A group of children laughed as they played tag on the beach, circling a girl with bark-textured skin and leafy hair. She was building a sandcastle with a boy whose eyes glowed like embers. A pair of centaur foals splashed in the tide pools while a green-skinned couple watched from the shade of a tree, fingers intertwined, expressions content.
A half-goat man threw a ball to a young boy with donkey ears. The boy caught it, laughed, and chucked it back with the easy joy of someone who had nothing to fear.
No one wore weapons or seemed the least bit threatening, so I eased my hands away from my daggers and straightened.
A child approached. She was maybe six, with violet eyes and a crown of tiny white flowers braided into her dark hair.
“Play with me?” she asked, completely unafraid of my weapons.
Hadn’t anyone taught her not to approach strangers? Especially those who were armed? I glanced around for her guardians, but nobody appeared interested in our conversation.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Socotra,” replied a deep voice behind me.
I turned to find a creature made entirely of stone. He watched me with onyx eyes so full of unearned affection that my throat tightened. Nobody but Mack ever looked at me like that. Not without wanting something. But his expression was full of the same impossible warmth that saturated this place, folding my defenses like wet paper.
“Nobody here will hurt you,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“Are we inside the tree?” I asked.
“We are in paradise as it was meant to be,” he said.
I spun around, taking in the same bizarre vegetation and birds I’d seen on the island. “So, what? Like a different plane of existence? Some kind of pocket universe?”
He slowly shook his head, which made a faint grinding sound, but didn’t seem to hurt him. “Does it matter? Here, we want fornothing. We are happy and at peace. A pack that embraces all who are honored enough to enter. Here, everyone belongs.”
The beast within me stirred, but for once, she didn’t thrash or fight. I got the crazy visual of her stretching and looking around before relaxing. A sound rose from deep in my chest, but it wasn’t a growl or even a whine. She let out a sigh of contentment.
My wolf had never once been at peace. The binding kept her caged, and the cage kept her savage, but here, in this impossible place, she rested, content to simply exist.
For now.
Something tugged on my pants. I looked down to find a pair of violet eyes staring up at me.
“Will you join us?” the dark-haired girl asked.
The air shifted. Everyone in the vicinity turned to watch me, and the eagerness in their eyes was slightly unsettling. Even more so because it seemed genuine. Her offer was legitimate, and they were all anticipating my answer.
“You’re askingmeto join your pack?” I looked from the girl to the stone creature to the dozens of faces now angled toward me like flowers tracking the sun. Every single one of them waited for my answer.
Enthusiastic nods all around.
I took a step back because that was weird. Surely there had to be some skeptics in the bunch. If not, these people were out of their minds. I wasn’t like everyone else. I was dangerous. My wolf might be content for the moment, but what happened when she snapped her leash? Would their perfect, peaceful society be so accepting of me then?
“You don’t know what you’re inviting into your home,” I said.
“Or perhaps you do not know what she offers. No more binding. No more cold tables and sharpened spikes. Here, your beast would need no cage.”
They knew. Everything. These people who lived in a tree onSocotra knew what I’d gone through and were offering me everything I’d ever wanted.
No Sereana. No monthly torture. No side-eyes from packmates who wrinkled their noses. No swallowing my pride and baring my throat to an alpha who used my blood like currency while keeping me in the dark about why.
Just belonging. Unconditional and absolute. The thing I’d been starving for since I was five years old and covered in Jillian’s blood, wondering why nobody else would hold me.
I could stay here.
In this incredible place, where no dragon was trying to kill me. God, I wanted to drop to my knees and play in the sand with a violet-eyed girl, all while my wolf relaxed, content and in peace for all eternity.
