rest of her new healers. She found Nick and Kara. The Canada alpha, Drayden, was motioning for his pack to gather up. Nick began yelling out orders, helping his alpha, and Kara seemed to be trying to get the female pack members, probably the un-mated ones, to form lines. Next she saw Gustavo, the Spanish alpha, with Anna tucked close to his side. He, too, was giving his pack orders, and Anna was standing tall as she motioned to some of their she-wolves.
With one last sweep around the field, Peri saw that Dillon’s pack was also getting organized. Dalton was there with Jewel. She was working with Tanya to get their female members organized. Peri tried not to laugh as Dalton attempted to help his alpha but also keep an eye on his mate who was at least twenty feet from his side. Peri had contacted Dillon and asked if he wanted to bring his pack early. Despite not having been in the Keep battle, his daughter had lost her in-laws, and Dillon had been connected to the Romania pack through Jacque. But he’d declined, expressing that he knew Jacque had enough to worry about, and he didn’t want her to feel obligated to share her time with him, especially when her mate needed her. Peri had respected the Denver alpha’s selflessness when she knew he no doubt wanted to at least hug his daughter and allow his wolf to have that much-needed pack touch to assure his child was indeed safe.
Peri let out a breath as she once again glanced at each of the five healers she’d come to care for and thanked the Great Luna that all her girls were okay and appeared to be handling themselves well in their new packs. That eased a tiny amount of her tension.
The other packs on the field were Hungary, and Poland. Dragomir, the alpha and his mate, Agnes, of Hungary, were waiting patiently. Both alphas looked tense, and Peri noticed that Agnes kept glancing over to where Vasile and Alina lay. Agnes’s grief was quite clear. The Polish alpha, Artur, looked especially stressed. His pack was one of the smaller ones and had few mated males. No doubt they would be feeling the discomfort of being around so many dominant mated males.
The Romania pack which had been joined with the packs from Bulgaria, Denver, Missouri, Coldspring, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, and Poland. Eleven total. Once upon a time, there had been twelve, but since the Serbia and Romania packs merged only eleven remained to stand with the Great Luna. Peri had to wonder how many hidden packs there were, and would their numbers overwhelm the legitimate packs?
Bringing her attention back to the matter at hand, she held up her hands and sent out a spark of light that shattered into the night sky. This grabbed everyone’s attention. “Please join the circle,” Peri said as she pointed to the remaining space. “Alphas, line your packs up. Andora,” she said to the sprite queen who stood with the entire sprite race, which had to be over four hundred strong, “could you please organize your people and move them to join? If we need to spread the circle back to make room, then do so.” Peri turned to Adira. “Thank you for coming.” The pixie had thirty others with her.
“I’m sorry there isn’t more,” Adira said. “You know how pixies are. They won’t commit if they don’t know who is going to win.”
“We appreciate you all being here,” Peri said to Adira’s pixies.
They bowed their heads. Some of them Peri knew because they’d worked with her before, and she was glad to see they were loyal to this cause and not their crooked king. Adira moved her group to join the growing circle.
The minute the circle was closed, the ground shook beneath their feet, and a blinding light flashed. A second later, every single being on the field fell to one knee at the exact same moment.
The Great Luna had arrived.
Chapter 21
“This life is but a blink to the humans. A short life is a gift my children do not have. With long life comes the opportunity to make many more mistakes, experience more grief, more heartbreak, more loss. But what my children have that the humans do not are the unique powers that allow them to be a force for good in the world, a force that can take on the evil that is minute-by-minute attempting to crush anything worth fighting