Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel

by Lawson, Elena

  “Hey,” I muttered around the mouthful, glaring at him.

  “That’s your cookie,” he growled, casting a venomous glare in Jared’s direction. “Here, you fucking tortoise.”

  He tossed Jared one of his cookies.

  “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  “You spit on it, didn’t you?” Jared asked, his face pinching as he turned the cookie over in his hands.

  Sometimes I forgot that they were just a bunch of overgrown twenty-somethings that had been best friends their whole lives. A lightness stole some of the weight from my shoulders, and a small giggle escaped my lips that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the empty bottle of whiskey at our feet.

  Nope. Nothing at all.

  Not two seconds after Clay set his head back down in my lap and I let my fingers delve into his soft dark hair, something shifted.

  The screen door creaked open, and I felt the pause not just in her step, but also in Clay’s stiffening shoulders against my thighs.

  A cool night breeze brought with it a familiar scent that I hadn’t been quick enough to catch first. Probably because I didn’t know it as well as they did.

  “Sam,” Hazel said on a breath, and the plate of cookies shattering behind us spurred us all into action.

  Clay leapt up from the porch, his inner wolf immediately taking over.

  He shifted before I could blink and was chewing dirt as he sped off into the trees in the direction of her scent.

  “Clay!” Hazel called. “Don’t kill her!”

  I snapped out of my daze and grabbed Jared’s elbow as I stood. “It could be a trap,” I blurted, my pulse thundering in my ears as my wolf awoke with a vicious need for bloodshed fueled by the lick of whiskey in my veins.

  We raced after him, and I mourned the loss of yet another favorite pair of jean shorts as they flayed to ribbons in my haste to shift.

  My wolf nearly ran headlong into a tree, disoriented from the taint of alcohol still lingering in our bloodstream.

  Fuck.

  I’ll never drink again, I promised myself.

  “Allie!” Vivian shouted, panicked from somewhere behind me. I knew she’d follow. So would anyone else still awake, or anyone woken by the commotion.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I needed to get to her before Clay did.

  If it was a trap, he’d need backup.

  If it wasn’t, someone would need to stop him from tearing his sister’s throat out. Not that she didn’t deserve it, but if she were really back, then we might need her. Any information she dumped from her poisonous mouth when I let Vivian beat it out of her was better than the big fat fucking nothing that we had now.

  Clay, I shouted down the length of the bond, spurring my sloppy run into a full on sprint. It could be a trap. Wait!

  No reply.

  I said wait, I growled within, injecting the words with an alpha’s venom to which I heard Clay howl ahead, forced to slow by my will alone. It wouldn’t stop him entirely, I needed to be closer for that. Needed eye contact. But it would make it a hell of a lot harder for him to run.

  Stall him, Jared spoke in my mind. The others and I are just behind you.

  Got it.

  Mentally thanking Hazel for the cookies and water to sop up some of the booze in my gut, my vision began to clear. My wolf burning off the last dregs of it with her heat and power. Once our head was clearer, we could run full tilt.

  A dash of shadow ahead told me we were right on top of him now. And ahead, I could hear the plaintive cry of an injured wolf. Sam’s scent permeated the air now. Tainted every heavy breath I drew.

  A savage snarl proceeded the pitched cry of an animal as Clay attacked his sister.

  I got there just in time before he got his jaws around her slender neck and knocked him off, finding Charity and Syd flanking Sam’s wolf.

  Calm the fuck down, I hissed. We need her.

  Vivian was the next to arrive, all fangs and claws and fury.

  You fucking cunt! She screamed through the pack bond, launching at Sam.

  I stepped into her path, blocking her and earning myself a stare of cutting betrayal.

  She may know something, I reminded Vivian, my own desire to tear Sam’s throat out almost winning out over rational thought.

  A few years ago, my wolf would’ve had her way no matter what I wanted, but not now. I respected and validated her need for pain and punishment. For retribution. And she respected my need to retain my authority and to do whatever I needed to serve my pack in the best, smartest way. Even if she didn’t always agree.

  I faced Sam as Jared and the others crowded in around, ears pricked for signs of attack. We were still within the first ring, so if I had to wager, I’d say we were safe here.

  Clay growled ferociously at his sister, his emotions a chaotic mess of anguish and fury that was starting to taint my own thoughts enough that needed to actively block him out.

  Please, Sam pleaded and I was disgusted at the reminder that I never officially cut her out of this pack.

  It was then that I noticed all the blood. The scent of it alerting me before the sight of it in the dark.

  Blood coated every inch of her dark fur, making it glimmer in a red hue under the light of the moon. Her rear quarter looked awkward, too. And her left leg was twisted at an odd angle, showing bone through the skin.

  Her face, too.

  A long gash ran six inches from her temple down to split her lips wide open on the right side.

  She was utterly grotesque with injury, and despite all my loathing, something in my stomach grew cold with pity at the sight.

  Clay was noticing it now, too, bending low to sniff at her back.

  With a long, broken howl that tore open the wound on her lips afresh, she shifted back into her human form, bones rebreaking and wounds bleeding anew.

  It was easier to see the injuries against her pale flesh and my canine stomach heaved at the severity of it all.

  Broken ribs for sure.

  One eye running completely red from burst blood vessels.

  A foot facing the wrong way.

  What are you doing? I demanded through the bond, not even realizing at first that she couldn’t hear me anymore as she screamed her pain.

  She’d have healed better and faster in her wolf form. The bones would’ve had to be rebroken but...shifting was the stupidest idea in her state. She could die from the blood loss alone.

  Her scream choked off into a sob, and she bent forward, wincing at the broken ribs and letting her long black hair fall to cover her face. “All my fault,” she said in a distant, watery voice. “All my fault. All my fault.”

  I shifted, careful to keep my distance as I knelt naked onto the earth. “What happened?”

  “So sorry,” she muttered, beginning to rock back and forth despite the discomfort that must have brought her. “All my fault. All my...all my fault. Shouldn’t have done it. Lies! He lied to me.”

  She snapped her head up and I saw madness in her eyes as she fixed them on me. “He lied! He lied, he lied, he lied!”

  My upper lip curled and Jared appeared at my right shoulder, shifted back to his human form.

  “She’s fucking delirious,” I spat, hating that I felt sorry for her after what she’d done. “Let’s get her back to the cabin. If she bleeds out, she’s no good to us.”

  22

  Despite how weak she appeared, it took four of us holding her down to re-break and set each of her bones. She could do nor say anything useful in her state and as soon as we had her bones set, wrapped, and splinted, she passed out.

  Much as I would have liked to slap her awake, I knew she needed to mend not just her bones, but her mind before she could help us.

  “I really don’t know why we bothered setting her bones,” Jared grumbled, leaning cross-armed against the wall by the sofa where Sam slept fitfully, covered in a layer of her own sweat and blood. Ruining my goddamned couch.

  “Jared,” Haze
l tutted, swatting his arm and missing save for the tips of her fingers.

  He lifted a brow at Hazel. She’d been the one to order us about when we carried a delirious Sam back to the cabin. Before we knew it, she had us mending Sam’s bones, and I didn’t fight her on it.

  We needed to get her talking, and in the amount of pain she was in, that was unlikely.

  Fixing her up a bit was a means to an end and did not for one second mean I wouldn’t rebreak each and every bone I mended to get the information I needed if she didn’t give it to us.

  “She’s fucked up,” Vivian said, watching Sam like she might like to snap her bones all over again, too. “You suppose Devin did that to her?”

  My nose wrinkled as memories of that vile bastard crowded my thoughts. The slap of his knuckles against the bones of my cheek. The feel of his hands around my throat.

  I had little doubt it was him. The question was...why?

  Was she not his spy. Had she not said over the phone that she loved him? Clearly he didn’t share that sentiment with her.

  But then again...he always did have a warped idea of what love was.

  Sam stirred and Clay lifted his head to watch her from where he was hunched over, head bent and fingers splayed on the kitchen island.

  “She’s waking up,” Layla said in a breath.

  Sam muttered something, and I strained to hear it, carefully stepping closer to better hear.

  “Water,” she croaked, her eyes slitting open.

  Layla and I shared a look, but I nodded, giving her permission to go fill a glass from the sink for her.

  Layla handed her the glass a moment later and Sam spilled most of it over her chest and the couch trying to drink it with shaking hands and weak limbs.

  Clay was the only one who stayed fixed where he stood in the kitchen vehicle the rest of us crowded closer as she peeled her eyelids back, seeming to see all of us around her for the first time. Her pulse began to pound, and my inner wolf began to pace within.

  I was about to speak when Hazel came around the head of the couch and Sam locked her blue eyes on her grandmother’s milky ones. Growing pale at Grams’ hard expression.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Samantha.”

  I don’t think any of us could say a single thing that would hurt her more than Hazel saying those five words. She looked like she’d been bitch slapped and had her heart carved out all at the same time. Shock and anguish showing in her eyes.

  “Our sins have a way of catching up to us...but I’ll not see you die today.”

  Hazel reached down to pat Sam’s sweaty shoulder, but she flinched away from her grandmother’s touch. “Not if I can help it.”

  She lifted her head, and her loose silver-streaked hair fell back away from her face. “Do with her what you must, but I ask that you spare her life as a favor to me.”

  Sam began to sob. “Thank yo—”

  “Hush up,” Hazel snapped.

  My fists clenched, and even though I knew she couldn’t see me, I had a hard ass time looking Hazel in the eyes. Instead, I fixed my wrathful stare on a trembling Sam. “I can’t promise you that,” I admitted. “But if she gives us what we need…”

  Sam bowed her head until her chin was pressed against her chest. I’d never seen her so broken. She was a firecracker, just like her brother. This was...embarrassing.

  “The pack will want retribution,” I told Sam as Hazel stepped away from her granddaughter to brush past me.

  “If you decide her fate will be to meet the stars, then I would say goodbye first,” Hazel said, showing no emotion at all on her aged face.

  “You have my word.”

  Hazel lifted a hand to give my shoulder a squeeze, and my stomach dropped to my toes at the realization that one granddaughter was at the mercy of another. I vowed to try not to kill her, if only for Hazel as she found her way outside into the pre-dawn air.

  “Start fucking talking,” Vivian snarled, and Layla snatched her wrist before she could dart forward.

  “No one touches her unless I say so,” I gritted out, meeting the stares of each of my mates and each of my best friends before letting the full weight of it fall on my would-be sister-in-law.

  She squirmed on the stained cushions until her head was propped against the armrest, her face betraying how much pain she was still in.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I lied. “But I will if—”

  “I was supposed to say I was attacked,” she blurted before I could finish, her bloodshot eyes going wide as though she herself was shocked at her own admission.

  Her eyes welled anew, and her face pinched. “He told me that I should say I was attacked by his pack and return to you. To be his little pawn. His spy.”

  I settled into the armchair usually reserved for Clay, dragging it round so it faced her head on. Leaning over my knees, I knotted my fingers together and waited for her to go on. I didn’t necessarily believe a single word she said, but if I had to bring Hazel back here to read her, then I would.

  “I can’t…” she trailed off on a choking sob. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Do what?” Vivian demanded. “Betray your pack? Betray your own fucking family?”

  “He never loved me,” Sam said in a distant voice. “I know that now. You don’t...you don’t hurt people you love. Not like this…”

  Her weary eyes swept over her battered body, and I knew for sure. It was Devin who’d done it. If she were telling the truth, he’d done it just to make us think that her story of having been attacked was believable. And he was so confident in Sam’s feelings for him that he thought she would still love him—still do his bidding—even after he’d beaten her.

  Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had. It surprised me more that she saw his true colors.

  “I-I overheard him before...before he…”

  She swallowed hard, glancing at her brother, whose jaw flexed and eyes burned with hot blue flame.

  “Overheard what?” I demanded, urging her to get to the fucking point. We needed to know everything she knew. But most of all, I wanted to know if she had any idea where our missing wolves were.

  Her lip pulled at the new scar running down her face. It didn’t look like it was going to heal properly at all. It must have been inflicted by Devin’s fangs, otherwise it would heal. She was going to be marred like that for the rest of her life.

  As though she could sense where my thoughts had gone, she lifted a hand to touch the pink skin above her mouth and frowned. “He said he’d spare my brother,” she replied in barely a whisper. “He promised me. But I heard him. He means to kill him and Jared. He thinks once he does…”

  Her upper lip curled, and venom seeped back into her eyes as she lifted them back to mine.

  “He thinks once they’re out of the way that he’ll be able to form the mate bond with me,” I finished for her, and she nodded.

  “You dumb bitch,” Jared growled, and Clay slammed a fist down on the counter. I’d be surprised if he didn’t at least crack it.

  “Enough of this,” he barked. “Tell us where he’s keeping them Sam, or so help me…”

  She flinched away from her brother’s words.

  “All right,” she murmured, that one word rendering us all deadly silent. Each of us afraid to break the spell of this moment.

  It was almost too good to be true. My throat grew thick with emotion.

  “Where?” I managed after a second, and Vivian closed the distance to Sam in the blink of an eye, throwing herself onto her knees at the side of the couch and snatching Sam by her shoulders. She shook her violently, her eyes wild.

  “Where?” she shouted. “Where are they?”

  Sam, startled, tried to wriggle out of Vivian’s hold.

  I pulled Viv back, making her fall heavily onto her backside against the rug.

  Sam swallowed. “Follow White River south,” she told us, and if it were possible, she went even paler than she already was. “Follow it down to
where it meets with Iron Creek. That’s where you’ll find them. There’s an abandoned mill there. That’s where he has them.”

  Of course. He used the rivers to hide their trail.

  Stupid.

  Why hadn’t we thought of that?

  Jared shoved off from the wall, drawing Sam’s attention to him. “How do we know she isn’t lying?”

  “I’m not,” she promised, and though I felt she was being sincere, it was impossible to be certain.

  “Layla,” I called, and she nodded, knowing already what I wanted and heading for the door.

  Hazel couldn’t give us a definitive yes or no as to whether or not she was lying. But she could help us to be more certain of her intentions here.

  As though she were just as guilty as we all assumed she was, Sam closed her eyes and shuddered as Layla left.

  “If you’re lying to us,” I warned her. “I won’t be able to save you from this pack.”

  We waited out the five minutes until Hazel returned listening only to the sound of Vivian pacing the floor. None of us daring to hope we might finally have gotten a win.

  Hazel hobbled through the door with Layla on her heels, and Vivian immediately took Grams by the hand and led her Sam’s side. I didn’t miss how Grams flinched at the contact with Vivian. I wouldn’t want to feel that hurricane of emotion, either.

  She tugged out of Vivian’s grasp as her shins knocked against the couch, and she reached down, waiting for Sam to give her her hand as opposed to taking it.

  Like she was giving her granddaughter a choice to do the right thing.

  It took a second, but Sam did lift her hand, tentatively slipping it into Hazel’s with a grimace.

  The old woman closed her other hand over Sam’s for barely an instant before dropping it as though scalded.

  She cocked her head at her granddaughter, shock registering on her face.

  “What is it?” I demanded impatiently. Glaring between grandmother and granddaughter.

  “I can’t be certain,” Hazel told me, wringing her hands as though she could wash them of whatever she felt at Sam’s touch. “But I believe she’s telling the truth. She fears Devin. And with good reason. But there’s resolve there, too. Her desire to protect her kin is stronger than her fear of denying him.”