Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,88

you please.”

I dragged my sleeve across my face and whispered to the air around me. Seconds later, a gentle gust danced around us as the pack raised their hands in unison.

“I’ll always love you,” I said softly. Then the breeze swept upward as the boys opened their hands. Knox’s ashes rose in a cloud and drifted toward the forest until they disappeared. My chest tightened, and I leaned into Jase. Dean rested his head on mine as we stared off into the darkened forest. Knox’s place of eternal rest.

“So now what?” Kat asked, her voice thick with sadness.

“Now we go home and do what we’ve always done,” Dean said matter of factly. “Keep shit in order.”

“Which should be much easier now with our connections to the witches and the warlocks,” Jase added before turning to Foust. “You wanna help out by filling the New York alpha vacancy? That pack was unstable at best with Mack running shit. It won’t be better with him dead—especially not after how everything went down.”

Foust’s mouth pressed to a grim line. “Some of the boys really want to come back here—to stay. To rebuild everything we had before this whirlwind named Piper Jones showed up and turned our world upside down.” He flashed me a mischievous smile, but I could see the pain through it; feel the uncertainty that coursed through his body.

“What would Knox want you to do?” Brunton asked.

Foust closed his eyes as he contemplated the question. “He wouldn’t want me to abandon the boys, but he also wouldn’t want me to leave the New York pack a problem for these guys.” He jerked his head at Merc and his brothers.

“Then I guess you know what you need to do,” Brunton said as he brushed his hands clean on his pants. “We go back.”

“I could stay,” a soft voice called from the group. Jagger stood, his posture submissive but confident nonetheless as he spoke. “I could hang behind with the others and fix this place up again.”

“Jagger—” Foust began, but the ginger-haired wolf cut him off.

“I love Piper as much as the rest of you, but New York isn’t my home anymore. And for a lot of the guys here, it never was. You were there back in the day, Foust. This is your cross to bear, not mine. Let me stay behind and run things.”

Foust’s brow furrowed as he turned to Brunton. “What about you? You want to stay behind too?”

I noticed Kat go tense at the question. I also saw how Brunton avoided eye contact.

“Where do you need me?”

The new alpha looked at Jagger, then his fellow Original. “You’re with me,” he said. “I’m going to need help if we’re going to take over the ragtag pack in the city.”

“And you will have ours,” Merc decreed. “My enforcers will be at your disposal.”

Foust nodded. “All right, then, Jags. You can stay.” He looked at the pack. “You answer to him in my stead, got it?”

They all nodded in unison.

Jagger’s smile gleamed in the fading moonlight. “Thanks, man—”

“You can thank me by not fucking up.” Foust’s comment did nothing to stifle the wolf’s enthusiasm.

“You won’t regret it!”

Foust muttered under his breath. “I already do…”

“Kat,” Jagger called, his beaming smile still in place, “are you staying, too? We could use someone like you around here.”

“If by ‘someone like you’, you mean a sweet piece of ass to stare at while she cooks and cleans for you between mating sessions, I think you’ve taken leave of your senses,” she replied. “If I stay, I’ll be the one running the show, not you, and I think we both know it.” The redhead’s smile fell ever so slightly. “So I’m going to ignore the implications of your statement and let you live so you can enjoy being the big dog here while Foust is running the city. I’m not really much of a country girl, and besides, I’m thinking about going back to my real hometown for a bit. I’ve got some unfinished shit there to deal with.”

“You’re leaving me?” I asked, my voice tight with emotion.

Kat flashed me her famous flirty stare. “Oh, I’ll be back. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Do you want me—us—to come with you?”

“As much fun as that would be,” she said with a sigh, “this is something I have to do on my own.” Grizz bumped her hip with his muzzle, then plopped down next to her with a harrumph. “Sorry, buddy. Not sure you can come. It