Sheppard eyed me meaningfully. “I am not going to let that happen.”
“Nor would I expect you to,” Kristos said. “But you need to know how they're going to respond if they find out about her. If they get wind of this, they will come down hard on your pack.”
Sheppard pinched the bridge of his nose. “And we sent one straight to them.” It was more of a mutter to himself.
“What?”
“We took the former werewolf to Blood of the Cross here,” Sheppard replied. “It’s where we take the sheep.”
Kristos harrumphed. “I suggest you pull on whatever contacts you have to make that one disappear. It may already be too late; the church leadership may already know.” He sighed and lowered his voice, it practically rumbled through the phone now. “Maybe times have changed and maybe they won't kill you all, but if the church hears about her, you can be damn sure you'll never see your consanguinea again.”
I stared at the phone. I didn’t even have words. The church would just kidnap me? Would that be worse than what the military wanted?
Sheppard caught my eye. “I’m not going to let that happen either, she chose pack.”
“Then your real concern is whether or not she’s a danger to that pack of yours,” Kristos said.
Sheppard nodded. “Exactly.”
“Well, she’s not,” he replied. “Or at least, she shouldn’t be—so long as your pack’s free of douchebags like that hothead you used to have.”
Matt opened his mouth, but Sheppard placed a hand on Matt’s chest, stopping whatever he was about to say.
“All consanguinea have control over their abilities,” Kristos continued. “So should she. God only knows what degree her control should be and how she learns it, but she absolutely should have control.” He raised his voice, though he had to have known it wasn’t necessary. “And little one, you shouldn’t have to worry about doing it by accident. Whatever happened in the moments you dusted the vampires or turned the werewolf, you wanted to remove a threat, so you did.”
I backed into the dining room and sank into a chair. I shouldn’t be able to do it by accident. He was right. I had wanted to remove a threat every time. With the vampires, I just wanted to eliminate them—and with the crazed werewolf, I just wanted her to stop.
“Thanks for your help, Kristos,” Sheppard said. “It’s much appreciated.”
“You take care of yours, Shep,” he replied, and the line went silent.
Sheppard tapped the screen and pressed the button on the side of his phone before sliding it back into his pocket.
“That asshole has some nerve,” Matt barked.
“No,” Sheppard said, looking at him. “He has a point. He knows who you were 275 years ago, Matt. You were a lot quicker to anger then; you flew off the handle at a moment’s notice.”
Matt crossed his arms.
“You’ve calmed down since then,” Sheppard said, placing a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “You’re still pretty quick to anger, but at least you think about it before flying into a fight.”
Matt pressed his lips into a line, his expression resigned. “Hmph.”
A thought occurred to me. “How do you know he’s not making a call to church leadership right now?”
“I don’t,” Sheppard said. “But he and the church had a falling out long ago. He’s not likely to go back to them, ever.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
I RAKED MY HANDS THROUGH my hair. “Well what he said is great and all, but not knowing how I’m doing this is terrifying.” My thoughts turned to the gritty bone and slimy skin. “And it’s disgusting—the taste of ash and rot in my mouth turns my stomach. But more than that, I have to know for sure if I’m a danger to anyone here. Kristos seems to think not, and I don’t seem to do anything to you, but—” I looked to Jonathan and the lump in my throat returned.
He was still shirtless in the kitchen. He had been leaning against the counter of the island, but pushed off it and took a couple of steps toward me.
“He said you should have control,” Jonathan said. “And he seemed to be pretty certain of that.”
Sheppard nodded. “Consanguinea usually do. He made a good point.”
Jonathan took a deep breath and knelt in front of where I sat. He reached a hand toward my face and my eyes went wide. “No time like the present then to find out for sure,” he whispered.
I sucked on my bottom lip and closed my eyes. I held my breath and willed myself not to hurt him—not to change him—as Jonathan’s fingers gently brushed my cheekbones. I released the breath I was holding slowly as his palm flattened against my face. I leaned into his hand as I breathed in the electric woodsy scent of him.
Then his mouth was against mine and my eyes snapped open in alarm. His eyes were closed, and his scent remained unchanged.
He wasn’t changing.
The kiss deepened, our tongues finding each other as I wrapped my arm around his warm, bare shoulder. I had lost my concentration, but it didn’t matter. I could touch him. He was safe.
He wrapped an arm around my waist, picking me up from the chair, and I let out a startled squeak, breaking off the kiss as I hooked a strand of hair behind my ear. I searched his face.
He smiled at me, his green-gold eyes glittering as he lowered me, letting me stand. “I don’t taste the rot or the ash, just you.”
I could touch Jonathan without any ill effects. Maybe I could touch the rest of the pack too!
Matt elbowed him. “Yeah, yeah, but we all know she likes you, Jonathan. She won’t change or dust you.”
I looked to Matt then, but there was still a wariness in his eyes. It stung, but he had a point. I looked back at Jonathan.
Mine.
God, how I’d like for that to be true. I squeezed my eyes closed and sighed. Maybe I couldn’t touch the rest of the pack. At least I could touch Jonathan and Sheppard.
Sheppard looked back down the hallway, eyeing the entry to the basement. He took a couple of steps toward the hall.
“Alright then, Lynn.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You need answers and so does the rest of the pack.” He hooked a thumb toward the basement. “There’s nothing else I can do for that wolf. I have exerted enough control over it to hold it in sleep. It won’t hold forever, but it’ll hold for now.”
I followed him as he walked downstairs.
“But I cannot push it to change back. They are too far gone. If what Kristos said is true, you might be able to turn this one human again, permanently—and on purpose this time.”
I thought of the girl with the long dark hair, now at Blood of the Cross.
“But what about their choice? Didn’t you say you would never try to hold a wolf against their will? How is this any different?”
“They never chose to be changed,” Sheppard said. “And now, their wolf has completely taken over. The wolf cannot make peace with the humanity within it and has gone wild and violent. Crazed.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and I met his eyes. There was a sadness and disappointment there that I hadn’t seen in him before now.
“There is nothing for this one, Lynn. Without my control, it will kill people. That is a fact. As it is, the strain of keeping even this much control over it puts the pack at risk. Pack must come first.” He put a finger up, forestalling my next question. “You need to know if you can control it, and so do they.” He gestured to the sleeping wolf in the cage. “This one will never go back to walking on two legs without your intervention, and it is a danger to those we protect on four. It no longer gets a choice about the matter.”
God, I could feel the truth of his words in my bones, and not even a hint of power had washed over me. I looked from Sheppard to the sleeping wolf. “You’re sure it won’t wake and try to take my hand off?”
Sheppard nodded. “Yes—that much I am certain of.”
I bit my lip as I approached the cage. Taking a breath, I tried to simply clear my head as I reached for the sleeping wolf, pushing my hand into the dark, tawny
fur at its shoulder. “Well at least just touching them doesn’t do anything.”
The pack had gathered on the basement stairs now. They were watching. Well, good.
Sheppard nodded at me. “Good.” There was a note of relief in his tone. “Now try.”
I nodded and looked back at the sleeping wolf, taking another long deep breath. I tried to distinguish the scents of my pack on the stairs: Sheppard’s warmth, the spicy musk of Matt, the vanilla tinged scent of Chastity, the flowery scent of Kaylah, the cinnamon-and-clean-laundry of Daniel, the orange-chocolate of Ian, the motor oil scent of Jamie, and the electric woodsy warmth of Jonathan. I looked at where my hand was buried in the wolf’s fur and concentrated on the thought of bringing this poor creature’s humanity back.
A warm tingle started in my fingertips, spreading through my hand and up my arm like the pins-and-needles of a limb that has fallen asleep. Slowly, the fur under my hand became skin until a naked blonde teenager lay on the floor of the cage. She was petite and thin, with shoulder length blonde hair. A bottle blonde, her dark roots were showing. Her blue eyes fluttered open, unfocused, and closed again. She was pretty and—even in her unconscious state—I got the feeling that she was somehow wild, probably a party girl from downtown, though she was clearly below the drinking age.
Chastity appeared next to me with a blanket as Sheppard opened the cage and picked the slight girl up.
I met Sheppard’s eyes and then looked down at my hands, turning them over to examine them. Now that I wasn’t touching her, the tingling sensation dissipated throughout my body.
“Kaylah,” Chastity called. “Grab me some clothes for her.”
Sheppard nodded at me. “Good job, Lynn. You saved her life.”
Holy shit I had.
Comforting warmth spread through me, but this time, it had nothing to do with Sheppard. He had been staring down the barrel of having to kill this poor girl for circumstances that had come together entirely outside of her control.
And I had just changed that.
“Frederick is a perv,” Ian asserted.
“They all are, Ian,” Matt said. “Bloodsuckers are only ever interested in the pretty ones.
“Then they get dinner and a show,” Jonathan said.
Kaylah bounded up the basement stairs and came back a moment later with sweatpants and a t-shirt. Man. The pack just goes through clothes like candy.
“Let’s get her dressed and upstairs before she’s conscious,” Sheppard said.
Kaylah tugged clothes onto the girl. “I figg’r we can’t take ‘er t’ Blood o’ th’ Cross.”
Sheppard shook his head, handing the girl to Kaylah. “No, we’ll have to hang on to her here for now. I called Buckheim and expect him on our doorstep at any time. We can hand her to him. Maybe he can get her lost in the system or into witness protection.”
“Because if the church hears about her,” Daniel started.
“Then it’s trouble for all of us,” Ian said.
The pack moved to make room for Kaylah to pass through on the stairs. She disappeared down the hallway.
“What about the one we already took there?” Jamie asked.
Sheppard looked to him. “We’ll have to see if Buckheim can get her released to him as well. He’s the only pull we have here. Losing sheep in a mental health facility is easy. All the packs do it. But losing a former werewolf? That’s not something that’s done. We can hide bodies if we need to, make them look like other things happened. But there’s never been anyone that survived becoming a werewolf and then actually went back to being a human. I’m not even sure Buckheim will believe me, but if I ask him to do it as a favor, he’ll do all he can to make it happen.”
“Oh he’ll believe you,” Matt said. “It’ll be all you can do to get him not to take Lynn with him when he comes.”
My heart lurched and the air felt thin.
“I’m not going with him.” My voice probably came out more panicked than I meant it to. I shook my head, my vision blurring as the words spilled from me. “He’s not home. Not even my apartment is home anymore.” I gulped in air as the lump in my throat broke my words. “This is home. Pack is home.” I must have sounded like a sobbing little child. “I won’t hurt anyone. Never. Only vampires.”
Sheppard’s arms wrapped around me as the tears flowed.
“No one is going to make you go with him,” he whispered against my hair.
“Sheppard, please.” I sobbed into his chest. “I swear I will never ever use this to harm the pack. Never. Pack is where I belong.” And with that last phrase said, I couldn’t help but feel the truth of it in every ounce of my body.
Sheppard brought his hands up to either side of my face, kissing me on the forehead like my father used to do when I was a little girl.
“Shhh. I know,” he said softly. “But don’t swear it to me. Swear it to your packmates.”
I met his eyes then, sucking on my bottom lip and swallowing around the lump.
“Your pack needs to know they can trust you,” he said. “I know you’ll never do a thing to hurt them, but the words are important. We are human enough that words matter.”
I wiped the tears from my face with my fingers and nodded, turning to the pack on the stairs. Kaylah had come back to the basement and sat on the top step. She leaned back out the door, looking down the hall toward the living room, and then looked back at me. Slowly, she nodded to me. I met Jonathan’s eyes as he wiped at his cheek. He nodded at me too.
I closed my eyes and took a breath, forcing my thoughts to slow down.
“I’ve never belonged anywhere,” I said. “I never really fit in with the kids growing up. I preferred books to dolls. I was in an odd in-between generation with my extended family, so Christmases were always weird. On the odd year that I managed to actually get a gift, it was always for the wrong age, while my cousins opened mountains of exactly what they wanted. What few friends I made in high school moved away after graduation. And when my mom died,” I tried to swallow around the lump that formed at the thought of her. “Well, when she was gone, I guess my dad and I didn’t belong together so well anymore either.” My voice barely supported the words.
I huffed out a breath and looked up then, meeting the eyes of my packmates one by one.
“So when I tell you that I finally feel like I belong somewhere, it comes from a lifetime of searching. A lifetime of not belonging.” I rolled a shoulder. “Sure, it’s not the centuries-long lifetime that you all know, but twenty-two years of not belonging is still an awfully long time.” I took another slow breath. “Which is how I know—down to my soul, down to the core of my bones—that I will never do anything to jeopardize that. You all took me in and treated me like family without even a question. And maybe it was because you all knew so much about me by the time I got here that you felt safe.” I squeezed my eyes closed. “But then I got this weird ability. I didn’t ask for it, and I’d give it up if I could. It scares me more than I ever thought anything could.” I swallowed around the sob that threatened again. “But please.” Again, I met the eyes of my packmates in turn. “I’m begging you to trust me. I swear to you that I will never—ever—do anything to hurt this pack.”
I looked to Sheppard, then. He nodded at me and I looked back at the pack.
Jonathan closed the distance to me. “I told you we were safe.” He held my face and kissed my wet cheeks, brushing a thumb across where his lips had just been.
“I am never going to be afraid of you,” Matt said, standing. “You won’t hurt pack.” He pulled me into a hug.
I looked over his shoulder, meeting Jonathan’s eyes. “And I swear that will always be true.” He released me and punched my shoulder lightly as he stepped away.
“Girl,” Chastity said, her hazel eyes sparkling as she embraced me. “You’ve gone and done it now. You’re stuck with us.”
Was that a joke? Her curls tickled my face as she released me, and I wiped at my nose with my hand.
“P
ack’s pack,” Kaylah said. “We’re family.” She hugged me too. “No gettin’ ‘round it.” She wiped a wayward tear from my cheek when she released me, but her cheeks were wet too.
God, they were all touching me as they hugged me. I thought they’d never do that again. My heart sang with the joy of it.
“You always belonged here,” Daniel said, pulling me against him. He squeezed me once before letting go and ruffling my hair like you would a small child. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Sheppard knows what’s good for pack,” Jamie said. “He knew you belonged months ago. It was only a matter of time.” He smiled at me as he wrapped lanky arms around me.
Ian wrapped his arms around both of us. “Group hug!” But Jamie wiggled out as Ian whispered into my hair, “Sarcina eiusdem sanguinis.”
The blood and the pack are one.
I felt the truth of those words more and more strongly with each passing moment.
I closed my eyes and the strands of the pack practically glowed.
I had finally found where I belonged.
EPILOGUE (Buckheim)
“GRACE LYNN CARTWRIGHT; age 22; freelance copy-editor; consanguinea.” Elias had the girl’s file open in his lap.
“Werewolf,” I added.
Elias grunted as he flipped through her file.
Pulling his team home from overseas had taken longer than I wanted it to. I would have preferred to show up at Sheppard’s door with him three days ago, but our operations overseas were touch-and-go, and pulling a whole team out required putting another team in their place. It had been tricky paperwork, but when Langley—that arrogant brat—failed to get the girl to come in, I knew I needed a lighter touch. Elias was one of only two consanguinea in the program, and his healing abilities were much more extraordinary than his cousin’s ability to change quickly and without pain. I needed extraordinary to be sure she would come with me.
Another page flipped in Elias’ lap. “What’s her dad doing in Europe?”
“Forgetting about the pain of losing his wife,” I replied. “Ignoring his only daughter.”
A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1) Page 29
