“I can smell that butterfly!” Maggie exclaimed as she ran in circles around Brie, hopping, jumping, skipping, doing all the things that her foot had never allowed her to do as a mortal.
Grange’s alpha blood had not only turned the girl into a werewolf but it had also corrected her vision and healed her crooked foot.
Brie had never seen a child so happy as Maggie had been once the fever had left her body and she had realized she could finally run just as easily as everyone else.
“Yes, what does it smell like?” Brie asked with interest as she adjusted Creed on her hip. Farrah walked alongside them quietly. They were heading back to Brie and Nickolai’s cabin having just taken the kids to the tiny lake nearby to wash them up for the night and let them play.
“It sure don’t smell like butter.” Maggie replied with a frown as she stopped running and her chest rose and fell quickly from exertion. It seemed that the girl could never hold still for very long and soon she was skipping alongside Brie and Farrah.
“Mama?” Maggie asked after several moments of silence. Brie smiled and looked down at the dark haired girl. Mama sounded nice. Brie and Nickolai had come to terms with the fact a long time ago that they would never have children.
The scent of a barren womb was thick on Brie and it had always been something that made her feel guilty, knowing that she was depriving Nickolai of a chance at fatherhood.
But now this little angel was in their lives and Brie had never been happier. And Maggie was doing wonderfully. She was handling the werewolf very well. While Brie hadn’t allowed the girl to shift yet and had been teaching her breathing techniques and how to count backward to calm her temper and keep the shift at bay, she knew that in a weeks time the girl would have her first shift on the night when all were creatures shift.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Brie asked the girl, laying her hand on her dark hair to still her skipping. “And quit bouncing around so, you’re getting all sweaty and you just had your bath.”
Maggie gave her a guilty smile and began to walk normally.
“When is my papa going to be home? And Ella? I miss Ella. I miss the alpha’s too. Where are they?”
Brie felt an ache deep in her chest. Two weeks the pack had been gone and with each passing hour that they didn’t return, Brie felt doubts creeping in. Doubts that told her they may not be coming back.
“Soon, sweetheart. They should all be home soon.”
“You’re lying.” Maggie pouted as she crossed her arms over her thin chest.
“Why do you say that?”
Her tiny nose curled. “I can smell it. Lies stink.”
“They might not be coming back at all.” Farrah spoke up for the first time all afternoon. “Something bad might have happened.” Brie knew that the werelion was frightened and worried for her mate. She was angry that the child in her womb had forced her to left behind. Brie understood how she felt. The wolf in her was desperate to find her mate, protect him, stay by his side… She knew the lion in Farrah felt the same.
“Are they dead?” Maggie asked quietly, cautiously, clearly afraid of the answer.
“Of course not!” Brie exclaimed, throwing Farrah a warning glance. “They’ll be home soon, sweetheart. Now let’s get home so we can all rest.”
They were nearly home, the cabin was in sight, when the sound of tearing fabric filled the air.
Brie looked back and down and saw that the skirt of Maggie’s light blue gingham dress had gotten hung on a thorn bush and torn.
Maggie was gripping the skirt tightly and trying to pull it free of the tight grasp of the bush but the thorns had dug in deep and were refusing to release their hold.
Brie watched as Maggie quickly grew angry. Brie knew that the sudden rise in emotion, the overreaction to such a simple problem, was due to the wolf in the girl. It didn’t help that with Grange’s blood, the girl had also gotten his temper.
A low growl came from deep within Maggie’s throat, sounding higher pitched than Grange and yet somehow equally as threatening. Her dark eyes began to glow golden and Brie knew she was running out of time to keep the girl from shifting.
“Maggie…” Brie cooed soothingly. “Breath deep through your nose Maggie and picture something pretty. Calm yourself.”
The girl glared up at her but Brie sent her a look that showed her she expected to be obeyed. Maggie closed her eyes and began to breath deep. Brie handed Creed to Farrah and then crouched and freed Maggie’s skirt from the thorny bush.
“Now it’s all ripped up!” Maggie exclaimed with an angry stomp as she took in the sight of her tattered skirt. Brie sighed.
“It’s okay and easily fixed.” she assured the girl.
“Fine.” Maggie stomped off toward the cabin, clearly still upset and Farrah and Brie shared a look of dread. Both knew they were going to have their hands very full if the pack was not home when the time came to shift.
***
Vern could smell the wolves and the werelion sound asleep inside the cabin. Rage filled him, causing his blood to boil when he realized that the prey he truly sought was not here.
Something had been off about that Hunter and Vern realized he should have trusted his instincts. The Hunter had lied to him. Vern knew it. He knew the Hunter hadn’t captured Grange because the entire pack was gone and Vern had had the area checked thoroughly for any signs of a recent struggle. Any freshly dug graves or any scent of blood.
The Hunter had quite simply taken his money and run.
Vern would settle that score with him later.
Now he had a score to settle with Grange, the wolf who had murdered his father. The man who, in Vern’s mind, was ultimately responsible for his pack overthrowing him.
He only had four faithful wolves, friends that had grown up with him, who had left the pack to remain by his side once the others had tossed him out. The other pack members had said that Vern’s mind was poisoned with hate. That his hatred of Grange had caused him to make an unforgivable mistake in asking a Hunter for help. That going to a Hunter for help murdering someone would only serve to bring the Hunting Council down on their heads.
Vern hoped the council would come and wipe out every single ungrateful wolf still left in that pack. That wasn’t the pack his father had led with such an iron fist. That pack would have recognized Vern’s authority and never questioned him. No the pack had softened, become weaker, under the alpha that had served once his father had been killed.
Vern was happy to no longer be tied to them.
“Sir, there’s nobody here.” Sly, the wolf who had served as his Beta, his second in command, stated quietly. Vern glared at the other wolf as an owl hooted in the distance.
“Yes, someone is there.” he countered. Sly’s face paled a little in the moonlight.
“Just a wolf, a werelion with a child in her womb, a baby and an adolescent. There are no other pack members and certainly no alpha. This is nothing more than a den.”
“Those children were both created by the alpha, I remember his putrid scent, and it is strong on them.”
“I don’t feel right attacking a den.” Sly admitted and Vern rounded on him.
“Do you want to walk away from me too? Are you that much of a soft hearted coward?!”
“No!” Sly assured him quickly. “I just think it’s not safe. Mothers can get very deadly when their children are threatened.”
Vern laughed as did the other three wolves.
“You’re scared of women and children? Two tiny women and two tiny children?” Vern questioned with disbelief.
“Of course not!” Sly grumbled, his face reddening with embarrassment. “But why is there a werelion here? What kind of wolf pack has a lion in it?”
“Who cares?” Vern demanded, his patience waning. He was so close. So close to having his first taste of revenge against the wolf who had killed his father. “We will kill the lion! We will kill the female wolf and we will kill the children. Let Grange come home and find his children dead just the same as I found my father!”
***
Brie tossed and turned, her dreams plagued. Flashes of pain and destruction filled her mind.
Pain, death, screams, blood…. And in the midst of it all was her strong soldier. Her Nickolai.
She saw him, illuminated in the moonlight, fighting for all he was worth. His wolf just as handsome to look upon as the man. His powerful muscles were bunching and twisting as he took out his attackers, one at a time, methodically, just as he’d been trained from birth to do.
Brie saw a man coming up behind Nickolai. She saw him draw his sword and heard the ringing of the cold, shining metal against its scabbard.
“Nickolai!” she cried out a warning but he didn’t hear her and he gave no sign that he heard his attacker sneaking up behind him.
Moonlgiht glinted off the blade as the man raised it high above his head and then brought it down on Nickolai’s neck……
“Brie!” Farrah’s voice was a harsh whisper as the woman shook Brie’s shoulder roughly and Brie awoke with a start.
“Where is Nickolai?” she gasped as she sat up and nearly bumped heads with the werelion, who was crouched beside her in her sleeping gown, her dark golden hair falling over her shoulders.
“I don’t know.” Farrah replied with a shrug. “But we have bigger problems than that just now.”
Brie tried to orientate herself with her surroundings. The crickets were chirping, the moon was nearly full and its light spilled across her bedroom floor softly.
Then she caught the scent. Wolves.
“What’s going on?” she whispered, suddenly on high alert as she glanced at Maggie’s sleeping form in the corner of the room. The girl still hated to sleep alone. Creed still slumbered peacefully in his cradle at the foot of Brie’s bed.
“Five wolves. Males. I do not know them. They are outside, circling the cabin.”
Brie was suddenly grateful that Farrah had been sleeping on she and Nickolai’s sofa while the rest of the pack had been away. Brie was not a warrior. She was a heavy sleeper, unlike Farrah, or Nickolai, who had trained themselves to never be completely unaware of their surroundings. If it had been only Brie here with the children the five wolves would have snuck right in.
“Why would they be attacking us?” Brie questioned as she rose from her bed and stepped out into the main living area of the cabin.
“I think it’s that southern pack that Brendon warned Grange about. They are young, and arrogant, obviously, because they think we do not know they are here.”
“We cannot let them hurt the babies.” Brie stated matter of factly and Farrah nodded in agreement, her hands resting on her stomach, which was beginning to show the signs of the child within it.
“They are not going to leave willingly.” Farrah stated.
Brie took a deep breath and grabbed the shot gun that she kept beside the door at Nickolai’s insistence. She had never been a fighter but she would not let these men near her child and Creed. It would be over her dead body.
“Then we’ll just have to convince them to leave unwillingly.”