21. Chapter Twenty-One

Everything went silent, time moving in slow motion. When Ilyod finally spoke, his voice sounded distorted to my vampire ears.

“Kill her and take the boy.”

Like a rubber band, time snapped back the other way. I moved so quickly that I surprised myself, spinning to face Winter head on. “Open a portal.” She blinked at me. I tried to hold my temper, really, I did. Still, I shook Winter like a rag doll. I wasn’t proud of my actions, but I didn’t regret them either. “Open a fucking portal now!”

The entire house shook with my rage. Kiernan shifted as if my sorrow had called forth his wolf. When Mrs. Wynn shifted, I understood the power Ewan wielded. Howls chorused throughout the canyon.

Ewan’s alpha commands might not have swayed Winter, but mine did. She wove a golden door of light faster than I’d ever seen.

“Hurry back. I don’t know how long I can hold the portal open.”

In my haste to reach my family, I forgot my manners and simply nodded before I shifted. My white wolf marked me as an eternal protector and put a bullseye on my ass. I didn’t care. My mother wouldn’t die for me.

I charged through the portal with Mrs. Wynn and Kiernan on my heels. A teenager and a woman who likely hadn’t stretched her wolf’s fighting muscles in years, if ever, wouldn’t have been my first choice of companions. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Two fae guards had my mother by the arms, while it took six to surround Zach and Brooke. One fae shot golden ropes from his hands that wrapped around my brother before he could shift. Brooke was smaller and less threatening, and she managed to dodge the ropes and shift. My father’s enormous wolf took on three of the shifters from the Zodiac Council.

I dove for the guards who were trying to drag my mother away. As a mortal, I had never truly fought to kill. As an eternal, it was all I knew. Red tinged my vision as I tore mouthfuls of flesh from the guards. Colleen called to my mother from the other side of the portal.

“Rosalind! Hurry!”

Mom hesitated. I fixed her with my crimson eyes and silently urged her to get the fuck inside the portal. Her gaze went to my brother. Between Mrs. Wynn and Brooke, the fae guards were already regretting their choices. Proving my assumptions incredibly wrong, Ewan’s mom was a calculated fighter, and she was out for blood. Kiernan had gone to my father’s aid and was more skilled than I’d expected.

“Rosalind! Come!” Colleen shouted to be heard above all the screaming and howling in the meadow.

My mother finally went, and I turned my eternal glare on the shifter councilpersons. Three men dropped to their knees, and their deference catapulted my ego. I was drunk on power and fury, and I craved the blood of my enemies.

Zach wiggled free of the magical ropes and finally shifted. His voice filled my head, and I wanted to cry. I had missed him so much. Zach was my twin, my other half. My connection to him was nearly as strong as my immortal bonds. Mrs. Wynn corralled Zach and Brooke toward the portal.

I waited until the three of them entered the golden light, growling and snapping to keep the guards back. Those few seconds would haunt me for the rest of my eternal lives. I turned and started for my father and Kiernan. Focused on his opponent, the teenager didn’t see Jonah’s brown wolf barreling toward him from the throng of fighting supernaturals. My father and I realized the problem at the same time. He was closer, but I had vampire speed.

My father leapt in front of Kiernan to block the teenager. A beat later, I sunk my teeth into Jonah’s flank and reveled in his sharp howl of agony. But his wasn’t the only cry that rang through the air. My father made a horrible screeching sound, like metal on metal. The keen ceased abruptly as Jonah’s jaws crushed his windpipe.

What came next happened in a blur. I remembered looking Jonah in the eyes and relishing the fear I inspired in him. Killing the man who’d just murdered my father and tortured me, well… the details were hazy and bloody. I moved as if in a fugue state, driven purely by the lust for vengeance that revealed my true self. Zosia. Drenched in the blood of the Virgo wolves’ leader, I threw my head back and howled from the depths of my soul.The other fae and shifters tried to escape, but the magical doorways they’d used to get here wouldn’t open. Some fled through the doors the guards had come out of, while others ran into the surrounding forest. Others were paralyzed with terror. But it wasn’t just me they feared.

Ewan’s gigantic wolf charged into the meadow, and then he was by my side. I didn’t collapse against him or seek comfort. Not only because I didn’t deserve it, but because my brain and body were still too numb to process what the fuck had just happened.

“He’s dead,” I said simply, the words sounding hollow in my head. My gaze finally landed on the prone body of my father, and something within me broke beyond repair. The man who’d always been there for me, who’d been impossibly strong and proud and tough, now lay prone on the ground. My mind couldn’t grasp the juxtaposition between my formidable father and his wolf”s lifeless body.

“I know,” Ewan replied.

“We can’t leave him.”

“We won’t. Charlie and Birch will get him. Go, Zara.” It wasn’t exactly a command, at least not one from my alpha.

My feet felt leaden. I couldn’t bear to leave my father. He didn’t belong among the dead bodies littering the meadow. My father had his faults, but he was a good man and an incredible alpha. Nothing like Jonah or his children.

Ewan nipped my neck. “Go, Zara. Please.”

Charlie and Birch arrived, both slowing their pace when they took in the scene in the meadow. The remaining members of the Zodiac Councils were on their knees, heads bowed to Ewan. Even the fae who didn’t feel his dominance like the shifters, only his fury.

With another not-so-gentle bite from Ewan, I finally turned and retreated into Winter’s portal. I didn’t want to see Ewan’s friends dragging my father’s body away.

My mother stood in the living room wrapped in a blanket, Colleen holding her as she sobbed. I shifted to two feet and met her heartbreaking gaze. When I rushed through the portal, I hadn’t thought about my crimson eyes or my cold skin. Standing in front of my mother, covered in blood and still in shock, it was all I could think about. Shame filled me, and I hung my head. This was not how I pictured my family reunion.

“Don’t you dare, Zara Snyder.” Mom’s voice was shockingly strong and steady. “Never be ashamed of who you are.”

I ran into her arms like a child with a broken heart, sobbing while my mother comforted me. Winter threw a blanket over my shoulders—fae were so weird about nudity—and rubbed my back.

When Ewan, Charlie, Birch, and Kiernan came through the portal with my father, I didn’t look. He couldn’t be dead. I hadn’t apologized for my mistakes or told him how much I loved him. How much he meant to me. How grateful I was for every lecture, every lesson, and every twinkle in his eye when my actions amused him despite his words to the contrary.Mom let Ewan take me from her, then went to her husband. I buried my face in his chest as my mother fell to her knees. Her widow’s wail pierced the air, the sound laced with sorrow and agony. Starting with Brooke, the other wolves in the room, both Taurus and Gemini, joined her. Ewan waited for me to step back before adding his own howl.

The mournful song echoed through the mountains, as if someone were singing back to us.

There was a lot to discuss after the bloody turn of events, but I was in no shape to talk to anyone about anything. I wept until I was numb, nothing more than a shell of a person, aware people were talking around me yet unable to comprehend the words.

Eventually, Ewan took me home and straight to the bathroom, where he blasted hot water in the shower. He led me beneath the spray, and I let him because I didn’t want to think. About anything.

Blood and fur swirled around the drain as Ewan used a soft washcloth to scrub my face and chest. He didn’t ask me if I was okay. We both knew that I wasn’t. My father was dead. I had idolized him as a steadfast beacon of strength, yet Jonah had killed him in a single heartbeat.

Ewan washed and conditioned my hair and then used a second washcloth on the rest of me. His gentle touch contrasted with the raw power he exuded. He was thorough and efficient and had me wrapped in my robe and tucked into bed before I realized what was happening.

“I’m sorry, Zara,” he whispered, curling his large body around me.

The weight of his leg draped on mine felt good. I relaxed against his chest. “My brother?”

Honestly, I didn’t even know what I was asking specifically. With Zach so close, I felt every moment of his crippling anxiety.

“We have a lodge in town for guests. Zach and Brooke are there for now, resting and getting cleaned up.”

“Mom?” My voice cracked.

“Colleen insisted your mother stay with them.” He combed my damp hair with his fingers.

“Kiernan?”

Ewan sighed. “Shaken but okay. He’s staying with my mother.”

I squeezed my eyes as fresh tears came unbidden. “What’s going to happen to his father?”

“You don’t need to worry about that right now.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and covered my hand with his. “Grieve, Zara. Don’t hold it in.”

Ewan had lost his father so recently that my breakdown seemed almost insensitive. The guilt of that revelation brought a fresh round of tears and my shoulders shook even more violently.

“My relationship with my father was complicated. It’s different.”

“Stop reading my thoughts.” I sniffled. “And, please, tell me about complicated families. My parents basically sold me to the Leo Fae for an alliance. My twin brother, who is younger by three minutes, was told he’s special his entire life because he gets to be the next alpha, and I’m told I get the privilege of birthing special babies. And now I can’t even do that.”

The tears came hotter and faster, all my anxieties and insecurities tripping over each other to get out of my mouth. I didn’t begrudge Zach his pack status, and I had no desire to be alpha. It just would have been nice for someone to say that I was special. Just me. All by myself.

Ewan nudged my robe with his chin until the soft terrycloth fell down my shoulder so he could nuzzle my neck. “You are immeasurably special to me.”

“Only as your mate.”

“I left you in charge of the pack. Do you know how rare it is for an alpha to give control of the pack to his mate?”

I wiped my nose. “Drake is an alpha,” I said, which made little sense. Ewan seemed to understand my point.

“Yes, and you are the Luna. In the hierarchy of wolves, that’s as good as you’ll ever get.”

“Why do people keep calling me that? What does it mean?” I turned in his arms, wanting to see his face.

Ewan had his elbow on the pillow, head propped in his upturned hand. His expression was soft, his touch affectionate when he wiped away the tears on my cheeks. “It’s a legend Taurus wolves have passed down for generations about a true warrior who ascends to alpha. His power is so immense that other alphas cower in his presence.”

My thoughts went back to the clearing, where the sight of Ewan brought shifters and fae alike to their knees.

“But he has one equal. His other half. She makes him whole—his Luna.”

“And you think I’m this prophesied Luna?” I asked, eyebrows creeping up my forehead.

He nipped at my bare shoulder. “I know you are.” His fangs grazed my skin. “You’ve had enough upheaval in your life. I didn’t want to put that on you, too.”

“But how do you know?” I pressed on his chest, unable to concentrate when he had his mouth on me.

Gold lit up his irises. “You killed an alpha, Zara. Jonah was an asshole, but he wasn’t weak.”

My eyes prickled with fresh tears. I had killed Jonah in retaliation for my father and for myself. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and hide from the world and my problems, yet I also had the urge to run. To let my wolf take over because emotions were easier to deal with in animal form.

I tried to look away, but Ewan’s gaze held me captive. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” he said, trailing his fingertips along my collarbone.

I shook my head. “He died protecting Kiernan, who I brought through the portal with me.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Zara. Please. It won’t change anything.”

“My father died because of my actions, Ewan, my choices.” My voice broke and dissolved into sorrowful sobs.

He cradled my head against his chest and pressed his lips to the crown of my head. “Trust me. I know I haven’t been alpha long, but I promise you that your father made a conscious choice. Our instinct is to protect our packs, yes. But Kiernan is a Taurus wolf. Your father owed him nothing. If your family agrees, our packs will honor him together.”