Assembly: The Feral Souls Trilogy - Book 2 Read online

  Assembly

  The Feral Souls Trilogy - Book 2

  Erica Woods

  Copyright © 2021 by Erica Woods

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design: Ravenborn Book Cover Designs

  Editing: CB Editing Services

  Ebook ISBN: 978-82-93735-01-4

  Contents

  Stalking links

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Glossary

  Stalking links

  Connect and chat with Erica

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  Website: https://ericawoods.net/

  Discuss theories, compare favourite quotes, and discuss which of the guys you like the most (all of them, it has to be all of them, right?) in my reader group: https://t.ly/thewoods

  To my mom.

  Without you, I wouldn’t have known the magic to be found in books and the written word. I also wouldn’t have known what a cake with a whole bottle of concentrated lemon tastes like.

  I’ll be forever grateful for the first; forever nauseous because of the second.

  1

  Ruarc

  Hope is to join us.

  A few minutes ago, I’d been fucking ecstatic. I’d had my warm, sated female in my arms, the bond that would eventually bind her to me forever growing in strength, the words she’d said ringing in my ears. And now . . .

  Now I felt like vomiting.

  I exploded from the bed, growled at the flash of smooth, pale skin my departure revealed and threw the blankets down around my female. When I spun back to face Ash, his expression hadn’t changed. “What was that?”

  “The Assembly, this Assembly,” Ash corrected. “Our presence has been . . . requested.”

  “The Assembly?” Hope sat up, a rosy blush stealing over her cheeks when she looked at Ash—thank fuck our alpha was tactful enough to keep his gaze averted. “What’s . . . what’s that?”

  “Nothing,” I snarled while my heart tripped in my chest. “We’re not going.”

  “Ruarc . . .” Ash tipped his chin at the door.

  Fuck!

  “Get dressed,” I growled over my shoulder and followed Ash, closing my ears—and the door—on Hope’s protests. Hell if I’d let anyone see my female while she was naked and vulnerable.

  Her taste was still on my lips. Her scent still invaded my senses. Closing my eyes, I could almost feel her blunt little nails digging into my shoulders while she arched her back and the sound of her pleasure spilled from her mouth.

  And now this?

  “Niijikiwenh.” Brother. The calm in his voice clashed with the storm lashing through his eyes. He said nothing more.

  What else was there to say?

  My lungs burned. “Who?”

  He turned, stalked to the stairs. I followed, tried to ignore the sick feeling spreading through me, the fear in my gut like a ticking bomb.

  Wouldn’t let them do this. Just wouldn’t.

  A human at the Assembly? My female at the Assembly?

  A snarl ripped from my throat.

  “That’s how I feel, too,” Jason muttered from the bottom of the stairs. He followed us to the kitchen and out the back door. Once outside, Ash stopped, his back to us, his head tipped back to the blood-red sky.

  Dawn had never felt this bleak.

  “Samuel,” he said at last.

  The hairs at the back of my neck rose. “He called?”

  “The Council knows about Hope.”

  My stomach knotted, my hands curled. “How?”

  “I do not know,” Ash told the sky. “But I intend to find out.”

  Wanted to snarl. To roar. To shake the unflappable male until the predator prowling beneath his skin came rushing to the surface.

  Didn’t want to find the lithbhár responsible for ratting us out, wanted to find a way to go back. To stop this from happening. To keep my female safe.

  “Promised I’d protect her,” I heard myself say.

  “We will, mate.” Jason put a hand on my shoulder, his voice too fucking cheerful.

  I shrugged him off.

  Bastards wanted her—my female—at the Assembly. They wanted to judge her, judge if she was fucking worthy.

  Hell no!

  A snarl built in my chest. Sharp. Cutting. Filled with all the things I couldn’t say. Once loosened, it would scrape my throat raw.

  She’d just been opening up. Starting to trust me. And now this. Now fucking this.

  I yanked a hand through my hair. Stared at Ash’s back. Glared at the red streaking the sky, like trails of bloodied entrails dragging through the heavens.

  My female’s life was at stake. Her fucking life. How could anything else matter when that was true?

  “What . . .” Jason swallowed, shook his head, peeled his lips back into a familiar grin that looked so fucking out of place he might as well have been a cuddly Chucky. “With Rederick and all, she was already at risk. This”—he cupped his neck, looked down—“we’ll just do what we planned already, right? Work the packs. Get them on our side. Only now she’ll be there, too, and though it’s not ideal—”

  “Not ideal?” If I’d been wolf, I’d have clamped my jaws around his neck and sh
aken some sense into the pup.

  “Ruarc . . .” The grin faded, familiar shadows climbing up his eyes, and then I had ‘sorry’ to add to the emotions flaying me alive. “We can keep her safe, can’t we?”

  Teeth ground together, jaw feeling all wrong. I scoffed, and it came out the same. Wrong. Like I’d been, thinking I could claim her, make her mine, stake out a tiny fucking sliver of happiness by taking that bright, shiny soul of hers for my own without fucking it all up in the process.

  This was on me. My fault. Fiona had been right, I ruined everything I touched.

  “We have no choice,” Ash said, voice like freshly sharpened claws wrapped in sheets of snow.

  “No.” Not going. No way in hell. Too many things could go wrong. The gathering. The games. The vote . . . “Vote?” I growled, cursing loudly when Ash gave a terse nod. “Fuck!”

  Meant they knew. Knew we’d broken the law. Knew we harbored a human. Knew she was aware of things she shouldn’t be.

  Fucking how?

  “Should’ve denied everything and hung up. Not like they have any proof.”

  Ash finally turned, the human mask slipping.

  Good, I thought fiercely. Let it out. Let us hunt. Time to feel flesh tearing between our teeth, beneath our claws.

  “He gave me a choice,” Ash said in a dangerously flat voice. “We go there, present Hope, and we get our vote. Or we don’t and they’ll come here. And if they do . . .”

  They’ll kill her.

  “If they do?”

  I spun around. She was there. My female. Lip caught between her teeth, eyes wide and nervous. In two steps I was at her side, my arm around her shoulders, pressing her against my side, trying to keep my hands from shaking.

  She’s too fragile. Too human.

  A warm touch to my hand, big brown eyes searching my face. “Ruarc? Are you okay?”

  Can’t let this happen.

  “No.” I leaned down and pressed my nose against the spot at the back of her ear, let her scent wrap around me. It didn’t fix anything, didn’t smooth the jagged edges of this new, bleeding wound. But I kept inhaling, kept holding her close. “We’re not going.”

  Soft skin brushed at my throat, Hope’s arm coming around my neck. “Ruarc,” she whispered, turning her face so she could brush her lips over my cheek.

  My stubbled, prickly cheek.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  Here she was, a human about to be dragged into a world she was no more equipped to deal with than I was to deal with my delicate female with her soft skin and even softer heart. And she was comforting me. Me.

  I tightened my hold; drew her closer.

  Didn’t know what to do with myself. This fear . . . Unlike anything I’d ever known. Battering. Piercing. Fucking all consuming.

  Only thing on my mind was her. Protecting her. Loving her. Making sure nothing ever hurt her again.

  Won’t. Long as I’m living, it fucking won’t.

  “Yes,” I murmured. “It’ll be fine.”

  I’d be her shield. Her weapon. Anything she needed.

  And I’d keep her safe or I’d die trying.

  2

  Hope

  The desperate way he clutched me, the rasp of his voice when he said, “It’ll be fine,” made me nervous. But it was the kind of nervous that came through a fog. The kind I could touch but not quite feel. As if a sculptor had reached into my soul and rooted around until they found the bright, glowing joy I’d been carrying around ever since last night and then used that joy to erect a glass barrier between me and any negative emotion thrown my way.

  A morning bird trilled in the distance, and I went soft, trusting Ruarc to take my weight.

  Last night had been . . .

  Perfect.

  A part of me had thought I’d never be ready for the intimacy we’d shared. That I’d always be scared, uneasy. But I hadn’t been afraid. I’d been able to let go, to trust, to be as vulnerable as I’d needed to be in order to experience the pleasure he’d given me.

  The closeness.

  “Let’s go inside,” Ruarc muttered, lifting me and not letting go until we reached the living room, and then it was only for a moment, only until he could arrange me on his lap. His arms wrapped around my waist, his nose buried in the crook between my neck and shoulder, his warm breath blew over my skin, raising all the hairs there like lovers reaching for an embrace.

  The others followed while I cuddled closer. Lucien leaned against the far wall, ankles crossed and arms folded over his chest. Something in his eyes told me the bored expression he’d adopted was a ruse. They flashed when they landed on me and darkened when they moved to Ash, who stood in the middle of the room, stood so still, the air around him turned sluggish and weak, almost as though it didn’t dare return to its natural state for fear of inciting his wrath.

  The couch dipped. “You know this is supposed to seat four, right?” Jason asked Ruarc as he settled in next to us. “But you’re so goddamned gigantic, I can barely squeeze in next to you.”

  A smile tugged at my lips. Ruarc was big, yes—he dwarfed me completely—but there was plenty of space on the couch. Space for at least three people. Four, if you counted me.

  “Don’t whine at me, pup,” Ruarc growled.

  Jason only grinned, brave enough to reach past Ruarc and rest his hand on my thigh. There was no protest, no shoving Jason away, not so much as an angry growl from the bigger male.

  My skin prickled, and I glanced at Jason. Shadows muddled his normally clear eyes, and despite his grin, he didn’t look happy.

  Because of the Assembly?

  I’d heard that mentioned before. Where?

  Blake.

  He’d said something about the Assembly, the day Tim—

  I swallowed hard, refusing to think about that night. Instead, I tipped my head back and focused on Ruarc. My strong, fierce Ruarc.

  After the night we’d shared, something had changed between us. When he looked at me, when those stormy, silver eyes locked onto mine, I was free-falling. My stomach dipped and rolled and tingled so intensely it was almost painful. Heat crept up my neck. My mouth went dry. And my heart acted as a hummingbird’s wings, thumping so fast one beat was indistinguishable from the next.

  I shivered.

  Ruarc’s arms tightened around me. “Cold?”

  “No, just . . . just thinking.”

  “Will take care of you.” That low, gruff voice so close to my ear caused the shivers to worsen. I felt his frown deepen against my skin. “Know that, right?”

  “I know,” I said, because I did. For now, he would, and if the hope fluttering in my chest was any indication, a part of me thought he might always. Even once he knew the truth.

  You don’t really believe that, do you?

  Dread still swirled in my stomach when I thought about the interrupted conversation; what I still had to tell him. But it was muted. It splattered against the glass that kept thoughts of the Assembly and Tim and the future at bay.

  In this moment, I was floating . . . and I never wanted to come back down.

  Sighing, I relaxed into Ruarc, resting my cheek on his chest and using his arm as my backrest.

  “So . . . What’s the plan?” Jason asked, shifting on the couch and dragging my feet into his lap.

  “We prepare,” Ash replied. “And then we leave.”

  Worry edged along my newfound barrier, trying to poke through but only penetrating with the tiniest tendril. “Where are we going?”

  “To the Assembly.”

  “What . . . what’s the Assembly?”

  “It’s a gathering of lycans. Boring really,” Jason said. “Most of the North American packs will be there. Talking politics. Cozying up to those stronger than them. Bartering and entering alliances. It’s a snoozefest.”

  I frowned. “Then why are we going?”

  Lucien spoke up, his clipped, familiar tone at odds with his casual stance. “We have been called.”

  “Is that
. . . normal?”

  A terrible snarl bordering on feral erupted from Ruarc.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him for the second time that day. It felt nice, being the one to offer comfort for once rather than always needing to be coddled.

  A stiff nod.

  Before I could follow up, Jason pulled on my little toe and a startled snort escaped me. I cringed at the sound, much too loud and sudden for the dark mood.

  “Ticklish, are you?” Jason waggled his brows, ignoring Ruarc’s glare.

  I tried to yank my foot back, but he held on and dragged his index finger across the arch, flashing an evil grin when I shrieked.

  “D-don’t!” I cried while trying to squash my giggles. “It tickles!”

  Completely at ease with the situation and ignoring the somber vibe—and the growing rumble in Ruarc’s chest—Jason kept my foot hostage, not letting up until my other foot desperately kicked against his hold and peals of hysterical laughter bubbled up and out my mouth.