“Let’s gather the men,” Brent said, closing the lid of his laptop.“We’ve got some planning to do.”
“How are we going to take out the wolves?”Freddie asked.“They’re smart.”
“Maybe, but they’re also animals.We just need to disrupt them and make them panic, then they’ll be easy pickings.”
“If you say so.”
“I do,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder.“Let’s make a plan to strike.Soon.”
The pack didn’t know what was coming for it.
Soon enough, Brent would see Thorn Hollow entirely human, the wolves scattered to the wind, and as many dead bodies as he could manage.
* * *
Mira sat at a picnic table with Leo while his people had continued with their journey around the fairgrounds, and her people had gone back to dealing with patrons.She’d been mid-argument with Lark, who’d told her to ease up on her parents for the decades of lies, and then she’d passed out when she saw Leo.
Talk about interrupting a serious conversation.
But for the best of reasons.
She rubbed the space over her heart as Leo told her about the pack and Thorn Hollow, and his job as a security guard and mechanic.
“Are you okay?”he asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“You keep rubbing your heart.”
She paused, her fingers pressed against her skin.Then she chuckled.“I guess I am.”She’d told him a bit about herself as they’d talked for the last hour, that she’d been raised by psychics but wasn’t actually one of them, and instead was a rare female gryphon.“I never felt anything inside me that felt remotely supernatural.Until now.I can feel some kind of echo of something in my heart.It’s not just our connection as mates, it’s deeper than that.Primal, almost.”
“You’re feeling your beast for the first time because of me?”
“I guess.I’m sure nothing will come from it because of the Wiccan spell that suppressed my nature.But it’s a little weird.”
“I wish I could help you get past that spell,” he said.
“Me too.But I’ve never been able to shift, so I don’t really know what I’m missing, you know?I just know that right now, I feel different, and part of it is because I found you, but part of it is a tiny bit of me feels like it’s coming awake, and it’s odd.”
Someone approached, and she looked up and saw Tamsin.
“Hey, how are you doing?”Tamsin asked as she joined them.She introduced herself to Leo.
“I’m okay.I feel a little weird, though.”
“I’m sure you do.I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry we kept things from you.Daphne and Gideon wanted to be the ones to tell you the truth and forbid us from telling you anything.I hope you don’t hate me.”
“I don’t,” she said.“I’m mad at them about it, because maybe if they’d told me earlier, that Wiccan would still have been alive and could have reversed the spell.It’s wild to me that a spell could be unbreakable like that, even with her death.”
“I agree,” Tamsin said.She hugged Mira.“So are you going home with this wolf or what?Your parents are freaking out a bit.”
“We haven’t talked about that.”
She looked at Leo, and he smiled softly at her.“I don’t want to leave you here.I would really like for you to come with me back to Thorn Hollow, but I know we just met.”
She gave his hand a squeeze, then linked their fingers.
“We’re mates, though.I feel like I finally belong somewhere, and that’s with you.Let’s go talk to my parents.I think it’s time to head to Thorn Hollow.”
