Lyra POV

I drove my wolf down to the uttermost. Trying to hold back a river with bare hands was like it, but I had taken five years of training with the Council, learning how to keep my wolf, learning how to be strong. I could do this. I could handle this. I was a policeman and policemen did not lose their temper.

Keep off, everyone, I said, and steeled my voice. It was to have something to grip to, that it made sense, that I put my hand to the weapon at my side, though I did not believe I would use it.

Ethan took a step toward me. "Lyra, we need to talk about--"

I did not want to hear it, so I interrupted him. My voice was sharp as a knife. "I came here to do a job. Not to see any of you."

Dane came a little nearer, his eyes, which were silver, never leaving my face. "You don't understand. This changes everything. You're supposed to be..."

"Supposed to be what?" I snapped. "Your mate? I am already a rejected mate to someone, remember? I do not want to have that experience again.

I punched Ethan the way I had hit him with words. Good, his jaw tightened, and pain flashed in his face. I wanted him to have the slightest idea of what I had experienced five years earlier when he stood in front of the whole pack and informed them that I was not good enough to be Luna. When he had broken all I thought about fate.

Owen pushed his pair of glasses higher on his nose, an intrusive gesture of mine, which I had recalled many years ago. This is biologically impossible. There are no several mating bonds in the contemporary world. Marcus may have a clue to this, but the history is so ancient that--

I have nothing to do with what Marcus knows, I said. I am concerned about doing my job and going.

Zane hadn't said anything. He was merely standing there staring at me with those deep dark eyes. Something about him crawled my skin and my wolf at the same time was desperate. He resembled what he would roast the whole world in case of my request, and that scared me more than the situation that no one could have imagined.

You can feel it, Zane said to himself. His voice was not refined, as though he had not talked a lot. "I know you can. Stop pretending you can't."

My hands felt trembling and I despised that he could notice it. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Your wolf," Dane said as he came nearer. "She's calling to us. We can hear her. We can feel her."

And I came to think of something horrible. My wolf was not attempting to either attack them or run away. She was attempting to bond with them. All the instincts of my body were urging me to allow her to do so, to unite with them somehow. It was the most natural thing in the whole world and the most dreadful thing I could think of.

It was not happening, I said, and I meant it. I swiveled about and began to walk back to my car.

"Wait!" Owen called after me. "We need to explain. You must know what is actually happening.

I didn't stop walking. It was just instinct that drove me back to my car with my legs. The door to the car slipped out of my hands and I entered, shutting it behind me. I could see them all through the windshield standing in the clearing watching me. Dane looked desperate. Owen looked confused. Ethan looked angry. And Zane looked dangerous.

I turned the engine on and drove away without colliding with them as quickly as possible.

This had brought me down here on a mission to find out a rogue uprising by the Council. No one had told anything about this. No one had informed me that I would come back and have four mates instead of none. Nobody had told me that the whole world would turn upside down the minute I stepped on the territory of my old pack.

My phone rang as I was driving. The caller ID was revealed to be that of Kira, who is my best friend and training partner at the Council. I had worked with her for five years, since I came out of this place. Kira was mean, intelligent and never looked down upon me because of the pain I had. I was the only one who I had allowed to be close to me during this time.

"Where are you?" Kira responded immediately when I replied.

Driving away a situation that does not make sense, I said. Will you come and get me at the old rendezvous? I must get out of this and reason.

There was a pause. "Lyra, what happened? Your voice sounds weird."

I didn't know how to explain it. What would I even say? That I had been home and found not one, but four mates? That I had all my vision of my body and my own destiny? It seemed that a man who I had despised for five years was one man who had caused my wolf to rave with the desire to be in his presence?

"Just pick me up," I said. "Please."

I could not stop my hands shaking, and my wolf could not stop pacing in me as I drove. When I returned to this place there was something different. The universe had changed something and I did not know or cannot do anything about it. That was the worst of all to a person who had spent five years making walls and knowing how to make everything in her life work.

I could see the figure of Dane standing in the road behind me and watching my car fading away.

Lyra POV

The rendezvous was an old deserted cabin three miles off of pack territory. I came in and was already being leaned against by Kira leaning against her motorcycle with her arms crossed. Her typical black leather jacket was on, and her red hair was tightly twisted back. As she caught sight of my car she sat up and walked towards me.

Talk, okay, talk, Kira said as soon as I got out of the car. You have a ghost of a look on you and your hands are shaking.

I didn't know where to start. It was crazy the entire situation and it would become real when I uttered it aloud in some way I was not prepared to experience. But Kira was never a liar with me, and neither ought I to have lied to her.

It was four men in the forest I met, I said gradually. And one thing happened to my wolf. This will not be something that should be possible.

Kira's eyes widened. "What kind of something?"

Silver eyes they all have, said I. At once. Like everybody feels that I am their mate in some way. But that's not possible. It is a well known fact that mates are one to one. That's how it works."

Kira was quiet for a moment. Then she drew out her phone and was typing something. "Give me their names. I'm going to check something."

I explained to her Dane, Owen, Ethan and Zane. I said each name denoting the face of Kira which I was watching. She did not respond to the first three, but when I mentioned the name of Zane, her brows went high.

"The hybrid?" she asked.

"I guess. He was bitten and turned and not killed.

Kira nodded and kept typing. Alright, I am writing this to Marcus. And he is the historian of the pack, right?

I said the name of his uncle, Ethan, and it was bitter on my tongue. "Why are you sending it to him?"

Since when you tell me that it is true, when you tell me you are having more than one mate, then this is one of the old wolfe days, right? Kira told her. And I should know whether this is dangerous or you are safe.

And it hurt something inside of me that she was worried. Kira was the only person who knew what was happening to me, she was my sole true friend of five years. She had trained with me, fought with me and never had she requested me to be less angry or less broken. She just accepted me as I was.

I said it does not feel safe. It seems like I am losing control.

"Your wolf or your heart?" Kira asked.

Both, I said, and I detested the sound of my voice.

My phone went off and I received a message on an anonymous number. The message only said one thing; we need to talk. Not about mates. Of the reason why the Council dispatched you here. Meet me at the river tonight. Come alone. - Owen"

Don't do it, I read over your shoulder, Kira said. "That's suspicious as hell."

Something in the message which Owen had sent aroused my curiosity. He replied that it was not about mates, which meant that he was thinking of something. There was something to it about the reason I was here. The Council mission was to be of rogues but what of it should be otherwise?

There was another message that came through and this time it was sent by another unknown number. "Lyra, please don't run again. I have five years of working at becoming somebody you would be proud to know. Let me show you I've changed. - Dane"

Then yet another: The rogue business is related to us. To all of us. Before something bad occurs, you need to know the truth. - Owen (different number)"

And one last, one last, one last: Do not trust anyone but your four. The Council is deceiving you of the purpose of your visit. - Zane"

My heart was pounding. "What is happening?" I whispered.

Her jaw tightened and Kira read the messages. "This is bad. This is really bad. And you have to think that, in case the Council is lying to you about the mission, then that is a big problem.

"But why would they lie?" I asked. "I work for them. I'm an enforcer."

"Exactly," Kira said. "You're valuable. You're strong. And in case Zane is not wrong and your kin are a rare lot like he told you, then there must have been a purpose why the Council sent you here, which has little to do with rogues.

My phone made one more buzz, and this time it was Marcus, the former war strategist. What he meant is more: Lyra, there is something wrong about your family history. Before your mother passed on, she visited me and gave me something to give you, in case you ever came back. The reality is more than what someone has explained. We should meet. - Marcus"

My parents had passed away five years ago, in what everybody claimed to be an accident. I was away at the time, and working with the Council, and I had never asked it. Now I was asking myself whether there was something more to their deaths than I had heard.

You must know what the real situation is, I said. "But we do it smart. We are collecting information prior to making any moves.

I nodded my head, and deep down in my breast my wolf was howling. She wished she could go back into such woods. She needed to locate all the four of them and discover what this connection entailed. She desired things that were frightening to me since I had five years to know that I should not desire anything of this place.

When the sun began to go down, turning the sky orange and red, I made a decision.

I shall see Owen at the river to-night, I told him.

"Absolutely not," Kira said.

I said it was not about mates. He said the rogue activity is associated. I need to know what he means."

Then I am going with you, Kira, said.

"No," I said. "He said come alone. When I do not obey him, he will not say anything to me.

Kira did not resemble someone who wanted to argue, though she did not. To her credit, she caught me by the arm and drew me near. "Be careful. These men may be your friends, but it does not imply that they will not beat you up. And when the Council is intrigued in something bad then nothing is safe anymore.

The darkness descended on the forest and I drove into the river where Owen was waiting. My phone rang again with a message by Ethan: Whatever Owen says to you, know this is true. I can feel you inside my chest. And my wolf is not going to cease to call on you. And I will make it up to what I did the rest of my life.

I turned my phone off.

I could not switch off my wolf, nor could I switch off the voice within me which was beginning to ask its questions whether running away five years ago had been running at all toward something I was always supposed to seek.

Lyra POV

The river was blue and chilly, as I came. Owen had already come, standing on the edge of the water with both his hands in his pockets. He was not in his doctor coat anymore, only jeans and a black sweater. As he heard me coming he turned slowly round as though he were frightened of having me run again should he move too quickly.

Thanks, I am glad to see you, he said under his breath.

You told me you heard anything of the rogues, I said, standing back. My wolf was now quiet, almost serene, and this fact still further aroused my anxiety. "Talk."

Owen rubbed his hand down his hair, and scanned the room in a restless fashion. "The rogues aren't random. They are arranged, and they are markedly aiming at something in this pack." He stopped and looked directly at me. "They're targeting you, Lyra. They are aware of your bloodline.

My stomach twisted. "How do they know about that? I was not aware of it at all, until to-day.

Due to a word spoken by somebody, Owen said. He drew out a scrap of paper in his pocket and gave it to me. It was also old and tattered, and handwritten in a style I was not familiar with. The letter discussed the existence of a very rare bloodline that had just manifested after every few generations, a bloodline that had the ability to connect with various mates and generate power that had the potential to shift the dynamic of the whole werewolf universe.

This is written by one of the high persons in the Council, Owen said. A very long-time acquaintance of one of your family. Somebody had seen you grow up, and seen how long they had waited till you were eighteen so they could know whether you were strong enough.

I re-read the letter, and my hands trembled. "Who wrote this?"

Well, I do not know, I do not know, Owen said. "But I have a suspicion. When the Council dispatched you here, they had an idea of what would take place. They were aware that you would see your mates. They were just trying whether the bond would work or not.

"Why would they want that?" I asked.

Owen hesitated. Since, in case what the ancient lore tells us is the case, a Luna with four mates and a unique bloodline can make the strongest creature of the whole werewolf world. And the Council desires that power in themselves.

The line struck me as a physical shock. My mission turned out to be everything I thought it was not. The Council had not sent me here to find out about rogues. I had been sent here like some sort of an experiment. They had brought me here and were to test me, whether I would form the connection, and, in that event, intended to exploit me.

I said abruptly, "my parents knew. They attempted to warn me and they perished.

"Yes," Owen said. His voice was very sad. Your mother paid me a visit a day before the accident. She instructed me to take care of you when she had gone. On behalf, she informed me that the Council had learnt what you were, and that they would endeavor to put you to use. She told me she had promised me to protect you, when the time would come.

So you turned me in to the Council, did you? said I, cold.

I was not to blame, Owen said in despair. Otherwise they would have known I was on their side and then I cannot defend you internally. I had to stay close. I must have been in the pack where I could see the danger coming.

I wished to be angry at him, but in some way I knew. He was in a situation that he could not get out of and so was I now. "What do they plan to do with me?"

"I don't know exactly," Owen said. But the rogues who are to strike just at present may be connected with it. Some members of the Council may be employing the rogues as a scapegoat. Something bigger."

I had not yet had time to ask another question when I heard a sound in the trees. It was somebody who was running toward us, at a high speed. I reached over to my weapon and stood in front of Owen.

Zane came out of the dark, breathing deeply and with wild eyes. The pack is being moved out, he said without any greeting. Ten minutes ago someone was ordering it. Ethan is driving everybody to the safe zone yet he does not know the reasons. Something is wrong to-night, and no man is telling him so.

"Who gave the order?" I asked.

That is the thing, Zane said clenching his jaw. The Council ordered it. Essentially through Council headquarters. But when Ethan called out to them and wanted to know why they did not hear, no one was there. The entire communication channels failed.

Owen's face went pale. When the communication is down and people are getting evacuated, something is about to happen. Something serious."

Zane said, The rogues are taking the jump. "I can smell them in the forest. Even more than there were before. The thing is more than they should be able to do once they were a small rebellion.

I looked between both of them. "How many?"

"At least a hundred," Zane said. "Maybe more. It is as if they have been waiting weeks and months and are waiting all this time until this moment.

Again my wolf was becoming impatient and was pacing impatiently within me. She desired returning to the pack land. She would want to help to save every one. She desired to be with Ethan and Dane.

I must go back, I said to myself and turned towards the side we had come to.

"No," Zane said, grabbing my arm. They will take you back there and they will get you. That is what all this is about. The evacuation is a distraction. The rogues will attack the safe zone in which they are transporting all. And they intend to steal you all in the commotion.

Owen stepped forward. "We need to go to Marcus. No one knows your bloodline better than he does. He may be able to guard you.

Marcus was to have presented you something, said Zane looking at Owen. Something your mother left to you.

I felt cold all over. "How do you know about that?"

It is that I have been watching, I am telling you that there is no shame in my voice, Zane said. The Council employed me to spy upon the pack and make a report. But now that I knew what they were actually about, when I knew that they were going to make use of you, I ceased reporting. I had decided to serve you on the contrary.

You are also a spy, I said bitterly.

"I was," Zane said. But that was the last I had when I caught sight of you in that clearing. My wolf knew what you could be to me and suddenly all the money and power of the Council did not count anymore. It does not matter, it is just to keep you alive.

I was to answer before I could reply, when I heard an almighty alarm in the distance. It was an announcement coming out of the pack territory, which was a danger signal. There were several alarms ringing, and this was succeeded by something even worse.

I heard screaming.

Now they are attacking, Zane said. He took out a phone and began to type furiously. They are fighting them to the north, Dane. Ethan attempts to bring everybody to safety. But they are not going to make it. There are too many."

I have to assist them, I said, and went running towards the noise.

Zane grabbed me again. "You can't. You will be stepping right into their trap, in case you appear.

"I don't care about traps," I said. "Ethan is my mate. Dane is my mate. Owen is my mate. You're my mate. And I will not keep it a secret as they struggle to survive.

I tugged my arm like a rope out of Zane and moved. My human body changed to the form of my wolf, bigger and stronger than an ordinary wolf. I was silver and midnight blue, and this seemed to be glittering fur even in the dark. My wolf and my human mind were in perfect accord, such as I had never felt before since I had heard the story of the four mates.

I was going back.

I had never run so hard in my life, and my feet beat the earth, my wolfdom ruling my actions. I heard Zane behind me transforming into his wolf self and chasing me. Owen came later, still with his running legs, and with each passing second losing a ground.

When I broke out of the forest and into pack quarters, I beheld the fight.

The rogues were on every side, assailants on every side. They had black spots on their arms, and I did not know what they represented. They waged battle using weapons and magic which were undermining the ability of pack wolves to transform in the desired manner. I found Dane engaged in combat with three of them at the same time his silver eyes blazing with anger. I was able to visualize Ethan leading the people to safety and at the same time, he was warding off attackers.

But I also saw something else.

The figure stood motionless in the middle of the mess, spectator of the fight. This man was dressed in a Council uniform, the same as mine. And as the figure turned to me I knew the face.

It was Marcus.

Ethan, the uncle of the old war strategist, the man who was to have some word on my bloodline, was standing in the midst of the attack in the uniform of a Council officer. And he was smiling as though he had been waiting to have this very moment.