Galen's POV

What's happening?

That was the only thought running through my mind. And usually, I'm the quick twin. One moment, everything was fine, albeit a bit rocky from the presence of hunters. But this? This is too much. Naya is dead. Who knows who's next? Damian or Yuki or Dad or—

"Galen!" A hard shove pushes me and I stumble. I look around wildly and realize I've walked to the kitchens. My breaths are huffing in and out but oxygen seems foreign. My eyes swing to the one who called my name and Damian appears next to me. He grabs my shoulder while looking into my eyes.

"Breathe," he calmly states while keeping eye contact. Breathe? Breathe? Oh yeah, here I'll get right on that. A laugh escapes me, slightly hysterical as I look at the cavernous ceiling. Which is blurring. What?

I'm falling forward before I realize my knees have gone out, my face pushed into my brother's T-shirt. A sob escapes me, tears blurring my obscured vision and ruining Damian's shirt. A hand is rubbing up and down my back as I cry into his shirt.

"Shh, everything's going to be alright. We'll take off from school. Wait for Charlie to get ahold of his connections to help get the pack fit and ready to defend ourselves. Naya is dead and we can't change that, but we can honor her memory as best we can. Her sacrifice will not go to waste." Damian continues to reassure me, probably not even realizing he's still talking. It calms me down though, my sobs turn to sniffles. A smaller body draped itself over my back and I stiffen before recognizing the scent.

I turn my head to look at Yuki from the corner of my eye. His large green eyes are wider with concern, his brows furrowed as he gazes at me.

"Galy? It's okay. It's gonna turn out alright." He smile wavers with indecision, but he leans forward more and stretches his arms to encompass Damian and I. A choked laugh escapes all of us as Damian pulls our hug so we plop on the floor. Our doggy pile—heh—is silent for a few moments before the peace is interrupted.

"As sweet as this is, it's pandemonium out there," comes the voice of Charlie, who seems uncharacteristically serious. I look toward the door of of the kitchen and see him standing there, arms crossed and head tilted. I wipe my face as best as I can and untangle myself from my mates. I stand and hold out my hand to Damian and Yuki, who take them and stand. Footsteps echo as they tap against the floor toward us.

Charlie comes and stands by me, looking up at me with a blank expression. He stares for a second before his expression crumbles and a sad smile ghosts over his face. He reaches up and wipes at the wetness I missed.

"It's gonna be alright, honey. I'll contact the people who owe me a favor or two and we'll get back at those assholes," he murmurs as he brushes my hair from my forehead. I nod in acknowledgment. He drops his hand and sighs, looking toward the door he came through.

"I hate to say it, but we need to get back out there. Avana was taken back to her rooms while the funeral is arranged," he says as he grabs my hand to guide me. I turn to look behind me at Damian and Yuki, but they're already at my sides, standing tall.

It's funny, I've always been the admired twin. People always thought I'd take over the pack while Damian goes off to do what he wants. But at the first sign of trouble, here I am breaking down in the kitchen like a coward while Damian has deal with it.

A hand smacks my head. "Fuck! What the hell?" I shout and whip my head to stare at Charlie, who stares at me with a deadass expression.

"You can take that sorry ass attitude back to America where it belongs. Stand tall. Your mother would be proud of you both. Now get out there and take care of your people!" He brushes past us three and struts out, phone in hand.

Yuki jumps onto my back and wraps his arms around my shoulders. Damian grabs my hand and smiles at me. I take a deep breathe and walk out the pot and into the fire.

People are standing all over, shouting so loudly that it's nonsense. Dad is nowhere to be seen, Charlie vanished in this air, and Danny is sitting on Itiri's shoulders, shouting louder than every one, telling them to shut up.

Damian shouts but it's unheard. I growl as loudly as I can but it's lost in the rumble of chaos. We look at each other, helpless, before an ear-piercing shriek cuts through the air like shattered glass. Everybody silence and ducks, but I realize that Yuki is the one who made the noise with his throat. Everyone turns and looks over at us. Before I can rack up the courage to address the stares, Damian clears his throat and speaks up.

"I know today has been... horrible, but this is not the time to panic. Please. Charlie is contacting his people to get us some trainers and my father and brother and mate will be getting together with the high ranks to plan a strategy. Screaming at each other will solve nothing. Go back to your rooms, rest." I look to the windows and realize it's dark. Time passed quickly. "We will reconvene sometime tomorrow with news and then we will attend Naya's funeral." He squeezes my hand when he says this, and I squeeze back. Yuki tightens his arms and buries his face in the back of my neck.

Everyone nods or grumbles and files out the room to leave. A few throw concerned glances back. I smile as reassuringly as I can before turning to Damian. Our eyes meet and he throws up an eyebrow and nods his head toward the stairs. I smile at him and we start walking.

Before we reach it, a hand grabs my shoulder. I pull us all to a stop and look to see who it was. Sammy, Danny, and Itiri are behind us with Sammy being the one grabbing me. His eyes crinkle in concern and he pulls me into a hug. I grunt at the impact and Yuki lets out a giggle. From the corner of my eye, I see Danny doing the same to Damian.

"We stand beside you, man. Are you heading to the office or to your rooms?" Sammy asks gruffly before pulling away. They look at us expectantly.

Nodding, I say "The office. You should come with us. We'll drop Yuki off at our room first thou—"

"NO!" A loud voice yells in my ear. I flinch and jerk away from the noise, then realize it's Yuki. I turn my head to look at him as he slides off my back. He jumps so he's between Sammy and I, his eyebrows in a furrow with an expression of frustration. "I wanna go with you! Mates stick together!" I sigh and Sammy laughs. He ruffles Yuki's hair, who squeaks and ducks away to stand behind Damian.

"I just thought you'd want to get away from all the noise. Don't think we haven't noticed the way you've been wincing at the loud noise of the pack," Damian explains, turning so he could se Yuki as he talks. Yuki blows a strand of hair from his face, his expression still stubborn even with his cheeks puffed with air.

"Don't care! We go together or not at all!" He stares defiantly as us, waiting for our response. I roll my eyes.

"Fine, but don't complain to us when you're in a bad mood later." I conclude. Yuki's expression shifts so fast that it's almost incomprehensible. He smiles wide and faces up the stairs. I turn back to Sammy, Danny, and Itiri and Sammy and Danny with tight mouths, as if trying not to laugh.

Damian slaps Sammy's head and kicks Danny's legs from under her. They both let out "oof" and burst out laughing. It echoes off the walls of the empty room, reminding me that we're standing at the base of the stairs when we should be in dad's office by now.

Everyone piles into the office, noting already that my dad and his beta and gamma are already there. They look over as we walk in, as alpha, beta, and gamma, rather than as our parents. We stand behind the occupied chairs and listen as they discuss the plans.

"We already have our stealthiest tailing the trucks. They're staying at the hotel on 23rd St, the one by the school," the Beta says.

"We've already compiled a list of the ones we know are part of the group," Dad says. He shifts a paper to the top of the stack. His grave expression makes my stomach tighten. "It's not good. I've contacted the remaining pack that was up north from ours when we were in America that got nearly wiped out. Some of the people here helped contribute to that. These women and this man were leading the attack," he says as he points to pictures of two women who look strikingly similar and the man who had dead eyes.

The gamma leaned forward with his elbows in his knees. "So, we're going to stake them out. Are going to wait for them to attack or attack them?"

Dad was silent for a moment. "We wait. We try and get a feel for their plans. We train with Charlie's people. And then we go for them. The hunted will become the hunters and we'll end this once and for all, because they attacked one of ours.

[_]

The door slammed open to our bedroom as Damian, Yuki, and I trudged to the bed. Yuki was asleep on my back, his arms wrapped loosely around my collar bones and his face pushed into the back of my neck whee my scent was the strongest. Damian fell face first in bed and didn't move for a good ten seconds. I looked on, amused. He let out a long, drawn out groan.

I chuckled and shifted closer to the bed to let Yuki fall gently onto the pillows. He mewed and curled around one, rubbing his face onto it. I clutched my chest, because that was so cute. I started to smile before my face fell when Naya flashed through my mind and guilt hit me. I tried not to let it show on my face, but Damian caught it. He frowned and got up to grab my arms.

"You don't have to be guilty for not being depressed. Naya wouldn't want you to be sad," he firmly said while looking into my eyes. "We'll get our revenge and live our lives to the fullest. That's all we can do." He hugged me tightly and I let out a stuttering breath.

Yuki let out a low growl on the bed, startling the both of us. We turned to look at him, but he was still asleep, just dreaming. He face twitched and his tail was slowly moving back and forth. I let out a chuckle and looked at Damian, who I realized was recording it with his phone. I shook my head and crawled into bed on one side of Yuki. I curled my arms around his stomach and buried my nose in his soft, long hair while inhaling.

Damian got in on the other side of Yuki and grabbed the pillow to move it so Yuki would be cuddling him instead of the pillow. I raised an eyebrow but Damian pretended not to see it. We both settled into the warmth of our mate and soon fell asleep.

[_]

The next day started with Charlie scaring the shit out of us as he jumped onto our bed. Yuki was startled so much that he accidentally yeeted Charlie into the far wall, grunting as he fell onto the ground. It took a split second for Yuki to realize what had happened before he was running over to Charlie to check him.

"I'm sorry, Charlie! Please wake up! Scaring me!" Yuki whined out while shaking the fallen form on the ground. Charlie peeked his eyes open, before smirking and tackling Yuki in a tickle attack. Yuki squealed out bellows of laughter and couldn't get much out.

Damian and I sat in bed and watched with bleary expressions on our faces. Charlie laughed and tickled Yuki one more time before lifting Yuki and throwing him on the bed. He stood up and cocked his hip with a hand laying on it.

"Time to wake up, boyos. My friends are almost here to train everyone," he said with a smirk. My eyes widened.

"Already?!" Damian and I shouted at the same time. We both scurried out of bed and rushed to change our clothes from yesterday.

We finished and followed Charlie out the room with Yuki following. We reached downstairs to see pretty much everybody sitting around waiting. There were many expressions on my pack mates' faces, including sadness, bleakness, anger, and determination. I noted silently that Avana wasn't in attendance.

The crunch of gravel as trucks pulled up made everybody perk up, some wary, some expectant.

We listened as people got out their trucks and the heavy boots they wore crunching as they walked closer to the door. The doorbell rang and Charlie skipped over to the door to open it. He cracked it and peeked out. A deep, gravely voice echoed through the foyer.

"Vampire scum,"

And then,

"Good to see you again."