Whitney (4 page)

The white filled him, sinking into him and wrapping around his heart. It held his very life in its grip, tightening until the steady thump trembled and became uneven. He felt it studying him, judging him—digging through his body and mind—then it released him as quickly as it’d taken him captive. He coughed and gasped, waiting for his organs to steady once again. He risked opening his eyes. The moment he processed the vision before him, he gasped.

Whitney—their Whitney—lay still on the ground as he’d expected but she… glowed. Literally glowed as if the fire and power of the magic she’d torn from them had embed itself in every cell of her body. The twining symbols now burned, light playing along each line and shining in hues that shifted from pink to blue to purple and on and on…

Her body, brightened by the presence of this
other
—magic that filled her from head to foot—and the meaning of the markings became clear.

Whitney didn’t have a single Mark like her sisters, proclaiming her potential mating to an Alpha Pair.

She had
hundreds
.

So, what did that mean?

Whitney woke to harsh whispers, the low sounds bouncing around her mind in a transparent hurricane of altos and tenors. After each snippet, she identified the speaker.

“… you did this…”
Scarlet.

“… dying?”
Gabriella.

“I’ve never seen…”
Keller.

“… heard about…”
Madden.

“… Warden Born…”
Who’s that?

Some voices she recognized, Scarlet’s accusatory tone unmistakable as it twined with Gabby’s worried voice. That alone was enough to shove her closer to action. She tensed and flexed her muscles, surprised that no pain lingered. She didn’t remember much from before she passed out, but she definitely recalled insane pleasure followed by bone-breaking agony.

Thank God the agony had gone on vacation.

Whitney fought the heavy weight holding her lids closed and forced them to open.

Totally a mistake
.

The minute her eyes were revealed, pain assaulted her, barraging her with the feeling as if needles attacked the aching orbs. She immediately slammed them shut and a groan reverberated in her chest. A groan that caught the attention of those around her.

“Whitney?” Scarlet’s voice pounded against her and another groan was torn from her.

“Shh… Whisper.” Whitney shoved the words past her dry throat.

“We are whispering,” Gabby’s voice boomed.

Fingers stroked her and she jerked from the touch, the pain of the caress sending another shot of agony through her body. She trembled and sunk into the soft surface beneath her, anxious to be away from what caused so much pain. She whimpered and shifted again. She couldn’t figure out what was worse: the whispers or the touches.

“Open your eyes, love.” The deep tenor drifted to her like a gentle breeze, the familiar voice coaxing her to do as he asked. Emmett’s words were so gentle compared to the growling and snarling from… before. How long ago was “before?”

“Bright,” she grumbled.

“Turn out the lights.” Levy issued the order and she assumed it’d been carried out. “Try now.”

Preparing herself for the inevitable pain, she sighed in resignation and did as he bid. When a man like Levy spoke so softly and sweetly, she couldn’t help but listen. Carefully, and oh so slowly, she lifted her eyelids once again. She raised them in tiny increments, bringing the world into focus a sliver at a time.

“Lights are still on,” she whimpered.

“Um…” Emmett’s voice trailed off. “Just try for us, love.”

She sighed and did as he asked. Before long, the room materialized before her and that low glow still pervaded the space. “Did it. Close. Bright.”

Didn’t they understand that? Were they freakin’ blind?

Levy came into focus, his face and body filling her vision, and the man looked worried and nervous as hell. “Sweet, I’m going to hold your hand, okay? Just let me show you… something.”

His rough, callused fingers slid over her skin and she braced for the pain surely to come as it had when her sister’s had touched her. Only… it didn’t. Maybe that was done and gone. At least, she hoped.

As promised, her hand replaced the wolf in her line of sight.

Her glowing hand.

Her glowing, with weird lines all over it, hand.

Wait, back it up.
Glowing. And the lines weren’t stripes or squiggles, but had a definite shape and pattern. They pulsed with an iridescent light, the rainbow of colors flowing along each curve. And they looked like, exactly like, her sister’s Marks.

But all over.

“What. The. Fuck?” The words were raspy, but she got them out.

“We, uh, don’t know.” Emmett’s words were timid and that snared her attention. He was a Ruling Warden, one half of the most powerful Warden Pair in North America. The werewolf didn’t have a timid bone in his body.

“We have a guess.” Hell, even Levy wasn’t sure of himself.

“And what, pray tell, is our guess,” she licked her lips and swallowed, her panic quickly overcoming any pain that lingered. “As to why I suddenly resemble a graffiti covered glow stick?”

Scarlet popped into her vision, and this time, she really did whisper. “We were thinking more like a freakily tattooed firefly. But you haven’t blinked yet. Could you blink?” The innocence in her gaze lasted less than a second and then a wicked grin graced her features.

“Nah, not a lightning bug. I vote for night light.” Gabby nudged Emmett aside. “I mean, you won’t ever need one again.”

It was just like her sisters to use jokes to cover the scary drama. Like that one time Gabby had broken her leg when trying to prove she could fly and they’d joked and laughed the whole way home. Well, Scarlet joked and Whitney laughed. Gabby spent a lot of time sniffling and cursing them. They’d been ten.

Whitney raised her hand once again, staring at her fingers, palm and then arm in awe. Somehow, someway, her bow-chicka-bow-bow-ish-ness resulted in a Day Glo body.

“Emmett?” Even if he’d been the growlier and jerkier of the two Wardens, she reached for him first. Beyond the man’s asshole-esque behavior lurked a protective need that exceeded even Scarlet’s mate Madden. “Levy?” Although she called him second, she knew he’d temper Emmett and provide an easy soothing she needed.

Scarlet and Gabby were nudged aside and then the men were there, bracketing her as they had moments ago. Moments? “How long was I out?”

Levy grimaced. “Six hours.”

“Scared the hell out of us.” Emmett glared. “Don’t do it again.”

A grin eased to her lips. “I’ll try. We really don’t know what this is?”

Her blond wolf looked away, his attention fixed across the room as he spoke. “We have a guess.” He slipped his hand beneath her neck, and Emmett was quick to mirror his movements. “Let’s sit you up and then we can tell you what we know.”

“What we
think
we know,” Scarlet interjected. “You two and Gandalf here don’t have a clear answer.”

Twin growls surrounded her and despite her pain, she was quick to pet and soothe them. “Let’s just talk.”

Both men nodded and amidst her grunts and groans they got her vertical-ish. It was then she realized she sat in the middle of a massive king sized bed inside a gigantic bedroom. Clothes were scattered over every surface, shirts and shorts fighting for space with the evidence of meals rested on tables, chairs, and dressers. The tempting scents of freshly cut wood, dew-covered grass, and male musk surrounded her.

A man’s room. No,
her
men’s room. She’d been brought to their den.

Sitting up, she also saw the others surrounding her. Scarlet stood in the circle of her mate’s arms, Keller and Madden stroking her sister. Gabriella was in a similar state as she leaned against Berke’s chest while Jack pressed against her back.

It was the other male in the area that was unfamiliar. Positioned near the door, an older man—
must be “Gandalf”
—stood stock still, his eyes intent on her. For some reason, she felt compelled to take a deep breath and analyze the scents in the room.
A wolf. Old. Weak
. She didn’t ponder how she knew those things about the strange male. Not at all.

“Miss Wickham—”

“Whitney,” she was quick to correct him.

His eyes narrowed a moment, but the hint of dislike was gone before she could question him. “Whitney, I think I may know what has happened, but I’ll need your version of events.”

“Version of events?” She looked to Emmett, then Levy, with her eyebrows raised. The massive males had the grace to blush.

“Yeah, love, all of it.”

Now it was
her
turn to blush. “Um, I met with Emmett and Levy—”

“You mean the Ruling Wardens of North America.” That distaste was back.

“Yes, but considering Emmett had a good old time under my shirt and Levy had his hand in my panties, I think using their first names is appropriate,” she snapped. “Especially since the two of them turned me into a glow stick.” Her voice rose with every word as hot anger suffused her. It felt like her earlier ire yet so much more.

“Easy, sweet.” Levy stroked her arm and she leaned into the touch, the emotions fleeing as quickly as they’d arrived.

Crap, going Day Glo had really messed with her head.

Gandalf
glared for a moment, but the instant all eyes returned to him, the look vanished and a concerned expression graced his features.

Oh, she didn’t trust this guy. He had something against her, the situation, and she was waiting for him to snap.

“Very well. Continue.” All that was missing was the condescending flip of his hand.

“First, what the hell is your name? Why should I tell you anything?” Bitch, party of one.

Emmett cleared his throat. “This is Elder Warden Sarvis. He was our mentor while we trained as Wardens as well as our surrogate father since training requires children to be taken away from their parents at a young age.”

Damn, apparently she’d have to be nice to the guy. “I see.” She pasted a bright smile on her face, internally wincing at the sting. “I’m so sorry.”
Liar.
“This whole thing has my head a little turned around.”

“Accepted. Continue.” The jerk did do the whole hand flippy thing that time.

Something inside her burned and bristled at his tone and attitude, but she didn’t have time to examine the strange feelings coursing through her. She wasn’t normally so quick to anger, but now…

“I went to speak to Emmett and Levy about why I was summoned to the Gathering.”

“You don’t have a Mark.”

If the man didn’t let her finish her freaking story… “No, prior to being lit up like a lighthouse, I didn’t. But I got an ‘invitation.’”

He harrumphed. “Impossible. The spell was rewritten—”

She ignored him, and his little ‘rewritten’ comment, and continued. “They weren’t able to tell me anything so I tried to leave. We had words and then we, uh, got intimately acquainted.”

Emmett chuckled. “You said ‘fuck you’ and I accepted
your
invitation.”

A heated blush stole over her cheeks and she glared at the wolf.

“Detail your
intimate
encounter.”

Whitney narrowed her eyes and then turned her attention to her sisters, specifically Scarlet. The woman was mated to the Ruling Alphas, dang it. Couldn’t she stop all this?

Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Just tell him. I mean, you’ve been listening to us boink all hours of the day. This isn’t any more embarrassing than that.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “Emmett and my breast had a wonderful meeting of the mouths while Levy shook hands with my pussy. Good enough?” The Elder’s face flushed and his anger whipped at her. “Then there was a little sting, a great big orgasm and
boom,
I’m a firework. Are we all happy with rehashing Whitney’s embarrassment?”

Through it all the Elder stared at her, his dark gaze seeming to bore into her soul. His eyes flashed amber once or twice, but otherwise, he showed no emotion. “You felt pain at the time of your
completion
?” He said it like a dirty word and she wanted to scratch his eyes out.

“Yes.”

Sarvis’s attention left her and turned to Emmett and Levy. “You stupid, stupid fools.”

Whitney snarled and yanked herself from the wolves’ grasp, clawing her way across the bed, intent on swiping the man with her… She glanced down. Holy shit, with her claws. Well, they were claw-ish. More like human hands with suddenly long fingernails.

The Elder gestured toward her, his waving arm encompassing her body. “You see what you’ve done by violating the laws? What you’ve created? You’ve tied this
human
to you and are turning her into an abomination. You began the mating process and this is what’s left.” He spat the words, flinging the hate filled message at her across the room’s expanse.

“Wardens can’t mate.” Emmett voiced Whitney’s first thought.

Instead of answering, the old man pointed at her men. “You started it. You finish it. Permanently. Because this
cannot
continue further.”

Dual growls surrounded her, sounds soon followed by those from her sister’s mates. Then another joined the echoing threat… hers. Whitney dug her fingers into Emmett and Levy’s thighs while the gentle glow that coated her body flared to life. Whatever it was that now lived inside her pulsed and pounded, screamed to be set free and Whitney was bloodthirsty enough to let it.

Growing brighter by the second, Whitney gave the Elder a simple warning.

“You, should be running.”

*

Whitney made his cock harder than granite. Emmett’s body instantly responded to her threat, dick filling and lengthening with the idea of her tearing someone apart. Hints of shame hit him and overshadowed his arousal, but then she growled and he shoved it aside. He stared at her, noting the flush of her cheeks, the rapid rise and fall of her chest, and the way she licked her lips. She was gorgeous, delicious, and
theirs
.

And regardless of his respect and love for Sarvis, she would remain alive and by their sides. Rage at the older wolf’s veiled order and threat swept through him and he remembered the man still lingered in the room.