by Reine, SM
Ignoring her protests, the witch pulled her down to the pond. They splashed through the creek and ran for the edge of the property.
The gunfire and shouting grew more distant, but Rylie could still hear engine noises. She looked up to see one of the SUVs pacing them on the hill above. “James, look!”
“Keep running,” he said, pulling a notebook out of his pocket.
When they emerged from the creek’s valley, they were almost to the fence, and the SUV was just a few meters behind them.
James shoved Rylie over the split rail.
“Get to the rendezvous point,” he said. The pack had agreed on a place that they could meet in an emergency, but it was a good ten miles away. The idea of having to run longer made Rylie want to cry.
The spotlights fell on them, illuminating James’s hair and skin with a white glow.
She climbed over the fence to the neighboring property and kept running.
Rylie wasn’t sure how long she kept moving, or how far she went. Her sense of the pack faded as the ranch disappeared behind her. There was nothing but open federal land ahead. Wilderness for miles.
Trees started to dot the landscape as she approached the foothills. She finally slowed, stretching her arms over her head to open her ribcage and catch her breath. The world was dark and empty. She couldn’t hear or smell anyone—not her pack, not the Union, and definitely not Cain.
Where had he come from? Wasn’t he supposed to be in prison?
A man appeared out of the darkness that smelled like herbs and oils. James. He had survived. Somehow, Rylie wasn’t surprised.
He drew her deeper into the trees and pushed her to the ground between two boulders. The area was sheltered by thick underbrush. It smelled like flowers and rabbit droppings. “They’re not far behind me,” James said, crouching at her side. “I disabled the vehicle, so they’re on foot now, but we must be silent. They’re heavily armed.”
Rylie stretched out her hearing. There were bodies moving through the forest, just a few hundred yards away.
“How did you disable the SUV?” she whispered, and he held up his notebook. It was palm-sized with spiral rings at the top, just like any notebook you could buy at an office store. “What is that?”
He shushed her.
Rylie sat back and took deep breaths, trying to calm her pounding heart now that she wasn’t running. But the beating of her heart only got worse, not better. A moment later, she understood why.
The contraction knocked the breath from her lungs and sucked the energy out of her muscles. She could feel it all the way from her throat to her pelvis. She grabbed her stomach. The muscles were rock-hard.
James gestured for her to be quiet, but the pain was too intense. A gasp escaped her throat.
The footsteps paused. When they picked up again, they were moving faster—and coming closer to her thicket.
The witch started ripping pages out of his notebook and spreading them around him, touching them one at a time. They turned to ash at his fingertips. Magic? Rylie had no way of knowing what he was doing, or why.
The contraction faded, but it was soon replaced by another. They were right on top of each other.
Was she going into labor?
She panted, unable to help herself. James put a hand over her mouth and kept his head lifted, scanning the trees surrounding them. “Be quiet,” he whispered again, so softly that she almost couldn’t hear him.
“Over here,” barked a loud, deep voice. Cain.
That only made the pain worse, not better. Rylie clenched her fists and fought not to cry out.
“Damn,” James breathed, setting aside his notebook. He took her hand in his, and the memory of the last time he had touched her—and all the pain that came with it—made her shake her head vigorously.
“I think I heard something,” said another voice, this one unfamiliar.
They were moving in, and Rylie couldn’t suppress a groan of pain.
James finally spread his palm over her stomach. “Be at peace,” he said softly, addressing her stomach directly. “Not right now.”
Warmth rippled over her stomach, radiating from the place his palm was against her. Each of her muscles relaxed, one by one, until she felt like jelly. The babies kicked around for a moment, like they were trying to find a comfortable position, and then they settled down, too.
Her eyes widened. The contractions were gone completely, and nothing hurt.
James kept watching her for a moment, as if to make sure that it was over. Footsteps circled the thicket. “Do you smell anything?” asked one of the voices.
Touching one of the last pieces of paper, James pulverized it.
“No,” Cain said. He sounded so frustrated. “I don’t smell a goddamn thing.” He was just feet away. Rylie’s heart sped.
“Control says that they’ve got a couple of the wolves back at the ranch.”
“Men? Women?”
“One male, two female.”
There was a rustle, a crack, a groan—it sounded like Cain had snapped one of the nearby trees in half. “Damn it! Okay. Turn back.”
The men retreated. Voices faded.
After several long, breathless minutes, Rylie and James were alone.
EIGHTEEN
Leaving
They used Rylie’s sense of smell to track down the pack at the rendezvous point. It was in the depths of wild, federal-owned land, and the mud was tangled with weeds. The actual landmark they had chosen to meet at was a large, ancient tree with twisted branches and a hollow under the roots, and Brianna stepped around the trunk when they approached.
“Thank the gods, you made it.” She had somehow gotten mud smeared on the side of her face, and it made her bangs stick straight up.
Rylie swept her eyes over the pack, taking inventory of them in the moonlight. Gwyn was seated against the trunk of the tree next to Scott, who had a black eye—a good sign, since that meant that he was still alive. Most of the pack stuck close to Gwyn, like she was the only one who could protect them, but Abel stood aloof, a good fifty feet away with his head tilted toward the moon.
Trevin was there, and so were Crystal and Daven. But Aden was gone. So was Kiara—no, wait, she had already left to join the Union. But Analizia was nowhere in sight, and neither was Bekah. They had lost three members of their already dwindling pack to the Union.
“What happened tonight?” James asked.
Crystal spit into the mud. “Cain. Seems like he thought he’d sneak up on us when we were changing and let the Union grab us. Hijo de puta!”
“But the speech isn’t until tomorrow,” Rylie said. “I thought that the attacks happened after Tate’s rallies.”
“Why did Cain even come for us? Cain’s supposed to be gone! And isn’t the Union on our side?” Trevin asked.
Gwyn shook her head. It made Rylie’s heart ache to see her slow, jerky motions. She was already in better shape than she had been at the beginning of the night, but not because she had been resurrected; Scott held a small animal skull in one hand, and he had obviously been casting spells to repair Gwyn’s still-dead body.
“We’re out of time,” Gwyn said. “We’ve gotta get to the Haven, and we’ve gotta do it now.”
The pack nodded along with her, but Rylie didn’t agree. “James can’t do a resurrection in the Haven.”
“Someone’s coming,” Trevin interrupted.
They all stood at once to face the approaching vehicle. Rylie took a sniff of the air, but the wind was blowing in the wrong direction to make anything out. It looked like some kind of sedan, not an SUV.
Gwyn stepped forward. She’d brought her shotgun with her. “Who is it, babe?” she asked, putting the gun to her shoulder.
Rylie squinted. “It looks like a… Is that a Lexus?”
Relief flooded her as Stephanie’s car pulled up, and the doctor stepped out. Seth wasn’t the only one with her—Brody emerged from the backseat. After seeing her bodyguard getting hit by a car, she was
surprised to see him upright. He didn’t look fazed by his confrontation with the bumper of an SUV at all.
He gave Rylie a small nod. “Ma’am.”
He had saved her life, and that was all he could say? Rylie flung her arms around his neck and squeezed tight. “I am so happy to see you’re okay,” she said, planting a peck on his cheek.
Brody gave a small smile and patted her on the back. “Just doin’ my job.”
When she was done with him, Seth swept Rylie up in a hug. “Brody came and got us immediately when he realized he couldn’t find you,” Seth said into her hair, arms locked tight around her back. “When I saw him without you…”
“It’s okay. James helped me escape.”
“Then I owe him, don’t I?” Seth asked with a lopsided smile.
James and Scott had been talking to Stephanie by the Lexus, but at the sound of his name, James approached Rylie. He acknowledged Seth with a respectful nod. “It’s time for me to leave,” he said. “I need to stay a step ahead of the Union. They’re not an immediate threat to me, but they do have a way of becoming a nuisance, and I can’t afford to deal with them. I hope you understand.”
“But…” Rylie felt like her heart was breaking into fragments. “But you didn’t heal Gwyn yet. You said that you would help her.”
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” Gwyn said. She was still holding her shotgun cradled in the crook of one arm. “I kind of like it better this way. I’ll get to watch your kids become adults. They’ll have the exact same Gwyneth Gresham that you have.”
“But you’re dead.”
Gwyn’s smile was wistful. “There’s worse things than that.”
James shook Seth’s hand, gave Rylie a brief hug, and waved to the pack. Then he said, “Brianna?”
His apprentice seemed reluctant to join him, but James started walking away without waiting for her. She gave a helpless shrug. “Nice getting to know you guys. I hope you don’t all die.”
And then they were gone.
Seth had explained that they all needed to enter the Haven together, so they couldn’t leave until they had recovered their missing pack mates. “But that doesn’t mean we have to put everyone in danger,” he said with a pointed look at Rylie. “Abel and I can take the pack to town tomorrow and lead the attack.”
“To town? Why town?” Pyper asked.
“We don’t know where the Union has taken everyone. Tate is giving a speech tomorrow at the old high school, and since the OPA is working with the Union, I think we can track them back from there.”
But Rylie was still stuck on the part where he said that the pack would be led by “Abel and I.” Where was Abel, anyway?
It took her a minute to spot him beyond the tree. He was kicking a rock around the field with his hands jammed in his pockets and his head drooping. If Rylie hadn’t known any better, she would have thought that he was brooding, but Abel didn’t brood like that. When he got upset, it usually led to fist fights, not quiet introspection.
She returned her attention to Seth. “Where am I going to be when this attack happens?”
“Waiting at the Haven door with Gwyn and Scott,” Seth said. The two of them had already gone back for the truck filled with supplies and headed to the cave to prepare. “Brody will be with you the entire time. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
And away from her pack.
Rylie bit her lip and stared down at her feet. She couldn’t exactly protest—just trying to escape from Cain had nearly put her in labor that night—but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
She glanced up at Abel again. He had wandered a few more yards from the tree, and she had the strange feeling that he was slipping away from her.
When nobody spoke up, Seth clapped his hands together. “Great. Let’s get some sleep. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.”
The pack settled down on dry patches of ground to rest for a couple of hours. They had lost most of the night to the ritual and the running, but they needed at least a little sleep before trying to attack the Union.
While everyone stretched out, Stephanie took Rylie aside. The doctor beckoned her over to the Lexus, and they climbed inside for some privacy. It wouldn’t be enough to prevent a determined werewolf from listening in, but at least it was warm and quiet.
From the instant that Stephanie touched her arm and asked to speak privately, to the instant that the car doors shut, Rylie felt like she was going to be sick with nerves. There was only one reason that the doctor would have stuck around to talk to her, since Stephanie had made it clear days ago that she had no plans of following her father into the Haven. It took a lot of self-control to stay quiet until they were in the car.
“I received the results of the paternity test today,” Stephanie said.
Rylie clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. “Who is it?”
“The test was difficult because Seth and Abel are so similar genetically. They had to run the work multiple times in order to reduce the margin of error. If we’d had the equipment to perform an amniocentesis, I suspect it would have been a lot clearer, but—”
“Who is it?” she interrupted. Nothing else mattered.
“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Stephanie said. “They were only capable of determining the father with seventy five percent certainty.”
Rylie thought she might have forgotten how to breathe.
Finally, the doctor sighed.
“Abel was right. He is most likely the father.”
Rylie gripped the car door. Emotions surged through her—euphoria, fear, regret, and an overwhelming sadness.
Was that it, then? Did that mean she had to choose Abel?
She watched his silhouette continue to pace beyond the tree. Seth was with him now, and even at that distance, even in the dark, it was easy to tell them apart. Abel was taller, broader, and brooding. Seth’s posture was more open, with his arms akimbo. He looked like he was probably talking at Abel.
Her boyfriend beside the father of her babies.
She felt dizzy.
As if the babies could sense her emotions, they gave a hard tumble. She smoothed her hand over the bulging skin. “Have you told anyone?” Rylie asked, voice thick with unshed tears.
“You’re the first.”
“So let’s keep it that way,” she said. Stephanie raised an eyebrow. “Just…please don’t tell anybody for now.”
“Very well.” She put her keys in the ignition. “I’m going to go back to California. The coven’s still trying to recover from Cain’s last attack, and they’ll need a leader now that my father is gone. I hope that you have a wonderful life with those twins of yours.”
“Thank you.”
Rylie got out of the car and waited until Stephanie’s Lexus vanished before she turned to face Seth and Abel.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. She had to talk to them.
Seth kept an eye on Rylie as she got into Stephanie’s Lexus. He didn’t think that Rylie would try to run away; she had been more enthusiastic about the idea of the Haven than anyone else. But after his momentary panic earlier, when Brody had shown up in town alone, he wasn’t prepared to let Rylie out of his sight again so soon.
“Your eyes are going to fall out of your head,” Abel said.
He returned his attention to his brother. Jokes aside, he still looked miserable. “What’s the problem?” Seth asked.
“You said that you had Cain under control. That your Union friend was going to put him behind bars permanently. I wasn’t expecting him to team up with the Union and attack us again.”
“Something must have happened to Yasir. I haven’t heard from him in months.”
“Yeah, because that helps us now,” Abel said, rolling his eyes. “What is it with our family? Mom didn’t stay dead. Cain didn’t stay arrested.”
Seth could only manage a faint smile. It really wasn’t funny. “We have stubborn genetics. But you’re not this upset because of Cain. Something’s
been bothering you for days.”
Abel paced for a few more minutes without speaking, although it looked like he wanted to. It was easier to read his expressions now that his scars were half-healed; he could actually move the eyebrow and jaw muscles on the damaged side again. Maybe after two more years of super werewolf healing, he wouldn’t have any scars at all.
When he finally spoke, it was in a low whisper. Quiet enough that the pack wouldn’t be able to hear him. “I couldn’t change tonight. The pack was in trouble, we lost people, and I couldn’t change.” His golden eyes burned with anger. “If I was Alpha, I could change on my own. But I can’t. I’m not Rylie’s mate, I’m not the Alpha, and I can’t…”
Abel grabbed a rock and whipped it over the field. It bounced and disappeared into the tall grass.
“Most werewolves can’t control the change, man,” Seth said. “It doesn’t mean you’re weak.”
“You know what? You’re good, Seth. You’re better than me. I’ve thought about doing things to you—awful things. You know, trying to get you out of the picture, so I could keep Rylie for myself.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, unable to meet Seth’s eyes. “You goddamn goody two-shoes punk.”
“Abel…”
His brother stepped away, shaking his head. “I never should have said what I did at the wedding in the first place. I’m a selfish asshole.”
“Yeah,” Seth said with a shrug. “How’s that different from the first twenty years of our lives? I’ve been pissed at you for a long time, Abel, and I’m not going to argue with anything you’ve said. But don’t beat yourself up for what happened tonight. It’s not your fault.”
“I don’t care about ‘what happened tonight.’ I only care about her.” Abel jabbed a finger toward the Lexus. “And I’m not good enough.” He curled his hand into a fist. “I can’t watch you have a happy family with Rylie. Like I said, I’m too goddamn selfish. I’m not going to the Haven. All right? I’ll help you rescue the pack tomorrow, and that’s it. We’re done.”
Seth thought that announcement probably should have made him happy. His brother, the asshole that had tried to steal his girlfriend while he was away at college, had just flashed the white flag. Called it quits.
