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  Once outside, he leaned against the post, drawing on the savage ferocity of the pack that simmered just under the surface. Though not all of them could change at will, they would all change when he willed it.

  He heard the car before he saw them. How would she come at them, with guns and fire, or as a wolf? He wished Indigo was there at his side, but he left him with Skye; as combat medic he was more used to her than to him, plus he had his orders to get them all out of there if needed. He felt a presence next to him, it was Cara.

  “I thought you might need some backup.”

  “Thanks, I could. You feeling better?”

  “Right as rain, let's kick their ass.”

  Richard chuckled. “Let’s try and keep it nonviolent for as long as possible, I think they have something up their sleeves and I want to give our people as much time as we can, understood?”

  “Yeah, just feeling jazzed from the feedback.”

  “The what?”

  “You can’t feel it? I talked to Indigo, we’re all feeling it, Reign’s birth, your love, the anger at being threatened, it's all right here,” she thumped her chest, “like we were the ones.” She shrugged. “I dunno how to explain it, but its making me want to kill someone.”

  Okay, that’s weird.

  He didn’t have time to question it further; they arrived. The two black town cars pulled up at the very edge of the drive. All the doors opened at once, and Heidi and her six tough looking loner wolves got out. They were armed; he swore under his breath.

  Of course they're not going to fight with honor. Well fine, I have a few tricks of my own.

  Big as brass they spread out in a vee and approached the lodge, Heidi at the center.

  “Is talking still an option?” Cara asked from beside him.

  “Let’s hope so.” Richard tried to suppress the fear in his heart, but he knew the look on that woman's face; she was here for blood.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Push,” Skye said calmly from behind her surgical mask.

  The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as Reign had feared it being, more weird than painful. They had practiced this, of course, several times, she wanted to be ready. But to hear people tell stories of childbirth, and to see it on TV and movies, Reign thought it would be considerably more painful. It did hurt, it just wasn't as bad as she imagined it would be.

  “You think they're okay?” she grunted between her teeth. Indigo was at the door, a black pistol in hand; he had the door open just an inch to peer out.

  “You just focus on you,” he said.

  “I am, and it’s a little hard not to, but if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to imagine it's a lot worse than it is.” He glanced at Skye, she gave him a subtle nod.

  “Okay, but it's a little weird, he’s doing something he’s never done before. It’s like,” he paused, she could tell he was looking for the words, which was unusual for him, he always knew what to say, “it’s like he’s broadcasting his emotions, almost his thoughts to us. I have to say, it’s pretty neat. It’s not just that he cares for us... as his pack, but he loves us like a family, I never knew it was that deep,” Indigo finished his voice thick with emotion.

  Reign blinked the pain out of her eyes and looked to Skye. The redhead was focused on Reign’s birth canal, but she could see the tears in her eyes.

  “Are you feeling what he’s feeling?” she asked.

  Skye nodded. “Including how much he loves you. God, I want to love someone that much some day.”

  Reign slammed herself down on the bed, the contraction practically paralyzing her with pain. “Okay, that one hurt,” she grunted as it passed.

  “You’ve got to push harder, dear, the baby wants to come out, she’s almost there, just needs a little encouragement.”

  “Okay, the next one should be along any second. Skye, I’m gonna give it all I got,” replied Reign.

  She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind; she wished she was linked to Richard the way his pack was. She thought back to being in the Fade, the lash marks on her back itched and tingled. The pain was always fresh in her mind, it somehow made the contraction a little less painful.

  Something was there though, just at the edge of her mind, a feeling, a sensation. She remembered the electricity flowing through her hands, the smell of burnt flesh, how she could fly in the dream. Was it a dream? Was it something else? When Richard went into the Fade he came out changed, he also paid a price.

  Is losing him my price?

  “Cara,” Richard said, as the lone wolves approached, “go to my room and fetch me my axes, the ones in the trunk.”

  “On it,” she replied, running back to the house.

  Heidi stopped a dozen feet from him, holding up her hand to stop her men. They were all dressed in black, some had pistols, others shotguns.

  Leave it to pack-less punks to use guns.

  “Heidi, I know you have some master plan here, but you can’t win.” He tried to keep his voice even and his emotion out of it. He needed to stall her.

  “My dear Richard, I’ve already won, the blight was my victory. If I have to carry out the petty wars of the council for a few years, then so be it, I’m patient. But your child, it could screw everything up, and I can’t allow that. Now, step aside, surely your pack isn’t worth one life.”

  Richard could feel the pack, they all agreed that Reign was their pack, he chose her, and they chose him. Maybe they hadn’t realized that before, but they did now. An Alpha led with the permission of the pack, he led only as long as they believed him. The magic that made him a wolf, that made all of them wolves, was far stronger than anyone understood, Richard included, but they were about to find out.

  “Heidi, you’ve never been a member of a pack, not really, and to be honest, I never knew this till just now, you can’t defeat us. You can’t stop us.”

  “Enough! Kill who you have to, bring me the child.”

  “Richard,” Cara yelled from the second floor window as she tossed out two crescent shaped hand axes. He caught them with an unexpected grace. They were finely made, carved with the language of his people, his weapons of a war long past.

  He turned to face Heidi, fear flickering in her eyes. He let out a mighty roar, so loud it set the alarms off in the car. He didn’t change into a wolf, but he did change, he grew - massive. He added a full foot to his height, his arms elongated, his face turned vaguely wolf like, his eyes went bright gold, fangs grew from his mouth.

  Stunned, the lone wolves froze. Heidi turned and ran through them. “Fire, fire, fire,” she screamed. Passed their initial shock, they opened fire. Richard shrugged off the rounds with a snarl, the beast in charge enough to ignore any pain. With a swing of his thick arm he decapitated the nearest man, the only sure way to kill a wolf instantly. The next one he kicked in the chest, sending him fifty feet into the tree line.

  Heidi disappeared behind the second car, the trunk popped open, but Richard didn’t have time to guess what was coming. The gunfire deafened him, but did not stop him, the third one fell, his skull split by the axe in his other hand.

  Roars and snarls came from behind him as Cara and half a dozen of the pack charged out of the lodge in wolf form. He felt their pain, anger, fear, and determination. He smiled inside and roared.

  One of the lone wolves broke and ran, to be cut down by Cara. The others fell quickly, no match for the ferocity and coordination of the pack, and of Richards’s bizarre half form.

  Heidi came back around from the car, a large backpack on, a nozzled rifle in hand; she depressed the stud and flame shot out. Richard screamed, tried to warn her, but it was too late. Liquid fire engulfed Cara and the man she had tackled. She howled in pain as the flames engulfed her, burned her skin, and her lungs. She fell limp on the ground, still on fire; Heidi turned the flamethrower to the rest of the pack, and they broke and ran back for the lodge.

  Two of Heidi’s surviving wolves rallied behind her as she advanced. Forced to retreat now,
Richard backed up. He could throw his axes, but she was fast enough to dodge it, and no gun could bring her down, as none could him. He spared one glance for Cara’s burnt form. He had no time to mourn, but he would; he could feel the pack's pain at her death.

  I will avenge you.

  Now, though, he had to save who he could, making sure everyone was in the house. He retreated, and as he did, he reverted to human form. He could see Heidi sending her men around back, both now armed with their own flame throwers.

  “Bitch,” Indigo said from behind him.

  “I really was hoping that would work,” Richard said, his eyes down cast.

  “It’s okay, boss, she loved us all, she won’t be forgotten.”

  “Is Reign okay?”

  “Go see.”

  He lunged up stairs and through the door, just in time to hear the baby’s first cry. Reign looked up to him, practically glowing with energy, the baby in her arms was screaming.

  “She’s beautiful,” she said to him.

  “Reign, we need to get you out of here.”

  Skye shook her head. “Moving her now is a bad idea, she’s not in danger, but the possibility of bleeding is a real issue.”

  Richard glanced behind him down the stairs, Indigo shook his head. He could call down TJ and Abbey, but not with those damn flamethrowers.

  “Richard!” Heidi’s voice echoed from outside. “You have one minute, send her out, or you all die.”

  Reign glanced down to the blood soaked axes in his hands. “I take it we’re not doing well?”

  “They have flamethrowers, we go out there, we die.”

  *

  Maybe it was the post birth high, or maybe she was really pissed, but Reign was fuming.

  “Richard, they can’t have her, we have to do something!”

  He looked so heartbroken, what happened out there?

  “Reign, anyone I send out there dies, and if we stay in here we die. I just don’t know what to do, if it comes down to it, we can all charge at once, but that’s not a great option either. I can’t force the change on everyone again.”

  Reign could hear the painful sounds of the wolves changing back into people. It consumed an enormous amount of calories to change, and they usually couldn’t do it more than once a day.

  She could hear the madwoman outside counting down. The baby in her arms yawned and started crying. Skye was there next to her, soothing the baby.

  “Even if we could move you, we don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “Boss, I have an idea, I could shoot my way out. I’m far and away the best shot, I could open a hole,” Indigo said.

  Skye looked broken, like he just said he was dying.

  “No,” she said before she could stop herself.

  “I agree with Skye, Indigo,” Richard said. “You would never get past those weapons, you might get one, but they would get you.”

  “I know, Rich, I’m willing.

  “Well I’m fucking not,” he roared.

  Reign closed her eyes, trying to pretend, just for a second, that none of this was real. Her back itched, the lash marks burned with pain as her anxiety rose.

  “Time's up,” the woman yelled. The sound of fire roared as the flamethrowers poured fire into the sides of the house. There was screaming from downstairs. Skye looked like she was going to panic, Richard tried to calm them down but Reign could see the fear in his face.

  They were trapped there, because of her, because she couldn’t be moved, they were all going to die.

  The pack flooded up the stairs, trying to get away from the growing flames downstairs.

  “I’m going,” Indigo said. “I’m our best chance, one life for twenty, it’s a square deal.”

  Richard put his arm on his friend, “I won’t forget you.”

  Skye rushed over and engulfed him in a hug, kissing him hard on the lips.

  Reign's back burned now, her fingers itched, there was something that she was forgetting... something she knew but couldn’t quite remember.

  “Skye,” she heard Richard's voice, “what’s wrong with her?”

  His voice was distant, like it was underwater, so was Skye’s reply, “Uh, boss?”

  Reign looked down to her hands, electricity arced down her body to her fingers. She lifted her hand to examine it, and little bolts leaped between her fingers. She remembers, in her dream she could use magic, she had believed with all her heart that she could use magic... just like Richard had to believe he was a wolf.

  “Richard,” she said, “I got this.” With a sense she didn’t know she had, she reached out to Richard’s mind. She could see his link to the pack, she intercepted it, and the emotions that everyone felt washed over her, including the sorrow at Cara’s death. Anger flared through her at those that would hurt her, hurt her baby, that killed Cara.

  She put that away in a little box for later. She was in no condition to exact vengeance, but she would be.

  Oh Cara, I wish I could have said goodbye.

  It was fitting though, that Cara gave her the answer. They couldn’t escape the burning building, not with her, and they couldn’t stay. Reign focused hard, and through the link she felt every wolf, including Abbey and TJ in the mine, she focused on all of them, and then thought of the place she last felt truly safe.

  “Richard, whats happ...”

  “...ening,” Indigo said.

  The lodge was gone. All nineteen wolves, one baby, and one human, were in the loft in Seattle, the one Cara and Reign had lived in before.

  Richard was stunned, he rushed to Reign's side, but she was out cold. “Skye!”

  She was there, trying to shake off whatever happened, checking Reign’s pulse. “She’s fine, just out cold, uh, what was that?”

  “If I had to guess, magic,” Richard said quietly.

  “You mean like Houdini?” Indigo asked.

  “No, like the kind of magic that turns men into wolves, the kind of magic that hasn’t existed in this world for a long time.”

  “Damn boss, you know how to pick ‘em.”

  “Well, for now, we're safe, and she’s okay.” Richard reached down and gently picked his daughter up; she was beautiful, her eyes barely open, then she yawned. The yawn turned into a smile and she fell asleep.

  “I don’t understand, she should have changed,” Richard whispered to Skye.

  “As far as I can tell, she’s healthy as can be.”

  “Oh, Reign, what have you done?” Richard sighed.

  Magic always comes with a price.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Reign stood on the balcony of their Seattle loft, watching the sunrise over the Cascades. Baby Cara slept peacefully in the bassinet behind the closed sliding glass doors. Richard was in the bed of their room, still asleep. Everything had changed since the last time the girl visited Seattle. The skyline was still the same, the space needle still stood out from the blue of Puget Sound, the morning traffic still clogged the roads, but something was different. Reign couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was if everything was black and white, and she was the only thing in color.

  She turned to look at her baby, the pretty little girl who seemed to light up everyone but Reign. She had Reign’s hair and skin, and her father’s eyes and features-she just was not a wolf. She did not turn, not when she was born, not on the new moon when all wolves turned, not once in three months. There was little doubt that whatever Reign did to break the spell, also purged the wolf from her.

  I failed.

  She failed Richard, the pack, their species. It’s what she could see when she looked at them, and she knew it was all they could see when they looked at little Cara. Richard was a loving father and Skye positively doted on the girl, as much since she couldn't have a child of her own, as the baby was just that cute. Reign though, all she could see was her failure.

  Loptr told her, magic had a price, was this it? Would this be it? Would there be more, was Cara’s death, her own sudden powers, the loss of the lodge, and a
ll nineteen of them, well nineteen and a half, living in the lodge forced to hide out in a loft, was that not price enough? What she really needed to do was speak to Loptr, but she had no idea how. She didn’t want to ask Richard to take her, she could barely look at him, let alone ask for anything.

  The sun was fully above the Cascades now, warming everything it touched, but somehow it failed to warm Reign. She thought of the little shop far away in South Dakota, what it smelled like, what the air felt like, she could almost see it.