Chapter 30

Reagan:

Noah didn’t like me playing nurse. It could have been because he didn’t need the help, or because he had a natural dislike for anyone doing anything he thought he should have been doing himself. So when he’d tried making dinner for the kids and I shuffled him off to the couch, I got glared at for an hour. Every time he tried getting up—thinking he was being sneaky and slick—I would snap at him to sit his ass back down. Lots of growling happened, but I won in the end.

I needed the distraction from what would come later. A tired, sort of roughed up mate as well as hungry children seemed like exactly what I could use. I fed the kids and brought Noah something to eat.

“You could sleep,” I offered, running my fingers through his hair while he rested on my lap. “We have an hour.”

“Nah,” Noah refused, even with his eyes closed. “I can make it. If I fall asleep now, I’m not going to want to get up later.”

I kept running my fingers through his hair, hoping he didn’t hear how hard my heart beat. I knew he could, of course, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t hide my worry.

“Is there a chance you’ll fall asleep on your run?” I asked. “It might be kind of cute to find you passed out in wolfy form.”

He smiled, eyes still closed. “The magic should keep me awake. As soon as the eclipse starts and the magic settles in, everything is going to be different. We won’t get tired anymore after shifts. They’ll be faster, we’ll heal instantly, and be stronger all around. A little while longer.”

If this worked. Noah didn’t want to entertain the possibility that things would go wrong, and that might have been worse for my state of mind than the worry itself. He believed in me, and the whole pack depended on the fact that I could be enough. Most of them thought I wasn’t, and I’d seen that today when they couldn’t even look at me.

“Are you sure Allison is going to be okay out there?” I asked. “She’s so little. She could get lost.”

“I’ll be with her,” Noah said. “She knows not to wander off too far. She’ll have me and Pippa to watch over her.”

I still worried, thinking about that little girl out there like that. Children as small as six months old went running sometimes. The wolves kept them safe. It would still be hard to watch her shift.

I knew we would have to get going soon, but I couldn’t make myself stand from the couch. As long as I sat there, it meant I hadn’t failed yet. The moment we got under the moon, that was it. No turning back.

“What do I do, Noah?” I asked. “How am I supposed to make a sacrifice when I have nothing to give?”

He opened his eyes. He took one of my hands, laying it over his chest. “It’s more than shifting, what we do. Shifting is just a symbol for it. It’s a sacrifice. A promise. We don’t literally give the moon our magic, but shifting is like a thank you for even giving us the power to do it. We’re pledging ourselves to the thing that makes us exist.”

“But the moon isn’t why I’m here.”

“Who’s to say it’s not? There’s power in it, and maybe it gave you to me because it knew you were needed. You can’t shift, but you still have something to give. Thank the moon for what you feel it gave you. Pray.”

I still wasn’t convinced, but it was impossible not to feel something when I listened to how much Noah believed in it. Everyone in the pack believed in it. They’d seen it firsthand their whole lives.

The kids showed up downstairs, all of them missing shoes. It made me smile. The girls had on dresses and Simon had already shifted halfway. He hopped up onto the couch and wedged himself between it and Noah. Noah put an arm around him, petting his little brother. His son.

Pippa clapped her hands together once, then rubbed them, her face painted with a large grin. “You guys ready to rock this shit out? I look forward to being filled with so much power that I can make a god weep.”

Noah looked nervous already. “Ugh.”

I patted his shoulder as a signal that we could get up now. Simon hopped to the floor. I had nothing to say as I walked out the door with my family.

People gathered in the darkness, all walking toward the same place in the woods. There would be no speech for this one. No pretty words to tell the pack how much I cared about them. This was about all of us, and about what we all could give to the moon. We would be in it together, and we would all know together if this worked or not. I didn’t know what would have become of me if it didn’t work, but I knew what would happen to the pack. I would cost them all of their protection. I would save them or kill them.

I held Clare’s hand while we walked toward the meeting grounds. I needed to be someone she could look to for protection, but she had to have been feeling how much my hand shook as it held hers. I didn’t know how to be strong, and every time I made the effort it felt like a lie. My whole life, I wanted to be my sister. I wanted to be the one who always had an answer. I saw a world where I could be. I saw a chance as I looked around at the pack who had become my pack. Even if I didn’t know how to be strong, I could learn. Elena wasn’t born knowing how to do a thing. She learned because she loved me and wanted to protect me, so I would do the same.

“I’ll miss you when we go running,” Clare said to me. “Are you gonna stay and watch?”

“Noah told me I should go home.”

The girl frowned. “But we can play with you. It would be so much fun.”

I didn’t mind staying. Though I didn’t know how I would feel if this all failed. I would want to run and hide, burying myself somewhere dark and cold until I could vanish all together.

“I’ll stay,” I promised, because that seemed like the brave thing to do. That was what an alpha would do, pushing away their own fears in order to be what they wanted the pack to see them as. I had to fake being brave today, but maybe I wouldn’t be faking it tomorrow.

Darkness started to leech ever darker over us, making me look up to the sky. I saw Adam doing the same thing, then Kara, the kids, Noah. It happened fast, the blue hue being cast overhead. That same blue crept across the moon, not blocking it out, but steeping us in its glow. Eyes began to close and voices murmured.

I shut my eyes, thinking of the moon.

Thank you for this, I thought, picturing the kids, Noah, my home, my room, my sister. Thank you for my sister being so much more than I could ever be, giving me this chance to come here and be with these people. And even if I’m not enough, they make me feel like I’m enough. I have so little to offer, but take what I have. It’s yours, for all you gave me in return, if it’s you that brought me home.

I felt like it was. Something led me here. Some voice in my head told me exactly where to go, and I had never been so certain of something in my life. It had to have been magic. It must have been something given to me by something so much bigger than anything I knew. Who could say it hadn’t been the moon, bringing me to the pack to give back in the same way my sister did? She gave her power to me, and now I could give it to them.

Take it, I said again. Take everything I have and give it to them. I want them to have it. Take whatever you need if it’ll make them safe.

When my eyes opened again, everyone had started shifting. It happened fast, people being human one second and a full wolf not three later. With Noah, it had been ten times that length. Clothes littered the ground and I heard howls as I searched in the blue light. Wolves took off into the woods, charging forward like bullets. I looked around, seeing them all change one by one. Noah had already shifted into a wolf, and he sat right in front of me, waiting for something.

I opened my mouth to say something, but my voice died in my throat. My whole body flushed with heat, my focus getting blurry around the edges. It wasn’t pain, but pressure building in me.

I dropped to my knees.

Noah shifted from sitting down to standing on all four legs. I couldn’t see fear, or even feel it inside of him. He didn’t look afraid but concerned. Concerned in that way people got when watching a loved one doing something dangerous. Worried, but not terrified. Confident, even now.

I gasped, feeling raw power rip through me. It felt like when Elena died. The second I lost her, my whole body had been taken over with the boom of it. It wasn’t so much a boom now, but rather like something was coming up from below, wrapping itself around me to pull me down with it. It felt claws grabbing at me as I sank.

I started ripping my clothes off when it got too hot. Something in me said I had to do it. My shirt came off, my bra hooks breaking as I yanked the thing over my head. I nearly tore my jeans off, the fabric only ripping a little. Noah still watched intently, waiting…

It happened so fast that I didn’t understand. My body started changing, shifting shape in the way that Noah’s had. In the way that the whole pack had only moments before. My vision blurred before it got sharper, letting me see perfectly in the dark. Everything settled then, and I understood.

Lower to the ground. Stood on four legs, shaking out new fur. Could smell my mate only feet away, watching me with anticipation. Power coursed through me. Through him. Through all of us. Could feel it like a pulse throbbing in the ground. That same burning from before, but better feeling.

Noah walked over to me, eye level. The side of his snout touched mine for a moment before he let his side graze my side. So warm. The connection between us became stronger. Brighter. Like I could still see him, even with closed eyes. Could always feel him. Always would.

Pushed nose against Noah’s throat before looking up again. He knew what I wanted before I even did it. I shook my coat out one more time and started to run.