Juliet

I wake to soft morning sunlight, the sound of the waterfall outside the window, and the smell of summer forest and bright evergreen sap and wish this were all there was to deal with today.

I just want to spend the day making love to my best friend-my husband-and running around the woods, soaking up the majesty of this beautiful world.

Everything feels beautiful right now.

Bright, shining, wondrous, and new...

But that fresh start feeling is an illusion, a fact proven when I roll over to see Ford whispering at the front door with a stressed-looking Layla.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes as I croak in a sleep-rough voice, "What's up?"

Layla looks past Ford, relief filling her gaze. "You're awake. Good. Bossy Boy here didn't want me to wake you until we absolutely had to, but I think you should know what's going on sooner than later."

I sit up, tucking the sheet under my armpits as I cross my legs and motion for Layla to join me on the bed. "Spill. What's the latest update on the shit show?"

"They're gone," Layla says, plopping onto the end of the bed. "All of them."

I frown. "Hermione and the soldiers?"

She shakes her head. "No, your dad and the rest of your pack. Apparently, sometime around five a.m., all the heat sensing cameras Hermione had set up around the resort went dark. This morning, her spies confirmed it, the entire resort is empty. It's like everyone just...disappeared. Like they were sucked into a vortex or something."

"Sucked into a vortex," I murmur, the words prickling at something deep in the recesses of my brain. "Do you think-"

"That they found a new way into the Parallel?" Layla supplies before I can finish. "Yes, I do. But Hermione's alleged 'expert' on things like that says it isn't possible. He says if there was a portal open into the Parallel, they would have been contacted by allies who were trapped there by now or received radio signals or something. But what if he's wrong? What if Hammer is keeping the portal hidden from people in the Parallel somehow. And what if he's killing President Benoit right now, while we sit around with our thumbs up our asses?"

I look to Ford, who's standing just behind Layla, looking as worried as I'm starting to feel. "What do think?"

"I don't know," he says, rubbing a hand back and forth over his short hair.

In just a pair of baggy gray sweatpants and nothing else, he looks so beautiful, I want to crawl to the end of the bed and trace the ridges of his abs with my tongue.

But that clearly isn't the morning we're having. And we might never have a peaceful morning again if Hammer gets away with whatever he's up to. I don't have to know exactly what my father has planned to know it won't be good for us, any of us, but especially Ford and me.

"But I think Layla's right to be worried about this wait and see plan," Ford continues. "If they have gone to the Parallel, Hammer's not the type to run away to another dimension and stay gone. He won't be happy with whatever power and wealth he finds there. He wants more. Always more, no matter what."

I nibble my lip. "How close did Hermione's spies get to the resort?"

"They're hiding at the base of one of the ski-lift supports near the top of the mountain," Layla says. "Probably half a mile or so away, but close enough to see that nobody's moving anywhere on the property, and the heat-sensing cameras haven't seen a sign of anything warm-blooded since all the heat signatures winked out early this morning."

"That doesn't mean they aren't still in there somewhere," I say, mentally cataloguing all the places Hammer might have thought to hide if he'd realized he was being spied on. "The freezer rooms in the kitchen have thick walls and the basement is designed to withstand a nuclear blast."

"That's what I thought," Ford says. "That they might be hiding in the basement, but Layla said the heat signatures all vanished at once, from all the different floors." Layla shrugs. "That's what Hermione said, anyway, and I don't see why she would lie."

I shake my head. "I don't think she would, but there are things she doesn't know about the compound. There are laundry shoots in almost every room and a slide for the kids that winds all the way from the third floor into a foam pit in the basement." "Sweet," Layla says.

"Very," I agree. "Back when I was a kid, it was my favorite thing about coming to our winter lands." I swing my legs out from under the covers and reach for my discarded sweatpants beside the bed. "Let's go talk to her. See if a little more background on the resort changes her mind."

"I don't think it will," Layla says as I quickly dress and pull my hair into a ponytail. "One of her leaders wanted to take a team into the resort to check things out, but she said no. She said if the packs were gone, but planning on coming back, our people showing up on their surveillance cameras would give away the element of surprise. And if they're hiding, we could be walking right into a trap."

"I see her point," Ford says. "But I don't think we have the luxury of waiting around. Hammer is bad enough as it is. If he works a spell to become close-to-invincible, he might actually pull this off. He could crush Maxim and his allies and take shifter culture in North America back to the Dark Ages."

"And you two will be dead," Layla says bluntly. "He's not going to let you live to threaten his throne, especially not when he could sacrifice Juliet to make even more super soldiers somewhere down the line."

I sigh, the last of my innocent morning contentment fading away as the weight of what comes next settles heavy on my shoulders. "You're both right. I guess we're headed in on our own then, in direct violation of Hermione's orders. That probably won't pan out well if we do make it back alive, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"We won't be in violation of her orders if she doesn't know we heard them," Ford says in a pointed tone I don't understand until Layla shakes her head vehemently back and forth.

"No," she says. "No way. I'm not staying behind. You need every pair of hands you can get. A team of four is a sad showing, but a team of three is just plain pitiful."

"But we'll need someone here to advocate for us in the event things go wrong," I say, before adding gently, "And Ford's right. If you're the only one who's spoken to Hermione, as long as you assure them you haven't seen us this morning, we can't be held in contempt of a direct order from the Wolf King's second-in-command."

Layla curses, but she knows we're making sense, I can see it in her furrowed brow. "But what about muscle power? I know I can't shoot as well as Catherine, but my bear can do some serious damage. What if you get in there, Hammer's just hiding out, ambush style, and you need an extra pair of big, slap-happy paws?"

"If it comes to that, one pair of paws won't make a difference," I say as I move past Layla to grab my backpack. "We'll be outrageously outnumbered, and then we'll be dead. At least this way, maybe one of us lives to keep up the fight."Belongs to - All rights reserved.

Layla's eyes begin to shine. "I don't want to keep up the fight without you guys. You're like my family now. Right? I'm not the only one who's getting that vibe?"

Swinging my pack onto my shoulders, I reach out, pulling her in for a hug. "You're my sister," I whisper into her curls. "And if I become Zion's Alpha, there's a place in my pack for you. Forever and always."

Her arms tighten around me and her breath hitches. "Good. So, you'd better come back. I've always wanted to be the only bear in a room full of snobby wolves who hate me for being there."

"My people won't hate you," I assure her. "I won't let them." I pull back, smiling as I wipe the tears from her cheeks with my sleeve. "By the time you graduate from Lost Moon and are ready to think about options for your forever home, I'll have kicked all the mean wolves out and only the cool ones will be left."

"You're going to use your stubborn, badass bossy powers for good," she says with a sniff.

Ford snorts out a soft laugh that draws my attention.

"What else would I use them for?" I ask, arching a brow his way. "Aside from browbeating my husband into submission, of course."

Ford smirks. "I prefer to be p***y whipped, thank you. No badass bossiness required."

I smile. "Good. That's my preferred method for managing you."

"Manage away, woman," he says, coming to stand beside me. He presses a kiss to my forehead before resting a gentle hand on Layla's back. "We both love you, Slap Happy. As long as we're still kicking, our home is your home."

Layla nods, clearly fighting tears again. "Same. Always. I'll go get Catherine and tell her the plan. Where should she meet you?"

"At the top of the waterfall," I say. "We can follow the stream north before we head east toward the resort. It'll cover our tracks in case anyone tries to follow us."

"All right." Layla steps back, her gaze moving between the two of us, like she's painting a portrait in her mind, saving a mental image of us to her memory banks...just in case.

In case this is a trap.

In case we lose the fight.

In case we don't come back.