The Awakening

The Awakening


I turned on my heel, running back to Alexander’s office. “Bring the midwife,” I called over my shoulder to Chase and Madilyn. I didn’t look to see if they followed my command. I knew they would. They wanted to get Paige back from Markus almost as much as I did. They were among the few in the pack that would follow her as the Coronado Pack Luna.

We burst into Alexander’s office, Beta Jose quickly jumping in front of his Alpha with a growl. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked, Alexander raising a brow from behind his beta.

“Stand down, Beta Jose,” Alexander said, pulling back his beta by the shoulder. “They have a midwife with them. That means this is news involving the children.” He looked back at us expectantly, nodding for us to continue. “Is there a problem with the preparations?”

“We are missing a pup,” I answered, smirking as he perked up with interest.

“What? Which child is missing? Do we have any idea who was the last person who saw the child?” He looked to the midwife with panic at the thought of losing one of the young.

“The child in question is still in its mother’s womb,” the midwife explained, Alexander’s brows drawing tighter. “However, I understand that the mother has been kidnapped by the Oceanside Alpha. Why have we not gone after her yet?”

I smirked at the midwife, loving how she played with Alexander, feigning ignorance of the Alpha’s decision not to go after my witch mate.

“What?” Alexander asked, his gaze snapping at me. “What is she saying?”

“Paige is pregnant with my child,” I answered, smiling at Alpha Alexander, showing my victory. “That means Markus didn’t just kidnap my witch mate. He kidnapped my pup, and Katya helped him.”

Alexander let out a disgusted growl, claws digging into his desk as he leaned over. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“I was protecting her,” I answered honestly. “I didn’t think anyone would care that my half-witch child was in her womb, and the thought of Markus learning she was pregnant and attempting to end the pregnancy felt like a real threat.”

“This changes things,” Alexander growled, looking at an equally angry Beta Jose. “We can’t condone our children being taken. No matter what the circumstances.”

“I agree, Alpha,” Jose nodded. “Our children are our most important resource.”

“Go and round up the pack,” Alexander ordered Jose. “Tell them they will answer to Nyte by retrieving his pregnant mate from the Oceanside Pack. All mothers and their children must go with the midwives into their caves. The packhouse will not be safe while we are gone.”

Beta Jose nodded, turning and leaving the office to carry out the orders. Alexander narrowed his gaze at me. “You get your mate back, Nyte. Now, you better hope we don’t lose too many wolves in this fight. We need our full numbers to go up against the vampires and whatever witches are helping them.”

“The only wolf we will be missing is the one holding my mate from me,” I told him, turning and leaving the office with Chase and Madilyn behind me.

“No one touches Markus but me,” I ordered them, their responding growls confirming my command.

“I’ll try to contain myself,” Madilyn growled. I smiled at her, heading to the front door with the newly growing pack of wolves ready to retrieve my mate. Their eyes bled with bloodlust as their instincts to protect the young overtook their disdain for the witch mother.

“Nyte,” Dasha called out, stepping from the crowd and immediately baring her neck to me. “I’m sorry for what my sister has done. Please allow my mother and me to earn our place by helping retrieve your mate and child.”

I rolled my eyes. “I won’t turn away from any help, and I don’t fault you for the crimes of your relatives. We all make our own choices, Dasha. I just hope that yours are better from this point forward.”

I spotted Katya being cuffed and handed over to the midwives for guarding while the rest of the pack left to right her crime; her eyes were flooding with tears. Her gaze met mine momentarily, a flash of pleading crossing her face before I turned away, the little hope she seemed to hold vanishing. She would be banished and made a rogue for what she did. Whether she knew that Paige was pregnant or not, the crime against a child of the pack could never go unpunished. It was among the laws we had put into place to protect our children. Laws that no one was above, not even Alphas.

Chase and Madilyn joined me in my car, the others piling into SUVs together; many pack members were already parked in vehicles with engines running along the side of the road of the packhouse. They were waiting for me to lead the charge.

“Hold tight and buckle up,” I warned Chase and Madilyn. “And call any witch or wolf we know in law enforcement. I don’t want to deal with any cop who chooses to chase us over us speeding.”

I took off, my tires squealing behind me, emitting a plume of smoke and the smell of burning rubber. The others took off behind me, a convoy of vehicles speeding through the small Point Loma neighborhood, turning north to reach the interstate and leave the peninsula behind.

Chase called every wolf and witch we knew who worked in human law enforcement, getting a trooper to escort us through the interstate toward Oceanside. It didn’t take much time to reach the pack’s territory, and we quickly rolled up to the packhouse.

I stepped out first, frowning as members of Markus’s pack stared at us; no one was making a move to stop us as we approached.

“You’re here for the witch, right?” a woman asked, spitting at her feet. “She’s inside. Third floor in Alpha’s private rooms.”

“You don’t have any objections to our pack entering the territory?” I asked, suspicious of their lack of action.

“The fact you have come means the witch is important to your pack. We have no intention of fighting you for one we don’t accept. The Alpha has been making questionable decisions for years now, but with this choice, we cannot stand at his side. We will not stand in your way.”

I looked away from the she-wolf, finding the rest of their pack backing away from the door, parting like the Red Sea to allow me to pass. Only one wolf stood at the end of the path, still blocking the front door.

Beta Thompson.

I growled, walking toward him, my eyes taking in his stance while watching how his eyes shifted nervously. A battle raged inside him. The struggle of a beta forces them to choose between his duty to his Alpha and his commitment to the pack. Given the bond with Paige, he was just as torn between following his orders and engendering disapproval at what his Alpha was doing.

“Will you stand between me and my mate?” I asked him as I reached the first step of the packhouse, narrowing my gaze at him.

“Don’t be stupid, Thompson,” the she-wolf from behind me urged him. “The pack can’t stand against him with his entire pack on his side. Step aside. The pack needs you more than Markus.”

“Sophia,” he growled, looking past me to her. “He’s our Alpha.”

“He hasn’t been our Alpha for some time now, Thompson. Nothing he has done in the past year has been for our benefit, especially not taking that witch from Nyte. He doomed us when he kidnapped her. I could smell just how doomed the moment he brought her into the packhouse. Step aside and let him pass.”

Thompson looked back to me, a low growl rumbling in his chest before stepping aside, leaving my path clear to enter the house. I entered the packhouse, finding it empty, proving that the entire pack was outside. A soft sound could be heard down the hall, past the staircase leading me to the room I had been told Paige was being kept in.

I quickly looked at the path before following the sound deeper into the packhouse; a soft light was flickering in a room resembling the common room back at my packhouse.

“So,” Markus sighed, swirling a glass of whiskey on the rocks in his hand. “I guess the pack has changed their mind about the witch. And my pack has turned their backs on me for good.” He let out a low chuckle. “Cowards.”

“What exactly were you expecting in all this, Markus?” I asked, stepping into the room and circling the older Alpha. He didn’t bother standing up, sipping his drink as if we were two friends meeting to share after-work cocktails.

“I expected loyalty.”

“Loyalty has its limits, and it isn’t blind.” I stepped closer, his gaze leaving his drink and smirking at me.

“Shouldn’t it be? After all, I give my life to protecting their lives. Shouldn’t they be willing to do anything I say?”

“You’ve lost your mind, Markus. No Alpha wants blind loyalty: it leads to imbalance. An Alpha is meant to keep balance within his pack.”

Markus let out a laugh. “Balance. What balance do you give your pack with all that unrivaled strength? You could destroy us all if you really wanted to put your mind to it. Where is the balance there?”

I smiled. “She’s upstairs in your room, waiting for me to take her home.”

Markus’s eyes changed. His expression darkened as his canines began to elongate with a growl. “You can’t have her. She’s mine!”

My own change began, my claws growing out as I adjusted my stance; the older man jumped to his feet, looking more wolf than man as he let out a deep howl. “You have no claim on her,” I snarled, diving for the shifting wolf’s throat. He avoided me, turning his fully shifted snout around at me, snapping sharpened teeth at my neck in the same attempt to end this in one bite.

We swung our claws at one another, taking hit after hit, his claws digging into my side just as mine dug into his. I let out a feral howl, snapping my jaws at his arms. My teeth successfully sank into his right arm, his howl of pain echoing through the empty house as I pulled. I was entirely shifted now, using the full strength of my wolf to rip at his arm, relishing the loud snap of cartilage, tendons, and bones ripping apart.

His claws tore at my back, his teeth snapping unsuccessfully at my neck and side, struggling to free his arm. I pulled harder at the limb, finally releasing it, watching the useless arm fall to his side, far too torn to repair itself. I then turned to his other arm, dragging his body to the ground as I attacked his good arm, working to leave it as crippled as the other.

Markus’s howls turned from aggressive to panicked, the sound certain to be driving his beta mad outside as he fought back his urge to come to his Alpha’s aid. I decided to end this quickly, not wanting any of his pack to give in to their instincts to come to the call of their Alpha. It was far too convenient not to have to shed their blood. I had promised Alexander that Markus was the only wolf who would be gone after this, and I aimed to keep that promise.

My jaws closed around Markus’s neck, ending his howls, the sound replaced by a choking sound, his lungs filling with his blood. I gave a quick shake, breaking his neck and ending his suffering. I couldn’t begin to understand how he had come to this point in his life. His claim of Paige belonging to him. His belief that his pack should follow him blindly, even as he stole another man’s mate. None of it made any sense, and now, none of it mattered.

Thompson appeared in the doorway as I shifted back to my human form. Madilyn and Chase appeared behind him as he stood frozen in the doorway. I looked at the pain crossing the Beta’s eyes as he looked down at his fallen Alpha, tears shimmering in his brown eyes.

“He wasn’t always like this,” Thompson swore, wiping his eyes. “Something happened about a year ago…a shift in his personality as if something inside him had just changed. He spoke nonsense. He claimed his mate was a witch, and he could feel her near. He began to leave the house every night to search all over the city for her. But he always came back empty-handed.”

I frowned at his words. “Until he found my mate.”

Thompson nodded. “He said that he knew it had to be her. No other witch in the city was as powerful, and he insisted his mate had to be powerful.”

Thompson looked back at me, swallowing hard. “Your mate is upstairs. The old attic was converted years ago to become Alpha and Luna’s room. Markus put her there.”

I nodded, pushing past him and leaving the Beta to collect his Alpha’s remains. No matter how lost Markus had been at his end, his pack would still lay him to rest as the Alpha he was to them. I had no intention of stopping them from doing so. Madilyn and Chase followed me back down the hallway and upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. At the top of the second flight of stairs stood a single door, light trickling through the bottom of the door from a fireplace on the other side.

Slowly, I pressed the door open, looking around the room until my eyes fell on the bed. Paige was lying on it. She looked like she was sleeping, like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for her prince’s true love kiss to break the spell of the evil fairy queen. I approached her carefully, bending next to her, my hand brushing the hair from her forehead. She didn’t stir, my heart skipping a beat before her heartbeat reached my ear. Steady, strong. Her breathing even.

“She’s sleeping,” I sighed. “Paige?” I tried to shake her, frowning when she still didn’t wake.

“Kiss her,” Madilyn said. “Like they do in the movies.”

I frowned at my would-be beta before looking back at my mate. Gently, I bent my head down to kiss her like a fairy tale character, but her eyes flew open just before my lips touched hers; her eyes widened as she took me in.