Trial by Fire
Page 18
In all the time since I’d discovered those things, I hadn’t once stopped to wonder what else—or, more to the point, who else—was out there.
“So, what?” I said. “Some people are really scrappy, and some people are easy to talk to, and some people are made to hunt?”
My words were met with silence.
“And what about the other guy?” I continued. “The one I keep seeing in my dreams? That’s not just a knack. You can’t just be born with a knack for burning people in their sleep. That’s …”
Impossible?
Insane?
“That’s not a knack,” I said mutinously. “That’s magic.”
The word felt ridiculous coming out my mouth. I’d grown up around things that would have made normal girls take off screaming, but I’d never once believed in magic. Werewolves were just another species. Pack-bonds were connections, as natural as a mother feeding her infant in the womb. Even Callum’s seeing the future was something I could write off as …
Quirky.
But this? The symbol carved into Lucas’s skin. The foreign presence in my dreams. My pink and sunburned skin.
This was a whole new world of weird.
“I’m going to throttle Lucas,” I said, my voice deceptively cheerful. “I mean, seriously? He couldn’t have warned us?”
“Maybe he knew that if he told us the truth, we would send him away.” Maddy’s voice was soft, and in an uncharacteristically affectionate gesture, she laid her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. “Maybe he doesn’t believe that anyone else could ever want to fight for him.”
I leaned my head over so that my temple was touching the top of Maddy’s head. Behind us, Chase stood up on his hind legs and put one paw on my shoulder and one on hers, huffing into our faces before nudging each of us with a wet, cold nose. The affection he showed Maddy surprised me, and my surprise made me realize that in human form, Chase never touched anyone but me.
“This is all Shay’s fault,” Devon said from the front seat. “He’s the one who gave Lucas to those … whatever they are. Shay probably sent Lucas there hoping that he would run to us and bring She Who Hunts to Kill right to our front porch.”
That did sound kind of like the type of thing Shay would do. For a few minutes, the five of us were silent. Then Lake pulled into the parking lot in front of the restaurant and slammed the car into park. “So, who wants to share all of this with my dad and Ali?”
“Not it,” Devon said quickly.
“Not it,” Lake and Maddy chorused. Beside me, Chase let out a small howl, and I cursed under my breath.
“Have I ever mentioned that being alpha sucks?” I said.
“A time or two,” Devon replied, but he didn’t even have the decency to sound sorry for me.
Sitting there in the backseat of Lake’s car, Chase and Maddy close enough that they felt more like extensions of my physical body than members of my pack, I tried to remember what it was like to be a normal teenager, but the next second, Lake popped open the driver’s-side door, and a burst of winter wind brought with it the smell of wet fur and cedar trees.
We were home, and underneath the familiar pack scent, my senses registered something else.
Something foreign.
Close.
Still in wolf form, Chase leapt out of the car and came to a halt a few feet in front of us, glancing back over his shoulder, as if to tell us to stay where we were. Undaunted, Lake sauntered forward, Devon on her heels.
“Looks like Lucas is feeling better,” Lake said pithily. “Because unless my nose is mistaken, he’s not in Cabin thirteen.”
Maddy glanced at me and then slid out of the backseat. I followed, concentrating on my pack-sense and trying to pinpoint who among our pack was inside the Wayfarer restaurant and what they were feeling.
Lily. Mitch. Three of the older Resilient kids.
They were in there, with Lucas. The same Lucas who’d lied to me. The one who was currently topping the Not Just Humans’ Most Wanted List.
For once, the constant chill on the back of my neck that told me there was a foreign wolf nearby was drowned out by another feeling.
I was now officially pissed.
The first thing I saw when I stepped across the threshold of the Wayfarer was Lucas, his hands wrapped around Lily’s tiny frame. The first thing I heard was the three-year-old’s scream, shrill enough to shatter glass.
Lily, I thought, my heart jumping into my throat. I was already moving for the shotgun behind the counter when I realized that neither Devon nor Lake was reacting like Lucas was threatening one of ours. A split second later, I registered that on the other end of the bond, Lily wasn’t frightened. She wasn’t hurting. She was ecstatic.
“No, no, no!” she shrieked, trying to escape Lucas’s grasp but holding back just enough that she couldn’t. “No more tickles!”
In response, Lucas hooked his arms around her body and flipped her upside down.
“She throws up, you’ll be dealing with it,” Mitch told him, but his lips twitched, like he was trying to keep from smiling at the picture that Lily and Lucas made.
“That dastardly fiend,” Devon whispered. “She’s never going to wind down in time for her nap.”
Lily made a sound halfway between a giggle and a bark and kicked her feet. Beside me, Chase bristled, and I felt the hair on the back of my own neck rising in tandem with his hackles.
Whatever Chase had learned when he went to see Lucas, the feeling I was getting, loud and clear, through the pack-bond was that he didn’t trust him, and now that Chase was in wolf form, his instinct to protect our territory was sharper, his bond to the rest of the pack harder to deny and his brain incapable of understanding human thoughts—or recognizing that, red-faced and screaming in the hands of the enemy, Lily was fine.
He leapt forward, teeth bared, growling.
I reached out to him with my mind but was met with the uncompromising certainty of the wolf. Lily was ours. Lucas was foreign. He was touching her, and the pup was screaming.
“Chase!” I yelled at the exact same moment that Mitch took a casual step forward and grabbed Chase by the scruff of his neck. Bearing down on him, Mitch forced wolf eyes to meet his, and slowly, Chase sank to the floor.
Lily, seeing further opportunity for mischief, wriggled her way out of Lucas’s arms and leapt to land on Chase. “Wrestle!” she declared.
Before I could do a thing, the jumper she was wearing went the way of many play clothes before it. Shifting was simpler for the younger wolves: they melted from one form to another with liquid ease, and all it had taken to trigger Lily was seeing Chase in wolf form.
Now in animal form herself, Lily bobbed her furry head slightly and then grinned, an expression that looked eerie on her puppy face.
Slowly, awareness dawned on Chase. The human part of his brain realized that Lily was fine, that she was happy, and his wolf instincts recognized the unmistakable signal that she was ready to play. In the wild, play fighting was nature’s way of preparing wolf pups for the real thing. At the Wayfarer, it was par for the course.
Lily pounced on Chase’s paws, and I looked toward the other kids, all of whom were valiantly holding on to their human forms, just to show that they could. Most of our pack were right at that age when they tried very hard not to want to be kids, even though they weren’t quite adolescents.
“Go ahead,” I told them. “Somebody has to watch out for Chase. Lily’s going to decimate him.”
For a moment, none of the kids moved, but I flicked my gaze over to them and made it an order, and that was all it took. They were off and running before they even switched forms, and as much as Chase didn’t want to leave my side, a silent please convinced him to lead them out to play.
Or, more to the point, out of harm’s way.
I pulled my mind away from Chase’s, but not quickly enough to keep from picking up that while Chase and his wolf would guard the pups, neither wanted to turn his back on Lucas, and neither wanted to leave me there with him.
Luckily, Chase’s human half seemed to know that I could take care of myself, and his wolf half knew, on a bone-deep level, that I was alpha, and together, those things were enough to buy me some time alone with Lucas—if alone meant “with Lake, Devon, Maddy, Mitch, and Keely standing by.”
“So, what?” I said. “Some people are really scrappy, and some people are easy to talk to, and some people are made to hunt?”
My words were met with silence.
“And what about the other guy?” I continued. “The one I keep seeing in my dreams? That’s not just a knack. You can’t just be born with a knack for burning people in their sleep. That’s …”
Impossible?
Insane?
“That’s not a knack,” I said mutinously. “That’s magic.”
The word felt ridiculous coming out my mouth. I’d grown up around things that would have made normal girls take off screaming, but I’d never once believed in magic. Werewolves were just another species. Pack-bonds were connections, as natural as a mother feeding her infant in the womb. Even Callum’s seeing the future was something I could write off as …
Quirky.
But this? The symbol carved into Lucas’s skin. The foreign presence in my dreams. My pink and sunburned skin.
This was a whole new world of weird.
“I’m going to throttle Lucas,” I said, my voice deceptively cheerful. “I mean, seriously? He couldn’t have warned us?”
“Maybe he knew that if he told us the truth, we would send him away.” Maddy’s voice was soft, and in an uncharacteristically affectionate gesture, she laid her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. “Maybe he doesn’t believe that anyone else could ever want to fight for him.”
I leaned my head over so that my temple was touching the top of Maddy’s head. Behind us, Chase stood up on his hind legs and put one paw on my shoulder and one on hers, huffing into our faces before nudging each of us with a wet, cold nose. The affection he showed Maddy surprised me, and my surprise made me realize that in human form, Chase never touched anyone but me.
“This is all Shay’s fault,” Devon said from the front seat. “He’s the one who gave Lucas to those … whatever they are. Shay probably sent Lucas there hoping that he would run to us and bring She Who Hunts to Kill right to our front porch.”
That did sound kind of like the type of thing Shay would do. For a few minutes, the five of us were silent. Then Lake pulled into the parking lot in front of the restaurant and slammed the car into park. “So, who wants to share all of this with my dad and Ali?”
“Not it,” Devon said quickly.
“Not it,” Lake and Maddy chorused. Beside me, Chase let out a small howl, and I cursed under my breath.
“Have I ever mentioned that being alpha sucks?” I said.
“A time or two,” Devon replied, but he didn’t even have the decency to sound sorry for me.
Sitting there in the backseat of Lake’s car, Chase and Maddy close enough that they felt more like extensions of my physical body than members of my pack, I tried to remember what it was like to be a normal teenager, but the next second, Lake popped open the driver’s-side door, and a burst of winter wind brought with it the smell of wet fur and cedar trees.
We were home, and underneath the familiar pack scent, my senses registered something else.
Something foreign.
Close.
Still in wolf form, Chase leapt out of the car and came to a halt a few feet in front of us, glancing back over his shoulder, as if to tell us to stay where we were. Undaunted, Lake sauntered forward, Devon on her heels.
“Looks like Lucas is feeling better,” Lake said pithily. “Because unless my nose is mistaken, he’s not in Cabin thirteen.”
Maddy glanced at me and then slid out of the backseat. I followed, concentrating on my pack-sense and trying to pinpoint who among our pack was inside the Wayfarer restaurant and what they were feeling.
Lily. Mitch. Three of the older Resilient kids.
They were in there, with Lucas. The same Lucas who’d lied to me. The one who was currently topping the Not Just Humans’ Most Wanted List.
For once, the constant chill on the back of my neck that told me there was a foreign wolf nearby was drowned out by another feeling.
I was now officially pissed.
The first thing I saw when I stepped across the threshold of the Wayfarer was Lucas, his hands wrapped around Lily’s tiny frame. The first thing I heard was the three-year-old’s scream, shrill enough to shatter glass.
Lily, I thought, my heart jumping into my throat. I was already moving for the shotgun behind the counter when I realized that neither Devon nor Lake was reacting like Lucas was threatening one of ours. A split second later, I registered that on the other end of the bond, Lily wasn’t frightened. She wasn’t hurting. She was ecstatic.
“No, no, no!” she shrieked, trying to escape Lucas’s grasp but holding back just enough that she couldn’t. “No more tickles!”
In response, Lucas hooked his arms around her body and flipped her upside down.
“She throws up, you’ll be dealing with it,” Mitch told him, but his lips twitched, like he was trying to keep from smiling at the picture that Lily and Lucas made.
“That dastardly fiend,” Devon whispered. “She’s never going to wind down in time for her nap.”
Lily made a sound halfway between a giggle and a bark and kicked her feet. Beside me, Chase bristled, and I felt the hair on the back of my own neck rising in tandem with his hackles.
Whatever Chase had learned when he went to see Lucas, the feeling I was getting, loud and clear, through the pack-bond was that he didn’t trust him, and now that Chase was in wolf form, his instinct to protect our territory was sharper, his bond to the rest of the pack harder to deny and his brain incapable of understanding human thoughts—or recognizing that, red-faced and screaming in the hands of the enemy, Lily was fine.
He leapt forward, teeth bared, growling.
I reached out to him with my mind but was met with the uncompromising certainty of the wolf. Lily was ours. Lucas was foreign. He was touching her, and the pup was screaming.
“Chase!” I yelled at the exact same moment that Mitch took a casual step forward and grabbed Chase by the scruff of his neck. Bearing down on him, Mitch forced wolf eyes to meet his, and slowly, Chase sank to the floor.
Lily, seeing further opportunity for mischief, wriggled her way out of Lucas’s arms and leapt to land on Chase. “Wrestle!” she declared.
Before I could do a thing, the jumper she was wearing went the way of many play clothes before it. Shifting was simpler for the younger wolves: they melted from one form to another with liquid ease, and all it had taken to trigger Lily was seeing Chase in wolf form.
Now in animal form herself, Lily bobbed her furry head slightly and then grinned, an expression that looked eerie on her puppy face.
Slowly, awareness dawned on Chase. The human part of his brain realized that Lily was fine, that she was happy, and his wolf instincts recognized the unmistakable signal that she was ready to play. In the wild, play fighting was nature’s way of preparing wolf pups for the real thing. At the Wayfarer, it was par for the course.
Lily pounced on Chase’s paws, and I looked toward the other kids, all of whom were valiantly holding on to their human forms, just to show that they could. Most of our pack were right at that age when they tried very hard not to want to be kids, even though they weren’t quite adolescents.
“Go ahead,” I told them. “Somebody has to watch out for Chase. Lily’s going to decimate him.”
For a moment, none of the kids moved, but I flicked my gaze over to them and made it an order, and that was all it took. They were off and running before they even switched forms, and as much as Chase didn’t want to leave my side, a silent please convinced him to lead them out to play.
Or, more to the point, out of harm’s way.
I pulled my mind away from Chase’s, but not quickly enough to keep from picking up that while Chase and his wolf would guard the pups, neither wanted to turn his back on Lucas, and neither wanted to leave me there with him.
Luckily, Chase’s human half seemed to know that I could take care of myself, and his wolf half knew, on a bone-deep level, that I was alpha, and together, those things were enough to buy me some time alone with Lucas—if alone meant “with Lake, Devon, Maddy, Mitch, and Keely standing by.”
