Wild Things: A Chicagolands Vampire Novel (Chicagoland Vampires) by Chloe Neill Read Free Book Online

negative.”
    But Berna’s dismissal only seemed to encourage the woman.
    “Mark my words,” she said, that finger pointed again. “This is all doomed because we didn’t go home when we could have. We should have left Chicago months ago, and we certainly shouldn’t be here now. The Keene family should have been removed a long time ago. They are leading us right into disaster.” Her eyes flashed with self-righteous anger. That emotion seemed to be in unusually strong supply among shifters lately.
    She walked away before Berna could respond to the slight, joining up with two other women who gave us suspicious looks. But Berna’s balled fists made it clear she’d had words in the hopper.
    “I see you’ve met Aline.” Gabriel joined us, made a point of putting a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. Aline and her troop of friends didn’t seem impressed.
    “She’s a charmer,” Ethan dryly said.
    “Where have you been keeping her locked away?” Mallory asked.
    “She keeps herself locked away,” Gabriel said. “She and my father butted heads and she’s transferred that hatred onto our generation.”
    Berna patted his arm collegially. “You are not popular, but you are doing right.”
    “Maybe,” Gabriel said, “but I’d prefer to be both.” He towered over Berna and glanced down at her from his couple of extra feet. “We ready?”
    She made a sound that made clear exactly how ridiculous she thought the question. Berna, apparently, was always ready.
    Gabriel smiled. “My fanged friends, you’re about to be witness to a very special treat. Tonight, you get to hear us roar.”
    He lifted his head and unleashed a howl that sent shivers down my spine—and invoked the rest of the chorus. Not all shifters were wolves, and the Pack’s sounds were just as varied and cacophonous. Howls, screeches, feline roars, and screams that might have been from birds of prey. Together, as the shifters formed a circle around the totem in the middle of the meadow, they lifted their voices and sang into the night, the very sound magic.
    Goose bumps lifted on my arms. Ethan slipped his hand into mine as we shared the sight and sound of it. After a moment, the howls quieted, now a backbeat instead of a melody.
    Gabriel looked at Mallory appraisingly. “You ready?”
    She blew out a breath with pursed lips, then loosened her shoulders and nodded, this time confidently. And although nervousness still fluttered in the air around her, it was a good kind of nervousness. Excited anticipation—not the resigned dread I’d sensed before.
    Side by side, they walked forward into the circle and stood in front of the totem. A hush fell over the crowd.
    I glanced at Catcher. His expression was blank, but his eyes fixed on Mal and the shifter at her side. If he was nervous for her, he wasn’t showing it.
    His hair pushed behind his ears, Gabriel looked more like a biker or boxer than Pack Apex, the king of his people, but there was no doubt in the set of his shoulders and grave expression that he stood as leader of them all.
    “Tonight,” he said, hands on his hips, “we celebrate the Pack, the mothers, the sires. We celebrate our founding, our brothers, Romulus and Remus, and our future. We celebrate the wild things. We have voted to remain in the realm of humans and vampires. That decision was not unanimous, but it was a decision to stay, to join, to bind together with our brothers and sisters and become stronger in the binding.”
    He looked at Mallory. “There are those among us who have erred, deeply and significantly. Who have wounded the world and broken themselves. The worst of them lose themselves in their errors. The best of them crawl back, one foot at a time, and seek to amend their breaches. That is the way of the brave.”
    Gabe looked back at the crowd. “This woman knows only of the magic of sorcerers and vampires. Tonight, we sing to her of the rest of it. Of the truth of it. Of the magic the earth has to offer.”
    Gabriel