Trial by Fire
Page 23
And then I heard the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. My first thought was that Lucas was back. My second was that the coven, unable to send Archer into my dreams, had come to try out their intimidation factor in person. My third thought was the most logical—and the most terrifying.
Ali.
I flipped over onto my side and looked at the digital clock on my nightstand. 10:23.
“Chase.” I kept the volume of my voice low but made up for it by shoving him in the ribs.
“Bryn,” he said, his eyes still closed, a loopy smile on his face.
“Get up.”
He must have sensed the urgency in my tone, because the next second, the smile was gone and there was something feral and hard in its place. He moved quickly, pushing me back toward the headboard, crouching in front of me.
I rolled my eyes.
Not that kind of danger, Chase, I told him silently. You’re a boy. In my bed. And Ali doesn’t believe in sleeping past ten thirty. Ever. It’s a miracle she didn’t drag me out of bed to get ready for school.
In the madness of the day before, I hadn’t gotten around to dropping the “no more high school” bombshell. Luckily, Ali seemed to know that there was no margin for error in our current predicament—and no way that any of us should give the psychics an opportunity to divide and conquer.
Still, impending disaster or no impending disaster, the twins had undoubtedly been up for hours, and Ali was probably on the verge of venturing into my bedroom. She was already uncomfortable with the intensity of my relationship with Chase. Somehow, I doubted her finding him in my bed would help matters, even if we did have the mother of all excuses.
You have to leave, I told Chase. Now.
He twisted to face me, his posture relaxing, the light, playful smile returning to his face. I was used to the give-and-take between the boy and the wolf inside, but I was still struck by the combined effect of his bed-head and our current situation. For the first time since he’d come back from patrol, Chase seemed like he belonged here, body and mind—not just with me, but at the Wayfarer. Like this was home.
I should go, Bryn.
His voice was a whisper in my mind, and I wondered if I’d projected my thoughts to him—if home, like Thanksgiving, was something he’d thought of only in the abstract. Without saying another word to me, silently or out loud, Chase slid off the bed and began walking toward the window, and every instinct in my body said to follow.
Then there was a tentative knock on my bedroom door, and every instinct I had said to cover.
“Just a second!” I called. Ali opened the door, just a crack. Once she had ascertained that I was not, in fact, naked, she pushed it the rest of the way open and came in.
I had never in my life been so grateful for werewolf speed. Chase was gone before Ali’s eyes had a chance to register that he’d ever been there. Unfortunately, Ali had the uncanny ability to look at me and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was hiding something.
“Sleep well?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
I had two choices: evade the question and pique her curiosity enough that she’d keep digging around until she figured out what was setting off her mom sense, or distract her with the least damning portion of the truth.
“I slept well this morning, but last night was rough.”
“Was it?” Ali asked, glancing around my room and noting the blanket that Lucas had left on my floor.
“Lucas came by,” I said. She would have found out eventually anyway; this wasn’t the kind of thing I could hide from the pack, and it wasn’t the kind of thing I could ignore. Wanting to help Lucas and giving him free rein of our territory were two different things, and I couldn’t help that Chase’s words had dug their way into my mind. Lucas was a loose cannon. Desperate people did desperate things, and desperate werewolves were a thousand times worse.
Especially when they showed up in your bedroom alone at night.
“I know he’s scared,” I said, “and it’s not like I’ve been able to give him an answer, but …”
“But he broke into a foreign alpha’s house and could have killed you in your sleep?” Ali was taking this about as well as could be expected—which is to say, not well at all. “Most alphas would kill him. Callum would cage him.”
I knew exactly what Ali thought about the werewolf version of justice. She was the voice in my head telling me that violence—that kind of violence—was never okay.
I shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I’m leaning more towards asking Devon and Lake to shadow his every move.”
Between Lake’s trigger finger and Devon’s fondness for show tunes, that seemed like a harsh enough incentive to walk the straight and narrow to me.
“Seems reasonable,” Ali agreed, “but it might not be a bad idea for you to take on a shadow yourself.”
Ali judiciously avoided meeting my gaze as she said those words. In the entire history of my life, I’d never once willingly agreed to lupine bodyguards—not that my agreement had ever been necessary before. In Callum’s pack, my refusal had been cause for amusement more than anything else, but now the decision was mine.
“I need you to do this for me,” Ali said, and I knew by her tone that it wasn’t a request.
Correction, I thought, the decision is technically mine.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have Devon, Lake, Maddy, and Chase rotate through: half on me, half on Lucas, anytime I’m on the property.”
“You planning on leaving sometime soon?” Ali asked. I’d expected her to pick up on that, but I’d also expected her to be adamantly against it. Instead, her voice was guarded, like she knew something I didn’t.
Maybe multiple somethings.
“I don’t know what I’m planning on doing,” I said honestly. “But I’m getting the distinct feeling that you do.”
Ali pressed her lips together for a moment and then she spoke. “I called Callum this morning.”
Like mother, like daughter—Callum was never far from my mind and never far from hers. The difference was that I’d come to terms with the things Callum had done to set me on the path to becoming the Cedar Ridge alpha, and Ali probably never would. She’d loved Callum, the same way I had, but she’d never cared that he was the alpha. She’d fought him—and me—every time I’d started thinking and acting more Were than human.
He’d promised her once that she’d have the final word on my safety, and in Ali’s eyes, he’d broken that promise and then some.
“You called Callum?” I asked, watching a bevy of emotions and vulnerability flash across her face until she pressed back against them.
“I was worried, and in his own way, he … cares … about you.”
I thought about the Callum in my dream—mute and hovering just out of reach. “Did Callum actually answer the phone, or did he have Sora do it?”
Ali gave me a strange look. “He answered. Why?”
“No reason. Is he the one who told you I needed guards?”
Ali shrugged. “I believe his exact words were ‘If she was living in my territory, I’d have half my pack watching her back.’”
Even from a distance, Callum was still controlling parts of my life. The fact that he couldn’t be bothered to answer my phone calls was just salt in the wound.
I didn’t bother to bite back the sarcasm in my reply to Ali. “Did he round out the conversation by giving you cryptic warnings or promising to send you presents with some kind of secret meaning that you absolutely and without question won’t understand?”
“No,” Ali said, dragging the word out and tilting her head to the side. She waited to see if I would elaborate, and when I didn’t, she did. “He did say that it was best if the two of you had no direct contact for the time being, and that he couldn’t advise me on how this should be handled or things could go very badly.”
“What a drama queen,” I muttered, eliciting an incredulous laugh from Ali. “I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen if he helps me out here? The apocalypse?”
“A high probability of civil war,” Ali corrected. “Or so says the drama queen.”
Ali.
I flipped over onto my side and looked at the digital clock on my nightstand. 10:23.
“Chase.” I kept the volume of my voice low but made up for it by shoving him in the ribs.
“Bryn,” he said, his eyes still closed, a loopy smile on his face.
“Get up.”
He must have sensed the urgency in my tone, because the next second, the smile was gone and there was something feral and hard in its place. He moved quickly, pushing me back toward the headboard, crouching in front of me.
I rolled my eyes.
Not that kind of danger, Chase, I told him silently. You’re a boy. In my bed. And Ali doesn’t believe in sleeping past ten thirty. Ever. It’s a miracle she didn’t drag me out of bed to get ready for school.
In the madness of the day before, I hadn’t gotten around to dropping the “no more high school” bombshell. Luckily, Ali seemed to know that there was no margin for error in our current predicament—and no way that any of us should give the psychics an opportunity to divide and conquer.
Still, impending disaster or no impending disaster, the twins had undoubtedly been up for hours, and Ali was probably on the verge of venturing into my bedroom. She was already uncomfortable with the intensity of my relationship with Chase. Somehow, I doubted her finding him in my bed would help matters, even if we did have the mother of all excuses.
You have to leave, I told Chase. Now.
He twisted to face me, his posture relaxing, the light, playful smile returning to his face. I was used to the give-and-take between the boy and the wolf inside, but I was still struck by the combined effect of his bed-head and our current situation. For the first time since he’d come back from patrol, Chase seemed like he belonged here, body and mind—not just with me, but at the Wayfarer. Like this was home.
I should go, Bryn.
His voice was a whisper in my mind, and I wondered if I’d projected my thoughts to him—if home, like Thanksgiving, was something he’d thought of only in the abstract. Without saying another word to me, silently or out loud, Chase slid off the bed and began walking toward the window, and every instinct in my body said to follow.
Then there was a tentative knock on my bedroom door, and every instinct I had said to cover.
“Just a second!” I called. Ali opened the door, just a crack. Once she had ascertained that I was not, in fact, naked, she pushed it the rest of the way open and came in.
I had never in my life been so grateful for werewolf speed. Chase was gone before Ali’s eyes had a chance to register that he’d ever been there. Unfortunately, Ali had the uncanny ability to look at me and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was hiding something.
“Sleep well?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
I had two choices: evade the question and pique her curiosity enough that she’d keep digging around until she figured out what was setting off her mom sense, or distract her with the least damning portion of the truth.
“I slept well this morning, but last night was rough.”
“Was it?” Ali asked, glancing around my room and noting the blanket that Lucas had left on my floor.
“Lucas came by,” I said. She would have found out eventually anyway; this wasn’t the kind of thing I could hide from the pack, and it wasn’t the kind of thing I could ignore. Wanting to help Lucas and giving him free rein of our territory were two different things, and I couldn’t help that Chase’s words had dug their way into my mind. Lucas was a loose cannon. Desperate people did desperate things, and desperate werewolves were a thousand times worse.
Especially when they showed up in your bedroom alone at night.
“I know he’s scared,” I said, “and it’s not like I’ve been able to give him an answer, but …”
“But he broke into a foreign alpha’s house and could have killed you in your sleep?” Ali was taking this about as well as could be expected—which is to say, not well at all. “Most alphas would kill him. Callum would cage him.”
I knew exactly what Ali thought about the werewolf version of justice. She was the voice in my head telling me that violence—that kind of violence—was never okay.
I shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I’m leaning more towards asking Devon and Lake to shadow his every move.”
Between Lake’s trigger finger and Devon’s fondness for show tunes, that seemed like a harsh enough incentive to walk the straight and narrow to me.
“Seems reasonable,” Ali agreed, “but it might not be a bad idea for you to take on a shadow yourself.”
Ali judiciously avoided meeting my gaze as she said those words. In the entire history of my life, I’d never once willingly agreed to lupine bodyguards—not that my agreement had ever been necessary before. In Callum’s pack, my refusal had been cause for amusement more than anything else, but now the decision was mine.
“I need you to do this for me,” Ali said, and I knew by her tone that it wasn’t a request.
Correction, I thought, the decision is technically mine.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have Devon, Lake, Maddy, and Chase rotate through: half on me, half on Lucas, anytime I’m on the property.”
“You planning on leaving sometime soon?” Ali asked. I’d expected her to pick up on that, but I’d also expected her to be adamantly against it. Instead, her voice was guarded, like she knew something I didn’t.
Maybe multiple somethings.
“I don’t know what I’m planning on doing,” I said honestly. “But I’m getting the distinct feeling that you do.”
Ali pressed her lips together for a moment and then she spoke. “I called Callum this morning.”
Like mother, like daughter—Callum was never far from my mind and never far from hers. The difference was that I’d come to terms with the things Callum had done to set me on the path to becoming the Cedar Ridge alpha, and Ali probably never would. She’d loved Callum, the same way I had, but she’d never cared that he was the alpha. She’d fought him—and me—every time I’d started thinking and acting more Were than human.
He’d promised her once that she’d have the final word on my safety, and in Ali’s eyes, he’d broken that promise and then some.
“You called Callum?” I asked, watching a bevy of emotions and vulnerability flash across her face until she pressed back against them.
“I was worried, and in his own way, he … cares … about you.”
I thought about the Callum in my dream—mute and hovering just out of reach. “Did Callum actually answer the phone, or did he have Sora do it?”
Ali gave me a strange look. “He answered. Why?”
“No reason. Is he the one who told you I needed guards?”
Ali shrugged. “I believe his exact words were ‘If she was living in my territory, I’d have half my pack watching her back.’”
Even from a distance, Callum was still controlling parts of my life. The fact that he couldn’t be bothered to answer my phone calls was just salt in the wound.
I didn’t bother to bite back the sarcasm in my reply to Ali. “Did he round out the conversation by giving you cryptic warnings or promising to send you presents with some kind of secret meaning that you absolutely and without question won’t understand?”
“No,” Ali said, dragging the word out and tilting her head to the side. She waited to see if I would elaborate, and when I didn’t, she did. “He did say that it was best if the two of you had no direct contact for the time being, and that he couldn’t advise me on how this should be handled or things could go very badly.”
“What a drama queen,” I muttered, eliciting an incredulous laugh from Ali. “I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen if he helps me out here? The apocalypse?”
“A high probability of civil war,” Ali corrected. “Or so says the drama queen.”
