“I risked my life for one of you, but I’d have done that no matter what. I don’t need to be even for that. I’m here because I had nowhere else to go.” He paused, knowing he was changing his life once again. Forever. “You have me. My loyalty. My…whatever I am. You took me in when you didn’t have to, and I will do everything I can to repay you.”
Gideon nodded, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. “You left your people—in essence, betrayed them because they were betraying humanity and the world. I get that. I admire that. But not everyone within the Pack and outside it will be happy that you’re here. But I speak for my Pack and my family as I welcome you. I don’t know what’s coming next, but I have to trust the moon goddess and the fact that you came to us when you knew I could kill you on sight. You’re Pack now, Shane. Earn it. Help us save our people.”
Our people.
Shane nodded, but his mind whirled. He was Pack, but was he wolf? What would happen when he tried to shift? What would happen when Bram left the room, and he couldn’t control himself anymore?
Bram.
Why did Bram matter? And who owned that sweet and floral scent from before?
His life had changed irrevocably, and though he’d come to the Talons for help, he had a feeling a cut on the hand wasn’t all that was required to be entered into the Pack. It wasn’t that easy. Gideon was right. He’d betrayed Montag, and the General wouldn’t take that lying down.
Even though Shane had spent his life protecting others, he might have made a huge mistake in coming here. His actions, in the end, might prove to be the lynchpin that destroyed them all.
Chapter Four
Charlotte’s wolf once again pushed at her, and she knew she’d have to go for a run or perhaps a hunt soon. She may have just gone on one with Bram, but it hadn’t been enough. Her wolf scraped its claws along her skin, an uncomfortable pinprick of sensation that had her eyes watering. The fact that she’d run with Bram, who was usually the reason she needed such a hard run in the first place was not lost on her.
Now, there seemed to be another man in the mix to push at her wolf.
Yet she had a feeling that no amount of running would help her.
How the hell had she gotten herself into this situation? She hadn’t been lying when she’d laughed hollowly at Finn’s words when she’d first seen Shane. When she’d first met him. How could she trust the moon goddess like so many of her Pack? It hurt to even think about.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do you want me to try and guess?”
Charlotte turned at her mother’s voice and shook her head, a small smile playing on her face. Since wolves didn’t age past their thirtieth birthday—and sometimes even a few years before then—Ellie and Charlotte looked more like sisters than mother and daughter. Technically, they were sisters, but Ellie had adopted Charlotte when she was a young child, and Charlotte had called the other woman her mother since the day she had been brought into the Redwood Pack from the bowels of the Central Pack. The two of them had long, dark hair with bright brown eyes. Though they had two different birth mothers—thanks to their father, the former Alpha of the Central Pack, finding two mates in his lifetime—they looked much closer than half-sisters with their light brown skin and shapely hips and curves.
Charlotte wasn’t sure what she would have done without Ellie and Maddox in her life. They’d brought her hope in the darkness, and when her little sisters had been born, showed her that family was more than blood ties and history.
It was what you made it.
Thinking of how her life had once been, chained in a basement and hidden from the world, Charlotte wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist and hugged her tightly. Ellie didn’t say a word as she hugged her back, the familiar comfort of home and family sliding into Charlotte with that one touch.
“I’m going crazy,” Charlotte whispered after a moment.
Ellie slid her hand over Charlotte’s hair before pulling back so they faced each other on a fallen log she’d sat on outside her parent’s home. The sun was shining, and the breeze that slid over them was cool, but not too cold. Sitting here, where she’d sat so many times before, she could almost forget there was a battle going on outside of their borders and that her life had been rocked from its foundation once again just by walking into the Talon infirmary.
“Why are you going crazy, my love?” Ellie asked.