I was safe.
Craning my head so that our eyes could meet, I breathed out slightly, and she sniffed like crazy, trying to absorb the smell of my breath.
“Hello, Lily,” I said softly. “I’m Bryn.”
Lily nodded, and then, with a tentative smile, she turned and pointed, a quizzical look on her face. I followed her finger directly to Chase.
He crossed the room in three broad steps, his motions flowing, as they always did, like water. He brought his face next to mine and rubbed my cheek with his. And then, silently, he turned to Lily, and with a small smile, he huffed out a breath, allowing her to catch his scent.
Through the pack-bond, I sensed that to Lily, Chase smelled like me. Pine needles and cinnamon.
I closed the space between my body and Chase’s, or maybe he did, and Lily laid her head back down on my chest, content to be nestled between us as my face and Chase’s found their way back together. Cheek to cheek. Forehead to forehead. Nose to nose. Then, lip to lip. As the kiss stretched out over a delicious, unbearable eternity, I felt myself folding into his mind and welcoming him into mine. For a single second, the world stopped rotating on its axis and the hum of the rest of our pack went very, very still.
And then, the silence and stillness were broken as I felt the Weres in the room stiffen and heard the beginning of a growl in the back of Chase’s throat.
Something’s coming.
We didn’t get more than a moment’s warning, or two, before the front door to Wilson’s cabin exploded inward, and Weres began pouring in. I broke away from Chase, and instantly, the sounds of the rest of my pack—Mine—were back, louder than ever before.
Ours. Ours. Ours.
This was our territory. These men were trespassing. And the wolves inside of each of my pack-mates knew beyond knowing that the pack was to be protected, the alpha was to be obeyed, and trespassers were to be killed.
What started as a low rumble in our bond became audible snarling, and even though I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of controlling anyone else—even if they’d chosen, and were still choosing, to let me—I pulled back tightly on my end of the bond, restraining them all with a single word. “Hold!”
“You?” It took me a second to locate the person speaking, and a few more beats to recognize him. He looked more like Devon than he should have, the expression on his face twisting familiar features into something ugly.
Shay.
I stiffened and let my senses reach past the borders of my new pack, my Resilient pack, and when I stepped out from behind the psychic shield of our numbers, the power in the room hit me like a blow to the stomach. I’d felt it before, in Chase’s body, but now, I felt something new. Instead of cowering or running away, my instinct was to protect what was mine: my territory, my wolves, my status. This was the Senate. These were alphas, but the roar of the pack I led at the edges of my mind, the way they held back on my command and my command only, forced me to accept an unforgiving, unlikely truth.
These men were alphas. So was I.
“Callum.” My eyes sought him out, and my mouth made the word of its own volition. I felt like I’d never said it before, like it was a word in a foreign language that I didn’t speak. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Wasn’t sure what—or who—he was. To me.
To the wolves I was bound to protect.
“Bryn,” Callum returned calmly. “Seems you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble.”
One of the other alphas snorted. “Where’s Wilson?”
“The Rabid?” I asked, seething warmth making its way from my stomach up the back of my throat and out of my mouth as pure venom. “The one who attacked and killed defenseless children in his pursuit of turning other kids into werewolves? The one who was using his ability to do so as a leg up into the Senate’s hierarchy? That Wilson?”
“Yes. That Wilson.” Shay didn’t like me. I met his eyes full-on and didn’t even blink. Let him not like me. The feeling was mutual.
“Oh,” I said lightly. “That Wilson is dead.”
Shay moved forward then, in a blindingly quick motion, and instinct told me that he would have closed his hand around my throat and slammed me against the nearest wall had it not been for the fact that in a move just as quick, each and every one of the wolves in my pack moved to defend me. Chase stepped directly in front of me, so close that my nose almost touched his back. Lake pulled to my side, and the children flanked her—even Lily, who twisted out of my grasp and leapt out toward Shay, her teeth flashing, like she hadn’t quite learned yet that they weren’t as potent in human form as they were when she was a wolf.