Page 1 of Return to the Pack

Chapter One

Luna

The Jacksonville pack’s Alpha might be dead. The latest in an endless string of hurricanes is blowing through the city with relentless fury, taking Axel’s home to the ground with him inside.

With a scream, I throw down the sandbag I’d been carrying and race toward the debris.

The wind catches a piece of the siding and whirls it toward me like a deadly guillotine.

“Look out,” Callan cries, launching himself at me. We crash to the ground, barely escaping having our heads chopped off by the sharp metal edges of the siding.

We sink under the cold, churning water around us, only to be yanked back up by Warrick. I inhale a lungful of air as my head leaves the water.

“Let me go,” I shout as the wind blows my words into the air. “We’ve got to save Axel!”

“I just saved your life, baby girl,” Warrick growls. “I’m not going to lose you now.”

“Thank you,” I call over my shoulder as I dive toward the rubble of the fallen house.

From what I can make out in the gloom of night, Ethan and Callan are already pitching aside lumber, broken windows, dishes, and other things that once occupied Axel’s house.

Each of their flashlight beams provides weak light in the blackout that just plunged Jacksonville into a hellish nightmare. All around me, gusts of wind hurl the remnants of other houses through the air.

I expect to see humans, cars, and people’s pets flying through the air at any moment.

My three lovers charge forward, holding their flashlights between their teeth as they work, frantically trying to find Axel in the floating debris.

I join my triplet lovers, working side by side with them. We tear apart the piles of what was once a perfect home but is now nothing but an unrecognizable jumble of housing material.

My mouth isn’t big enough to get a good grip on the flashlight, and it falls into the wreckage a minute later. “Shit,” I cry, giving up on finding it and screaming for my last mate instead. “Axel! Axel!”

Ethan looks up at me, his face owl-bright in the glow of the flashlight, pausing in his quest to find Axel.

“He could be drowning in there,” I cry, waving my arms frantically.

Ethan sets to his task with more fervor, tearing away the bits, leaning into the wind, and searching for Axel.

We all pitch in with renewed vigor. Axel might be alive, and we’ll all risk our lives to find him if he is.

This is so not fair. After warring with one another in animosity, we finally made peace and agreed to work together as a family. And Warrick agreed to be Axel’s Second in Command. We’d just begun getting along when the storm hit, and now it’s all been ripped away.

I toss aside a piece of siding when I touch something clammy and soft. Is it…? Could it be?

“Y’all,” I yell. “I think I found him!”

The triplets surge in my direction and help me uncover the rest of him. We work quietly but swiftly until Axel’s entire body is revealed.

I step back a second, unable to face what might be my biggest heartbreak of all. I spent most of the last few months hating Axel and then loving him but pushing him away. We only reconciled tonight, and now…

“Is he… Is he dead?” I whisper.

Warrick crouches, gets his arms underneath Axel, and lifts him from the water and into the pounding rain. “Check him out, brother.”

Callan places his fingertips on Axel’s carotid artery. “I got a pulse,” he says with a grim nod. “It’s faint, but it’s there. Let’s get him out of here.”

My knees buckle, and I practically fall to the ground I’m so relieved.

Ethan places his hands on my shoulders to steady me. “Easy, girl. Let’s go.”