Page 3 of Bond & Protect

I can’t even pinpoint this to any of the myths my great-grandfather told me about when I was a child. Myths that I’m still convinced might have more truth to them than anyone ever said…

But then I turn the paper over and my heart stops beating.

‘The Rift has opened.’

That might not mean a lot to many people, but it does to me. Because this does relate to something that my great-grandfather told me. He always used to talk about tales of The Rift. A place in the forbidden forest, popping in and out of existence, allowing monsters to come through and wreak havoc on this plane of existence, ruining the planet for us all. Huh, not on my watch.

I don’t know if this is exactly what’s happening here, but as determination surges through my veins, I know I won’t allow it. If everything that my great-grandfather said is about to come to fruition, then my pack will be in the way, protecting the humans and the other wolves as well. This isn’t going to happen. We’re too strong and too powerful for this. No monsters stand a chance.

Anger tremors in my body and continues to pour through my veins as I shift into my wolf form. Mentally, I send off telepathic messages to my pack, telling them that they need to meet me in our usual meeting place right now. As alpha, I can easily make that command.

Eventually, I meet the members of my pack who can make it. Liam can’t be here because he’s a medic at the local hospital and in the middle of surgery, but that’s fine. Everyone else is here.

“Well, we all know the stories of The Rift,” I say as I pace up and down in front of the worried faces looking up at me. “And now you have seen the note, so you know that we really need to be concerned about this. This is something we need to fight.”

“Wait, so there are going to be monsters?” one of the wolves in my pack, Sydney, asks me with confusion flooding his face. “Here? In this small town? Are you sure about that?”

“The town with The Rift,” I remind him. “There’s a reason we have all been told these tales from a young age. It’s to prepare us for something like this.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this, even as the words are coming out of my mouth. To really be discussing The Rift in genuine terms, it’s crazy, but Theo wouldn’t have given me this if it wasn’t the truth. So I need to get on board, right away. I need to just embrace this and work hard.

“And it’s on the edge of Faraway Lane?” he continues with a frown. “That’s where these coordinates lead. Isn’t that a little closer to town than the stories suggested?”

I nod, but I’m not really listening to Sydney now. Something else has just hit me. Faraway Lane is where I dropped Mila off. The suspicious woman who has only just appeared in town, right when The Rift opened. I swallow hard, wondering why I couldn’t sense the monster within her.

This is going to be harder than I thought. If we can’t sense the beasts, how can we fight them?

“We need to go there now,” I finally say numbly. “We have to find out what’s happening.”

Have I been fooled? Did I let a monster slip through my fingers? My heart hurts as I imagine what that will look like, how the pack will see me. I knew that Mila was suspicious the moment I laid eyes on her. I sensed that something was up, but then my protector side came out, and all I wanted to do was help her just because she looked like she was vulnerable.

“Come on.” I swallow hard and nod at my pack. “Let’s go. The sooner we start working on this, the more we can keep our town and the people in it safe. You know everyone is relying on us, especially since I’ve been handed this mission. Let’s get on it already.”

Sydney is the only one who looks at me a little suspiciously, but we all get going anyway. Because my pack knows I’mright. This is going to be a nightmare if we don’t get this under control right away. I keep remembering the end of these tales, and they weren’t ever good.

Death, destruction, horror… yeah, we don’t want The Rift to run free. No way. I have to push all that to the back of my mind while concentrating on making shit happen. If I get caught up in the stories, then I might forget about the horrors of reality around me.

Much to our surprise, Liam isn’t at the hospital after all. He’s already at Faraway Lane as if he’s waiting for us there. And he doesn’t look happy. In fact, there’s an icy look on his face, no color in his cheeks. His eyes are all over the place because something has troubled him. My heart sinks, and the closer we get to him, the more terror strikes me as well.

“It’s Amos,” Liam calls out before anyone can even ask him what’s going on. “He’s been taken. It’s already started. The Rift has opened and it’s already begun. I knew this was coming, I could feel it, I could sense it. I’ve been thinking about it for ages, and now it’s happened. It’s here. What are we going to do? How are we going to find Amos? How can we stop this?”

I swallow hard as I think about little Amos. He’s a young shifter, barely eighteen years of age. Not a handful of years younger than the pup of my pack. He spends almost all his time in wolf form because he loves it so much. I don’t think I have ever known anyone to be as happy to shift as Amos. I don’t want to imagine what life would be like without his sunny personality.

“We need to find him!” I cry out, a little angry now. “We can’t let this happen. We can’t have one of our own in danger already. This is seriously fucked up. Amos is a child. We can’t let anything bad happen to him. We have to find him right away.”

Sydney senses that I’m struggling with this, so he sets up a tactical search of the forest, starting right here at Faraway Lane and spreading right out among the trees. I appreciate him doing this. I know it’s what he’s best at. I need a moment to gather myself up so I can be the best alpha I am.

Fuck these monsters, I think to myself, getting increasingly riled up by the minute. They will not win. Whatever it is they want, it isn’t going to happen.

Determination surges through my veins as Sydney gives me my instructions. I can’t get too caught up in all of the emotions because I need to focus. It’s only a rational brain that will help me locate Amos. I need to be in my wolf form, with only my animal brain switched on. I’m itching to shift now, to start the search, to find Amos because the longer we leave it, the more time he spends with those monsters, and the more we risk something happening to him. I can’t have that.

All through the night, we search the forest for any sign of Amos, but with no luck whatsoever. We communicate telepathically, so I know that no one else has seen him, which sickens me to my stomach. The more that time passes, the angrier and more upset I become.

What the hell are we going to do? This is fucked up…

It’s only when I’m about to give up for a moment, to shift back to my human form to see if there is anyone I can get in touch with who might have heard something, when I catch the scent of something. Wolf blood. I don’t want to think that’s true, but I can sense it in my bones. This is definitely what’s happening. Someone is really hurt.

Shit. I pick up the pace, following the scent, with the sense that Sydney is doing the same thing. We’re the nearest ones to the smell, so the ones who are going to find out what’s happened here. I don’t want to know, but I also need to find out before I lose my mind…

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