The Millennium Wolves Book 6

We ran.

Aiden and I raced through the forest surrounding the Pack House. The haunting echoes of howling wolves still rang in my ears.

My mate’s blood fell in thick drops onto the forest floor, where it gleamed in the light of the moon.

How had this happened?

Aiden had lost.

My mind couldn’t even begin to wrap itself around the idea. My Aiden—my mate, who was stronger than anyone I knew—had lost.

To that sniveling little weasel Josh Daniels.

And his scheming bitch of a mate Michelle.

Even now, the wolfsbane that she had used to poison Aiden was still burning its way through his system, preventing the rapid healing that werewolves relied upon so dearly after being injured.

We had to get help.

Aiden was limping on his shredded leg. His shaggy black fur was matted with blood.

His sides trembled with exhaustion.

We couldn’t keep running forever.

Up ahead was a small clearing with a single towering sycamore. I slowed and came to a stop.

I shifted back into my human form.

Aiden did the same. His black hair was soaked with sweat, and I could see from the tension in his body that he was in immense pain.

The wound on his leg continued trickling blood from a long, ragged gash down the front of this thigh.

I stifled my gasp of horror.

My heart pounded. I felt sick to my stomach.

Was Aiden going to die?

Somehow this thought did not offer much relief.

Neither of us had said a word, both too consumed in our thoughts of pain and loss and grief.

Aiden wouldn’t even meet my gaze, keeping his eyes fixed on the dry leaves that covered the forest floor.

I couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling, but there wasn’t time to talk.

“We need to get you to Jocelyn,” I said, breaking the silence.

“No. We need to get to Rowan first,” he responded heavily, wincing as he tried to put weight on his left leg.

Tears sprang to my eyes at the mention of our son.

My mind had been spinning with thoughts of my family since we had fled the pack house.

They had my father. They were keeping him captive.

Mom didn’t even know. She was at home, watching Vanessa and River in addition to Rowan.

What were we going to do?

My mind spun uselessly.

We had to get to Rowan.

But Aiden was getting worse. If he died, Rowan would be left without both of his parents.

Just like Selene’s children.

I shook my head. “No, Aiden. We need to get you to a healer. Rowan needs his father.”

“Josh might send someone after him!” Aiden was panting as the wolfsbane continued to drain his body of its strength.

He dragged his eyes to meet mine and I was taken aback by the unadulterated fear I found reflected in their green-gold depths.

I had never seen Aiden truly afraid until this moment.

It scared the hell out of me.

“What if they send someone after him and you’re too injured to fight?” I asked softly.

Silence. He knew I had a point.

“Rowan is with my mom. She’d die to defend her grandpups.”

Aiden hesitated, and it was all the opening I needed.

I crossed the small meadow until I was standing directly in front of my mate.

“We need to get you to Jocelyn first. Just long enough to stop the spread of the wolfsbane.”

Our eyes were locked. I tried to summon the strength to support the both of us.

“We’ll go find Jocelyn. Josh and Michelle are disgusting low-lives, but I still don’t think they’d hurt a child. I don’t think they’ve stooped low enough to hurt Rowan.”

I opened my eyes a fraction of an inch and immediately clamped them shut again as what felt like a cold metal spike pierced through the side of my skull.

I reached out blindly with my hands instead, searching for any clues as to what the actual fuck was going on.

I was lying on thick, soft carpet.

There was a smooth surface near my head, probably a wall.

I was at home. Lying in the hallway outside my bedroom door.

But how had I gotten here?

I couldn’t remember.

I had been sitting at my computer, trying to get that SD card to work.

Hoping that it would uncover the mystery of Selene’s killer.

And then…

Nothing. Just a flash of a figure in a darkened room.

Had I been attacked?

That thought was enough to make my eyes snap open once more, overriding the screaming pain in my head.

Adrenaline surged through my body and I managed to rise unsteadily to my feet.

The hallway was dark, but the large window from the open bedroom door allowed in a bright beam of moonlight.

Enough for me to see by as I entered the room on silent feet and crept to my bedside table.

Inside was a six-inch long stiletto switchblade with a hand-carved wooden handle. Engraved on the side was one roughly-hewn word:

I clutched the knife in one hand and slowly made my way back into the hallway.

I paused, every muscle in my body poised, on edge.

Silence.

The house was empty.

Footsteps. Crunching on the gravel outside the house.

Coming closer.

I shifted my grip on the knife, ensuring that the blade was pointed down, not outwards.

Slashing wildly was a rookie mistake.

It only took one good thrust.

My heart was thundering in my chest, but my mind felt calm, contained.

I couldn’t remember what had happened, but my body instinctively knew how to react.

The footsteps approached the front door.

The doorbell rang.

Why would an attacker ring the doorbell?

I considered waiting, but curiosity won out and I opened the door.

Then stumbled back in shock as Sienna Norwood half-carried a heavily bleeding Aiden Norwood through the door of my home.

Jocelyn and Nina’s house was completely dark as I helped Aiden into their living room.

He sat down with a heavy thud on the bare wooden floorboards and leaned his head against the wall.

Nina stood in the doorway, dumbfounded.

“What…what…?” she sputtered.

I shook my head firmly. “There’s no time to explain. He’s been poisoned with wolfsbane and the wound on his leg isn’t healing even when he shifts. We need Jocelyn.”

For a moment Nina’s eyes went completely blank.

She put a hand to one side of her head and squeezed her eyes shut as if something had caused her pain.

As much as I had grown to like and respect Nina Castillo, I didn’t have time for her pain right now.

Not when Aiden’s leg was still trickling blood onto the hardwood floors.

“Where’s Jocelyn?” I asked again, trying to keep from raising my voice.

“Jocelyn... I... I don’t know. I thought she was here but then I just woke up…”

“Is she at the Pack House? Nina, concentrate! Can’t you see he’s hurt!” I cried.

This seemed to snap her out of it a bit.

With a slow shake of her head, she responded, “I thought Jocelyn was here. She definitely isn’t at the Yule Ball. I remember something...something about Jeremy.”

“What do you mean you ‘remember’? What the hell are you talking about!”

“I don’t know!” Nina shouted, then grabbed her head again. “I just woke up on the floor of the fucking hallway.

I thought I had been attacked by a burglar or a murderer and then you show up on my doorstep covered in blood! I don’t know what the fuck is going on, Sienna. Do you!?”

Fair point.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said. “Let’s try again. If Jocelyn isn’t here, we have to get to my mother’s house.

“She has Rowan, Vanessa, and River. They’re not safe. I can explain what happened on the way.”

Nina hesitated. I could see that she was worried about Jocelyn.

So was I. But Josh had no reason to harm her.

Wherever Jocelyn was, chances were that she was safe.

Aiden and Rowan were not.

“Please, Nina?” I tried not to sound like I was begging, but the events of the evening were beginning to catch up with me.

Something in my face must have convinced her of my desperation, because Nina nodded grimly.

“I’m no healer, but I think I know of something that could help. We’ll get Aiden back on his feet. Then we’ll go get your family.”

All around me the party surged on as my new pack celebrated the change in the “royal family.”

Almost everyone, myself included, had shifted back into our human forms.

The crowd was beginning to thin as various wolves snuck off to indulge in the powerful urges created by the haze.

My own haze coursed through my veins, pulsing with the beat of the electronic dance music which had replaced the stodgy orchestra.

Especially in the wake the display of tradition and unity that Michelle and I had demonstrated just an hour or so ago.

Which was a nice way of saying I had fucked my mate in front of the entire pack, and she had gloried in it.

The memory was fresh enough to stiffen my cock all over again.

I wanted to take Michelle upstairs to the Alpha’s office and spread her creamy ass cheeks over the massive desk that had been occupied by generations of the East Coast Alphas.

And I would.

First, I had work to do.

Specifically, there was the problem of a certain recently-strangled detective lying in the woods not two miles from here.

I needed to do something about poor, dead Agent Enzo and I needed to do something quickly. Before a bear or a mountain lion found him and began disposing of the evidence for me.

The image made me feel nauseous. It was all goddamn Enzo’s fault for putting me in that situation in the first place.

“Josh!” A voice hissed in my ear, startling me out of thoughts of blood and death.

Michelle was standing at my side, in the shimmering silver ball gown and jewels that she had worn at the start of the evening.

I resisted the urge to smirk. Some might think that Michelle had put her dress back on out of modesty, but I knew the truth.

She would always prefer to be draped in finery than in nothing at all.

My heart pulsed with love for my mate, but then I caught sight of the furious look in her eye and a cold stone dropped into my stomach.

She rounded on me. “How could you let Sienna and Aiden go! That wasn’t part of the plan, Josh! They’re too dangerous to be left alive!

“We agreed on this. We agreed on this the moment you told me you killed Selene.”

“I never meant to kill Selene—” I started, but she cut me off with an angry gesture.

“That doesn’t matter right now! You need to send out your security team and go get them.

“Drag Aiden and Sienna back here and put their whole fucking family in chains if you don’t want to kill them.”

Her voice raised higher and higher until she was shrieking. Her hazel eyes were wide and frightened.

“But they cannot be allowed to leave the East Coast, don’t you see!?” she continued. “They’ll rally support behind them! We’ll lose everything! Our sons will be left as orphans!”

“Shhh. Shhh. Aiden knows that I won. I’m the Alpha now, Michelle. He can’t touch us.”

“Can’t touch us! What happens when they break in here and Sienna uses those fucked up Deity powers to throttle your children in their sleep!” Michelle said, her voice bordering on hysterics now.

There was no reasoning with my mate when she was like this. The only way was to back off and give her time to calm down.

“Okay,” I said, “but we have no idea where Sienna and Aiden are. It could take a while to find them, even with Aiden wounded.”

Aiden, wounded. Something about this itched at me. I thought back to the fight.

Never mind that for now. He had lost and I had won and now I was the Alpha of the entire East Coast Pack.

If I could just find a moment to enjoy that sensation.

Michelle was anxiously wringing her hands and pacing the floor in her spiked stiletto heels. Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

She turned to look at me. There was a bright, manic look in her eyes.

“We might not know where Sienna and Aiden are, but we don’t need them.”

Her mouth curled into the barest hint of a smile. I felt a twinge of fear.

“We know where Rowan is,” she said.