Once we were finished with my place, and we piled the rest of my bags outside the door, we went to Toya. We bagged everything that was left up and found the bag left by Wendy’s mom with a sweet note. I tucked it into my backpack. Once we piled everything inside their door.“That’s everything.” Toya sighed. “I’m going to miss this place.” I nodded. “On to better things.” I nudged her. “Let’s get the cart for all this bullshit. We have to hit my house before we figure out how the heck we are going to get all of this to the cabin.” I looked around, and I honestly had no fricken idea how we were going to do this. Toya patted my back. “Thankfully, you have a truck.” I grunted as we closed the door behind us and headed down. I was surprised to see Brandon and Vince waiting for us when we stepped off the elevator. I looked at Toya, but she gave me a tiny shake. She was confused, too. “Alpha Vince.” I smiled as I walked closer to the desk. “Brandon.” I gave him a tight nod as I turned to S
My question hung in the air for a minute before Brandon smiled and waved his hands in the air, dropping mine in the process. “Oh. Ha ha, no reason. I was just wondering.”I just nodded. “Anyway, I need to figure everything out.” I turned to Vince. “So I’ll be stuck on pack lands for a while as I wait it all out.” I smile. “If that is still okay with you?”Vince, whose brain was running a mile a minute, stared at me blankly for a second before he just nodded. “Of course. The place and position are yours.”“Oh, I don’t know about the position. I couldn’t possibly take that away from a wolf knowing I was planning to leave as soon as I’m able. Who knows, maybe I’ll find a mate pretty quickly.”Vince’s eyes darted to Brandon. “So you intend to head back to your father’s pack lands as soon as you mate?”I pretended to think about it. “I’m not exactly sure. My father raised me to take after him. And these last few years, I focused on that. Rebuilding our pack. I have the resources, the inves
“Anyway, we will see you back at the pack. I know you said you were busy tonight, and we understand, but I’ll need you at the pack house first thing in the morning.” I smiled and nodded as Vince turned away. “Brandon…let’s go.” Brandon looked at me and I wanted to gag. He was leaning in and I wanted to pull away, but Vince called him again. Thankfully. “Brandon.” He jolted back from me, gave a pained smile, then trotted after his father. Toya turned to me with a grimace. “That was…”“Illuminating.” I nodded to the door. “Let’s head out. We have a lot to do today.” Toya sighed and turned on her heels. We headed out the door to see Sterling loading the last of my bags. “This is everything.” He nodded to the truck as he swung up the tailgate. Then he turned to us and bowed at the waist. I grabbed for him, but he held up his hand. “Sterling.” My voice was soft, but he bowed again.“It has been an absolute pleasure serving you here, Amy.” He stood and then bowed to Toya. “You as well.”
My mom was out of the house before I even closed the door. She walked straight to me and into my arms. She was vibrating for some reason. Anger was my best guess, and she was trying to calm down. “Where have you been?” She pulled back and cupped my cheeks. “I went for a run.” I smiled. “Toya came to help me bring everything else home.” I pointed to her, and she waved from the other side of the trunk.“Hi.” She walked to the tailgate and pulled it down. “Where should I put this stuff?”My mother looked between the two of us, and I saw understanding bloom in her eyes. “Let me show you.” She let me go after another squeeze and walked down to grab a few bags. I followed and grabbed the rest of the stuff and closed the tailgate as Toya followed my mother inside. “How are you, dear? Did you do well in your course?”“I did.” Toya smiled. “I was top of my class. Not as good as Amy.”My mother scoffed. “Apples to oranges, my dear. Different courses, different scores.” My mother was always li
The door swung open and there was…nothing. “What are you doing in there?” My mom came up behind me, standing at the doorway. “Why is this here?” I spun in a circle, seeing an almost identical room from the cabin.“It’s for seasonal storage. When we moved in with Morgan and Shannon, this was her closet. This entire room. Morgan wanted to put you in the guest room, but I knew. This was your room. I told him you had to have this room or I would stay with you in the guest room. He cleared it out for you nest day.”I turned to face her. “I don’t remember that.” My mom laughed. “I wouldn’t think you would. You were a baby.” She leaned in and kissed my forehead. “So now it’s your turn to answer my question. Why are you in here?” I huffed out a breath and pointed towards the room. She turned and headed back to my bed and I left the small hidden door open. I followed and leaned against the door frame. “What’s wrong?”“Yesterday…” I swallowed. “The call. It was Carly.” My mother gasped, and
I hid my book under my blankets before I made my way to the door. I reached for the doorknob as another knock sounded at my door. I opened it to find myself face to face with Shannon. She looked…thinner. “Shannon?”“Amy!” She smiled wide, and she pushed my door wider, exposing my mother and Toya. “I haven’t seen you in forever.” She stepped in and instantly my back was up. Toya scoffed. “Who the fuck is that?” She whisper yelled and leaned closer to my mother. “That isn’t the same Shannon I met.”I watched Shannon’s eye twitch before she smiled wider. She leaned around me. “I know I was a bit of a bitch at school.”“A bit?” Toya interrupted, but Shannon pushed on. “Okay, a lot,” she raised her hands. “But I can say that I was stupid. I went from being important to being at the bottom of the totem pole. It’s a hard change to take in, and our first year was a rough one for me. But,” she looked at my face. “I grew from it. I came here to apologize to you.”I watched her skeptically. Sh
I shut the door after them, and the room resealed. Toya waited for a second before she burst out laughing. “Is she for real?”I walked back to my bed and pulled out the book, then sat down. “I don’t honestly know. She thinks she is smarter than everyone in the room, and I will say, last time she had me fooled.” I sighed. “How?” Toya rolled to face me, sinking further into the bed. “I want to say I was stupid, but in reality…I just never fought back.”Toya looked surprised. “What do you mean?”I thought back to my first life. “I was an alpha that couldn’t shift. I wasn’t embarrassed, per se, more that I wanted to stay under the radar. I didn’t want Brandon to decide I wasn’t worthy to be the luna of the pack.”Toya shook her head and then settled her temple on her fist, resting on her elbow. “I want to say he wouldn’t, but I know what he did to you. And I’ve met the man.” I scoffed at that. “He’s head over heels for you now, but he would turn on you so fast if it gave him a better ch
I held up my hand and closed my eyes again. “I don’t know.” I pictured what I would need to make this work. I felt a soft push, and the book was back into my hands, opened to a page. I looked down and froze. “What’s this?”“Your book?” Toya sounded confused. “No, the page.” I pointed to it, but Toya shrugged.“That’s the page I was on when you jumped up.” She looked down at the book and laughed. “It’s a rock again, so I can’t see the page I was on.”“It’s on a spell.” I whispered, staring at it.Toya groaned and hit my shoulder. “Every page is a spell, Aim.” She shook her head. “What spell?”“A simple recall spell.” I looked up at her, then back down to the page.Toya nodded. “I’m nodding like I know what that means.” She looked back at me. “What does that do?”“It brings a small item to you. Say you forgot your phone, you can recall it to you. Voila, you have your phone.”“How the heck is that supposed to help us?” Toya shuffled closer and grabbed the edge of the book. I looked at h
I walked out of the office with an exhausted grin on my face.“Did you do it?” Alannah stood at her desk with a grin on her face. “I did. Got it just as the counter was counting down.” Alannah jumped as the door swung open and Vince walked in. “Amy!” He yelled as soon as he walked in. Alannah swung around me as naturally as she could. “Yes Alpha Vibce. What can I do for you?” Alannah stepped into Rick’s office, creating more space between them. Vince looked at her retreating, but I turned away from him and grabbed my purse from my hook, pulling his attention back to me. “You can’t call off the mating ceremony.” His face was smiling, but I saw the glint in his eye. He sounded like he was begging, but he meant it as an order. “Brandon loves you.”I nodded. “And I love him, but I love him enough to respect him and his reputation.”Vince furrowed his brow. “What do you mean by that?”I sighed as I stepped out of my office, pulling my door shut. “Alpha Vince, I know rumors don’t get ba
I covered my face with my hands. He doesn’t want me. My wolves laid down and I knew they were sad. We know how you feel about Rowan. How you feel about Thoth if you are ever going to admit it? We already told you we won’t interfere, but Erubus just snuck up on us. Megan huffed out a breath as she flopped over. Nix nodded. We thought we were just getting past the anger and the hurt that the two of them caused us. So that we could all learn to work together. And we did. Nix sighed as she laid her head down on her paws. Okay. I can understand that. I sat back. But what happened?He was…just himself. No interruption. No human getting in the way with his emotions. Rowan talks himself out of a lot. Nix shook her head. He takes a lot onto himself, more than needed. He thinks that his mate will make or break the realm. Nix sighed. I feel bad for the weight he forces on himself. He must be exhausted all the time. Megan nodded. He never pushed us, never made me feel excluded or uncomfortabl
I started in on the first firewall, which I breeched with no issue. But the second firewall blared the alarm. “Amy!” I sighed. “Got it.” I fixed my breech and tried again. And again. And again. I wanted to bang my head off the screen by mid day. I groaned in frustration when I heard Alannah call out again. “Amy.” “Seriously?” I slammed my keyboard in anger. I had made it halfway to the mainframe undetected, but I was stuck around the ninth firewall. I stood up and started to pace.Alannah came to the door. “Why don’t you take lunch? Take thirty minutes to regroup and then come back and attack. You will still have three hours to get rid of the virus once you settle.” She smiled and handed me the menu. “Maybe your hangry.”I huffed out a breath and then nodded. “You are probably right.” I sighed and dropped back into my chair. I looked over the menu and decided I needed meat. A lot of meat.Is everything okay? I called back to my wolves.Nix looked at me with wide eyes. I think we a
I watched his face go through a barrage of emotions and settled on anger. “Neither the pack nor Shannon can tell me who I can or can’t mate with.” He grabbed my face. “I want you, Amy.” He kissed me again and I had to hold myself back from puking. I couldn’t hold in the shudder, which made Brandon smile. He thought it was from need and not utter disgust. “You will be my mate. Promise me you will give me time to fix it.”I looked off to the side. “You have less than two weeks.” I turned back. “If Shannon hasn’t retracted everything…if she hasn’t stepped back, then she can take my place. I won’t be second place in my bond.” I slid out from in front of him and walked to the door. “Until then, I don’t want to be put in a situation where I would be considered the other woman.”Brandon watched me from behind y desk before he finally nodded and then walked back towards me at the door. “I respect that.” He leaned over and kissed me again. “I’ll handle it. Give me some time.”I just nodded and
I sat back, watching the grey curser flashing on the screen. I needed to answer him, but I was still a little lost on how to approach him. It’s still weird knowing that Thoth is a man. When my dad introduced us, it was just vague information. Thoth will help you. No gender. No name other than user name. I asked over and over, but he stayed quiet. We talked about computers at first. But then our conversations grew deeper. He asked about my day, complained about his own. It wasn’t until I joked with him about telling Brandon that he was a human female that he finally cracked and told me he was a man. Another alpha my father was friends with. One he had grown close to from overseas. I shook my head to clear it. Whatever feelings I did or didn’t have for Thoth would have to wait. I wouldn’t approach any relationship until everything had been handled.NixtheGoddess: Hey. I’m alive. Vince had captured me for a few days, but I got out. I’m at work. I have a full day, but I will do a full d
Humans fall in love… The words bounced around in my head. There was no fucking way. I turned to look at my wolves, who were sitting comfortably. There is no gods damn way.Nix snorted as she looked at Megan. She’s really trying to convince us…when we share her fucking soul and already know the truth. Megan shrugged. I wasn’t going to point it out to her. She ran to her computer every night for months, talking to the man. If she wanted to be stupid, that was her prerogative. They both looked at me and I staggered back. YOU KNEW!Both shrugged. Look. Nix stepped closer and ran her side down the barrier. After Brandon. I wasn’t going to agree to any mate. But then you met Rowan.And while we both liked him. Megan pressed against the barrier, sending love. There were too many things holding you both back. Including us. What are you guys even talking about?Nix sighed. She pulled back and looked at her paws. I knew you loved Rowan. We both did. And before we realized Erubus was Rowan,
I sighed before I pulled up our chat screen. The dark screen was full of messages that I had missed.Thoth: Hey. You missed our chat last night. We were going to work on getting into the mainframe. Is everything okay?Thoth: Amy? Hey. It’s been hours. I’m starting to worry.Thoth: Amy? I called your dad. He said he hasn’t been able to get in touch with you, and he’s even starting to worry. Is everything okay? We are starting to panic.Thoth: Okay, listen, I know you are probably busy. Especially with the kids. I know you said that the king was in the past, but maybe you should reach out to Rowan about the kids. Maybe he can help.Thoth: Hey it’s been another day. Are you okay? I fully expect you to message me back today. I called you but you didn’t answer.Thoth: I just realized it might be weird that I called you…I got your number from your dad. I figured since we are friends, you wouldn’t care. Thoth: Okay, don’t be weird about me calling you.Thoth: I’m panicking.I laughed at tha
I walked into the office early the next morning. I was exhausted still, but I had things to do. Alannah stood with a shout. “Amy! You’re back.” She ran over and hugged me. “I was so worried when I hadn’t heard anything from you.”“I just spent some time with my mom on an island off the coast. Cell service was bad.” I sniffed her. “You smell good.” I pulled back, patting her back. “I like the perfume, what is it?”She looked a little confused for a moment. “It’s vanilla.”I smiled. “It smells great, but I can tell it’s wearing off. You might want to add a little, so it lasts all day.” I winked at her as understand entered her eyes. “Good idea. I’ve been running around all morning, so I was really sweaty.” She turned around and went to her desk, pulling the bottle from her purse and spraying herself. She turned to me expectantly. “How’s that?” “Perfect.” I looked around. “Is Rick in?”She shook her head. “He left early yesterday after his meeting with the alpha. I think we weren’t fee
I opened myself up as I sat down and sent out a call. “Sorry it took so long.” I sighed as I sat down next to her. “You were busy.” Carl’s voice was sad, and as I looked over, both he and my grandmother looked worried. “But you are here now.”“I didn’t expect both of you.” I sighed.“Daddy.” Carly called as she jumped up, but I grabbed her. “He’s not really here, baby, remember? You can’t touch him.” She trembled and then she sat back down. They settled across from us with the grave between us. “I forgot.” She looked at him. “I miss you, daddy.”“And I miss you too, baby.” He leaned over, then need to touch his daughter too much. “I heard every time you prayed to me.” His eyes softened. “And I want you to know, baby. That if you want to call Amy mom, or if at any time Amy gets a mate and you want to call him dad, your mother and I won’t mind. We will always be your mommy and daddy.” The tears in his eyes were full of love.Carly looked at me and I smiled down at her. “You don’t hav