Page 53 of Filthy Fae

“Oh, honey, it’ll be all right,” Mom said hours later, pulling me into an embrace. When she pulled back, she cupped my cheek in the palm of her hand. “How are you feeling, Scar?”

“Finally living up to my nickname,” I said with a wince. Silver scars snaked down my side and up to my shoulder. The fae had managed to land two deep stabs and dozens of shallow slices. In my frequent bathroom breaks, I glimpsed the damage to my shoulders and side, but not wanting to leave Lance for a prolonged period of time, I hadn’t inspected them closely.

My father and mother had come to report near midday. We had lost a full sixteen hours, but thankfully, they were weekend hours. Otherwise, Marie would have fired me for sure.

“We’ve moved the submissive wolves to a safe house,” Dad said. “The dominant ones await your commands. For whatever reason, Queen Titania hasn’t attacked yet.”

I wanted to tell him to take them all to the safe house, but the fae would only hunt us down and pen us in. This way, at least we had a snowball’s chance in hell.

Mack and Aaron stood in the doorway. Mack’s aquamarine gaze searched my mine for probably the hundredth time. “What can we do to help?”

“Just keep looking for Zeezee and Necro-Nancy,” I said as my stomach plummeted. “That’s all we can do.”

Between the demon and the fae hunters, I was starting to really worry about my sister.

“And we need to prepare this place for an attack,” I added.

It had taken three alpha werewolves and my wolf falling into her berserker mode to take down one fae hunter. One. Fucking. Hunter.

I had known fae hunters and werewolves were unevenly matched, but I hadn’t realized how severely outmatched we were. The very idea that Zane managed to kill twenty-two fae was so laughable, I didn’t even understand how I could have considered it. Queen Titania either had a very distorted view of werewolf capabilities, or she was knowingly framing the pack for the murders. If the later were true, the Knight Brothers were right in guessing that she had found a way to slip her curse.

“I’m giving temporary pack status to the Knight brothers and Mack—”

“Scarlet,” my father said, leaning in. “We would all like to welcome Mack, but that might be a little fast moving.”

“No, Jack, you’re wrong,” my mother said, sitting straight and turning toward the doorway where Mack was still leaning. “Mack and Scarlet are in a healthy sexual relationship, and the pack will need to embrace that sooner rather than later. If the fae are attacking us at any minute, it’s best we all accept him now. Otherwise we might never get the chance.”

“Thanks, Allyson,” Mack said with a huge grin.

“Please, Mack, call me Mom,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” I whispered. I’d never really been in doubt that she’d be on the Mack and Scarlet ship, but it felt good to have her captain the fleet. Hopefully my wolves wouldn’t take this opportunity to call a mutiny.

Having their orders, everyone dispersed. Mack and Aaron each gave me a gentle kiss before disappearing, for which I was grateful. After the attack at the airport, each minute felt precious, as if it could be the last.

For the next several hours, I directed the preparations for the attack from my conjoined sick bed. Brenda and Mari, two dominant wolves who were in charge of stocking the submissive compound sorted through our supplies, leaving the major trauma gear here and taking the rest to the compound. They all nodded as they passed my bed, giving me a little more respect than they had when I’d just been Scarlet, the alpha’s daughter. Now that I was Scarlet the Alpha, their nods were deeper, almost bowing their heads as they greeted me with the respectful title, “Alpha.”

Then I had the dominants to worry about. Jacob Knight and his father had amassed great quantities of iron bullets and knives during their times as alpha, but in a show of peace, my father and Queen Titania had agreed to melt their weapons down and bury them in the forest.

It was a decision I would have never made, and if I’d been here at the time when my father made it, I’d have grabbed his shoulders and shook him. I’d have shouted into his face that there was no way in this fiery red earth that the fae queen melted down her silver. Destroying our weapons was the act of a man so desperate for peace that he’d believe anything.

It wasn’t fair to condemn my father’s choices as alpha. He’d stepped up. I hadn’t. It was as simple as that.

Darrel’s wolves were heading this way with their weaponry, but it wasn’t enough. My only hope was exonerating the pack and hoping that the Queen would be bound to pull back the hunt. It was a fragile hope.

Pushing my grim thoughts aside, I turned to my mother, “Thanks for your support back there. ”

“Scarlet.” My mother folded her hands in her lap and regarded me with her therapist expression. “You need to seal your mate bond with Lance Knight.”

I groaned, rubbing my face. “Seriously, Mom, not now.”

“Well, not until I leave the room, of course.”

The look I leveled on her made her pause, and then she sighed. “Your four mates—and I include Mack in that number, because he has always been your soul mate—are your balance points.”

“Mom, please don’t psychoanalyze my sex life right now. Just please, no.”

She kept talking as if she couldn’t hear me at all. “I don’t really know the other three alpha boys, but from the little I’ve seen of them, I’d compare Aaron to fire. He’s passionate and fun, but also comforting. Darrel reminds me of water. He’s intense, nourishing, and powerful—and yes, I am talking about sex.”