Chapter 204: Course Correction
Chapter 204: Course Correction
\[Amaryllis\]
\[At the time of the attack\]
The sky glows like sunrise, the power of several missiles exploding above us, tearing apart the near perfect dark of our moonlit night. Dawn is still several hours away, but as the air burns behind us, it looks like the sun is about to eclipse the horizon.
It is equal parts beautiful and terrifying.
Despite what others may have thought of my past behavior, I was never the cold-hearted bitch everyone assumed. I loved my husband, my father, and my pack with a devotion past sanity. And while I may not have a pack anymore, at least not officially since being ejected from Silver Crescent, I still care about those wolves. Including their alpha.
I never stopped. I don’t think I can.
“We have to go back,” I hear myself say as I look back at the chaos of light in the sky over the palace. “Now. Calyx. They could be…”
I can’t finish my sentence, not wanting to curse everyone with my thoughts. But I can’t help thinking about the wolves I once cared for as Luna, broken and bleeding under a wreck of burning metal. Our family, the mission, everything could be gone.
“No,” Calyx says flatly. His tone is blunt, direct, but not cruel. “They’ll be in more danger if we return. And so will we.”
My new husband steers the suv sharply to the right, hitting the old highway with a bump as the large, wide wheels go from desert sand to pavement. “Right now, the Brotherhood might not know our exact location. They might not even know we’re out here yet, Amy. I plan to take advantage of that.”
I almost ask Calyx why he’s so sure of this, how he knows it’s the Brotherhood and not another pack, but I know I’m being foolish even before the words form completely in my mind. Calyx lived within the center of the Brotherhood his entire life. He was their “lab experiment” as he likes to say, although I’m sure that’s just his way of creating distance. He was raised by their leader like another son. Learning his family didn’t love him the same way he loved them must have hit him like a sledgehammer to the heart.
“But all those people,” I swallow, taking a deep breath to clear my mind of the imagined carnage and chaos within the palace. “The Alpha King and Queen…Alpha and Luna Forrester…What if they’re gone, Cal? What’s the point to all of this then?”
“The point is to survive,” his glare is hard, cold, a mask I’ve become all too familiar with–Rather than admit his feelings, he hides them behind an unfeeling wall of ice. He’s probably as terrified as I am, but he knows we have a job to do–he can’t let his emotions get the better of him. And as much as he hates to admit it, he’s come to love Lysander and Apple. I’m sure he doesn’t want to think of the only true family he has broken underneath rubble.
“I don’t want to survive if it means everyone I love is dead,” I snap back. “You sound like a coward…”
“And you sound like a lovesick fool,” Cal looks flushed, his face red as he adds. “If the Alpha King were dead, you’d feel it.”
His tone is cool, firm, and without reprimand. And yet the way he said “Alpha King,” makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise in alarm.
He’s jealous.
“Cal…”
“I mean, we both would,” Cal amends, rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous way that he does when he feels like he’s overstepped. It’s a boyish gesture that used to make me uncomfortable, reminding me of our vast difference in age, that has become…adorable. Just one more little quirk I get to see that he doesn’t show anyone else. “Even though you two broke those bonds, you’re connected to me, I’m connected to him, and he’s the fucking king of everything. So none of us can fucking escape.”
His laugh is short, harsh.
Probably because he thinks I’m more concerned about my ex-husband’s safety than I am our own.
I’m not, that isn’t what this is about.
But I don’t have enough time to assuage his ego while running away from danger. Later, when this is all over, I’ll remind him exactly how well he’s erased every trace of any other wolf from my body, how I belong to him and him alone.
Scenting my lust and the shifting mood between us, Calyx reaches across the seat to clasp my hand possessively. “Don’t worry, Amy. I know you’re mine. I’ll try not to overthink things. But I'm...flawed. It is hard sometimes to remind myself."
"Of what," I tilt my head, knowing what he's going to say.
"Because you can only belong to me, Mate," his grin is predatory, and I can't help but shiver under his gaze. If it were any other wolf, I'd be fighting his control.
But he isn't just any other wolf—he's my mate. My true, fated mate.
And like it or not, he's not wrong. Our passion for one another may have come as a surprise for both of us, forged from the heat of desperation and war, but the bond is undeniable. He holds the key to my body, my heart, and my soul.
And he knows it.
As I interlock our fingers, the edge of his jealousy softens as joyful tingles radiate outward from our shared touch. I can’t wait until tonight, when the moon bathes our body in her light and we raise power between us, casting the spell.
And it will feel better than anything because goddessdamn it, I love this young wolf. And maybe, underneath all of his bravado, he loves me too.
“There’s no maybe about it,” he smirks, kissing my fingertips. “And don’t worry about me. I’m going to be a little jealous for the rest of my life. Even if you don’t think I need to be. Because you’re too fucking incredible for me not to be convinced that every other alpha who sees you isn’t going to want you as badly as I do.”
“Calyx…I…” At a loss of words, I sit there, looking at his side profile, wondering how in this crazy, messed up world I was able to find a mate who could want me so completely–flaws and all.
It’s not like I deserve it. If karma were real, I’d be at the bottom of a shallow grave.
“Besides, you don’t have to worry about the Alpha King,” Calyx rolls his eyes. “The dude is a freaking scary ass wolf mage. He’s like a super wolf. It would take a helluva lot more than a couple of missiles to take him out. And he kept all the strongest fighters for himself to protect his precious Apple. Now shush, I need to contact the others.”
Calyx releases my hand and places it on the wheel to steady our progress, as he tries to split his focus, sending a message to the other vehicles in our caravan. Normally, the person NOT driving would send the message, but I’m not connected to the pack other than through our marriage bond, and that is a tenuous hold. As a gamma, he can immediately communicate with all the other gammas, letting them know about our change in plans.
And we are in far too much of a hurry to stop and trade.
Thankfully, Calyx doesn’t need long to shift our plans. “It’s settled,” he exhales as his eyes refocus, losing their glassy emptiness. “We’re initiating a defensive evasive maneuver to prepare for our own strike.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I blink confused. “Didn’t you just say we should avoid the conflict?”
My husband shakes his head, a devilish grin spreading across his face as the moonlight casts it with sinister edges. “I said we shouldn’t go back, not that we shouldn’t fight.”