“In my pack, we trust our elders to bring us safely home.”
Henry smiled up at him. It was a sad smile, but one nonetheless. “I do trust you.”
“How? You don’t know me.”
Henry sighed. “No, but you know he hurt me once. You won’t let him hurt me again. I do trust that much.”
And those were the words Dakota must have needed, because they were the truth. He absolutely wouldn’t let Henry get hurt again. Instead of responding, Dakota climbed onto the bed and put a couple pillows behind his back. He leaned against the headboard and gestured Henry forward.
He settled on the bed between Dakota’s spread legs and leaned carefully back against his chest. He immediately felt safe. His mates found places on the bed as well. All of them gently touching him, reminding him that he wasn’t alone.
Sawyer was the last to take his position. He leaned in and kissed Henry gently before raising up and giving Dakota a look. “Take care of both of you.”
“I will,” Dakota replied.
Everything became pretty blurry for Henry after that. Dakota began a quiet chant under his breath. Henry closed his eyes, but he could still see. A fog of images began floating through his mind, nothing understandable. Nothing even approachable. He held on, suddenly afraid of being lost in that disjointed smoke. How would Dakota ever find him?
But Dakota’s body was firm and steady behind him. He surrounded Henry, his presence large and stable. Secure. Nothing would get through Dakota to him. He just had to hang on. The fog intensified and images began to flow faster and faster. So fast it made him dizzy. He didn’t know where to look or what to do. Dakota hadn’t told him. Was he supposed to do something? Just as he began to panic, the vision cleared, and Henry stood in a dark patch of woods. A bubbling creek was beside him. He didn’t recognize where he stood, but he didn’t think he was supposed to. He started to look around when the trees came to life. Ravens and crows, cawing and screeching, filled the air. They swirled around, a tornado of black, and when they finally flew away, a little boy crouched on the ground where nothing had been a moment before.
The boy was naked and trembling. He was scared. Henry started to go to him, but he couldn’t get closer. Something kept him away. The ravens cawed again and dropped items on the ground in front of the boy. He looked up at them and smiled.
Henry knew that smile.Sawyer.
Another sound emerged, this one louder and more powerful. Little boy Sawyer picked up the gifts from his ravens and put them on. They’d brought him clothes. A woman emerged from the darkness, and she hurried to Sawyer’s side.
“There you are, little brother. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Sawyer didn’t seem to recognize her, but he smiled anyway. “I’m lost,” Sawyer said.
The woman smiled, but it didn’t hide her sadness.
“I know, little one. I’ll help you find your way.”
She held out her hand and Sawyer took it, placing so much trust in her. And then he began to talk, asking questions about anything and everything. The vision changed, becoming dark once more, and another dark patch of woods appeared.
This time, a grown man crouched in the clearing. He growled as he pushed to his feet. “What did you do?”
He looked around before reaching out his hands. It took him a second to realize nothing was happening.
“What did you do?” This time it was a shout.
A man emerged from the woods. He was dressed… weirdly. Like one of those guys that did historical reenactments. He even sounded different when he spoke. “You lost?”
It took Henry a second to realize that although the brothers had both come back, it hadn’t been at the same time. It wasn’t a reenactment. The guy in the clearing was from a different time in history, and the first one was Sawyer’s brother. No, Henry wouldn’t give him the title. Sawyer didn’t want that. This was Palinouros. The one they were after. Sawyer would probably know from the clothes when it was, so Henry took a second to look at them and try to catalog a few details. It might be important.
Palinouros grabbed the second guy, moving more quickly than Henry could track. He grabbed the new guy by the head, and then he started screaming. His eyes turned red and even though Henry wanted to help, to make it stop, he couldn’t. He recognized that he was watching something from the past unfold. Something no one else had seen before. The poor man died as Henry watched, and Palinouros dropped him like he was nothing more than trash.
“You didn’t get it all,” Palinouros said.
He walked away like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just taken a life. And that told Henry everything he needed to know. He could confess, even to himself, that he’d hoped Sawyer’s brother wasn’t all bad. That maybe there was some explanation for what he’d done. Part of him wanted that, needed it. He wanted an explanation for what had happened to him and his siblings, plus all of the other kids who’d been hurt. Maybe he was dying, scared and alone, and it was the only way he wouldn’t do the exploding thing Sawyer had talked about. Maybe he was desperate and that was the only way out until Sawyer came along and fixed the magic.
But no. This wasn’t that. And the vision had known Henry needed to see it. They were dealing with evil, pure and simple. Henry trembled at the darkness he could hear in that voice. The threat very real. Whatever Sawyer had done hadn’t taken all of Palinouros’s magic. Sawyer’s brother had an agenda, and he didn’t care how many lives he destroyed to do it.
They moved again, and this time, they ended up in another set of woods. A man had a screaming child in his arms, and Henry could hear snarling and shouting behind him. Then a howl. Henry knew that sound well. It was the sound of an angry alpha. The man looked panicked but the child calmed. His pack was coming for him. He just had to hold on.
And then Palinouros appeared. The man thrust the child into his arms and took off at a run. “More trouble than you’re worth,” Palinouros said.
Henry froze, fearing what he was about to see. But Palinouros simply dropped the child and vanished. You couldn’t steal a child from a pack. His dads had already figured that much. They had no idea where Palinouros was getting what seemed to be an endless supply of children, but they weren’t being taken from their packs.
