Shadowmated, p.18
Shadowmated, page 18
If the Council was raising girls like me and Celeste, they’d be raising boys like Finnegan also. And the only place in the Enclave that I knew was as secure as the Council chamber was the cell in the basement.
I was quite familiar with the dank, subterranean space since I’d been stuck there for months on end between the date of my first shift and the time when Julius determined I was safe enough to once again trust around his daughter. The remembered stench of bleach burned my nostrils, the chemical a stark reminder of how hard the Council had worked to wash away my lupine self.
Orion growled, although I couldn’t tell whether his reaction was to the memory that seeped down our mate bond along with that information or to the danger facing yet more children. Either way, we’d reached the hidden stairs, or rather the wall panel that locked them in.
Luckily, I knew how to get through that lock. Celeste and I both did.
Because when it became clear I’d need to come back here every month until I got a handle on the way menstrual hormones interacted with lupine instincts, Celeste had demanded screens be installed so we could video chat during our separation. She’d mandated the addition of a bean-bag chair and a princess canopy that I’d found surprisingly enchanting.
And she’d begged for the installation of a button she could tap in a simple pattern when she came to see me. The lock didn’t need to be highly secure, after all. It had only been intended to keep me in, not to keep anyone else out.
Now, Orion captured the pattern out of my head and input it easily. The familiar grind of the door hinges set my heart rate into overdrive.
Back then, I’d always hoped the opening door heralded Celeste coming to spend time with me, even though it was usually just a Council employee bringing food. Forcing down old thought patterns, I focused instead on the scant seconds remaining until the entire Enclave blew up.
There wasn’t time to proceed slowly the way we’d done when entering the Council chamber. Instead, I rushed down the final set of stairs into a brightly lit room too small for the four people already inside it plus the forces I’d brought along with me. I took in the boys and young men standing with hoods over their heads and hands cuffed behind them, attached together in a line from smallest to largest and bile rose up my throat.
This was far worse than anything I’d endured within this space.
“How long have you been like this?” Orion asked, picking up the youngest and removing the hood from the little boy’s eyes.
The child couldn’t cling with his arms since they were shackled, but his legs wrapped around Orion’s torso like a monkey would have. “Gabi said we’d be moved soon,” he murmured into my mate’s shoulder.
Unlike the girls, this child was docile. All of them were docile as we led them up the stairs and out the front door, seconds ticking down in my mind and also above us in the Council chamber.
The minivans had already been moved to a safe distance and I wanted to rush over to meet them. But we couldn’t take the hoods off the oldest captives. If we did, we’d risk the formation of half-glyphs when the recently saved girls locked eyes with their mates.
Instead, we strode as fast as we could without making our prisoners stumble. And we were still close enough to feel the rush of air shoving into our backs when the Enclave exploded into shards of marble, smoke, and flames.
Chapter 30
As the shifting breeze bore smoke and ash toward us, a phone rang—Celeste’s. It was a device that no one other than me should have known the number to. The burner that Celeste had used to communicate with me while still pretending to be Julius’s doting daughter.
I clearly wasn’t the one calling since I stood no more than ten feet away. No wonder Celeste’s answer was tentative. “Hello?”
Gabi didn’t bother announcing herself. Just dove into the facts as she saw them. “You have all the children. Keep them or give them to Elspeth to deal with, but don’t shove your way deeper into this conflict. It’s not your problem. It’s between the Council and the wolves.”
“You used this phone to track me, didn’t you?” Celeste answered rather than saying what I would have—that Gabi was making an outdated assumption when she lumped Celeste into a separate category from those of us who could go lupine. “Let me guess,” Celeste continued. “You scanned it somehow when we were working out together. Then, today, you used it to keep an eye on our movements so you could post notes for me to find and activate the timer on the bomb. Did I get that right?”
An undercurrent of affection seeped into Gabi’s usually ruthless tone. “Sisters look out for one another,” she said gruffly. Then, as silence stretched and it became clear Celeste wasn’t going to rise to the bait presented by the word sister, her voice hardened into its more familiar steely timbre. “Did Elspeth keep that news from you? I told her days ago that you and I share a father.”
“We share more than a father,” Celeste murmured, and my throat tightened up so much that I found it hard to breathe.
Because Gabi and I both knew Celeste would never stand down until all caged children were freed. So Gabi had freely given up what could have been a weapon trained against us—the experimented-upon shifter kids. Our ex-mentor’s actions were proof that her blood tie to Celeste meant something after all, that she considered Celeste a sister in more than name.
Meanwhile, Gabi and I were also aware that Celeste was big on returning favors. It wasn’t one-upmanship; it was a compulsion for her. Now, in the face of the gift these children represented, what could Celeste do other than embrace her newfound sister and give Gabi whatever she wanted in return?
I needed to listen to the rest of their conversation, but I tore myself away at that point. Because none of us were exactly home free yet. The fence remained electrified. The gate was likely locked. And there was no way the Council hadn’t been alerted the moment their center of operations went kablooey.
We’d have company very soon.
Orion must have reached the same conclusion before I did. Because when I turned around, his pack mates were already cutting the boys and young men free from each other. Meanwhile, Maya guided children into minivans, making decisions that seemed to be based on both empathy and reality. No young people of the opposite gender and same age went into the same vehicle. Cuffs stayed on or went on the fifteen and twenty-year-olds.
Gabi’s next jab at Celeste seemed to refer to that fact. “Are you really willing to become a jailer?”
“Are you here?” Celeste countered.
As she spoke, she spun in a circle rather than getting into the minivan I was trying to usher her toward. Wincing, I could only hope her scan of our surroundings wouldn’t bring handcuffs into view. Because that’s what Gabi was referencing, and Celeste’s teacher instincts were bound to rebel at the precautions we were taking once they caught her eye.
“Let them leave without you,” Gabi continued, the harsh edge to her voice bordering on something I’d never heard from her before: entreaty. “Do this one thing for me, Celeste. I’m asking you as a sister.”
As a sister. I’d thought that was what Celeste and I were to each other, but I’d failed her so many times I wasn’t sure I deserved the designation any longer. I’d let her down back on the oil rig when I chose to rescue werewolves rather than protect her kindergarten students. More recently, I’d hurt her by making her think I considered her a child. To add insult to injury, I’d asked her to break her bond with Finnegan, had stood there, audience to her agony, and done nothing to stop the pain.
Two months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stomach any of those actions. Two months ago, Celeste and I had been sisters. I wasn’t so sure we were sisters now.
And Celeste needed a sister. Teacher, sister, daughter—until recently, those had made up her entire identity.
So her answer, when it came, made no sense at first. “El is my sister,” she said gently into her cell phone. “I do have room for more than one sister in my life. But it’s actions not DNA that win the right to that label.”
Then she tossed her phone toward the blaze of disintegrating Enclave. She preceded me into the closest minivan. And she turned her attention to the children who needed her help.
The gate wasn’t locked. And the shifters we left behind in Texas to check out Julius’s mansion and Gabi’s apartment reported in with the same information—both places were empty of not only people but also possessions. The Council had gone underground.
Meanwhile, the rest of us drove west into the night. Drove until we were sure no one followed us. At that point, we split apart, falling into exhausted slumber while guarding rescued children from outsiders and from themselves.
My brain was still sleep-fogged the next morning when I sank down onto the cracked-vinyl cushions of a slightly sticky McDonald’s booth to discuss our next move with my aunt. “News of imprisoned shifter children travels fast,” Vega said in lieu of a greeting. “The oil rig was one thing. This is worse. The packs would have risen up if the Council hadn’t fled.”
I nodded but didn’t take my eyes off the ten-year-old girls who were ostensibly playing on brightly colored equipment not far from us. In actuality, one of them had shattered a ball-pit orb and appeared to be methodically shaping the plastic into a shiv. The other was pretending not to watch, having been yelled at each time she tried to creep closer during the last ten hours.
These weren’t the loving siblings Celeste and I had been at that age. And no wonder since it appeared they’d only met each other moments before being locked into the Council chamber together.
The only other child present this morning was the five-year-old boy—Billy—who hadn’t let go of Orion since he’d been rescued. He hadn’t spoken, either, beyond that first sentence back in the Enclave plus a whisper of his name into Orion’s ear. Now, as Orion brought our food over, the boy loosened his grip just enough to land in my mate’s lap, eating pancakes off their shared tray like a much younger child.
There was so much here in need of fixing, but we’d have to wait to ease these kids’ anguish until we got back to Arizona. For now, logistics occupied my full attention.
To that end, I returned to the problem at hand—keeping half-glyphs from forming while giving the rescued children a better life.
In part, that issue had already been delegated. We’d split the children up into different hotels for the night and could continue managing them that way to prevent the formation of half-glyphs. Plus, most of the kids were young enough that they were unlikely to fall in love at first sight.
On the other hand, the fifteen-year-olds were plenty old enough to cause problems. It felt safer to stash either the girls or the boy elsewhere.
Elsewhere, I hoped, being an entirely different pack.
“Is there any chance you’d take the teenaged boy back to your clan?” I asked my aunt, the request feeling far too large even as I spoke it. After all, I’d recently broken our pack bond and had no clan connection to call upon. There was no reason for her to say yes.
But Vega just snatched up the sausage Orion had moved to my plate after the five-year-old rejected it. “Sterling and Ari will keep an eye on him,” she assured me before wolfing down the spicy meat. She hesitated for a moment, then added, “We have room for others if you want. Keep all the age mates in different packs. Seems safer.”
Her evasive gaze made me frown for a moment until I realized what Vega was really saying. She didn’t just want one fifteen-year-old boy. She wanted younger children, likely girls to treat as daughters now that Hailey and I had stepped out of that role. Up until recently, her life had been devoid of sweetness, but now she was ready to let a little sweetness in.
With anyone else, I would have responded with commiseration or at least a touch on the arm. But this was Vega. Salt and iron, alpha to her core. Plus, two of her pack mates were within earshot and she wouldn’t want to show weakness in front of them.
While I was still thinking through a suitable response, Orion broke the silence. “We’ll gladly accept your help,” he answered. “Could actually use a little help right now.”
Then, looking down at the boy in his lap, he murmured, “Don’t worry, Billy. You’ll stay with us. But will you let Vega take you to the bathroom?”
Because a child’s hand could be held not for your own sake, but for the sake of the child. Assuming that child allowed himself to become an alpha werewolf’s momentary teddy bear.
Billy wasn’t keen on the idea. He grabbed onto Orion with both greasy hands, only gradually uncurling his fingers as Orion whispered something in his ear. The boy didn’t take his eyes off his savior, however, until the bathroom door closed with him and Vega inside.
Then Orion and I were alone, or as alone as the alpha of a pack and his mate could ever be. We’d slept in the same bed last night, but there’d been a small child nestled between us. Little wonder our matebrand ink continued to lie quiescent as any mundane tattoos upon our skin.
We weren’t as separate as we’d been a week ago however. Without glancing down, Orion’s fingers interlaced with my fingers underneath the table. “How are you holding up?” he rumbled.
I didn’t answer in words, just opened the door between us and let him see my worries about the kids, about our matebrand, about the unknown next move of the Council looming over everything.
“All valid concerns,” he acknowledged. Meanwhile, from his end of the mate bond, I sensed disquiet related to the belief that he’d sucked me into a drama not of my choosing, concern that I’d solidified our mate bond out of desperation. No wonder his subsequent words were layered with the faintest tinge of insecurity. “If you could go back in time, would you change anything?”
I couldn’t fix the kids or the Council, but I could fix Orion’s current uncertainty. I didn’t even have to ponder his question before widening our mate-bond connection so he could fully take in the sincerity of my reply.
Of course I wouldn’t change anything. Every choice I’d made and even the choices Julius and Gabi had thrust upon me led to unbreakable connections with Celeste and Orion, both more valuable than any possession I’d ever had or aspired toward. And it wasn’t as if my newfound bounty stopped at those two close bonds.
There was also the wonder of learning to live within a werewolf pack. The possibility of finally getting to know Maya. The sweetness of the little boy who had been cuddled up in Orion’s arms all morning. Even the interesting puzzle of a shiv-making ten-year-old who hated the girl who should have been her sister.
Words were harder to come by, but I barely needed words when we had the mate bond. So I didn’t try to be eloquent. Instead, I just offered reassurance that came out firmer and more declaratory than it would have one moment earlier. “We’ve got this.”
Between us, the mate bond steadied into a reassuring thrum of two hearts beating in synchrony. Our stress levels plummeted despite the overwhelming pile of problems remaining to be dealt with.
“You’re right,” Orion agreed, the scent of cactus flowers emerging from his lips and settling around my shoulders like a warm blanket. His eyes were full of starlight as he added, “Pretty sure my sister’s books would call this a happily for now.”
Thank you so much for reading Shadowmated! Elspeth makes a place for herself in Orion’s clan in Packbound, now up for preorder and launching in autumn 2024.
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About Packbound
When it comes to complicated families, werewolves lead the pack.
After toeing the line around humans for most of my life, I thought mating with an alpha werewolf would mean I'd finally found my place. But when a pack mate falls deathly ill and a magical bracelet locks itself around my wrist, my newfound stability is shattered.
To unleash the moonring's healing power and save my friend, I must mend bridges with two problematic father figures. One is the adopted parent who taught me that all werewolves are evil. The other is a shifter grandfather who offers his help—if I can survive a series of perilous trials.
Facing danger is nothing new, but these trials unearth disturbing truths about my childhood, shaking the foundations of everything I’ve recently come to believe. With my friend’s life hanging in the balance and my fragile position in my mate’s pack at risk, can I prevent the shadows of my past from destroying the future I’ve fought so hard to build?
Continue the adventure with Packbound!
Aimee Easterling, Shadowmated
