by May Dawson
His gaze lingered on my throat. “But we can get you healed up.”
“I don’t want to be healed.” My voice still sounded raspy from everything I’d been through, but it came out loud and clear. “I want to be free.”
“We’ll take care of you and your sister,” he promised me.
I shook my head.
One of the men—my god, it was one of our state senators—stepped out and said, “It’s a good try, Alan, but look at her. She’s already been listed as a runaway. It’s easier if she stays that way.”
Why did I have a funny feeling that runaway meant chained in someone’s basement?
Up until the point that Maddie’s power manifested, and then maybe it became buried under someone’s basement?
My gaze swiveled between Alan and the senator. “I don’t want to leave my little sister behind.”
It was the truth, but I was using it to stall them, to try to figure out my next move. But the problem with speaking the truth is that there is no time when one’s voice shakes more. I sounded so weak, and the sound inflamed my own fear.
How the hell was I going to escape a half dozen witches?
“What is it you want from me?” I asked. “If there’s something I can give you, so my little sister and I can be free…”
“What we want, we’ve already got,” Eli said. “We don’t have to make you happy, Piper.”
“Eli.” Alan’s voice was stern. “Jesus, boy, you need to learn the art of negotiation. Force does not yield results.”
“Sometimes it does,” drawled the senator.
Just then, the door to the house was thrown open so hard it slammed against the wall, and my father staggered out. He held the gun in front of him and he pointed it at me for one single-minded second as he stumbled across the porch.
Then he registered Alan, and the barrel swiveled to him.
Alan raised his hands, as calm and unruffled as ever. “Now what?”
He went on talking, but as he did, the boom of my father’s handgun filled the air, which was tinged with smoke and the scent of gunfire.
I threw myself away from Alan, who raised his hands, throwing up a shield of magic. As soon as I landed in the dirt, I scrambled under the car. My breathing was loud under the grease-scented undercarriage as I crawled underneath, sliding my legs around so I could see what was happening back in the clearing.
“There you are,” Eli was on the other side of the car, his cheek pressing against the dirt as he locked eyes with me. “Come here, Piper.”
He waggled his fingers at me, and I shook my head. Eli Kingston could go fuck himself.
And then, as if my arms were operating on their own, I planted my elbow in the dirt and dragged my body toward him, then another elbow. Slowly, despite my brain screaming at my body to stop, I crawled out the other side as he backed up.
“Up, up,” he said, gesturing, and I stood. He grabbed my waist, whirling around with me so that my body pressed against his.
Suddenly there was a glint of metal in his hand, then cold steel burning against my temple.
I was getting very, very tired of people pulling guns on me.
Eli called my father’s name. “You might want to stop. I’m about to put a bullet through the powerhouse’s brain here if you shoot that gun at my father one more time.”
Both Alan and the man I’d thought was my father turned, focusing on us. Using me as his shield, Eli maneuvered us around the car.
“Put the gun down,” Eli said. Into my ear, he murmured, “Look at you, peacemaker. You’re all kinds of useful.”
“I don’t think so,” my father said. Apparently, Eli had gotten ahead of himself. “I’d rather the girl was dead than yours.”
I really regretted ever making him a Father’s Day card.
Eli’s breath curled against my cheek. But whatever he was saying was lost as I saw the faintest flicker of movement in the forest across from us. The humans were behind us, watching the battle play out, perhaps more interested in maintaining their power than being on any particular side. But there was someone else coming.
Were the wolves finally coming to rescue me?
“Are you deaf?” Eli snapped at me. Looking up, he asked, “Dad, are you sure this spell took?”
My father’s gun swiveled to me and Eli. “I’m about to shoot you both and make this world a much less whiny place.”
Another gun went off, a sharp retort that broke open the day. If these people loved magic so much, why didn’t they use it instead of bullets?
As gunfire broke out between the two sides of the witchy contingent, I tried to shove Eli away from me, but he reeled me back against his body. “Uh-uh. You’re going to do your best to keep me alive.” His grip tightened on my waist, punishingly tight. His lips grazed my ear when he said, “Promise.”
My four wolves swarmed the clearing. My father went down hard, the gun flying away from his hand. In the forest, someone screamed. Another wolf hit Eli and me, knocking us both down. I rolled across the ground, then scrambled to my feet, running for the tree line.
The guys and I needed to get out of here, away from the danger of being shot or caught in some magical crossfire.
“Piper!” Eli’s voice was a whip-crack I couldn’t ignore. “Pick that gun up.”
I turned back, trembling. The fight raged around us, but all I could see was the boy I hated, pinning beneath the paws of a growling wolf. Eli’s eyes locked on me, then flickered meaningfully to my father’s gun, lying in the grass.
I couldn’t resist. I bent low and ran across the ground to pick up the gun. It felt heavy and awkward in my hand. My father had always owned guns when I was growing up, but he never took me shooting or let me near them. I’d seen them, from a distance when he cleaned them or carried them to the range, but I’d never touched one.
“Now kill this goddamned wolf,” Eli said.
The wolf growled and, quick as instinct, he sunk his teeth into Eli’s throat. Eli screamed, and the scream faded into a harsh burble as the wolf tore his throat out.
Which of my wolves killed Eli Kingston? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to know.
But, against my will, my arms extended, my elbows locking, the barrel rising toward the wolf.
Green eyes, framed by black and then surrounded by fluffy white fur, met mine and widened.
My finger slid into the trigger well, brushing over the cool metal. I tried to straighten my finger out, to drop the gun, but it stuck to my palm. Hot tears blurred my vision as I tried desperately to fight back the compulsion to obey.
Kill the wolf.
Eli had said to kill the wolf.
“Change!” I screamed at the wolf. Please trust me. “Change back!”
He cocked his head to one side, as if he didn’t understand. Oh my god, it was Nick, that was Nick’s mannerism, those were Nick’s vivid green eyes.
My hands trembled so badly that if I fired the shot, I might well miss him. There was a thread of hope. I looked from side to side, desperately searching for someone who could save Josh from me and in doing that, could save us both. I wouldn’t mind one of those wolves slamming into me right now.
But the scene around us was still all chaos. Wolves battled witches, fang and claw against sprays of magic and occasional bullets. There was no one else to save me.
Movement in front of me drew my eye. The wolf scrambled in the dirt, as if it were in pain, and then suddenly leaped to its feet. Joints popped out of place and the wolf seemed to shimmer. I couldn’t quite make out what was happening in front of me—he was a blur of movement—but I caught glimpses of fur and blood and flesh.
Then Nick was on his knees in front of me. His chest fluttered with the effort of his breath and he raked his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face, as he looked up at me.
The gun finally fell from my hand.
“Piper,” he said, and he was up and at my side, holding me against his chest.
His naked c
hest.
But still, I wrapped my hands around his biceps, letting him hold my weight. “Nick,” I murmured. “We have to get out of here.”
“Do you know who bound you?” he asked.
“It’s not important,” I said. “Not like keeping you safe is.”
“Piper, there’s nothing more important than making sure you’re free,” he said. “If you weren’t so quick-thinking, I’d be dead because you were bound.”
The thought of what had almost happened made my knees feel weak, but I didn’t have time for that. I would fall apart later.
“I think it was Alan Kingston, Eli’s father.” I searched the area for him. He was groaning on the ground, crawling toward a weapon.
Without hesitating, the enormous white wolf streaked across the clearing. Alan got his hand on the gun, whipping his arm around to fire off a shot. The wolf ripped his arm out of the socket, throwing it and the gun aside, and Alan screamed before he slammed into the ground.
The wolf lunged at his throat.
Nick grabbed me in his arms, turning my face to his, as the screaming broke off.
I gasped, the world spinning, as the necklace slipped off my throat. Nick caught me, his arm tightening around my waist. The emeralds dropped from the necklace, disappearing into the grass at our feet, and the chains between the stones dropped away in ashes, scattering to nothing.
“I’m free,” I whispered.
Nick grinned down at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and I grabbed his shoulders and yanked him down to me. There on the battlefield, surrounded by the wolves of my pack and the bodies of our enemies, I kissed Nick hard.
Because that was what I wanted to do with my freedom.
Chapter 26
The pick-up truck turned down the familiar pine-lined road that led to the guys’ house, and I dared to look over at Nick, who drove.
Thank god he was driving, because the boy was naked and my concentration would have been shot. He caught me looking—even though I quickly jerked my eyes from the distinct shape of his biceps to the road—and cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
It was still hard not to glance over at the seatbelt he’d pulled across his lap, at the hard squares of his defined abs divided by the line of gray fabric, or just a little further south.
Blushing, I turned to look out the window into the bed of the pickup truck. Three wolves lay in the bed of the pickup, staying low to avoid attention, but the wind ruffled their fur.
“Can you tell which one is which?” Nick asked.
I studied them all carefully. “The big, angry one is Callum.”
Nick nodded. “True in any form.”
“The also-kind-of-big one with all the gray is Josh,” I glanced at him to see if I was right, and was rewarded with the faintest nod. “And then the small—but I bet fierce—one is Kai.”
“You’ve got us all figured out.”
“Thank you for trusting me and changing when I asked you to,” I said. It meant a lot to me.
“I’m just happy I understood you,” he said, as if it was nothing for him to listen to me, as if it just made sense. That wasn’t how the men in my life treated me before I met the pack, and it filled my chest with a warm glow. He went on, “Normally, even though I’m still human in the wolf form, it’s hard for me to process language. It all seems so muted, it kind of blurs together in one note. But I understood you.”
“Because I’m the pack princess, maybe?”
His eyes widened. “Piper…”
“I’m not Piper,” I said. I glanced back at the bed of the truck. “We’re almost home. Maybe I should explain it then.”
“Okay.” A smile tugged at the edges of his handsome mouth, but he seemed to fight it.
“What’s going on?”
“Home,” he said. “You called Blissford Pack home.”
“Psh. It’s just where we’re going right now,” I said. I wasn’t ready to get all sentimental with them. I was still shaking with adrenaline from the fight. And I had a desperate urge to tell them everything, to have someone else know who I was.
I’d gone so many years without knowing.
I was excited to have a real identity for the first time in years. And what an identity. Josh would be thrilled. And Kai, in his own way, too. I wondered if he would say something to be a wiseass, or kiss me. Or both. I’d take both.
When I imagined Callum hearing the news, well, the smile I couldn’t resist fell away. I wasn’t sure how happy Callum would be about having me be part of the pack.
“I wonder why there seems to be a…pack thing between us all,” I said shyly, uncomfortable with using a silly word like crush and even more uncomfortable with using any serious words. “Except for Callum.”
He shrugged. “Are you sure there isn’t?”
“I mean.” I’d kissed Nick, and Josh, and Kai. That there was something magnetic between me and them seemed undeniable. But there was nothing like that with Callum. There was just my crush, and my body responding to his combination of gorgeous and athletic and caring bossy. Nothing like the mutual intrigue between me and the guys.
“Callum plays his cards pretty close to his chest,” Nick said. “You might have to actually…talk to him.”
“Of course I’ll talk to him.” I rolled my eyes, glancing at the wolves in the back of the truck again. It wasn’t like I was intimidated by Callum.
He turned down the driveway, and I felt some of the tightness in my body relax as we parked in front of the big, welcoming house. I felt safe here.
“If you’d give us all a minute,” Nick said.
To be human. And dressed humans. Okay. I could do that.
I nodded and smiled and slid out of the truck, still feeling a bit shell-shocked. I walked into the quiet, warm house, then wandered into the living room where I’d found myself that first night, the night I’d hit Josh with the car, and where I’d tossed and turned in the agony of that fever. This room was full of memories already.
The front door opened, and Josh sped to my side. He wore jeans and a fleece, but his feet were bare, and his messy blond hair was ruffled. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, touching his arm. “Thanks to you. Thanks for the rescue.”
He said fiercely, “I’ll feel better when we know every member of that coven is…”
He trailed off, as if he had realized he was being scary. His eyes gauged my expression. Was he worried what I thought about him? That was sweet, but unnecessary. I thought he was pretty damn amazing
“Squishy?” I supplied.
Josh’s face split in a wide grin. “You really are all right,” he said, cupping my cheek with his hand.
“I’ve got so much to tell you all,” I said.
But Josh’s lips came down on mine, and I kissed him back hard, my hand twisting in his hair. He kissed me with so much warmth, lighting up my body with energy. With each kiss we traded, we pressed even closer together, his chest against mine so tightly that I could feel the rapid beating of his heart. I would have sworn his heart raced more when we were close like this than it had in the fight.
The door flew open and Kai ran in. “Piper…”
The word died on his lips when he saw me pulling away from Josh. I worried he was offended, but a few quick steps brought him to us, and then he wrapped his arms around me from behind. He pressed his cheek against mine and breathed in deep, as if he was breathing in my scent. “I’m so sorry.”
I caught his cheek with my hand, turning my face into his. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
There was that familiar ornery look in his eyes. “I lost the car. I was trying to follow you…”
“You stayed at the house when I went in and ran into my father,” I filled in. They were always watching over me. “Well, not-my-father.”
“We realized you were in trouble, but we couldn’t catch the car.”
“It’s all r
ight,” I said softly. “We’re all here. Alive. That’s all that matters.”
“You got hurt because I didn’t protect you,” he muttered. “I can’t stand it.”
My eyes flickered to Josh. “Well, you might have to get used to it. What did you say, Josh? There’s nothing safe in the world of witches and wolves?”
“Yeah?” Josh’s eyebrows arched. “I hope you’ll stick around in our world, Piper. But I’m not looking to keep you in danger, either.”
Kai’s arm tightened around my waist possessively. “Maybe Callum is right. You’d be safer without us.”
I shook my head. “No, I belong here with you.”
Kai growled softly, under his breath. I thought he was angry, and then his lips pressed just below my ear. As he devoured me with kisses, I realized it was a growl of desire. “Even after all that, you want to stay with us?” he murmured between kisses.
I should have been able to answer him intelligently. But I was pinned between the two beautiful boys, as Kai peppered my shoulders and neck with kisses, as Josh’s lips pressed again to mine. The sensations, and their warmth, and the woodsy, pleasant scent of their bodies overwhelmed me and chased away all conscious thought. I felt as if I floated between them as their powerful arms held me, as I traded kisses with them both, as my hands drifted across the hard-angled lines of their bodies.
Kai’s words still bothered me, and I kissed his cheek, trying to think of what to say to make him feel better.
Callum burst in, followed by Nick. Callum’s gaze flickered to the three of us as we disentangled ourselves and smoothed our clothes. He shook his head, but said nothing.
Even as I tucked my hair behind my ears and tried to look unruffled, I was touched that Kai and Josh wanted me, even though they thought I was nothing special to their pack. I wanted to talk to Callum one more time before I told him that I was the one he was looking for.
“It worked,” Callum said, with relief evident in his voice as his gaze fell on my neck. “The enchantment died with the enchanter.”
I rubbed at the bruises and marks across my skin, feeling how tender it was, and Callum frowned. I let my hand fall to my side. I was fine, or at least, I would be.
