Chapter 52


    Leah’s body arches, bowing so sharply it’s a wonder her spine doesn’t crackpletely.


    I wince.


    Around me, the wolves gathered sit on their haunches. They watch. Others shift back to their human


    forms. Tobines and stands a few feet away from me. Karolina, the wolf from the Council, she and


    three other females move to the opposite side.


    They’re na ked. All of them.


    Blood stains skin and the mes from the fire flicker over their


    bodies.


    Leah screams.


    A few of the wolves wince.


    Tobin is expressionless. His eyes are pale and cold and unflinching.


    Karolina is quizzical, her face reminds me of a hawk, even her movements seem sharp. She watches


    Leah like a bird-of-prey.


    “It’s all right. I’ve got you,” I whisper.


    Leah whimpers, but doesn’t cry.


    The pain of absorbing Alpha powers is indescribable.


    I thought I was going to di e on the day I obtained mine.


    And I was a wolf in my prime.


    Leah… she is human and si ck.


    I kiss her head gently and hold her tighter. She can’t be si ck. I can’t wrap my mind around that.


    She shudders and if I could, I’d take her pain onto me.


    My arms are wrapped around her so she can’t il, but her body is bucking and convulsing and I’m


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    having to exert far more force than I want to. Just when I think the worst of it has passed, another


    roundes.


    At one point, James approaches me with a tree branch. It’s maybe three-quarters of an inch in


    diameter. He snaps the limb and hands me a piece that’s maybe five or six inches long.


    “For her teeth,” he says.


    Oh. Yeah. With the way she’s clenching her jaw there’s a chance it’ll crack or she’ll shatter her mrs.


    “Open, honey,” I whisper, trying to give her something to bite down on. I force the stick into her mo uth


    and the pressure is


    astonishing.


    She’s sweating and so am I. And the next wave that crashes over her is more powerful than the one


    before. I nce at James, he subtly shoulders his way closer and the rest of my men close in in a


    tighter wall behind me.


    I’d push back Tobin and his pack, if I could. Karolina too.


    Because we’re all feeling this influx of power.


    And as Alphas… we crave more of it.


    Leah is human. And very vulnerable.


    Normally the person receiving such power would shift during this ceremony because the wolf side has


    a far greater threshold for pain and the connection to the wolf-and its pack-is amplified during it.


    But Leah has no wolf.


    If she can’t withstand this transition of her father’s Alpha lineage, then she will di e, and by rights, one


    of the people in this clearing will be able to channel it. Because that’s the thing with power… it can be


    given. Or taken.


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    At any moment, any wolf in this circle could lunge for her, and in killing her, that transfer would be


    “Don’t even think about it,” I warn no one in particr.


    But instead of the threat pushing everyone back, the wolves inch closer.


    I growl.


    All at once, a strong wind gusts through the trees in the Grove, shaking the branches and leaves in an


    eerie, haunting mor.


    And everyone freezes.


    Wind whips through the rows of trees again. As if the spirits of her ancestors are rushing through the


    forest to possess her body.


    The fire continues to crackle. Cl ouds move across the starry sky. Time passes slowly.


    As the surges of power go on and one, Leah grows weaker.


    Not stronger.


    And I’m hit with the knowledge that I may have saved my wife, only to have to ki ll her myself…