Quinn Shalom...

"I didn't realize I knew his mate," I said quietly as we drove away from a familiar yellow house. "I didn't even know they weren't human."

"You did?" Saul asked in surprise, "You never met him before?"

"No, I never met him. He worked every day. Teresa was one of the tutors who helped the kids my charity aided. She was a really sweet woman and a gifted teacher. I never realized how many wolves I knew before the Revelation Night."

Saul grunted in acknowledgement as we drove, he was not happy about taking me home today, and less happy about leaving Rand alone to bury his dead, but it was Rand's wish and there were no signs of Ravers.

Saul parked his Hummer in front of my house. We had taken several of the armored vehicles from the local Army base after a 'shopping trip' nearly got four of our group killed. They drove a minivan and Ford SUV into one of the cities and were ambushed by a group of Ravers who destroyed the vehicles. They escaped into a Dick's Sporting Goods and killed the Ravers by using half the ammunition in stock.

My neighborhood seemed eerie. At my house, something was off. My wolf growled in my head the way she had when we found the dark ones in our home. The front door swayed to and fro in the wind, like something was keeping it from closing completely.

"Shalom, let me go first, stay in the Hummer 'till I wave at you. If anything, and I mean, ANYTHING... happens, you go straight to Rand's, he'll take you home." Saul sounded uncharacteristically worried.

"Saul, is there something you aren't telling me?" I wondered aloud.

"Darlin', there's a lot I ain't tellin' you, but you have to trust me. By the Goddess, I swear I would never betray you or your pup. I would die to protect you both." He closed the door very quietly, scanning in every direction, creeping toward the house.

Moments later, he was back with a frown on his face, opening the door and climbing in, "We are going. I'm sorry, but we have to."

My hand covered his before he could turn the ignition, "Saul, you've been jumpy the whole way here, why can't I go in my house and get a few things, a few pictures?"

Saul rubbed his forehead in frustration before answering, "There is nothing left, someone has been here and destroyed everything." He held out a few bent images.

My mouth dropped open, "Who? WH-why?"

Saul growled, and my wolf growled back, forcing him to answer, demanding, "Why?"

"Because you are Quinn Shalom Phillips, and everyone from the Werewolf Monarchy to the anti-nonhuman terrorists are looking for you. They want your husband's research. They want what you know. They needed someone to blame, so they blamed Ken... But now people are starting to figure out they lied, and they don't want the truth out. It is too terrifying to them and they might lose control. I was sent to find you, protect you by a fae name Galen Morganason. He suspects the truth, but my friend Bianca told me no one would believe him if he told and they would probably kill him to silence him."

Saul's dark eyes pleaded with her not to go inside. "Please, stay here. I was at your house before you found me, I buried your family in your garden. Look Shalom, my own brother wants you for the Monarch. He's basically the head of the werewolf equivalent of the NSA, but I can't... and I won't... turn you over to him or any of the Monarchy, not after what happened to you..."

I gaped at him like a fish, I knew he was hiding something. I knew he knew werewolves in the werewolf monarch's pack, but this was shocking. He kept looking back at my house, every few seconds like he was expecting someone to walk out.

"Who is inside my house, Saul?" He should have gotten frostbite from how cold my voice was. I trusted him, my wolf trusted him, but at that moment, the truth became a wall between us. "Saul!"

He growled again but answered resentfully, "Your daughter's mate is asleep on her bed. He and his brother found your house while they were rescuing humans. He..."

At his words, I left the Hummer door open behind me. He had no right to be in my house, how dare some stranger sleep in my home. My house was trashed, everything destroyed, even the pictures were torn from the walls and ripped from their frames. There were holes in walls, my furniture was demolished, and whomever had done this, even cut up the carpet in pieces. I ignored it all as I ran up the stairs, werewolf speed and a mother's rage made it like I was not five plus months pregnant.

A blond young man was asleep on Molly's bed, I couldn't see his face buried in her covers and her sweaters. I had seen several werewolves do exactly this since that night, build themselves a nest, a den out of their lost mate's clothes. Saul told me that she-wolves needed the scent of their mates. I retorted, "Not all she-wolves, I don't. I hate my mate." He just shook his head, knowing not to push the topic.

The young wolf must have heard us because his head came up suddenly and I realized I knew this wolf. The scar down the right side of his face, the slit of his iris showing his eye had been deeply cut. I gave him those wounds the night I killed Molly to spare her from my fate. To save her from him.

"HOW. DARE. YOU." I practically roared it at him.

Red-rimmed eyes regarded me with a despair that was not enough pain to assuage my mother's rage. He spoke the words I least wanted to hear. "I'm sorry."

"You're... you're sorry... There is no sorry! There is nothing you can do to change the fact that I had to kill my baby girl, so you wouldn't rape her to death, like that wolf who was with you tried to do to me!" I screamed at him.

My wolf was howling for his blood, but we were too pregnant to shift. He stared at me wide eyed as I fought my wolf down.

"Get out of my house." I hissed.

He sobbed on his knees in front of me, clutching at my feet. I could feel Saul at my back.

"Please... please... It wasn't my fault. Tell her, Saul. Tell her that is not the wolf I am. Not the wolf I was raised to be." The young wolf begged.

I turned to Saul, my eyes demanded to know how he knew this monster, but instead he spoke to the beast. "Leave it, Will. You raped her daughter's corpse, your own mate. Quinn did the right thing shooting her, she was fifteen. A 15-year-old girl with autism."

Will put his face in his hands and choked out in great heaving sobs. "I know.... I know.... I can't live with it, Saul. I don't want to live anym...."

My claws were in his throat and I had him on the floor before he finished the word anymore. "Do you think you deserve to die?!" I spat my words in his face as I screamed at him, "No! You don't deserve to die, unlike that bastard who raped me and left me for dead. You deserve to live your full life expectancy in regret and misery and grief. You deserve to know and re-live every detail of what you did, every day, forever!"

"I know, Mrs. Phillips," Will murmured. "I'm sorry. You should... could kill me if it would make you f-feel better?"

"If I didn't get to die that night with my family, then you don't get to die now!" I ranted, "Nothing will ever make me feel better about what I did because I couldn't save her."

Saul was dragging me away from Will before I tore his throat out. "Calm down, Shalom. It's bad for your pup."

I tried to calm my breathing; I was starting to feel lightheaded.

Saul hugged me against his chest, and glared at Will, "Did my brother send you? Or Jacob and James?"

"No... no, I came for Molly's birthday. I came because of what I did, I came to say goodbye." His eyes pleaded with us to believe him. "Please, Mrs. Phillips, after I heard what we did, I... I had to make it right..."

I scoffed at him, "Make it right? How can you ever..." I had to stop, something he said caught my attention. Slowly I pushed away from Saul, stepping toward Will. "How do you know, Will?"

I turned and demanded of Saul, "How did he hear what they did, Saul?"

Saul swallowed before he answered, "I told them, Shalom. Will and his brothers are my cousins."

I shuddered as I stepped further away from him, the pit of my stomach heaved with betrayal. I wanted to vomit, but instead I shouted, "You lied to me... YOU. Lied. To. Me! About! HIM!"

Saul held his hands out in a placating gesture, "Please, Shalom, please. I had to tell them, so they didn't just send warriors in here and wipe out our group. I told my brother what we found, that Troy's formula didn't cause it, and I sent them a recording of what you told me happened that night. I wanted them to know the truth. I wanted Will to know what happened to his mate before he found her frozen body in the snow when his mind returned. I wanted Jacob to know how he was the one who changed you, Shalom. I wanted him to know what he had done, so he would stay away..."

Then he glared at Will, "But I also said that I would kill him if he came anywhere near Shalom or her pup. That should go for you too, Jonah William Vanguard."

"You can't be serious, Saul. You can't protect her alone; her pup is too valuable. As soon as it is born, every wolf on this continent will feel it. Please cousin, please, let me help you protect her and the pup. Let me do it for Molly." William groveled, he turned to me pleading. "Please... please let me protect you. Let me show Molly, I am not the wolf that night turned me into, I am not that monster."

I needed to sit down, but I also needed to get away from these two wolves. They were related to my rapist. "Who is he? Who is my pup's father?" I demanded breathlessly.

"Jacob Arthur Vanguard, the Alpha Commander, he is second in prestige only to the Monarch James Constantine Vanguard. He and Will were on their way to visit their sister who was expecting. We burned them at Monarch," Saul finished sadly.

A lightbulb went off in my mind. "Your cousin Julia was their sister? The one whose stomach was ripped open and her baby eaten?" I couldn't help the earthquake of revulsion that trembled my body, it had been ghastly. Saul cried when we found her. He spent hours telling me the stories of how kind she had been to him after he returned from the war.

Will looked at us wide-eyed, "They ripped her open and ate her pup?" His horror written all over his expression. He started shaking so hard it looked like he was about to have a seizure. "Did... do Paul and James know?"

"Yes, but I doubt they would tell either you or Jake, from the sounds of it you both are barely holding on to your sanity," Saul answered tightly. "Shalom's pup will be the new heir of the monarchy."

"Saul," I whispered, "Why didn't you tell me all this? About your cousins being the ones who raped Molly and I that night. About my pup being some kind of royalty?"

Saul sighed heavily, "Because I needed you to trust me, I need you to let me protect you both. You must believe me; I would die before I would betray you. My loyalty is to you and your pup."

He held out his hand to me again, but I slapped it away.

Saul dropped to one knee and begged, "Please... you saved my life, let me protect yours, Luna Shalom."

"And me, Luna Shalom. Let me protect you too. I know I can never make up for what I did after you..." Will choked up for a moment, breathing like he had been punched in the gut before he whispered, "Thank you for saving her. I vow, if you let me, I will die to protect you both."

I couldn't answer right away. Tears were running down my face, I've always hated how emotional I became when I was pregnant, but these revelations were too much. Saul was basically what the werewolves called a Beta, my protector, my most trusted. A trust now broken. And Will... I almost blinded his eye and scarred his face the night my nightmare began. I didn't know if I would ever forgive him or trust him.

"Don't call me Luna," I snarled through my tears. "My name is Shalom."

"We just want to protect you, Shalom," Saul retorted calmly. "Please, let us."

I wondered to my wolf, 'If his cousins are the two most powerful wolves on the continent, will he ever be loyal to us or is he just waiting for our pup to be born so he can steal it...'

Before she could answer me, we heard a raspy howl in the distance. It was a few miles away, but the sound was unmistakable. Ravers were hunting close by.

"We need to leave. Now!" I said more to my wolf than them.

They flanked me as we hurried out to the hummer. The last thing I wanted was to go anywhere with them but for now I didn't have a choice.

We carefully drove toward Rand's house in the Hummer, Will insisted on coming with us and Saul begrudgingly agreed because we never left anyone in Raver territory. I was conflicted in how I felt about the young wolf. I hated him, but then I felt sorry for him. I wanted to kill him, but I wanted him to live forever and share my grief. At least, if he and Saul were together, it would be easier to escape from them.

I never should have stopped running. I should have moved on as soon as the snows began to melt but my wolf wouldn't let me. She liked our little community. The stupid thing doesn't understand that being around too many, having attachments, only meant we were one step closer to being caught and possibly killed. We needed to protect our child and we had very differing ideas of how to do it.

Finally, Saul turned onto Heavenly Court, but he stopped suddenly with a muttered swear word. Will just stared out the front. I put the window down and leaned out with my rifle.

"What the heck are those?" the young wolf breathed out, as we watched the body of our friend being eaten.

These creatures probably looked nothing like the ones he saw that night. They were mangy and covered in scars and sores, bony and half-starved. They looked like the zombies of people would look, if zombies were real, but they weren't. Werewolves and vampires were real, but zombies were fiction. Molly would have been so happy, she feared zombies, but never werewolves or vampires. If only we had known...

"Those are Ravers, Will. Raving mad wolves who never recovered." Saul backed slowly up. "Shalom?"

"I've got them in my sights. If one lifts their head, they're dead, but I think they are too hungry to chase us," I answered his unasked questions.

Looking through the scope at the three Ravers, I had a zoomed in view of Rand's blood staining their mangy, matted fur. White eyes were half-lidded in pleasure as they devoured a wolf I had grown quite fond of. Saul pulled away slowly and the Ravers didn't follow; fresh kill was too scarce to waste.

"We need to get out of the city, it is too close to sunset." I reminded him as I put up the window.

"We'll stay at the safe house in Woodland Park," Saul started to explain to Will.

"Are they all cannibals?" Will blurted out. He was craning his neck to see more of them as we drove away.

"Yes, and they are eating our friend Rand," I answered angrily. I knew we should not have left him alone to bury his family, but he asked for the time to grieve and we hadn't seen any signs of Ravers, so we did.

'Oh Rand, I'm sorry.' We had lost another to the Ravers like so many people we cared about.

"Listen, Will, if you are going with us, there are somethings you need to learn. First of all; Ravers will hunt you until you kill them, or they catch and eat you. If you run, they will chase you, they don't have a choice, it is their nature. They are mostly blind, so if you see them first or can trick them into going the wrong way you can escape for a while. We use smoke grenades to mask our scents. You know you're in a Raver area because there will be claw marks on everything and you can smell them," I informed him.

"Smell them?" Will asked.

Saul added, "They smell worse than abscesses, like a rotting infection but also there is this sickly-sweet musk smell to them. A bite or scratch from one takes a long time to heal, longer than a silver wound. They are death on paws. They stay in their warforms, so if you drop into your wolf you can outrun them, but they will never stop chasing you once they have your scent, you are prey until you kill them. I spent days running from them, and if Shalom hadn't saved me and shot the ones chasing me I would have been eaten. The best thing is to getaway and kill them from a distance."

"Those were wolves, what about the vampires who didn't recover?" Will asked with wide eyes.

"The vampires are why we don't stay in the cities at night unless we are in a place we can seal until morning," Saul explained, "Tonight, we are staying in a bank vault until it is daylight again because we can't make it home before dark."

"Are they really that bad? Can't they be cured?" Will demanded in horror.

I sighed tiredly, explaining, "They can't be cured because we don't know what made them that way. We don't know why it happened."

We drove quietly to the city above the clouds. Finally, as we settled in for the night, I had to ask, "You said you found Molly frozen in the snow, what happened before that?" I steeled myself for the answers I didn't know if I wanted. "Tell me what you remember, Will."

Over the next hour, I listen to Will telling me how they were driving and saw a sick werewolf. How the sweet scent of the snow drove he and Jake both mad with predatory drive and the need to find their mates. I notice that he called Jacob, Jake, and seemed to hold him as almost an idol. I decided as he talked, sibling worship was a dangerous thing.

He explained about those they rescued and how they stumbled back onto our house as if they hadn't been there half the night. About how he found Molly frozen in the snow and about Jake not seeing a sign of me other than my blood. That Jake thought I had been dragged off and eaten. Will kept telling me over and over how sad Jake was I was dead, and how he reacted when he learned what they had done and that I was alive. I didn't care, I had no desire to meet him again unless my claws were digging out his heart as my teeth tore out his throat or maybe that was my wolf's thinking.

He started to talk about what a great person his older brother was, but Saul stopped him, and I was grateful. I didn't want to know about the monster that destroyed my world, even if my wolf was curious.

As I laid on a cot, locked in a bank vault for safety, I thought about everything that was said today and all those I lost, there were so many. Molly's birthday was not what I expected. Instead of saying goodbye to her, I met the reason I killed her, and he thanked me for doing so. Tears ran down my face for the second time today.

Sleep never came as my mind repeated, Oh my baby girl, mommy is so sorry.