Frozen.

In both time and place.

The air around it was different, like it was turbocharged. Hot and cold, all at the same time, scenting of the ozone and earth, throbbing with a power that was anything but of this world.

We approached, edging ever closer, and as we did, my heart began to pound. I almost wanted to stand back again, to stop before I moved any closer to the overwhelming monolith, but just as I felt the deepest urge to run, to get away from this place, something snapped into being.

Kali Sara!

It was like…

“Your she-wolf is responding,” Austin told me quickly, his hand moving to my lower back. “The disturbance in the air is for those who do not belong to the pack,” he rumbled, the whisper of his breath dancing over my ear as he kept me in the loop.

“I’m not pack yet,” I rasped.

“And that’s why you felt the disturbance.” His lips brushed over my temple, loading me with warmth. “All will be well.”

His sudden formality made sense as the sheer power of the moment had us both responding. There was a gravitas in this place, that was for sure.

I could feel the magic sliding through my body, penetrating me almost.

I felt—

It was strange. But it was like the time when I’d lost my virginity.

Something alien, not of me, had thrust into me, causing me pain but pleasure at the same time.

This wasn’t painful, even if it was discomforting.

It was like…

The totem was welcoming me. The magic was testing me.

How was this possible?

How was any of this possible?

Somehow, this felt a thousand times crazier than the fact that I could shift into a wolf.

And that was the only way I could describe how awestruck I was.

I gulped when Austin tugged me deeper into the circle, and when he stopped us beside the totem where Eli had come to a standstill, the pack, a group of people I didn’t recognize, but whose numbers floored me, settled into place around us too. I got the feeling that the closer you were to the totem, the more power you had in the pack.

It made sense when this was the center of their community, and what a community. Because I made it a habit to study people, to watch their features, to take note of their expressions and to read their auras, I noticed the instant someone walked into the invisible circle.

And it was invisible.

That I couldn’t see.

But I knew from their response when it happened. They all froze for a split second, then they shuddered as they moved in.

It was strange, like the magic was…scanning them as well?

If they were of the pack, then why did they freeze for that split second?

I knew my mates had to be hearing my thoughts, because, for whatever reason, I couldn’t shut them off, but they didn’t answer, and I figured these were more questions that would receive a response when I was claimed.

Kali Sara, I was looking forward to that moment, just for this instantaneous knowledge I was about to receive.

It felt like I was on the brink of opening Pandora’s box, but instead of all the evils in the world, I’d be gaining a universe worth of information.

Eli jerked me from my dazed thoughts as he stepped forward.

The clearing itself was around eighty feet wide, and now that I was here, I could see how there was a natural decline on the ground.

It was so slight that when you walked upon it, you didn’t feel it, but it meant that the people at the back were on higher ground than we were.

Which, I registered, also meant that the totem was taller than my initial impression had allowed me to believe.

People gathered around like the old-fashioned amphitheaters of the Roman era, and as they froze at Eli’s movement, I realized they were all tied to him in some way.

Did he talk to them mentally?

Or was it something the magic did?

Was there a magical loudspeaker or something?

Before I could wonder much longer, he called out, “Beta Brandon Wright is here today to fight the challenge from Ethan Carter. This fight will be until first blood. If either competitor takes it beyond that, then it will be until death.”

My mouth dropped open at that horrendous declaration, and when I flinched in Austin’s hold, he hushed me, and I noticed everyone else looked just as surprised.

Brandon Wright too.

Eli arched a brow at him, and the beta hunched his shoulders, ducking his head slightly, and I figured out what was happening.

My mate was shrewd.

He knew Brandon was going to lose. He knew pride would cause Brandon to carry on fighting when he should stop, and this was a means of discouraging the challenge from devolving.

Eli was, essentially, preventing Brandon’s child from losing its father.

Of course, it could go wrong, but I knew why Eli had done as he had.

I couldn’t say I loved my mates. I didn’t know them well enough. This claiming was going to be phenomenal, and I couldn’t wait for the union to deepen, but at that moment?

I knew loving them would be easy.

A man like Eli, so strong, so powerful, so proud, and yet so thoughtful. Protecting a child from a man’s ego.

Unlike Brandon, Ethan appeared neither pleased nor displeased by the alpha’s announcement.

Maybe he knew that was going to happen, or maybe he was just unaffected.

Of them all, even Eli, Ethan had the best poker face. I just wasn’t sure what he was hiding.

Maybe he was hiding a flood of emotions, or maybe he was just cold.

Like he heard my thoughts, he turned his expressionless face to me, and when our gazes clashed and held?

Kali Sara!

My body turned molten at the heat blazing in his eyes.

No way was this man cold.

Dear Lord!

I gulped, staggered back at the sight, and was grateful when Austin was there to catch me. He tucked me closer into my side, and in my ear, snickered. “You thought Ethan was cold?”

I bit my lip, feeling like a dumbass too, even though Austin didn’t exactly phrase my ignorance that way.

My heart was still pounding when Ethan turned away from me, and I realized Eli had told the crowd something else because, out of nowhere, the men began undressing. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Ethan naked, thanks to how they all would shift and could reappear sometimes nude, but my eyes definitely widened at the sight of Ethan’s bare back being revealed to me in front of this large crowd of people. My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth at the sight, and I almost moaned when I saw his ass flexing as he pulled down his jeans.

Brandon was a handsome guy, I guessed, but his ass and dick held no interest to me.

What did?

Ethan and his nakedness, but not just the fact that I was attracted to him. But the fact that other women were too.

I had no idea how I knew for sure, I mean aside from the fact that he was gorgeous like a Hollywood movie star and there were women with pulses in the vicinity, but something else—

“You can scent their arousal,” Eli told me matter-of-factly.

The soft remark had me gulping.

“You can also feel their arousal because of what you are,” Austin stated calmly.

Both of them were so fucking serene that it made the anger burning in me, the sudden wrath, feel all the more ridiculous.

I stepped forward, but it wasn’t of my own volition. I hadn’t wanted to move, but I had anyway—the she-wolf made me.