Double Trouble, Triple Heat

Chapter 14

Sera’s POV

Luna's warning lingers like poison in my blood.

Dominic told me everything after she left—her words tumbling out of him in a rush, his hands gripping mine like he was afraid I'd disappear. Joseph is here. In Silverpine Falls. Asking questions about wolves, about hunters, about me. And Marcus is planning something—contacting people outside the pack, building alliances we can't see.

"We'll find him," Dominic had promised, golden eyes fierce. "Before he finds you."

But there's no sign of either threat. Not yet. So the pack's focus shifts to something else entirely.

Integration.

"If you're to be protected," Eldric tells me, his milky eyes seeming to look through rather than at me, "you must be officially pack. Connected to us through blood and bond. Without it, you're just a human we're harboring. With it..."

"With it, attacking her means attacking all of us," Dominic finishes. His hand finds mine, squeezes. "It's your choice, Sera. But I want this. We want this."

Caspian nods, silver eyes bright. "No pressure. But also, please say yes, because I really want to see you covered in ceremonial blood. It's a whole thing."

I laugh despite myself. "How romantic."

"I'm a poet at heart." He winks, courteous.

Three days later, I walk through town toward the sacred clearing.

Everyone watches.

A child waves at me from a shop window, small hand pressed against the glass. Her mother appears, face tight with fear, and yanks her away. The shop owner next door places something in his window as I pass—wolfsbane, I realize. A ward against wolves.

The librarian whispers something to her companion and makes a gesture I don't recognize. A warding sign, maybe. Protection against the monster walking past.

The town knows what I'm becoming. Some celebrate quietly—I catch a few nods, a raised glass from a man in a doorway who might be pack. But most fear. Most see me as something dangerous, something that doesn't belong.

Maybe they're right.

Dominic walks on my left, Caspian on my right. Their presence is the only thing keeping me from turning around and running.

The sacred clearing is different tonight. Torches instead of bonfire. A stone altar at the center, ancient and worn, stained dark with centuries of ritual blood. Wolves gather in a circle—silent, watching. Eldric stands before the altar in robes that look older than he is.

"Sera Mitchell," he intones, and his voice carries without seeming to rise. "Daughter of Lena Ashwood. Carrier of Prime blood. You come before us seeking integration into the Blackwood pack."

"I do." My voice wavers, but I force myself to continue. "I come willingly."

"Then approach the altar. Let your blood speak the truth your words cannot hide."

I step forward. Dominic and Caspian flank me, and when we reach the altar, Eldric produces a knife—silver, gleaming, sharp enough to split moonlight.

"Blood of the alpha." He draws the blade across Dominic's palm. Crimson wells up, dripping onto the stone.

"Blood of the second." Caspian's palm, next. More blood joining the first.

"Blood of the mate." The blade kisses my skin—sharp sting, then warmth as my blood flows free, mingling with theirs on the ancient stone.

Eldric begins to chant. Words I don't understand but feel in my bones—old words, powerful words, words that vibrate through my chest and make the golden thread blaze white-hot.

The blood on the altar begins to glow.

I gasp as power crashes through me—sudden, overwhelming. The golden thread expands, multiplies, branches out in a thousand directions. Suddenly I can feel them. All of them. Every wolf in the clearing, every member of the pack, their emotions brushing against mine like whispers in a crowded room.

Fear. Hope. Curiosity. Resentment. Love.

And beneath it all, something else. Something stirring inside me, awakened by pregnancy and bond and ritual blood.

My wolf.

She's been sleeping all my life, suppressed by magic I didn't know existed. But now I can finally feel her.

It was a strange feeling, a feeling where I know I'm connected to her, can imagine what colour her fur is, can think of her eyes.

But yet, she’s still far away. The thought tortures me somehow, that I couldn’t talk to her yet, but I knew we would. Someday, soon.

The chanting stops. The glow fades. But the connections remain—threads of light binding me to the pack, to my mates, to the child growing in my belly.

"It is done," Eldric announces. "Sera Mitchell is pack. Any who harm her answer to us all."

Marcus watches from the shadows at the edge of the clearing. I feel his contempt through the new bond—bitter, poisonous. He says nothing. Does nothing. But his eyes promise that this isn't over.

Celebration erupts around us.

Wolves shift to human form, laughing and congratulating. Someone presses a cup of wine into my hand before Caspian intercepts it—"Probably shouldn't, little star"—and replaces it with water. I meet pack members whose names I'll forget and names I'll remember, faces blurring together in the torchlight.

Most are welcoming. Some keep careful distance, watching me like I might bite.

I'm reaching for food when a voice cuts through the crowd.

"An outsider wearing our marks." A woman stands before me—beautiful, cruel, lip curled in disgust. "Hunter's daughter playing at wolf. Your mother was a traitor, and you'll be worse."

The celebration dies. The crowd parts, watching. Waiting.

I should say something. Defend myself. But the words stick in my throat, shame and fury tangling together.

"Elena." Luna steps between us, and her voice could freeze fire. "That's enough."

"You're defending her now?" Elena's laugh is ugly. "The woman who stole your place?"

"I lost my place through my own choices." Luna doesn't flinch. "And this woman carries the first alpha children in a generation. She stood before the pack and didn't flinch. Show some respect, or answer to me."

Elena's eyes flicker between Luna and me. Whatever she sees makes her back down, melting into the crowd with a final poisonous glare.

Luna turns to me. Her expression is complicated—not friendly, not hostile. Something in between.

"Don't mistake this for friendship," she says quietly. "I just hate Elena more than I resent you."

But something has shifted between us. A crack in the wall. A possibility I didn't expect.

"Thank you," I say.

She nods once, then disappears into the crowd.

Later, walking home through the dark forest, I let myself breathe.

Dominic's hand finds the small of my back—warm, possessive. Caspian walks close enough that our shoulders brush with every step. The trees press in around us, but I've never felt safer.

A howl echoes across the valley.

We all freeze.

It's not a pack howl—not the familiar cadence I'm beginning to recognize. This is different. Foreign. A wolf that doesn't belong to these woods.

Dominic's hand tightens on my hip, pulling me against him. His body angles in front of mine instinctively, shoulders squaring against the dark.

Caspian flanks my other side, silver eyes scanning the treeline. "That's not one of ours," he murmurs.

"No." Dominic's voice is a growl. "It's not."

They form a protective cage around me—heat and muscle and barely leashed violence. I should be afraid. I am afraid.

But there's something else, too. Something that sends heat pooling low in my belly despite the danger. The way Dominic's grip tightens on my hip. The way Caspian's hand finds mine in the dark, fingers threading together. The coiled tension in their bodies, ready to shift, ready to fight, ready to kill for me.

These men. My men. Ready to tear apart anything that threatens me.

I feel something stirring inside me, rumbling with satisfaction.

Something that shouts, “Our, all ours.”

"Let's go," Dominic says, voice rough. "Now."

We move fast through the forest, and I don't look back.

The howl doesn't come again. But as we hurry toward the lodge, I know this isn't over.

Something is coming. Something bigger than Marcus's hatred or Joseph's obsession.

And we're running out of time to prepare.