The Pack Girl's Retribution (Sequel to The Pack's Girl)

Ugly Decisions

"How will I know you're okay?" I asked Aviari in the memory. My small body was jerking with the weight of my grief. I didn't want any of them to go.

And I was so little and felt so helpless at the thought of all my older siblings leaving me. I imagined seeing a breakfast table where only half of our family sat.

Instead of a room brimming over with laughter and teasing.

"We'll write you." BailaLae stepped behind Aviari and dropped a hand to his shoulder as if to give him strength. She gave him a gentle squeeze.

"Dad is going to bring letters back and forth so none of us will feel alone."

"I can't know where you are?" I looked up at her. Wanting to cling to her dress and beg her to stay with me.

"No, Sweetheart." She dropped to her knees next to Aviari to look at me. "It's not safe for any of us that way."

"What if you're not safe there?"

"Us?" Killian had come back to stand over us. He rotated his wrist and opened his hand. Making black smoke seep from his palm to fill the Main Room until it was nearly blinding.

Then I heard BailaLae sigh in her sing song voice and saw her glow from just in-front of me. It grew so blinding that she banished all darkness in the room. Shining like a star.

"Have you not met us?" Aviari, now visible again, asked. He slowly peeled his palm open, and I saw the small red feathers marring his palm and the ball of red and orange fire blooming just above it. He whirled his hand and doused it instantly except for a tiny spark on his finger. He flung it in my hair and blew. Instantly putting it out after it fizzled a burn into a few strands.

I gave him an appalled look and sniffed. Shaking my head in abhorrence, at the awful smell of my singed mane.

"To remember me by." Aviari grinned.

He was always a bit ornerier then the other two. Teasing me a bit meaner.

I frowned at him. My tears effectively drying up as I gave him a black look. "You're dreadful."

"I'll miss you too, Baby Sister." He laughed. Standing and ruffling my hair fondly before he turned away.

I didn't know then how much I'd miss that touch over the next few years.

But dad had been right to do what he did.

The NightHunters were hunting us. Primarily dad's Alpha line.

That was made obvious by the continuous attacks the NightHunters did in our territory.

Trying to get closer to our home. I saw the house as I did back then. Catching it in my mind's eye as it looked when I'd skipped from the woods that morning. With an expansive wood deck on the front. Held by several pillars on the front. A large spanning house with a second level, showed we were pack royalty.

It was the biggest house in the area. Impossible to miss.

I wondered how hard it'd be to miss now.

***

"Draven!" Lyra Lani had heard her mate enter the hut after guarding the wall all night.

It was the first chance she'd had to talk to him.

He rounded the wall to peer at her from the doorway. His gray eyes looking sleepy. He brushed a hand through pitch black hair as he gave her a waiting look.

"Yes, Mate?"

She sat up. Holding the blanket to her bare chest as

she rose to speak to him. "I've something I dearly need to speak to you about."

"I see that, since it appears you were unable to sleep with waiting for me to get home to address it. I'll make you an exchange."

"What?" She eyed him warily.

"Drop that coverlet and I'll hang on your every word despite how tired I am." He gave a half-hearted grin.

"Fine." She let it slip from her fingers and reveal her plump nipples cresting the porcelain skin of her breasts.

He stared mesmerized.

She obviously did have his undivided attention.

He was riveted.

"Can you even hear me?" She asked dryly.

"Every word." His eyes didn't move. Staring at her body appreciatively.

"You said the Princess of the Gallions would come to you for help."

His head snapped up and the glaze of desire left his eyes as he turned alert. Every inch the Asara Alpha.

"What do you know, My Mate?" Draven queried.

"I thought it was Sam." Lyra said in a soft tone.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't deny it." She countered.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned leisurely against the frame. "I take it you know who she is now."

"Vanna Rae has gained some of her memory back and seeks permission to use her mates for vengeance against the NightHunters that killed her family."

"Does she know what she is?"

"I don't think so."

"A Gallions Princess?" Draven clarified to make sure they were discussing the same thing.

Lyra Lani shook her head. "I don't think so. She didn't

speak of it and didn't appear to be hiding things from me."

"Why'd she go to you?"

"She wanted me to persuade you to let them all beyond the walls on her mission."

He eyed his lovely blonde mate a long moment.

"You said you knew she'd come to you..." Lyra reminded softly. "And you said you'd have to let her go."

"But they're my best Border Guards."

"She's going to find a way to do it. I know enough of her to know that." Lyra cautioned. "She's by far the most stubborn she-wolf in this pack."

"Not the most." He gave Lyra a pointed look.

Lyra's lips tightened but she conceded. "One of the most."

Draven drew a long breath and his arms fell.

Lyra Lani sensed his uncertainty. Knowing the precedence it would set, if he released a female beyond the walls. Even under the watchful eyes of her mates...

"They'll follow her anywhere. Even if it means challenging you."

"They don't want to challenge me."

"But they want her bad enough to sneak from

under your thumb."

"When I said you could argue with me behind closed doors, I didn't mean outwit me."

"Is that what I'm doing?" Her face brightened slightly at the compliment to her intellect.

"Seems that way."

"Will you let them go?" She asked under her breath.

He gave her a long study.