Cedar and Birch. Spice, and the unmistakable perfume of motor oil that somehow always clung to Clay no matter how long it’d been since he tuned up a bike.
They appeared like ghosts from the mist, exploding through the brush with a scattering of dew. One wolf white, and one so dark a gray that he could almost be mistaken for black.
Distantly, I could hear the others trailing behind them, unable to keep pace, but trying their best.
Allie! Jared’s exclamation in my mind made another whimper tumble from my lips, and as they reached me, churning up loose earth on a hard stop, we collided.
What happened?
Are you hurt?
Were you followed?
Their voices in my mind spoke over one another, a barrage of worried, frantic, and heated questions, all of them demanding answers, though I could give none.
I leaned into my mates, needing the quiet solace of their touch, just for a minute. Needing them before I could form another rational thought.
Allie, talk to us. What’s going—
Holy shit.
I heard the others approaching behind me and watched as my mates gaped at their arrival, shock and relief etched into their expressions.
My wolf released after she had her minute, letting me come forward, emerging from our shared flesh. I shifted with a sob in my throat and choked it back as my body reformed.
“I found you,” I whispered, my voice shaking almost as much as my body as I wrapped my arms around Clay’s neck, burying my face in his damp dark fur. “I found you.”
“Hey.” Jared’s soft touch on my back was the only thing that could’ve been tempting enough for me to let go of Clay, turning to let my other mate wrap me up in his human arms.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he crooned as my relief became too much for me to contain and I let the tears fall. “It’s okay, you’re safe. We’ve got you.”
A jerk on my arm and Clay had me out of Jared’s embrace and into one of his own, crushing me against the hard expanse of his chest. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again. You almost…” He choked off. “You could’ve…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Did he touch you? Is the bastard still alive?”
I guessed I had a lot of explaining to do, but as the others emerged from the south, another reunion drew my attention as a still-limping Archer knocked his mate to the ground, the two of them yipping and licking one another as they collided.
Bodies shifted and both human and wolf embraces were had all around as our pack became whole again, though I hated to think what might’ve become of them if I was even just a few hours later in rescuing them.
Destiny had been near complete dehydration. So had some of the others.
Piper was the only one who seemed out of place, lagging behind the others as they all joined together.
I saw Layla practically jumping on Vivian with joy and smiled as her gaze found mine, latching on with an unspoken rush of relief. I nodded to her, telling her with a look that I was okay and she should stay where she was, at least for the moment.
“I’ll explain everything,” I told my mates, the lump leaving my throat as I swiped the tears from my eyes. “But first, we need to get someplace safe. They need rest. And food and—”
My spine tingled as I recognized a group of shifters standing apart from the rest. Removed. They weren’t from this pack.
My upper lip curled, and I darted away from Clay, putting myself between us, when I realized that I recognized one of them.
“Is that…?”
“Dante,” Clay confirmed. “And about half of his pack.”
I whirled on my mates, eyes narrowed. “What are they doing here? I already sent word asking him for help. He denied me.”
Jared nervously scratched at a phantom itch on the back of his neck, unable to meet my gaze. “We might have...threatened him a little…”
My lips parted in surprise as a rush of fury zipped down my spine like liquid fire. I looked between them, waiting for the real truth to come out.
Clay bristled under the weight of my stare. “Fine,” he seethed. “We threatened him a lot.”
“What did you expect us to do?” Jared asked, getting defensive. “We weren’t going to leave you with that fucking psychopath.”
“But I commanded it.”
Jared glanced guiltily at Clay, and the pair of them shrugged.
“Guess you’re losing your touch, babe.”
I pressed my lips together against a retort that I really didn’t have the right to sling at them right now. Not after what I’d done. What I’d made them do. “I’ll deal with the two of you later,” I told them, going to the pack alpha waiting away from the raucous celebration taking shape in the middle of the forest.
I bowed my head to him, waiting for him to shift so that we could speak plainly. Dante nodded his lupine head to the shifter at his right hand and together, both of them shifted.
“The twin soul wolf,” Dante said by way of greeting. “We were told we were to go to war in an effort to rescue you.”
I shot a nasty glare back at my mates before responding, keeping my tone as diplomatic as I could. We’d always had an understanding with Dante’s pack, since they bordered our lands to the west and generally kept to themselves.
“It was wrong of my mates to try to pressure you into this fight.”
“Pressure us?” Dante scoffed. “They said they’d…” He groaned, shaking his head. “You know what, it doesn’t matter.”
“I apologize for their rash thinking, but I hope you understand what prompted them to do it.”
Dante frowned, nodding to himself. I didn’t know much about him personally, but one thing I did know was that his mate died a number of years ago. He still hadn’t re-mated, and I could see the loss of her in his haunted stare. Knew it was a large part of the reason for the tall walls surrounding his camp. And why he never got involved with the affairs of other packs unless he thought them a direct threat to his own.
“Aye, I do.”
“I won’t ask you to fight with us, but I will tell you that if this threat is not dealt with now, it will affect you and your pack. If we do not succeed, I have no doubt in my mind that the man responsible for all of this will take over Forest Grove and snuff out any pack who refuses to join him.”
Dante rolled his shoulders back, his round face growing red at the insinuation, but it was the truth. And I think he knew that.
“Perhaps there’s something else we could offer...” I added, sensing his hesitation. “With you and the shifters you’ve brought, our numbers will be even with his. It may not even come to a fight, not if Devin can see that he is matched in strength and numbers. I’ll challenge him, and I’ll win.”
“And what are you offering for us to partake in this show of strength?”
“The quarry,” Jared said, appearing at my side. “We’ll give you a stake in the earnings. Jobs for any of your pack who wish them. But...if it does come to a fight. We’ll expect you to stand with us then, too.”
We knew Dante and his pack led a simple life. A life of farming and meditation, promoting a oneness with the earth, but they still had needs, right?
Dante whispered something to his right hand, and the man nodded, agreeing with him.
“Are you sure?” I asked Jared in a whisper, searching his eyes for the truth.
He nodded easily. “I am.”
“Twenty-five percent,” Dante demanded.
“Twenty,” Clay growled, appearing at my other side with a scowl on his handsome face. “And not a nickel more.”
He eyed Clay for a moment and then inclined his head. “Twenty then, and you’ll have our help in this fight. This fight alone and no others.”
I walked forward, some ancient part of my still human mind recoiling at shaking hands with a naked man while being entirely nude myself.
The ridiculousness of the thought almost made me smirk. Almost.
“We have a deal then,�
� I said, my calluses rubbing against his, feeling more confident now than I had been in a very long time.
“I assume you have a plan?”
I swallowed hard. “We need to strike now, before he has any opportunity to undermine us or get one step ahead.”
Dante jutted his chin in the direction of the rest of my pack. “They don’t look battle ready.”
“They will be,” Clay argued. “I’ll see to it. We have supplies. Enough for everyone to have a full meal. We can hunt, too, if we have to.”
“Okay. We strike tomorrow,” I decided. “Take tonight to make preparations and ensure everyone’s ready. Sound good?”
Dante nodded, and turned to walk away without another word. He would wait for my orders with the members of his pack, but he wasn’t about to get cozy with a bunch of foreign wolves. I couldn’t blame him.
My brow furrowed as I searched through the shifters all coming off the temporary high of being reunited again, waiting for orders. “Where’s Hazel?”
Clay dropped his gaze, visibly paling. “She’s preparing Sam for burial. She was a bottle of whiskey deep at the old cabin when we were ready to leave pack camp with our supplies.”
“Even if she was coherent,” Jared put in. “I don’t think it would’ve been hard to convince her to stay behind. She’ll be safe there.”
My chest ached anew as I ran a hand down the corded muscle of Clay’s arm, drawing his attention. “I am so sorry, Clay. I—”
“We knew it was a risk,” he interrupted, clearing his throat. “When we sent her back. We knew something like this could’ve happened.”
Not we, I wanted to correct him. It was me who ordered her to return. I hadn’t given her a choice. It was me who sent his sister to her death.
“She made her bed,” Jared said in a low grumble, his jaw ticking as he looked between me and Clay.
“Jare—” I hissed.
“No, he’s right.” Clay ran a hand through his tousled black hair, sighing. “But if it’s all right with you, I’d like to have her buried on pack land. I want her close.”
“Of course,” I replied, tugging him down to press a soft kiss to his lips. “And when we get home, we’ll give her a proper send off.”
Clay grimaced. “I’m not sure if the pack—”
“She made mistakes, Clay, but in the end, she realized what she’d done. She tried to make it right. She’s pack. She’ll be sent off as one of us.”
He dropped his head onto my shoulder, hunching as he drew me close. “I’ll never deserve you, woman.”
I smiled, nuzzling into his neck to whisper into his ear. “Fate seems to think you do. And I agree with her.”
30
“So does this mean all is forgiven then?” I asked them as Jared passed me another cut of meat from the makeshift spit over the fire. I’d just finished explaining everything to them and answering their million questions and was ready to finally eat.
We’d have to put the fire out when the sun went down, and it was already on its descent down the sky. We had maybe twenty minutes of burn time left and still a good bit of meat left to cook. Though many didn’t mind eating it raw in their wolf forms, and that was exactly what most of the weakest of them did.
They’d heal faster that way, without expending the energy needed to shift back.
“Not even close,” Clay growled, tossing me a tall bottle of water from the pack at his feet. “Drink,” he ordered. “You can put on a strong face for them, but we know you need it.”
Jared tapped the meat on the bit of cloth in my hand, and I obediently took a bite, moaning as the flavor coated my tongue.
“Don’t look so smug,” I said between bites and sips of water. “I was fine. Now I’m just...better.”
“Mhmm,” Jared hummed. “If you say so.”
The truth was I’d been trying to make sure everyone else had their fill first, but Jared and Clay were right. I had no idea how long I’d been passed out in that cellar and the journey to the mill had been long. I hadn’t touched a single morsel of the supplies Charity and Seth managed to wrangle for the others, knowing we wouldn’t get more than a few miles if they didn’t regain a good amount of strength first.
Not for the first time, I thanked whatever fuckery allowed for shifters to heal quickly. Without it, I didn’t know where we’d be. Where I’d be right now.
As it was, by my third bite of the juicy meat and about halfway through the liter of water, I was already feeling back to my regular self. Minus a few pounds maybe, but that didn’t matter.
“Hey, Allie, mind if—” Charity started, coming over from one of the other cook fires when Clay interrupted her.
“Not now, Char,” he growled. “Let her eat.”
She held up her hands in a placating gesture and stepped away.
“Char, wait,” I called after her, but she was already gone.
“What did you do that for?” I demanded, elbowing Clay in the ribs.
He grunted but didn’t reply.
“I’ll deal with it,” Jared offered, rising and passing his retractable metal skewer to Layla. “Probably just wants clarification on something. You just eat. I’ll be back in a sec.”
I shook my head absently as he left, catching Layla’s raised brow. “See what I mean?” she whispered to Seth, who was seated behind her, his arms loosely wrapped around her middle. He chuckled, making me think I was more than likely the butt of some private joke between them.
I didn’t care though. I’d be the butt of all the damned jokes in the world so long as everyone was okay.
Once I’d polished off the entire bottle of water and every last morsel of meat on my makeshift plate, I sighed, leaning back against a tree. I put a hand to my contented stomach and jumped when something poked me in the ribs.
Clay held out a toothbrush and small tube of paste for me, and I grinned, taking them with a curious tilt of my head. “A toothbrush?” I asked, unable to conceal my smirk.
When they were busy gathering supplies to run far and fast away from camp, he’d dubbed a toothbrush necessary?
He shared my smirk. “Yeah. I was...we were all a mess, Allie. I somehow remembered my toothbrush but not a single scrap of clothing, or even the water. It was Layla who thought to fill a bunch of bottles and wrap some of the meat to take with us.”
He heaved in a breath, looking haunted by the memory still, even with me back here, right in front of him.
I rested a hand on his thigh, shivering at the contact as his passion speared through me from the mate bond, awakening a primal urge deep within that pooled heat between my thighs.
“She’s really great you know. Both of them are. I’m glad they’re with us.”
“Aww, love you, too, Clay,” Layla said with a cheeky wink, having overheard.
He rolled his eyes at her and crossed his arms over his naked chest.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Let’s go share this around,” Seth said, maybe taking Clay’s subtle hint at wanting a modicum of privacy to talk to me. He took the rest of the meat that’d finished cooking and together he and Layla kicked dirt over the fire until it snuffed out before moving on to share the meager supplies.
“Hey, make sure Piper gets some, will you?”
She had found a place sitting with Archer, Callum, and a few others, but by the way she was sitting, with her knees hugged into her chest, I could tell she wouldn’t be asking for any handouts.
“Will do,” Seth said with a little salute.
“Have fun,” Layla called back, giving me a knowing look that made a hot flush creep up my neck to roost in my cheeks.
Clay cleared his throat. He’d settled one of the large packs they’d brought to transport supplies into his lap to conceal his junk and was now adjusting it. Shoving it down with the palm of his hand.
“Problem?” I asked him knowingly.
“You’re wicked, woman.”
I
wrinkled my nose, playing it off. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Jared returned a second later, making me dangerously aware of just how flushed my skin was. How my thighs squeezed together, and I fought to maintain composure.
Now that we were here, together, and everyone was all right. Resting and fed. And we had a plan. I could think of nothing else on this earth that I wanted more than I wanted them right now.
Nothing.
“Sorry, I was just…” He trailed off, sensing the vibe through the mate bond. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he slowed to a stop right in front of me. “I, uh, was just going over everything with them one more time. A bunch of them are going to try to sleep now while the rest take the first watch.”
I glanced between him and Clay, biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’s good. Thanks.”
“I can go and, uh...I mean, if you guys want some privacy.”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking virtually anywhere but at me. It seemed Jared had remembered to pack a pair of jeans, and suddenly I was wishing he hadn’t, noticing the bulge begin to form beneath the strong denim.
I licked my lips.
“No,” I said on a breath. “I don’t want you to leave.”
His amber gaze flicked up to meet mine first, and then Clay’s, his lips parting in silent question.
Please.
Clay let out a low rumble beside me, and I turned to see his blue eyes lit from within, his face stormy.
He nodded to Jared, just one tight bob of his head, before moving to stand, taking the pack with him. “I’m up for a walk...” he said, a muscle in his neck straining. “...if you are.”
My gaze snapped back to Jared and something in my expression must have undone him because his rigid stance loosened and the look in his eyes softened. He held out a hand for me, offering to help me stand. “Yeah,” he said. “I could go for a walk.”
We left Layla and Charity in charge, promising not to go very far. They didn’t say as much, but the knowing smirks wriggling at the corners of their mouths told me they knew exactly what we were up to. And being some of my best friends, they also knew I’d been wanting this for as long as I could remember.
Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel Page 27
