Her Defenders: A Rejected Mates Romance (Fall Mountain Shifters Book 2) Read online

  Her Defenders

  Fall Mountain Shifters Series: Book Two

  G. Bailey

  Contents

  Other Books by G. Bailey

  Map

  Description

  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

  Author’s Note:

  Her Guardians Series

  Her Fate Series

  Protected By Dragons Series

  Lost Time Academy Series

  The Demon Academy Series

  Dark Angel Academy Series

  Shadowborn Academy Series

  Dark Fae Paranormal Prison Series

  Saved By Pirates Series

  The Marked Series

  Holly Oak Academy Series

  The Alpha Brothers Series

  A Demon’s Fall Series

  The Familiar Empire Series

  From The Stars Series

  The Forest Pack Series

  The Secret Gods Prison Series

  The Rejected Mate Series

  Fall Mountain Shifters Series

  Royal Reapers Academy Series

  The Everlasting Curse Series

  Her Defenders 2021 (c) All Rights Reserved.

  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 and formed by this author’s imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Rebecca Frank

  Edited by Polished Perfection

  Created with Vellum

  Map

  Some people are born with a million stories in their minds.

  This is one of mine.

  The alpha rejecting me was just the start of my revenge…

  Being an outcast of the wolves was always something I accepted until I met them: the four alpha wolves of Fall Mountain Pack. They showed me I could be so much more than the rejected wolf they found on a beach and saved. They healed me and made me stronger, fixing what was broken in my soul.

  But they lied.

  Dragged back to the Ravensword Pack, I learn who I am before being left in the hands of the alpha I ran from, starting a war no one can stop. The past that I couldn’t remember has caught up with us, and it turns out they were always a part of it. The four alphas, the four parts of Hades’s soul separated into alpha wolves.

  I never thought being rejected would lead me to my past, but it has, and my past comes with more than a bite.

  It comes with wings.

  This is a full-length reverse harem romance novel full of sexy alpha males, steamy scenes, a strong heroine and a lot of sarcasm. Intended for 18+ readers.

  Run, little Mary wolf. How do your wolves grow? Run where they can never catch you.

  The world spins as I force my tired eyes open, the room around me spinning in a blur of pale greens, vibrant golds and frosty blue colours. I can’t scent much other than thick dust, an underlying scent of wolves, and a musky sweetness that lingers in the room. The air around me is brittle, cold, but warm enough to let me know that I’m not outside. There is no breeze here, and from the odd shuffle of feet or paws on the stone, I know I’m not alone. I keep hearing the same word in my mind, played over and over again, as the room comes into focus.

  Run. Run. Run.

  But I can’t.

  Not from here.

  The first person I see, sitting on a throne made of woven gold in the shape of a wolf’s head, is the man who tried to kill me what seems like eons ago. The wolf throne is just as I remember it from all those years ago, back when I was impressed and dazzled by its glory. Back when I trusted an alpha when I was a teenager and got tricked. The gold shines from the light of the frosted indigo blue windows behind it, casting a muddy yellow haze against the massive dome filled with white wolves. The dome has giant white-painted walls fitted with sculptures of gold wolves in various forms in different sections, and the doors reach the ceilings in between them, the wood as ancient as this pack.

  But there is only one wolf here that I can’t look away from, fear strangling my body like his hands did once. I can’t move from the panic and fear controlling me as I meet his unfeeling hazel eyes.

  My fated mate.

  The alpha who rejected me.

  Alpha Sylvester Ravensword.

  My heart is pounding so loud in my ears as I force my palms flat on the cold marble floor underneath me and lean myself up. I’m back in the pack I used to call home, even when it was a poor excuse for one. Daniel’s face crosses my mind, the image of him dead in my bed. He did that. He took him from me. Anger makes my bones feel like they are shaking as I see nothing but red. The same red as the god I’m bound to. I refuse to cower in front of this man, this alpha who forces his will and kills anyone who doesn’t cower to his rule. I never will again, no matter what he does to me here. I can handle pain, I can handle his attempts to break me. The house exploding, the angel, Phim, all of it comes back to me in a matter of seconds, hurting my heart, one after the other until my heart threatens to burst. The sharp jab I feel deep in my chest has nothing to do with everything I’ve learnt from Phim but instead, the lies the alphas of Fall Mountain told me. Their names are etched across my heart, and I let them make their home there, assuming they couldn’t hurt me. That they wouldn’t. I knew I felt familiar around them, and I knew they were keeping secrets.

  I just never expected those secrets to be about our past, how deeply woven we all are, apparently since we were children. I can’t understand why they didn’t tell me, but for some reason, they decided to talk about a woman they all miss who they thought was dead—who is me? I know that I’m never going to get answers now, not without seeing them again.

  Even if it risks letting them part with another piece of my already tattered heart, I need the answers they can give me. They know who I was before I was twelve, the answers I’ve searched for, begged for, and it hurts they never told me. I force myself to push my thoughts to the back of my mind, to focus on the present and keeping myself alive.

  How did I get here?

  Heavy footsteps fill the silence of the room as I sit up, feeling my hot, sticky blood dripping down the side of my face from an open, stinging cut. My mind seems to finally remember the state of my body, the cuts and bruises from the fallen bricks and rock, and pain jolts through me. I bite down on my tongue as I force myself to sit up, using all the strength I have, my ribs protesting every single movement.

  The man who walked past me now stops, and I remember him. The angel. The angel who claimed to be my father. His white hair looks as soft as feathers, maybe even softer, and his wings are gone. A smooth black cloak lines his back.

  I don’t trust him, and I don’t believe for one second he is a good person. He reeks of something foul, and all I want to do is run as far away from him as possible. It seems this room is full of men who make me want to run.

  “Alpha Sylvester Ravensword, thank you for honouring me in your pack court.”

  Kiss ass.

  Sylvester inclines his head but never once takes his eyes off me, those eyes burning a hole into the side of my head. The urge to pick myself up and run away from him is all I can hear being roared over and over in my head. But my body doesn’t move, and I refuse to cower in front of him ever again. I couldn’t run if I tried, let alone fight my way out, but I won’t always be injured. If I can get them to lower their guard, just briefly, I could escape in the future.

  A tiny part of me knows this might be the last part of my life, that the second he can, Alpha Sylvester is going to kill me.

  And I won’t get to say goodbye to them. I won’t find out any answers.

  Not so long ago, I would have embraced death with open arms, wanting the escape it can give me, but they taught me how to live. How to want to live again, and now dying is the very last possible thing I want.

  The man who broke me once locks his eyes on mine, his dominance like a thick cloud in the room. “How dare you bring that into my pack.”

  “Mairin is your fated mate, chosen by the moon goddess herself, and you would be wise to take her as your mate, alpha,” the angel claims. “She has more power that you could very well use.”

  Alpha Sylvester laughs, a bellowing laugh that vibrates around the room, and many wolves howl in agreement. My cheeks flush, but I do not lower my head. I’m not that cowering mess of a foster kid anymore.

  I’m not weak.
r />   I’m not just a broken doll, just as he called me once. Broken little Mary, just like a doll that the wolves would destroy.

  When the noise dies down, the angel speaks. “All these years, you have listened to my advice, alpha. As did your father, and his father before him. Do you dare laugh at me?”

  The tension in the room suddenly builds as two powerful supernatural creatures stare each other down. The angels have been here before? Advising them? How old are they?

  I have so many questions, but I stay silent, knowing this isn’t the time to ask them.

  “You are always welcome, Oisean, but your advice is not. I will accept little Irin as a gift. She has been nothing but troublesome to kill.”

  Oisean folds his hands behind his back. “With all due respect, killing the goddess’s chosen is a grave mistake.”

  Wolves immediately start to howl, and whispers from the back of the room echo throughout the dome. I remember that voice in the mating pool, the whisper of a promise about being her chosen. I thought I’d imagined it…but maybe not. I haven’t a clue what being the chosen means. Nothing pops up in my memory.

  Alpha Sylvester’s eyes tighten. “You claim this with no proof.”

  “Are you suggesting I am lying?”

  The question is laced with an unsaid threat.

  He turns his head to the side, finally looking away from me, and I let out the breath I felt like I was holding in. “What is it you want, Oisean? Isn’t your master beckoning, or did he send you here himself to deal with a rejected mate?”

  “He knows of her existence and has made his wishes clear. Mairin is to be the next alpha female of Ravensword, or he will call you back to him…displeased.”

  Whoever this man is, he causes Alpha Sylvester to jolt backwards in fear, mimicking the fear I feel building in my chest like rising water in a stormy sea.

  But this wave, when it crashes, would destroy me. All of me. I can’t be mated to him.

  “I’d rather see you both burn in the pools of the moon goddess than ever mate with him,” I say, my voice echoing around the dome. “I am my own wolf.”

  The silence is deafening, but I am done caring. Done cowering.

  Ignoring the pleas of my body and the dizziness I feel, I force my shaky legs to hold me up as I stand. “I refuse you, Alpha Sylvester.”

  “I’m afraid the choice is not yours, as it is not any female in my pack,” he coolly replies, a bite behind his words. Many wolves howl, and other laughs echo around me, the idea of a female having a choice in her mating nothing short of hilarious to them. I’ve been away from this pack too long, and I’ve seen what it’s like to be treated with respect. I almost forgot what the Ravensword Pack is like, despite living here for so many years. “I believe I will enjoy breaking you in as we mate.”

  I step back in disgust and fear, memories of that snowy night flashing into my mind.

  “I once thought getting rid of you was the correct way to deal with this, but I have seen a different light. We will mate on the next full moon.”

  “NO!” I angrily scream at him. He doesn’t move, my pleas nothing more than whines to him as he sits on his throne. I narrow my eyes. “I will never be your mate!”

  Oisean looks down at me, his eyes shallow green pits. “I am your father and I own your very existence—”

  I laugh, hollow and empty, and he pauses. I believe nothing Phim said about Hades and Persephone, even when a sneaking memory of Henderson showing me that book on Hades comes to mind. Gods and goddesses are gone from the world…and I cannot be one. I don’t have an ounce of power. I can’t even shift into my wolf, but I am someone. I am myself, and for me, that is enough.

  “I am owned by no one, least of all you.”

  Oisean continues on, like my words are nothing to him. They might be. “Therefore, I can give you to whichever wolf I choose. Alpha Sylvester’s breed line has been closely chosen for you and has been for a long time. You will take him as your mate and share your power. What was on that mountain is in your past.”

  “I will never forget them,” I counter, holding my head high, despite the poor state of my body. “I will never stop fighting my way back to my pack, the Fall Mountain Pack.”

  Growls echo around the room this time. Snapping, threatening growls.

  Eerily, Oisean only smiles. “The Fall Mountain Pack are no longer an issue. My personal army is currently wiping the island clean of those...wolves. Soon, they will be all dead, and there will be only one pack left on earth. The Ravensword.”

  The pack under his complete control.

  Sickness rises in my throat, alongside enough pure terror that my shaky legs give out from underneath me. They are killing them? The pack, all those innocent wolves...the alphas. Trey. All of them.

  “As always, you know best, Oisean. Will you be staying for the mating?”

  The room is spinning, my ears are ringing, and even as I hear them speak about me, I can’t think of anything but the horrors Fall Mountain Pack are suffering. They are being slaughtered by angels that can blow up a mountain to get to me. What are they doing to them? How can anyone survive that?

  “No, there are important matters waiting for me on the continent,” he claims, but the words are empty to me as I imagine my pack being destroyed. Nothing but grief, panic, and anger fuel me as I shake from head to toe. “But my other daughter will stay here to oversee everything goes ahead smoothly.”

  “She will be our welcome guest,” Alpha Sylvester smugly replies. Dread, pure dread, trickles into my soul as Oisean walks past me, not looking back once.

  Then I’m alone with the wolves and the alpha who broke me.

  The last time I saw him, his wolf refused to let him kill me, and instead he threw me off a cliff, hoping the sea would do what he couldn’t. We are bound, in some sick sense, and I have to use it to survive. I can’t go back to the broken woman he shaped me into.

  Even if my alphas, all four of them, are gone...I won’t become what they taught me I wasn’t.

  I stand up one more time, knowing I don’t have much strength left to hold myself up. I wobble, making Alpha Sylvester smile as he enjoys my struggle. Pain threatens to pull me under a dark cloud, but I grit my teeth, and I don’t waver.

  “I will never be your mate. Moon goddess be damned.”

  His eyes blaze green, the same colour as a forest at the height of summer. “This I will enjoy, mate.”

  I almost smile at the oblivion he offers as he stalks off his throne and punches me hard in the face.

  The darkness just reminds me of them, and they are my home.

  The one side of my face feels like it’s completely broken, or at least my jaw is, for sure. Every breath hurts from my ribs to my face, and even though I can feel myself healing, it’s not going to get better for a while. My body aches with the sort of tiredness that threatens the barrier between being conscious and not. Thick purple bruises mark the side of my face, a clash against my pale skin as I stare at myself in the glass’s reflection in front of me. Slowly, blood trickles down my chin from an open wound to my lip before dropping onto the perfectly white marble floor. I barely remember being dragged to this room by an unknown male wolf, but as he sharply dropped me on the floor, I woke up enough to see him leave the room. Since then, the only sound I’ve heard are my laboured breaths and my blood tapping as it hits the floor every few seconds.