The Four Mates of Freya Rivers

Prologue

Freya



My life, much like our beautiful pack house on the hill, has gone up in flames.

I couldn’t hear anything but the fierce broken beat of my heart. My limbs numb, my soul shattered. In the back of my mind, I could feel the fear that was gripping my pack brothers and sisters as they ran for their lives. These… monsters closing in on anyone they can find. I should get up and help them. That’s my duty, my responsibility.

And yet here I was, kneeling down in the middle of flames and chaos, as I held this man in my arms and watched the life fade from his eyes.

He can’t be gone. He can’t be gone. He can’t leave me. .

It repeated in my head over and over again. A constant pounding in my mind, a fact so certain and so final that I couldn’t – don’t want to – wrap my head around it.

He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s f*****g gone.

I never thought I’d suffer through a pain so harsh. Not like this. Not this soon. Not when I’d thought things were finally going to work out and we’d get through this battle together.

My hands of their own volition, caress his face, closing his lifeless eyes as my tears fell and fell.

Strong hands shake me from my stupor. “Freya, we need to go.” His voice was pleading as he looked around with complete fear. “We need to go, now.”

I couldn’t speak. I just shook my head as I cried harder.

I’m not leaving him.

Another set of hands shake my shoulders. “Frey, look at me.” He turns me to look at his ocean blue eyes. “Frey, we need to get you out of here. Please.”

He looks with panic at a commotion behind me. The sound of knives sinking into flesh reaches me, grunts of effort and fighting. My guys. My guys were fighting for their lives – for my life.

“He’s gone, Frey.” He caresses my cheek, saying the words in my head. “I’m so sorry, baby. But he’s gone.” And I just looked at his eyes that has always brought me calmness, letting it grab hold of me in this moment where I just want to break down.

I looked up at the house where I grew up, swallowed by flames. Every photo album, every memory, everything was gone. There was going to be nothing left of it.

A separate pair of hands grabs me, lifting me up and cradling me to their chest. He yells to the others, then starts running towards the dirt road.

All I could do was bury my tear soaked face in his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart against my cheek. Focusing on it just to give me any sensation of being alive.

But as we neared the blacked out SUV waiting for us, I finally registered the howls and growls following us. I should get down, I could run on my own. I should be fighting with them.

But I couldn’t.

All I could do was let myself get swallowed up by the pain, and drifting off to darkness. And hope that when I wake up, this would all have been a terrible nightmare.