Raised by Wolves
Page 30
And then I flashed forward, and I saw myself from his perspective, the moment I’d heard those three little words from Chase’s lips.
I got bit.
The possibilities in my future rearranged themselves, and Callum fought against them, trying to keep me safe. It was the reason he’d kept Chase away from me—down that path had been danger, and at the time, it had been the last thing that Callum had wanted for me. He’d always known that I’d be important someday, but he hadn’t foreseen the way I’d come to be a part of him. He hadn’t realized that he couldn’t always be the one saving me.
And from the moment I’d met Chase, he’d known. He’d known what could happen, known a thousand ways it could have gone wrong. I’d asked permissions, and he’d laid down the conditions. He’d trained me—not for fear of what might happen during my meeting with Chase, but in preparation for what I would face afterward. He’d made me open my pack-bond so that I would connect to Chase, not to keep me from it.
And then came the hardest thing to see, the hardest decision he’d made. Telling me to obey the others.
But if he hadn’t wanted to keep me from Chase, if he hadn’t been trying to keep the Rabid a secret—why?
Because, his eyes seemed to whisper, you had to leave.
If he hadn’t given me the order, I wouldn’t have disobeyed it. If I hadn’t disobeyed it, he couldn’t have had Sora beat me, and Ali would never have taken me away. And if I’d never left Callum’s territory, I wouldn’t have had the time or the space or the room to grow up. I wouldn’t have recruited Lake to our fight. I wouldn’t have been forced to use the dreamscape to communicate with Chase. I wouldn’t have found my way into the Rabid’s head.
Changing one piece of the puzzle changed them all, and this was something that Callum had constructed very carefully.
I came back into my own body and sat down hard on the ground. I’d realized that Callum had probably planned for me to throw Shay’s line about democracy back in his face, that he’d known or at least suspected that the Rabid’s victims would claim me as their alpha, but I hadn’t really let myself hope that I was anything more than a detail.
That to Callum, the big picture had always gone back, again and again, to me.
For months, years, maybe my entire life, Callum had been preparing me to save the children Wilson had Changed; he’d been pulling my strings and Chase’s and everyone else’s. And that moment—the one that had nearly destroyed me—when he’d ordered me beaten, he’d done it not to save face with the pack, but because he needed Ali to take me to Montana.
He’d done it for me.
“I’m not sorry for it, Bryn. I’d do it again. And I needed you to know that.”
I got the feeling that he wasn’t here looking for forgiveness, and he wasn’t here just to let me know that even when I thought he’d left me, I’d been loved. He was warning me—because sometime, down the line, his knack for seeing and manipulating the future might involve me again. Depending on what he foresaw—for his pack, for me, and for mine—he might be left with some tough choices and he wouldn’t promise to deal me in, not if keeping me in the dark pushed things in the direction he wanted them to go.
I nodded. “Consider it known,” I said. “And for the record—everything I did? I’d do it again. And if it ever comes down to the safety of my pack versus the safety of yours …”
Callum smiled. “Consider it known.”
There was something about the expression on his face that made me suspicious, made me wonder if it was starting already. If he knew something that I didn’t.
“It’s not going to come down to the safety of my pack versus the safety of yours, is it?” I asked. “At least not immediately. There’ll be other threats. Outside threats. The other alphas, maybe. Or something worse.” I paused. He said nothing, and I knew without asking that I couldn’t push my way back into his head no matter how hard I tried.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“The future’s always changing, Bryn.” That was it. That was all he gave me. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t. He was an alpha. So was I. Things were different. I couldn’t just bait him into giving me an answer.
I’d have to wait it out.
“You really are the most impossible man I’ve ever met,” I told him. He flopped down beside me on the grass and brushed his grizzly cheek against mine. “And you are, without question, the most troublesome and irksome child I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing.”
Callum and I had been family once. We bore each other’s Marks still. I savored this moment, because deep down, I knew that I wasn’t a little girl anymore, that I wasn’t his anything anymore, and that for as long as I was alpha of my pack and he was alpha of his, we would never just be Callum and Bryn again.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
I belonged to my own pack now, and they belonged to me—Devon and Lake and Chase, Maddy and Lily and the rest of the Resilients, most of whom weren’t even into their teens. A random and rather twisted thought occurred to me, and I smiled.
“What are you smiling about, Bronwyn Alessia?”
I shrugged. “It’s just that I was raised by wolves, and now in a twisted way, with all the kids around here, I’m raising them. Ironic, huh?”
Callum snorted. “Bryn, m’dear, if there’s any justice in this world, they’ll be nothing but trouble.”
I groaned. Knowing my luck—and theirs—they probably would.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Before this book had a title, I referred to it simply as “love book,” because it was written for the sheer love of storytelling, and I owe an incredible debt to those who helped bring it into print. At the top of that list are my agent, Elizabeth Harding, who believed in this book from day one, and my editor, Regina Griffin, whose editorial input and passion for this project both challenged and thrilled me. I’m also thankful to the rest of my Egmont and Curtis Brown families—Mary Albi, Elizabeth Law, Alison Weiss, Nico Medina, Greg Ferguson, Rob Guzman, Doug Pocock, Holly Frederick, Dave Barbor, and Ginger Clark.
The single biggest blessing in my life as a writer has been the incredible and constant support of my writing friends, who really are my people (or, to put things in werewolf terminology, my pack). Melissa Marr, Ally Carter, and Sarah Cross keep me sane and make me smile, and I’m also grateful to Team Castle, for recharging my writerly batteries when I needed it most, and Bob, who’s always there for a late-night email.
Finally, thanks go to my family and friends for putting up with my total absorption into this project. Thanks to my mom, who’s always been my first reader; my dad, for providing valuable weapons expertise for some of the later scenes; my brother, Justin, who taught me everything I know about overprotective alpha males (Just kidding! Kind of.); and my sister-in-law, Allison, who does an excellent job at curtailing aforementioned brother’s protective instincts. I love you all!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JENNIFER LYNN BARNES has been writing as long as she can remember, completing her first young adult novel, Golden, at the age of nineteen. She is also the author of Platinum, The Squad series, Tattoo, and Fate. Currently continuing graduate studies in developmental psychology at Yale University, she splits her time between New Haven, Connecticut, and her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can visit her online at www.jenniferlynnbarnes.com.
EGMONT
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First published by Egmont USA, 2010
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New York, NY 10016
Copyright © Jennifer Lynn Barnes, 2010
All rights reserved
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www.jenniferlynnbarnes.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnes, Jennifer (Jennifer Lynn)
Raised by wolves / Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
p. cm.
Summary: A girl raised by werewolves must face the horrors of her past to
uncover the dark secrets that the pack has worked so hard to hide.
eISBN: 978-1-60684-181-5
[1. Werewolves—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B26225Rai 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009041157
CPSIA tracking label information:
Random House Production • 1745 Broadway • New York, NY 10019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
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