Page 87 of Never Submit

“It’s a great honor to be chosen by the Goddess.” Her voice is reverent as she sets the souffle down on top of a spotless stove top. “She is myth and legend, but she is also the lifeblood of any pack who adheres to the old ways.” Flora looks up, her gaze equally soft. “And also of some who are doing their best to distance themselves from the old ways.”

“You’re talking about Torin.”

She bobs her head. “He has embraced the modern world and all its changes and delights, but he knows the importance of the Goddess.”

I met the Goddess once, in a dream. Not meet so much as she called me to her and gave me a verbal beat-down. But the Goddess herself, the way she speaks in an ancientlanguage I somehow still understood, and the power rolling off of her, the strange way I felt tethered to her in such a manner that it wasn’t a curse but a gift…

I want to please her.

I want to find my way back to her.

“Why is she so important? To you guys, I mean.”

“She is the embodiment of the moon, which as you know is central to werewolves. We feel her changes like they are the blood in our bodies. We move with her moods, through the changing seasons, the new to the full and back again. The Goddess gifted wolves, her children before any other, with her two most precious artifacts—the Moonstone and her weapon that we’ve always believed to be a sword,” Flora explains.

I stop, letting the whisk drop, and place my hand over my heart.

“The stone is her heart and the sword is her arm, two halves of the same whole. You need the hard with the soft, the dark with the light. Do you understand?” Flora finishes.

I’m not sure I do, or if I ever will, on every level.

But I face Flora solemnly. “I don’t know what it makes me.”

Her smile is luminous. “It makes you special in a way that no one else is special.”

“The Goddess saved my life. She told my parents that I had twenty-five years before I’d die and return to her, but the Moonstone sank inside of me.” It’s easier to talk to Flora when we’re alone, and I glance up sharply as if only now fully realizing that the other chefs have left the room and it’s just us. “I think…it gives me more time.”

“Like I said,” she repeats, “you’re special. And I believe your shifting is one of the first ways we’reseeing it. Just think how muchmorethere is to you now, and how exciting it will be to see the extent of it.”

For a brief moment, the world is soft and easy, and it’s only us two girls sharing a moment where I’m actually excited for the future.

Then Mathis shatters the moment when he struts into the kitchen and heads directly toward the sink, throwing on the tap and sticking his head beneath it. Rivulets of crimson pour down the drain.

“Well, that’s one way to make an entrance,” I mutter, my stomach roiling uncomfortably.

When he stands up, his dark hair is plastered to his skin and blood trickles down his neck. His shirt is stained and torn in places and his knuckles are raw, covered in the same stuff.

“Don’t bring your violence in here,” Flora admonishes. “You know better.”

Mathis grins. “Torin had a problem with me tracking blood through his penthouse but the fucker doesn’t have a washroom in his torture chamber.”

I jolt hearing him say it out loud.

I mean, it makes sense that even a skyscraper like this would have a place to hold criminals. Especially considering Torin’s aversion to the woods and the place where I’d first seen Mathis and Dax in action.

But hearing him say it so offhandedly is a different story.

“I can’t wait to get cleaned up and head the fuck out of here. This place is creepy and much too clean.”

Mathis looks ready to splatter blood on the countertops just to be an asshole, but a warning click of Flora’s tongue stops him in his tracks. His gaze settles on me.

“If the kitchen makes you that uncomfortable, then leave,” I tell him with mock seriousness.

“It’s not the kitchen,” he explains. “It’s this building. I’m not sure how much more I can take. IfI’mreacting this way, there’s no telling how the others are feeling.”

“Your people are fine here. It’s a big building. There’s plenty of space on the lower floors. Or if they want a better view, we can always have some of them up in the penthouse with us,” I suggest.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Torin interrupts hotly as he enters. He's the pristine opposite to Mathis’s blood-speckled shirt, and for a second I’m struck by the polarity of these two powerhouses. One fair and blond, one dark and powerful.

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