by Jae
“Nothing,” Kelsey signed, willing her hands to be steady.
“Yeah, right. That’s why you reek of fear like a prisoner on death row.”
His words robbed Kelsey of speech. That was exactly how she felt. More cold sweat trickled down her back.
Danny jumped up. “You’re so full of shit. I can smell that you’re lying—you said so yourself. I’m not a child. Tell me the truth!” He stopped signing and furiously scratched his arms.
Kelsey edged into his line of sight. “Please, calm down, or you’ll—”
Glenn rushed over. “Sit down, boy.” He tried to press Danny down on the couch.
Spittle flew as Danny bared his teeth in a wild snarl. He groaned and doubled over in pain.
Kelsey leaped over the coffee table and shoved Glenn out of the way. “Danny.” She slid soothing fingers through Danny’s hair, and to her surprise, he allowed the touch.
Then Rue was there. She touched Danny’s back with one hand and Kelsey’s with the other as if engulfing them in a group hug. Her powerful scent wove around them. “You okay?” Rue asked.
Danny nodded. He shook himself and breathed deeply. “Is that what will happen every time I get angry now? Man, it’s like some uncontrollable monster is living inside of me.”
“Don’t worry,” Kelsey signed. “I promise you’ll learn to control this soon. You’re not a helpless victim of your shape-shifting hormones.”
“I better take him out of here,” Rue said.
“Oh, no,” Tala said. “All of you are staying here, where I can see you. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a feeling I should keep an eye on you.”
Her instincts are great. Just their luck that the council had sent Tala Peterson. Tricking a lower-ranking Saru like Glenn would have been easier. “Please, he needs to get out of here,” Kelsey said. “Can’t you see how close to losing control and shifting he is?”
“I’ll take him to the basement,” Rue said. “Rafael said you’ve got an old woodshop there. That will calm him.” One arm around Danny’s shoulders, she led him to the door without waiting for a reply.
“Go with them, Zoe,” Tala said to her assistant.
For an instant, Danny looked back over his shoulder, his gaze searching out Kelsey as if he was wondering whether it was okay to leave her behind.
Then Zoe closed the door behind them, cutting Kelsey off from the rest of her pack.
Kelsey turned toward the TV.
The weather report was on. A bubbly, blond meteorologist predicted a sunny spring day. Kelsey dropped onto the couch. The news program had wrapped up without even mentioning shape-shifters.
Chapter 65
Rue tried to focus on her son as they headed down the stairs, but her thoughts kept drifting back to the video of Kelsey shifting that might be flickering over the TV screen in the living room—and over billions of TV screens worldwide.
When they reached the basement, Danny stepped into her line of sight. “You okay?”
Rue nodded. She opened the door to one of the rooms in the basement and glanced at a dusty workbench. “Come on. Let’s see if we can make the handles for Mrs. Mangiardi’s dresser.”
Danny trudged over to her, still eyeing Zoe, who was leaning against the wall. “Now?”
“Why not?”
In the past, even when their communication had broken down, they had always worked well together and had bonded over their shared love for wood. Maybe it would bring back some normalcy and help calm them down.
Old pieces of wood were piled up in a corner of the room, and Rue searched until she found one that might work. She took a sheet of paper and sketched the carvings she wanted on the handles. When she finished, she reached for a chisel and weighed it in her hand. “Here.” She handed Danny the chisel. “You do it.”
Danny hesitated.
Rue knew what he was thinking. Before, she hadn’t let him handle the chisel. Handing him the razor-sharp tool still made her nervous, but she knew he had faced worse dangers in the last week. Trusting him had to start somewhere.
“What if I mess it up?” Danny pointed to the intricate patterns Rue had sketched.
The control freak in Rue wanted to take over the chisel, but finally she grinned and shrugged. “Then I guess Mrs. Mangiardi will get a pretty unique dresser. I made a few of those when I was younger.”
Danny blinked and stared at her for a moment before he curled his fingers around the chisel and stepped up to the workbench. When he lifted his hand, Rue saw that his knuckles were white.
She moved to the other side of the workbench so that Danny could see her lips and hands. “Relax. Hold it steady, but don’t tense up.”
The chisel dug into the wood, first carefully, then with more confidence. Danny’s face was a mask of concentration. The tip of his tongue peeked out from between his lips, making Rue smile. He looks like Kelsey when he does that. She was still getting used to the thought that they were nephew and aunt.
Finally, Danny set down the chisel and looked up.
Rue moved her index finger over the handle. The curves of the decoration weren’t as smooth as hers would have been, but no one but her would notice the difference. She nodded at Danny. “Well-done. Want to do another?”
Danny nodded, reached for the chisel, and started fiddling with it.
Rue reached over and gently took the chisel from him. Her own fingers were trembling, so she put the chisel down. “Listen, Danny, I know you’re going through a lot right now. I’m here for you if you want to talk.”
“No, I’m okay.”
Rue didn’t need a wolf’s sharp nose to detect that he was lying. She wanted to hug him but knew he was no longer a little boy who accepted physical affection easily, especially not in front of Zoe, who was watching their signed conversation with a frown. “No, Danny, you’re not okay at all,” Rue signed. “No one would be okay after finding out he’s a shape-shifter and then on top of it all meeting a member of his birth family for the first time.”
Danny shrugged and shuffled his feet. “It’s just so weird. Is there…an antidote or something?”
“An antidote?” Rue blinked. It broke her heart to see him so unhappy with who he was, and she could only imagine how hurt Kelsey would be if he asked her the same question. “This shape-shifter thing is pretty new to me too, and I don’t pretend to know a lot about it, but it’s not a sickness you can or need to cure. Danny, this is who you are—who you’ve been all along.”
“Is that why you wanted to send me away? And why Paula left? Because she didn’t want a shape-shifting son?” Danny signed without looking at her face.
“Oh, God, no. Please don’t think that. Paula and I had a lot of problems, but none of them had to do with you. Back then, Paula and I didn’t even know about the Wrasa, and even if we did, it wouldn’t have changed that you’re our son. Wanting to send you away… It was wrong. I know that now. I just felt so totally unequipped to deal with a teenager like you—and that had nothing to do with you being a shape-shifter.” Rue sighed. “I’m sorry. I took the easy way out. I let you down—again. I made so many mistakes with you in the last few years. When my grandfather died, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I hid in my work like a wounded animal. I’m sorry I wasn’t always there for you. But I love you, Danny, and I’ll try to do better in the future.”
Danny stared at her as if antlers were sprouting from her forehead.
“I know your head must feel like it’s exploding with all the new things you’ve found out about yourself.” Rue gave him a wry smile. “God knows that’s how I felt when I first found out about the shape-shifters. But it’s not something you should be afraid of. Kelsey saved my life and my sanity in the last few days. She’s a wonderful person, and I’ve met other decent shape-shifters too. They’re not monsters.”
“Then why are they holding us prisoner here? If the shape-shifters are so decent, why are you and Kelsey scared to death?”
Leave it to Danny to ask the har
d questions. Rue wiped her damp hands on her thighs. She wanted to say “It’s complicated,” but that would just be another easy way out. “They’re just as scared of us as we are of them.”
Danny snorted. “That Tala woman or Glenn...they don’t look like they’re afraid of anything.”
“Fear sometimes shows itself in strange ways,” Rue signed. “The Wrasa try to fight their fear with strict laws that say it’s forbidden to reveal their existence to humans. Kelsey broke that law, and now we have to face the consequences.”
“She broke the law…for me?” Danny asked.
“She’s your aunt. I think she would do just about anything for you.”
When Danny’s nostrils flared and he turned his head, Rue realized that Kelsey had joined them in the basement. She sent Kelsey a questioning gaze. Had chaos broken out upstairs and in the rest of the world once WNY-TV had aired the video of Kelsey shifting?
Kelsey shook her head almost imperceptibly.
What? Rue stared at Kelsey’s pale face. Paula and Brooke hadn’t come through for them. The video hadn’t been shown on TV. Now her life and Kelsey’s lay in the hands of the council.
Chapter 66
Kelsey’s nostrils quivered as she stepped closer.
She looks like Tom and Justin when they smell someone smoking weed and want some for themselves. Danny sniffed the air, wondering which of the scents drifting through the basement had captured Kelsey’s attention. The smoky oak smell of the wood? The rusting tools in the corner? His gaze wandered farther.
Rue.
He rolled his eyes. Oh, man. My mother and my werewolf aunt. “I’ll go back upstairs,” he signed and walked toward the door.
Kelsey caught his sleeve. “Wait,” she signed. “I want you to know one thing before you go. Rue is right. I really would do anything for you.”
Danny snorted. “Just so you can stop feeling guilty for abandoning me.”
When Kelsey winced, Rue laid a hand on her forearm and frowned at Danny. “Don’t lash out at her, please. Kelsey’s not the enemy.”
Oh, yeah, sure. Now you’re on her side, not on mine. Danny folded his arms and glared at them.
“No, Rue,” Kelsey signed, “he’s right.”
Danny stared at her. He hadn’t expected such honesty. Was she really admitting to not caring about him? Even though he had just accused her of the same thing, the thought hurt.
“What you smell from me is guilt,” Kelsey signed. “I’ve felt guilty for fourteen years. First, I felt guilty for leaving the sinking car when your father sent me away. I felt guilty for being the one who survived when everyone else died. Then I felt guilty for not being able to fulfill my parents’ expectations.”
Her words touched something deep inside of Danny—something he didn’t want her to touch. He forced an indifferent scowl onto his face. “Yeah, well, I heard therapy can help.”
Rue stepped closer. “Danny—”
But Kelsey just smiled. “At first you reminded me so much of Garrick, your father, but now I think you’re a lot like me too.”
“Bullshit! I’m not like you at all.”
“We have more in common than you think,” Kelsey signed. Her calm was infuriating. “Deep down, we both think we’re not good enough and that we’ll never live up to our parents’ expectations—you because you’re deaf and now because you’re a shape-shifter and I because I’m submissive. We both ran away when our families broke apart and we couldn’t deal with feeling like a constant disappointment any longer. But you know what I found out?”
Danny shrugged, annoyed with himself for not being able to look away from Kelsey.
“The last few days made me realize that a lot of it is just in my head. My father never blamed me for not being able to save Garrick. He doesn’t think of me as a disappointment. He just wants me to be happy—but he’s a stubborn old alpha who can’t imagine that my way of happiness might be different from his.”
His head was buzzing. He didn’t want to deal with all of this right now. His overloaded brain latched onto one thing. “My father…was he deaf too? And my mother—?” Danny paused and glanced at Rue. “Ah, forget it. I don’t want to know.”
Rue touched his arm. “It’s okay to ask and be curious about your birth parents, you know?”
A hint of possessiveness in her touch belied her words.
“I’m not curious,” Danny signed. Asking about his birth parents seemed almost as if he was betraying Rue.
Both of Rue’s eyebrows rose. It seemed she could tell he was lying, even without a Wrasa nose. She exchanged a short glance with Kelsey. “I’m struggling with all of this too,” Rue signed. “I’ve barely gotten over the shape-shifter thing. I can’t get used to the fact that suddenly, out of the blue, you’ve got a birth family. I’m used to thinking of you as my son. Mine.” She tapped her chest. “And we both know I don’t share well.” A lopsided smile flickered across her face.
Danny grinned. Somehow, her possessiveness—even though he had always rebelled against it—now made his cheeks glow with happiness.
“But you know...you’re a wolf-shifter, so maybe we both need to adjust our concept of family. A pack is not a two-person thing.” Rue’s gaze veered to Kelsey. “Right?”
Kelsey moved closer to her and nodded. She glanced at Danny. “If we manage to make it out of here, you can have both. Rue and I want to do this together.”
“Do what?”
Wood shavings drifted over the floor when Kelsey shuffled her feet. “Raise you.”
Danny snorted. “No, thanks. I’m fourteen. I don’t need anyone to raise me. And besides, I already have two mothers. I don’t need a third.”
“I don’t want to be your mother. Just let me be your aunt.”
Danny lowered his gaze and slid his finger over the dresser’s handle. Slowly, he looked back up and studied Kelsey. As much as he wanted to hate her, he felt a strong pull toward her. She was still a stranger, but she was right: they had more in common than he had thought. Her scent seemed familiar as if he had known her well in another life. A note of freedom and home wove itself around Kelsey’s honeysuckle-and-clover scent, and it evoked images of running through the forest at dawn, then curling up in a safe den and going to sleep among pack mates.
He hesitated, fluctuating between curiosity and anger. Part of him was furious that they had left him behind without conducting a more intensive search. But if they had, he wouldn’t have Rue, and even though he had sometimes cursed her and wanted to hate her too, she was his mother and he couldn’t imagine his life without her.
He looked at Rue, who gave him an encouraging smile.
“Okay,” he signed. “We can try. But don’t think you can tell me what to do now.”
The scent of Kelsey’s joy exploded through his senses, instantly making him feel as if he had made the right choice.
Kelsey gently touched her fingers to her lips in the sign for “thank you,” then froze and stared at something behind him.
Danny whirled around.
Rafael, the younger shape-shifter, stood in the doorway, a grim expression on his face. He said something, but Danny didn’t catch it.
He turned toward Rue. “What does he want?”
“Tala wants Kelsey and me upstairs,” Rue signed. “Stay down here with Zoe, please. Maybe you can try to finish the handles for the dresser.” A cloud of fear surrounded her.
Something was going on. Something bad.
Fire flared along Danny’s arms. “I don’t care about the stupid dresser! I want to come with you.”
“No, Danny. Not this time. Please don’t make this hard on me.” Rue looked into his eyes. “Please.”
Danny nodded and hung his head.
Rue stepped closer and engulfed Danny in a tight hug, holding on longer than usual.
Something’s wrong. Very wrong. Danny clung to her too.
Finally, Rue let go and after one last glance back walked away.
When the door closed behind h
er, Kelsey, and Rafael, Danny felt a howl rise up his throat.
Chapter 67
“What happened?” Kelsey called as she followed Rafael and Rue upstairs. Her heart thumped faster than the footfalls on the stairs. “Did the council…?” She didn’t finish her question and tried not to think the worst. Maybe the commotion upstairs wasn’t about the council’s decision at all. Was it possible that Paula had managed to air the video after all?
Rafael didn’t answer.
Adrenaline pumped through Kelsey’s body. Her skin itched, and she longed to shift to escape the terrible tension. When they stepped into the living room, she pressed herself against Rue’s side.
Tala turned toward them. “Jeff Madsen just called. The council made a decision.” Her expression gave nothing away. She had excellent control over even her chemical reactions, keeping her scent carefully neutral. The semi-automatic pistol she pointed at them spoke for itself, though. “They voted five to four against you.”
Noises that sounded like house-high waves filled Kelsey’s ears. The tiny hairs on her burning forearms lengthened.
Tala waved the gun at Rue. “I need you to slowly lift your hands in the air and step—”
“No!” Kelsey pushed between Tala and Rue, shielding Rue with her own body. “If you touch one hair on her head, I’ll…I’ll…”
“Kelsey, you know there’s nothing I can do. The council’s decision is final, and everything you say or do will just prolong your suffering.” A hint of regret shone through the mask of Tala’s poker face. She lifted the gun, aiming right at Kelsey’s heart.
No, no, no, no. Kelsey wanted to squeeze her eyes shut but couldn’t look away from the gun’s muzzle. She reached back.
Rue’s hands found hers. Their fingers wove together.
But instead of pulling the trigger, Tala whirled around to Rafael. “Turn down that damn TV! This is serious business.”
Rafael apparently didn’t hear her. He stared at the television.
