THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T HOWL

Chapter8

*THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T HOWL*

*Chapter 8: The Choice*

A human screamed from town.

Then another one.

Then the bonfire bell — the big silver bell we only ring when rogues cross the town line — started ringing like crazy.

My father heard it and his whole body changed. He wasn't a grieving man on his knees anymore. He was Alpha Magnus.

"Jenkins!" he roared. His normal howl, brown and loud, ripped through the rain. "Silver Falls! TO TOWN! NOW!"

Jenkins, who had been kneeling in the mud staring at Tyler's body, snapped his head up. His eyes went gold.

"Town!" he shouted back. Every Silver Falls wolf who was still kneeling from my howl jumped up and started running. Splashing through the river, through the trees, toward the lights, toward the screams.

Rhys looked at his two guys.

"North Ridge! With them!" he barked. "If one human dies because Hessa's mutts got loose, my grandmother will peel me!"

His guys ran too, but Rhys didn't. He stayed. Looking at me. At Elara. At Tyler on the ground. At Sarah.

The screams from town got louder.

Elara was frozen, her mother's hand in one hand, my hand in the other.

"Mom, you said you can save him," she whispered to Sarah. Her silver eyes were overflowing. "You said white wolves can bring back—"

"We can," Sarah said quickly. "But not here. Not with Hessa's veil open. We have to go to the old stone. On North Mountain. Where Liora is kept. Where Hessa was bound. It's the only place where a life can be traded clean. If we stay here, he'll rot. And the town—"

"The town will burn," Rhys cut in, angry. "Sarah, tell her the truth. If she goes with you to do the rite, Hessa will try to take her body instead. Because she is unmarked. Because she hasn't..."

He stopped. Looked at me.

"Because she hasn't completed the mating," he finished quietly.

The air went still.

Elara looked at me, confused, tears on her face. "Completed? What does that mean? We... we have the mark, right? You marked me, right?"

I couldn't speak. My throat was still raw from howling. My hands were still silver.

My father had grabbed my shoulder hard, pulling me up.

"Kael! You have to go to town! You are Alpha now! You howled! They need you!"

"There is nothing wrong with me being here!" I suddenly shouted, but my voice cracked. I looked at Elara. "There is everything wrong with me leaving her here!"

Sarah yanked Elara's hand harder.

"Kael can't save your brother!" Sarah shouted, desperate. "Only I can! Only white to white! Your mate bond is new! It's not locked! Hessa can still cut it!"

"Then lock it," Elara said.

Silence.

Even the screams from town seemed to get quieter.

Elara looked at me. Fully. Her muddy, pretty, furious, homely face glowing silver in the dark.

"You said I'm yours. You said there is nothing wrong with what you own. So own it. If that locks it, if that keeps that witch from taking me, then do it."

My mouth went dry.

"Elara... we... you don't know what that means. It's not... it's not just a bite. It's..."

"I know what it means," she whispered. She was shaking but she stepped closer. She tilted her head, exposing her neck. The other side. The side without the silver mark that was already burning. "My old clothes are fine, Kael. My old life is fine. But Tyler is not fine. So if this is what makes me strong enough to save him without going with her, then do it. Right now."

The sight of her offering her neck to me in the middle of a muddy river while our town screamed and her dead brother lay between us made me want to both throw up and fall to my knees.

Rhys swore and turned around. "Oh for f**k's sake. Do you two have to do this here?"

"Rhys, shut up!" Elara snapped at him, even while offering her neck to me. "You! Burned eggs guy! You don't get an opinion!"

Sarah let go of Elara's hand like she was burned.

"Elara Quinn, no! If he completes it here, in Hessa's open veil, with Liora still flickering in the boy—"

"There is everything wrong with them telling me no," Elara whispered, looking straight into my eyes. Her silver eyes on my silver-gold eyes. "Kael, please. I trust you. I don't trust her. I just met her. She left me for ten years."

Sarah flinched like she'd been slapped.

My father was shouting at his wolves, trying to run to town, but he was watching us too. His eyes were huge.

"Elara," I whispered. My hand was shaking so bad I could barely lift it to her neck. "If I do this, there's no going back. For us. You will be... you will feel everything I feel. And if I die tonight in town, you—"

"Then don't die," she said simply. "There is nothing wrong with you living, Kael. So live."

She grabbed my shirt and pulled me down to her.

Her skin was burning hot. Hotter than before. Like fever. White wolf fever.

I could smell her fear. Her grief for Tyler. Her love for her brother. And underneath it, under everything, I could smell her wanting me. Wanting me to do it.

My wolf, who had been silent for eighteen years and then roared once, was no longer silent. He was chanting one word.

_MINE. MINE. MINE._

I bared my teeth. My silver claws dug into her waist to hold her steady.

"Cover me," I said to Rhys without looking at him. "If Hessa comes back while I'm—"

"I got you," Rhys said, voice tight. He moved in front of us, back to us, claws out, facing the red eyes still in the trees. "Hurry up."

I looked at Elara one last time. Human girl in diner apron, silver eyes, mud on her cheek.

"My old clothes are fine," I whispered to her, smiling even though I was terrified.

She smiled back through tears. "There is everything wrong with them anyway. Just bite me, you idiot."

So I did.

I sank my teeth into the soft skin of her neck, right opposite the first mark, and completed the bond.

Silver light exploded.

Not just from her neck. From both of us. A ring of white-silver fire shot out from where we were standing, across the river, across the mud, so bright it turned night into day.

Elara screamed. Not from pain. From power.

From town, every single bound creature that had been running toward humans stopped and howled in pain at once.

And in the middle of the light, Tyler's body, which had been dead still, arched off the ground.

His mouth opened.

And a river of black smoke poured out of it, screaming Hessa's name, straight into the sky.

Tyler gasped.

A real gasp.

Air.

He was breathing.

"Elara?" he croaked, in his own voice. Small. Scared. "Elara, where... why is it dark?"

Elara ripped herself out of my bite, blood silver on her neck, and threw herself on him.

"TYLER!"

She was sobbing, holding him, and he was alive, he was really alive, holding her back.

We did it.

We actually did it.

I fell back into the mud, exhausted, silver light fading from my teeth, chest heaving.

Rhys turned around, staring at Elara's neck. Now two marks. Two perfect silver-white bites. A complete mate bond. Locked.

"Well," he said, quietly. "You just made her the White Luna. Hessa can't touch her now."

Sarah was on her knees, staring at Tyler breathing, tears streaming.

"You... you locked it... in the veil... without the stone..."

My father was laughing and crying at the same time from where he stood halfway to town.

"My son. My son howled and mated and raised the dead in one night."

Then the silver light from our bond pulsed. Once. Twice.

And from deep in the woods behind Sarah, where the red eyes had been, a woman laughed. Not Hessa's old laugh. A younger laugh. Cold.

"How sweet. The little broken Alpha finally learned how to bite. Thank you for opening the door for me, little Luna."

Sarah went white.

"No," she whispered. "No, she's still bound. She can't be—"

The trees rustled.

And a woman in a black dress stepped out. Barefoot. Beautiful. With long black hair and eyes that were all white, no pupil.

She looked exactly like Elara.

But grown up. Twenty-five. Perfect.

And she looked straight at me and smiled.

"Hello, mate," she said to me.

Elara, still holding Tyler, looked up, confused.

"Who... who are you?" she whispered.

The woman smiled wider.

"I'm you. In ten years. I'm the white wolf you would have been if you came with your mother."