I gasp, and air fills my starving lungs.


    I''m alive. How am | alive?Text property ? N?vel(D)ra/ma.Org.


    ‘Louis?”


    He doesn’t respond. My body feels heavy, and | try to remember thest thing that happened. | was on the battlefield. | was


    looking at Grace, telling her | loved her, before the silver from thest bullet got to my heart.


    Wait? Am | dead? | don’t hear any sounds of fighting. | hear moaning all around me, but nothing that sounds like death and


    dying.


    ‘| love you too, Eli.‘ | hear Grace say. Her voice is soft, exhausted, like she’s burned herself out.


    “Grace!” | yell in my mind. But as | reach out, | feel her consciousness going dark.


    | push myself up. “Grace!” | call out, looking around for my mate.


    | see her, slumped on the ground. Angel and Cara have just turned to her. They are calling her name, shaking her shoulders.


    “Grace!” | hear them yelling at her.


    | try to stand, but I can’t, so | begin to crawl over to where Grace is lying on the ground.


    “What happened?” | ask when | get there. | see Rik is conscious and also trying to sit up.


    “| don’t know. We had lost. Everyone was dead or dying. You, Rik, Liam, you were all.” Angel chokes on a sob.


    | pull Grace’s body into myp, rocking her. She’s not dead, her tether is there, but it’s very faint.


    Liam stumbles over, falling down beside us and pulling Angel into hisp, burying his face in her hair. She wraps her arms


    around him, telling him to never leave her again.


    He lifts his head, looking at Grace. “What happened?” He repeats my question.


    “| think...” Cara starts, looking at Rik. “I think she pulled mine and Angel''s strength to kill the hunters, but she must have also


    pulled Angel''s healing power to heal the packs. It’s not just us, | think she healed everyone. | can feel all the tethers that broke


    during the battle.” As she says it, | realize she’s right. | can feel every member of my pack as well.


    Thomas stumbles over, having heard the conversation. Whenst | checked, he was injured, but not dead. “It wasn’t just your


    powers, Lunas, she pulled from all of us. We all felt it. She drained. us all of whatever strength we had left. I’m d she killed the


    hunters first because none of us


    +15 BONOS


    could fight after what she did.”


    “Everyone?” Rik asks, as shocked as the rest of us.


    “Did you know she could do that?” He asks Cara and Angel.


    “No. We knew she had connected briefly, but we didn’t know she could pull from everyone in the


    packs.” Angel replies.


    “I need to get her home. She needs to see Sirona and find out what’s going on with her. | know


    she’s alive, but barely. Can any of you feel your wolves yet?”


    Cara and Angel nod yes. Rik and Liam shake their heads, no.


    | have Thomas find Carlos and put him in charge of helping our pack get back and making arrangements for those that need


    extra assistance before | begin running as fast as | can, carrying Grace back to our pack.


    It''s slower than I''d like it to be. Between my own weakness, myck of Louis’s presence and carrying Grace, I’ve just hit our pack


    lands, when Sirona pulls up in a car looking for us.


    “How? How did she do it? | felt Noah die.” She says, helping me get Grace in the car before tearing up the bumpy ground toward


    the pack hospital. I’m sitting in the back, holding Grace on myp so


    she doesn’t bounce around in the car.


    “We don’t know. We think she pulled from Angel’s healing power. I’m not sure what’s going on


    with her. She’s alive but her tether feels very faint. We can’t let her die Sirona.” | tell her, my heart


    in my throat. | was okay being the one to die. | don’t know that | could live without my mate.


    “We''ll check the baby first. My guess is Maia is protecting the child and therefore isn’t healing


    Grace.”


    My whole world stops. “Baby?”


    Sirona’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. Hers are wide. “She didn’t tell you?” When | shake


    my head, she continues. “She said she wanted it to be special. | just assumed.”


    “It''s not your fault. She knew what she was doing. She knew I''d never let her fight if | knew she


    was pregnant. And if she hadn’t been there, we’d all be dead.”


    | see Sirona shiver at the thought of not having Noah. Too many people in my pack know exactly how that feels right now.


    As we pull up to the hospital, Sirona asks, “What happened to the hunters?”


    She opens the door and | carefully step out, holding my mate and my child close against me.


    +15 BONOS


    “None of us are sure. It looks like a massacre. We know it was Grace that killed them, but we


    know exactly how she did it. It will take days to clean it up. We need to burn what''s left of the bodies. There were so many of


    them, there’s no way their presence will go unnoticed by the humans.”