Page 1 of Poet & Protector

One

The forest outside Vail, Colorado

October 31

The union of Renier Laroche and Calla Tor

MASON

The first time I heard Nev sing, my heart was already tumbling over the edge of falling for him, but his voice and his words were what captured my soul. As he sang now, his voice twining with Sabine’s in the cold October air, my chest was full of clashing emotions. Love and fear. Hope and despair.

It was Samhain. October thirty-first. A night when the veil between worlds thinned and the Keepers’ magic was at its peak. This particular Samhain would be different than most. Ren Laroche and Calla Tor, the young alphas of the Bane and Nightshade packs, were celebrating their eighteenth birthdays. Now that they’d come of age, the time for their union and the creation of a new Guardian pack had finally arrived. Capping everything off, tonight was the full moon known as the Blood Moon, which lent even more power to the ceremony.

We’d gathered in a large clearing, ringed by towering pines and quaking aspen, deep in the forest. Snow fell steadily from the sky, but the full moon shone strong enough to fill the swirling clouds above us with light and bathe the clearing in a silvered gleam.

This ceremony was a rare occasion where all the Guardians, over one hundred wolves, were present: the Nightshades gathered on one side of the clearing, the Banes on the opposite. Stephen and Naomi Tor, the elder Nightshade alphas, were at the front of their pack. Emile, the elder Bane alpha, whose mate had died on this night seventeen years earlier, stood alone before his wolves.

We younger Guardians who would form the new pack, the Haldis pack, stood apart from our wolf elders near a large stone altar positioned at the far end of the clearing. Calla’s attendants, Bryn, Sabine, Fey, and Cosette, stood on one side of the altar. Dax, Nev, Ansel, and I waited on the other.

Behind the altar itself were our masters. Efron Bane and Lumine Nightshade observed the proceedings, the dark, wild forest rising at their backs. Shadows cast by the tall trees camouflaged their wraith servants hovering close by.

A third Keeper stood a few feet in front of Efron and Lumine. Logan Bane, ready to claim his inheritance, the new Guardian pack. Ren, half-hidden by shadow, was beside our soon-to-be master.

Had I been asked how I felt about the union a month ago, I would have said I was excited. Under the joint leadership of Ren and Calla, the young wolves would enjoy a new kind of independence. We’d no longer be subject to the orders and oversight of our parents and elder alphas.

For me in particular, the new pack offered what I never would have hoped for within the traditional structure of a Guardian pack: Ren and Calla had given their blessing to a partnership otherwise forbidden. Nev and I would be together, though not openly. Simply loving him was still breaking Keeper laws, but in the Haldis pack we’d be able to share our lives in a way that hadn’t been possible until tonight. He and I dated secretly for months before we began to tell our packmates about our relationship. Most of them were supportive, but not all. None, however, would cross our alphas and betray us to the Keepers. It was more than I ever thought we’d have and I believed the future would be our refuge, at least to an extent.

I was wrong.

As Nev and Sabine sang of battle, duty, and honor, I could feel Logan’s gaze on me, but I refused to look at him. With each minute, the union ticked closer. A countdown toward my own unwelcome fate. Once Ren and Calla were mated, making the new pack official, any remaining restraints on Logan’s power would be gone, his authority over us unquestionable.

And he would come for me.

I couldn’t think about that. If I did, I might bolt from the clearing, driven by horror of what awaited me. But that would cost me my life, and it would put the packmates I loved in danger. Nev most of all.

Mason, what if we ran away?

Ansel’s innocent, earnest voice echoed in my mind. I pushed the memory aside. There were no ‘what ifs’ in the life of a Guardian.

All I could do was wait for Calla to appear, and then…I simply didn’t know.

My gaze settled on Nev, and my heart swelled with love while tightening with pain in the same moment. What would happen to us after tonight?

I couldn’t lose him. No matter what the future brought, we belonged to each other. If I clung to that truth, and to him, I would survive. I had to.

The warrior’s song ended and all the Guardians shifted into wolf form. Our howls rose in a mighty chorus, summoning Calla to the union.

Ren shifted too, his wolf loping past Logan out of the shadows to stand in front of the altar. He didn’t join our song but waited in solemn silence.

Our howls went on. And on.

My skin began to prickle. Calla was supposed to be here by now.

Where is she? Bryn’s voice entered my mind.

I could tell she’d asked the question of her Nightshade packmates, choosing, wisely in my opinion, not to include our Bane counterparts.

Ansel’s reply tried for humor but sounded forced. Cold feet?