“No, sir. We found five rifts on our travels during the last few months,” Kian rushes to add.
I see what he’s doing—trying to appease the boss by assuring him we’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. Searching out the rifts in the space-time continuum. And we are. The interlude with the poison and Amora was just a side quest. Finding a way to marry the two realms has always been the goal, and will always be the goal.
As if in response to my inner thoughts, my shadows shift painfully, burning beneath my skin. They want that goal even more than Quinton does.
The alpha sighs and tosses his arm over the back of the couch, his fingers drumming against the fabric as he sizes us up. That look of disappointment never fails to make me feel like a child again.
“Five rifts doesn’t make up for your lack of success,” he says. “You’ve been gone nearly six months, and you’re telling me you’ve brought me nothing new?”
Kian launches into a brief explanation of where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing for the last half year, keeping his sentences short and to the point. Quinton listens silently, his pale brown eyes unreadable and a muscle ticking in his temple. When Kian’s voice fades away, I realize he’s left one big omission in his story.
Amora.
He mentioned the shadows that attacked us, and Frost being poisoned, and tracking down the potion to heal him. But not once did he indicate we weren’t alone. And he lied so easily.
In fact, something I’ve come to realize in the past two weeks is just how easily Kian can lie. He fucked Amora three years ago and never told us what had happened, not even when she showed up in Oscura and came after us. Now here, blatantly withholding information from his Alpha…
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how good Kian is at lying.
It makes me question everything he’s ever told me.
But keeping Amora out of the story was the right choice, so I keep my mouth shut. Quinton doesn’t need to know about her. He doesn’t even need to know we’re capable of having a mate, much less that we’d all been destined for her.
Before the potion broke us apart.
He’d see her as a distraction. Or worse, he’d track her down, imprison her, and use her to make us work longer and harder.
Quinton speaks again, but the rushing in my ears drowns him out. All I can think of is Amora in the moonlight, her dark hair fanned around her shoulders and her weight balanced between me and the tree. The curves of her body against mine, my cock sheathed inside her delicious warmth. The memory sparks an intense longing in me like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
I brush it off, refocusing on the conversation before I can go too far down that road. Too deep down that damn rabbit hole.
“I’m disappointed,” Quinton is saying, his fingers still drumming on the couch cushions. “I expect more from you.”
Kian remains stoic. “We won’t stop until you’re satisfied, sir.”
“Satisfied?” Quinton stands abruptly, his jaw tightening, and my shoulders tense. He strides around the corner of the couch and walks toward the wood stove. “Have you lost sight of your goal, Kian?”
Kian’s head jerks back slightly, his nostrils flaring. “No, sir. Never.”
As Quinton leans down to open the stove and starts shoveling wood inside, I work to release the tension in my body. The room feels stifling, and it’s not just because of the fire in the stove. We’re all on edge.
“Remember this mission isn’t only for your alpha,” Quinton says, his back to us as he feeds the flames. “The most important part of this is bringing relief to you, my children.”
“Of course, Alpha,” Kian replies.
Quinton glances at us over his shoulder, still crouched before the flames. They reflect off his face, and he looks regal, poised. After each of our mothers died, we grew up in this cabin, filling that stove, listening to him, learning from him. Seeing him crouched before the fire like this reminds me of easier days, when making our alpha happy was as easy as proving we’d mastered harnessing our shadow wolves.
“You’ve been searching for years,” he says, his gaze sliding from Kian to me, “and even your most promising prospects have borne no fruit. Years of wasted time. All that time, and you still haven’t found a way to bring the shadow realm to earth.”
I glance at my brothers, but none of us speak. His words hang heavy over us. The familiar prickle of failure works its way up my spine.
Although that could just be the shadows.
Quinton finally slams the heavy metal door and stands, brushing dirt from the cut wood off his hands. He whirls on us. “I want more, my boys. I want results.”
“Yes, sir,” we answer in unison.
Quinton steps off the stone platform and strides across to Kian, clapping the bigger man on his shoulder. “I thought giving you two shadow brothers would make you better. If only you’d been strong enough in the beginning, we wouldn’t be standing here today.”
Kian’s expression doesn’t change an inch, but I feel his conflicting emotions through our bond: guilt, rage, despair. Goddammit. Quinton hit him where it hurts.
“Perhaps it’s time I create some more of you,” the alpha muses. “New blood might be able to accomplish what I need, since the old blood can’t.”
Shock vibrates through our connection, and Kian goes unearthly still. Frost’s usually enigmatic expression twists just a bit. Only enough that I can see it. Of course it does—like me, he has a good damn reason why he should never let more of us be made.
At seven, he had to kill his mother because she was slowly, painfully wasting away from the shadows implanted inside her to birth him. I lost my twin sister because she was too pure to survive with the shadows she was born with.
And Kian already carries intense guilt that his alleged ineptitude forced this fate on us.
None of us want to see a single other shifter go through this agony.
I speak up before Kian collects himself. “That won’t be necessary, sir. We’re more than capable. We intend to keep looking.”
Kian nods, lifting his chin and keeping his features impassive. “Yes. We’ll rest in pack lands for a couple days, then head back out. We’ll double down.”
Quinton glances between us, pursing his lips a little as he thinks. Then he nods. “Fine. But this is your last chance. Fail me this time, and I’m replacing you.”
It doesn’t pass my notice that he said “replacing.” It’s one of his veiled threats—that he won’t just make new shadow wolves, he’ll kill us, too. Replace us completely.
“Get out of here and get some rest,” he says dismissively. “Don’t come back unless you’ve got good news.”
Small, fine snowflakes are falling as we leave Quinton’s stifling hot cabin. I turn my face into the wind and close my eyes, letting the flakes melt on my skin and cool me down. When I open my eyes, I notice the clouds overhead moving quickly, barreling over the mountains to bring the storm.