Page 73 of Dawn of the Pack

The passenger window next to me rolls down, so I lower mine as well.

Savannah beams at us from the crammed backseat. “Hey guys! She’s not kidding; aside from, like, my grandma, the entire pack is waiting. We actually had to tell Mimi to stay home. She wanted to go too. Dad had to remind her about her hip, and then it became this whole thing-ouch! What was that for?” She turns angrily on the person sitting next to her.

“They don’t need to hear about your Mimi’s hip, Savannah. We gotta go.” Brad, one of Jared’s teammates from the football team, pokes his head around Savannah’s bushy hair from the middle seat. “You guys ready? We’ll lead you over.”

“Yeah, sounds great thanks!” Lily leans across me. “Maxwell, just follow their car.”

Justin’s SUV pulls ahead and we fall in line with the rest of the household vehicles behind us, windows rising to stop the flood of cold air pouring in.

“Do you think it’s really the whole town?” Lily asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Of course we do,” Jared answers for all of us. “I told you, nothing to worry about.”

“We all knew people would show,” Milo asserts.

There’s a nervous electricity in the air as we drive through the dark, sleepy town. Not a car on the street except ours, every house and business dark as we pass.

Then, we turn onto Main.

My breath is in my throat, and I’m just praying the girls hadn’t exaggerated. The major thoroughfare of Smoky Falls is well lit by golden streetlights, so of course it’s the brightest spot in town. Lily and I lean in to see around the front seats and I give her hand another encouraging squeeze.

Ahead, for what seems like miles, are glowing red tail lights lining the road on either side.

Lily squeezes my hand back, nearly crushing my fingers in her excitement. My heart starts pumping with renewed energy; there must be hundreds of cars; I can’t even see to the end.

As soon as we pass the first pair of cars they honk excitedly, and as we roll past, more and more vehicles join the din, until it’s a deafening roar that reminds me of the cell phones at our nightly runs.

Jared crows in the back seat, and Lily’s eyes dart between the three of us, an expression of utter amazement on her face.

I have no doubts now; we’re going to take Montrose by storm and no one will stop us until we reach Nielsen’s front door.

And then it’ll be entirely up to one eighteen-year-old girl, my mate, to change the world as we know it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Derrek

I know something’s up when the radios on the guys outside my door start squawking. It’s late, hours after dinner, and the sound wakes me from an uneasy nap.

After Erika left last night, I haven’t seen a soul apart from my regular meal times. I scarcely slept, risking as much time practicing spells in my bathroom as I dared. If Nielsen’s next plan is to kill Lilliana in front of me, I have to be able to stop him when the time comes. So long as the spell I’ve perfected works, it’ll at least give her a fighting chance.

I’ve shown zero signs of manifesting, and I even tried to use the threat of him killing her to shift on my own, but it was pointless.

Of course, there’s always the hope that he’s not even able to get to Lilliana in the first place. Knowing what I do now about magic, Smoky Falls is certainly better protected than I even realized, and she has those three boys, let alone an entire pack, between her and my supposed father.

But if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s that he’s ruthless. If he has a plan to get to her, I have to assume it has a possibility of success.

And so I focused all of my energy for the last twenty-four hours on working up a spell to free her from whatever method he uses to restrain her. I’ve untied knots, and even subtly unlocked the ‘tool box’ in my room before swiftly locking it again. Fortunately for me, the change was so subtle it wasn’t caught on the cameras.

I don’t know what the sudden commotion means, but I’m certain it can’t be good. I lay as still as possible, trying to understand the scratchy radio voices over the sounds of feet pounding down the hallway, but it’s all a muffled, jumbled mess of noise.

Then, it goes incredibly quiet.

My heart rate ticks up. What does it all mean?

Perhaps he was able to kidnap Lilliana and they’re setting up some sort of show out of it. That would make sense—he’d want the entire pack to see him take her out, I’m certain. It’s a century-old rivalry, filled with bad blood and mutual hatred.

It’ll be even more dramatic to have me tied up with a magical leash, forced to watch. And if that doesn’t make me turn into a wolf, well, I guess they’ll get a two-for-one.

---