“No,” he replied softly, his eyes warming. “You’re everything.”
God, I needed to be with him so much it physically hurt.
“Talk to me, Remy,” I pleaded. “What happened after the explosion?”
“I was with Griff and Dante. We were talking about re-opening GPA. Kace messaged Griff that he had a lead on the guy who let Preston into the club that night, so we stepped outside of the meeting.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw. “We were heading back and … boom.”
Yeah, I remembered the boom, too.
“Dante and I went to look for you and Tate first, but we couldn’t find you. Your phone was still there, but I found this.” He reached off camera and when his hand came back into view, my necklace was dangling from his hand.
My shoulders sagged in relief. I had assumed it was gone forever.
He dropped his hand back to his lap. “We figured someone had taken you both, so we started looking for Dad and Luke. By the time we found them …” He shook his head grimly.
“Gabe’s going to make it,” I said fiercely. There was no other option.
Nikolai Dashkov might have contributed his DNA to create me, but Gabriel Holt was more a father to me than any other man had ever been. I couldn’t lose him anymore than Remy or Katy could.
“Norwood set off the bomb.”
I nodded. Dimitri had told me as much.
His expression darkened. “They’re going in and annexing other packs that don’t have Alphas now. Invading them and forcing them to join Norwood.”
I hummed under my breath. “Mom mentioned they were causing problems.”
“They’ve already got most of the east coast packs, and now they’re moving towards the middle of the country. They have a strong foothold in the Southwest, too, since Long Mesa is technically with them along with a few other smaller packs.”
“They can’t possibly control that much land,” I murmured absently.
“Katy thinks it has less to do with the land and more to do with all the new females they’re now adding to their pack.”
My eyes narrowed. “Nikolai and Dimitri are questioning Elias tomorrow. I told them I wanted to be there when they did, and they agreed.”
He sighed. “Good. If you can find out exactly what they’re planning, it would help.”
“Who challenged you?” I asked suddenly.
“William Lodge.”
“Lodge?” My nose scrunched up. “Isn’t that—”
“Ainsley’s dad,” he confirmed. “He’s butted heads with my dad a few times. I held a council meeting yesterday, and he didn’t agree with me running the pack.”
“He’s an idiot,” I said flatly.
“They’re scared,” he countered, trying to stay neutral. “I put Rhodes, Katy, Will, and Dante on the council with me. For now I’m trying to blend dad’s council with mine.”
“Dante?” I frowned. “How can you have someone from another pack? And with Luke … Isn’t Dante the Brooks Ridge Alpha now?”
“Dante and I talked about it on the plane,” he replied quietly. “I think we both knew Luke’s injuries were too severe. Brooks Ridge is isolated where they are. Dante abdicated his claim as Alpha and we merged their pack into Blackwater.”
Holy shit.
“It’s part of why Lodge challenged me.” He slowly, calmly told me about how he and the others decided that if Norwood was amassing their own army, then so should Blackwater. But, unlike Norwood, Blackwater was giving packs a choice. Blackwater would protect them before Norwood could take them.
“Rhodes and Will have been reaching out to local packs on the west coast, but I talked to Griffin last night. He’s thinking about merging with us, too.”
That would be huge. Griffin’s pack was Windale, and was one of the largest in the country. Combining them with Blackwater might give us the edge over Norwood.
“I feel so useless here,” I muttered. My eyes swept the room that was fit for, well, a princess.
“I hate that you’re not with me, but I’m also relieved you’re not here in the middle of this mess,” he replied with a grimace.
“This place is … Jesus, Remy. There’s so much I’m trying to wrap my head around. It’s like this weird mix of a dream and a nightmare.” I tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear.
“But you’re safe?” he pressed.
I laughed softly. “Yeah. I’m safe.”
“I asked your mom about your … about Nikolai,” he corrected. “She said it was a whirlwind thing. Happened in the span of a few hours, and they didn’t really get to know each other.”
“Did she tell you that they were bonded?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. She said she broke their bond, but didn’t elaborate much. And she knew he was from a Russian pack, but that was about it.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Apparently it’s not just a Russian pack. Narodnaya is the first pack. Like, ever. This is where shifters started.”
His eyes flared widely. “Say what now?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s … Did Elias ever tell you about the first pack? Or how wolves were created? About Namina?”
Remy snorted, smirking. “Elias didn’t, but I’ve heard the story. We all have. It’s a fairy tale.”
“Except … it isn’t.”
His brows rose. “Skye, shifters are a genetic anomaly. It’s a mutated gene or some shit.”
“I thought the same thing,” I murmured, glancing down at where the silver bracelet had once been on my wrist. “But I’ve seen things here, Rem. Things that don't make sense.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“If I told you magic was real, would you believe me?” I held my breath, waiting for him to laugh.
He didn’t.
“Skye, I’ll always believe you,” he said honestly. There was zero judgement in his gaze as he watched me.
Sometimes I wondered what I had ever done to deserve this man and his complete and total faith in me.
“There’s a group of people here,” I said. “Romani? They can do things that don’t make sense.”
“Like?”
I glanced at my fireplace that was still crackling and roaring. It hadn’t died a bit since Lulu had left me hours earlier.
“When I was taken, at first, could you feel my wolf?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.
He frowned, his expression turning thunderous for a beat. “No,” he ground out. “It was like you were just gone.”
“Dimitri put this bracelet on me,” I explained. “It suppressed my wolf. I couldn’t feel her or our bond either. It was all just … gone.”
“That’s weird,” he allowed, still looking pissed off. Somehow I thought he was more pissed off about Dimitri touching me than he was about my wolf being magically whammied.
“No, the weird part was the bracelet didn’t have a clasp or any kind of locking mechanism. It was like I had been born with it around my wrist. And that’s where it stayed until Lulu took it off.”