put her on the packhouse crew.’
‘Got it, Alpha.’
Minutes pass, and I finally get close to the packhouse, but Kral slows down his pace when we spot the massive place. From afar, we realize that we were right about our guess. 
Jordan and Vi are indeed fighting. 
One of my sister’s guns is strapped to her back, and the other is leaning against the wall behind her. Here, near the packhouse, the ground is not as full of bloodshed as near the bunker, but I can still spot a few dead rogues as if they had passed by here before going to the bunker.
Without seeing me yet, I hear Jordan say through gritted teeth. “Fuck. Nothing's going right!”
“What are you talking about?” My sister asks, confused. “No one in our pack died! We won!”
He growls. “Where the fuck is Kelly? She should be here already.”
“Jordan, why are you like this?” Vi says so quietly that I can barely hear her. 
But suddenly, it’s not their fight that catches my attention—what really grabs my focus is the fact that I feel another Alpha wolf sprinting toward us at full speed.
I can hear the sharp whistle of the wind slicing around him and the faint rustle of leaves brushing against him as he moves at breakneck speed. 
I sense him from afar dodging on the path as if, unlike the other rogues, he doesn’t know the terrain of my pack.
Kral starts to growl, fully alert. Dad said everything was fucking safe!
‘Son, a huge wolf passed by here far from us. We couldn’t stop him. I’m running to go after him, but he’s much faster than my wolf!’
Kral is about to chase him, but when we finally see the wolf, Kral comes to a stop mid-way.
Until then, we have only felt his presence in the pack, but we haven’t seen him yet.
The wolf has pure white fur, but what draws attention is the mark on his forehead. 
It has a gray patch of fur on his forehead. 
The Alpha wolf has exactly the opposite colors to my sister’s wolf. Even the spots on their foreheads are in the same place.
The wolf bolts toward the packhouse, moving like a blur, while my wolf stands frozen, watching from a distance. From our spot, we see the wolf skid to a halt near my sister and Jordan. It lets out a deep, menacing growl at Jordan, but then his huge head snaps to the side, and he looks at my sister.
The wolf tilts his head back, sniffing the air, nostrils flaring as it catches a scent before his gaze locks onto my sister again—specifically at her neck, where Jordan’s bite mark is in particular—and he growls again, low and threatening.  
That’s it. Kral surges forward, kicking up dirt as we sprint toward them. Over my dead body will that wolf lay a claw on my sister. To kill her, he needs to kill me first.
My sister freezes, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights instead of reaching for the fucking gun behind her or shifting like she should. In a split second, the white wolf with the gray spot on his forehead lets out a thunderous growl. 
But this time, it is directed straight at Jordan. 
Before Kral can even get close, the wolf lunges, his jaws snapping toward Jordan’s neck without my Gamma being able to shift to defend himself.  
It happens too fast, too brutally.
The wolf kills Jordan immediately, his jaws clamping down on Jordan’s neck with a brutal force that severs his head from his body in one swift motion. 
My sister, frozen until now, finally snaps out of her shock. Her eyes drop to Jordan’s lifeless head on the ground, and her hand flies to her mouth, stifling a gasp. Her voice trembles with disbelief while she calls his name in horror, “Jordan!” 
Kral slows down, already close to the scene, as he hears cars approaching behind us. One stops a little behind my wolf, but he doesn’t look back.
The white wolf with the gray spot on his forehead shifts to his human form and turns to my sister, his mouth covered in Jordan’s blood, and he declares, “*Mate*!”
I feel my own mate running behind me, and I turn to growl at her. 
She should be in the fucking car. Safe! 
But her steps falter, her haunted face making me stop my growl as well. My Little Dove presses one hand to her wildly pounding heart while the other stifles a sob after escaping from her lips just a name in a trembling voice. “Cedar!”