by Leigh Kelsey
I wasn’t going to lose Jack. No way in hell.
“Fire extinguisher,” I whispered, uncurling my fingers from their locked position. Gods, that hurt. I breathed hard, pushing off the aches. Jack didn’t need telling twice; he darted into the back where we kept overflow of crisps, nuts, and pork scratchings, and returned with the fire extinguisher that hung next to the door, his features set in determination. Seeing his resolve settled me a bit more.
Before the rogue could act, partly distracted by the hag who’d got back to her feet and sunk her rotten teeth into his arm, Jack pulled the pin and discharged the fire extinguisher, spraying the wolf with enough carbon dioxide to shock him if nothing else. I grabbed the hose from him, propping the tank against my hip and shoving Jack away. He wobbled but he was so made of muscle that I didn’t manage to shove him out of the way, only an inch if I was lucky. “Find my phone. Get Cas, Gray, anyone.”
It felt a lot like catharsis to spray the lone wolf with a jet of co2 gas and watch him stagger back as it hit him in the snarling mouth. That stumble helped my now-forever-treasured patrons to get him onto the floor and hold him there. I lifted my finger off the trigger, panting hard, shivering with exertion, fear, and adrenaline. Memories hovered at the edge of my awareness, waiting to drag me into a black sea of misery and grief and hate.
“You alright, love?” an ageing lynx shifter asked, wobbling over to me, his wrinkled hands still curled into fists.
I gave him a pathetic attempt at a smile and rasped, “Thanks.”
He took off his weathered farmer’s jacket and settled it around my shoulders as Jack very calmly explained everything that had happened to whoever was on the other end of the line. I wasn’t cold but maybe this was the Whitby shifter version of those tin-foil jackets paramedics put you into for shock. The canvas material smelled of salt and brine and the sharp scent of home, of Whitby’s sea, cleared my head. “What a tosser,” he said in his gruff, growly voice and I barked out a laugh, finding myself grinning.
“Yeah,” I agreed, looking at the twelve people pinning the lone wolf to the floor so he couldn’t get to me. “What a serious tosser.”
LYRA
Cas arrived five minutes after that, finding me sat at a table with the farmer-sailor-lynx-whatever-he-was who’d given me his coat, nursing a half pint and shivering uncontrollably. Jack and the others had managed to truss up the lone wolf using cable ties and a length of rope the hag presented. No one had asked about its origins or use, and I didn’t want to know, either. Now Jack stood glaring at the rogue, his muscular arms crossed over his chest and his jaw set. Jack did serious and pissed off better than anyone I knew, even Casimir. Cas was more an I’m furious right now and I could punch a hole in the wall but it probably won’t last type. Jack was the type to nurse a cold fury for twenty years. I knew which I found scarier.
I expected Cas to storm up to me and demand to know what had happened but he just took firm hold of my elbow, pulled me to my feet, and wrenched me into his arms. The hug dwarfed me and as his pine and fur scent hit my nose, I collapsed against him. I didn’t like this kind of neediness, but I didn’t care right now. I needed this, needed my alpha to hold me. And he was holding me—clinging to me, I’d be tempted to call it. His fingers were buried in my hair and his strong arms locked around me. I wasn’t sure he’d ever let me go.
“I should have been here,” he rumbled, his voice a good few octaves deeper than normal, full of his wolf’s protective violence.
“It’s fine.”
His grip tightened, pressing on my ribs, flattening me against him.
“It’s fine, Cas. Nothing happened. I’m okay.” Ish.
He let me go a fraction but only so he could look hard at me, scan my face for signs of deception. I met his silver eyes, feeling my heart rate settle back to normal. Cas nodded and let go, and I thought that would be the end of it, at least until we got rid of the lone wolf and made sure he never came back, but he skimmed my cheek with the back of his finger. His caress moved all the way to my chin and down a lock of hair that’d escaped my ponytail, and a shudder worked through me—not through my skin, my body, but through my soul.
I hated to be this way, so hopeful, but there was nothing platonic in that touch. I didn’t think. I didn’t know. I sighed and stepped back. I wanted to read something into his concern so badly, I could easily be making it up.
Gray relieved me of coming up with an excuse to put space between us by throwing the front door open and storming over to me, squeezing me so tight my ribs protested.
“Gray! Ow!”
He released me and scowled, his eyes a little frantic, his face flushed. “I’m never leaving you here alone again.”
“Thanks,” Jack muttered, one eye on us, the other on the rogue.
“Yeah, don’t be a dick.” I play-punched Gray. Maybe a little too hard judging by the way he winced. “Jack was awesome.” I met Jack’s solemn brown gaze then, and before I could rethink it, I approached him and squeezed him in a hug. His arms came around me, and I was glad there was no panic or fear crippling me this time. It felt pretty nice. “Thanks. I wouldn’t have got through that without you.”
He nodded when I stepped back, his gaze as serious as ever, but there was a smile on his dark face. “I’m just glad we’re both fine.”
“Yeah.” I looked at the people around us, watching, concerned still. This is what happened when you were responsible for people’s alcohol intake; you became their friends. “Thanks a lot, guys. We owe you big time.”
“It’s no bother,” said my farmer-sailor friend.
“A round of drinks on us,” I decided, and because I needed to do something that felt like normal, I slipped back behind the bar and began racking up glasses.
CAS
I should not be this furious. I’d been an alpha for four years and my pack had been through many rough patches. I’d lost more members than I had kept—to better, bigger packs, to safer cities, to death by other supernaturals or by hunters. I should not feel this fury because a single wolf threatened Lyra—he had not touched her, had not drawn a single drop of her blood. But that didn’t change the fact that I had enough anger to shift on the spot. Not that it was possible. Unlike shifters who could choose to shift, I was bound to the moon like all werewolves.
Instead of shifting to burn away my anger with a run on four legs, I left Gray, Jack, and Lyra together and jogged to the gym down the road. As I worked through my normal work out, running myself too hard, too brutal, it was hard to lie to myself: I was angry because she was younger than me and needed my protection. Because she was female and wolf instincts didn’t understand she was fierce and deadly too. Because she was my best friend.
But that wasn’t true, and I couldn’t believe it was when my heart was pounding hard behind my ribs, my pack bond with Lyra wound around it tight, a cage of copper fire. That was how she felt to me—as fiery as hell, but with sparks of moonlight that were a mystery. I knew she had a temper, and pain in her past, but I didn’t know what that thing I sensed from her was. And I wanted to.
That was the problem.
I breathed hard as I lifted more weight than normal, hoping the fury would follow the sweat out of my body. By the end, I was calmer, but the anger in me had hardened to cold determination. I gulped down a bottle of water, wondering how I could to do what needed to be done. The lone wolf needed to be dealt with. And I needed to mark our territory again. That was my job—keep them safe—and there was nothing I would not do to keep danger away from them. Especially Lyra. The one my wolf raged at me to claim as my own, my mate.
LYRA
Three hours after I’d calmed down and accepted I was safe again, I found Cas holding his bleeding wrist over the flat, grassy hill above Saltwick Bay, just outside Whitby and a minute away from the cottage. It was pretty damn clear he was at the end of the boundary because he was unnaturally pale—and for Cas, whose skin was usually as white as his hair, that was an achievement—his face
was slicked with sweat, and his grey shirt was dripping. Oh, and he was dead on his feet, stumbling and swaying over the field.
“Dumbass,” I muttered loud enough for him to hear and ducked under his arm, supporting him as he wobbled again. He groaned, leaning hard on me and struggling to lift his arm high enough to let the blood drip in a steady line. He never let us help, even though we’d all volunteered to help him mark the boundary dozens of times. He had to be macho and do it all himself. Typical man. “How far left?”
“Just a few minutes,” he slurred, his eyelids dropping to half-mast.
I turned, putting the craggy face of Saltwick Nab behind us, the low cliff jutting into the sea. We were walking into the wind, which was fucking typical, and I stumbled under the weight of my idiot alpha.
As much as I grumbled at him the rest of the way, I was grateful for him protecting us. With his blood along the territory lines, any other wolves would think twice before crossing it. Of course, he didn’t have to bleed himself dry to mark out the boundaries—he could just piss along the line, any genetic material would do—but he had too much pride for that. And valued that weird thing called dignity. I’d have peed and kept my blood in my body, but hey.
Cas shuddered in my arms as we got to the next dip in the cliff face and I stopped, heaving a breath. His job done, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out. All his weight hit my arms. It was a battle not to stumble and fall right through the meagre fence along the cliff’s edge and onto the beach below. With that fall … best case scenario would be a broken leg. Probably a broken neck. But I dug my boots into the sand-swept grass and managed to stay upright.
“You’ve just got to be difficult, haven’t you?” I grunted, throwing an insult at his unconscious face.
The three-minute walk to the cottage hurt me worse than a five-mile run in wolf form would have. My legs were built for running but my arms sure as shit weren’t meant for holding up two-hundred-pounds of stubborn muscle.
“Again?” Gray sighed as I stumbled through the door, ‘accidentally’ hitting Cas’s pale head on the ageing door. If he woke up with a headache, well, it was better than finding himself passed out on the cliff. “Stubborn arse.”
“You’re telling me,” I growled, swinging my glare at Gray when he didn’t immediately rush to help me. As soon as his wiry-strong arms were under Cas, I let go and stepped back, letting him take over carrying Cas to his room. Opposite mine. Not that I’d ever calculated the precise number of steps I’d need to reach it. Or constantly fought myself against the desire to run from my room to his at night. Nope.
“Son of a,” Gray swore, dragging Cas to his bed and dumping him onto the duvet. I turned Cas’s face so he didn’t suffocate in his own pillow, ignoring the feel of his soft hair on my fingertips. I flexed my hand to get rid of the tingles. “How the hell does he get those muscles?” Gray asked, shaking his head and flinging shaggy brown hair into his chiselled face.
“Effort?” I shrugged. “Where’s Jack?”
“Hunting down our rogue’s name.”
I drew up to my full height, suspicious. “Why?”
“Cause if we’re right and he’s a lone, fine. If we’re not and he has a whole family about to follow him…”
“Good point.” I shook out my arms to get some feeling back into them. “Though why the hell would another pack want to claim Whitby? It’s full of shifters and witches and vampires.”
Gray shut Cas’s door behind him. “That could be why,” he replied, and when I frowned, added, “Bit weird, innit? That we’ve got so many different species here?”
I shrugged. Whitby had always been like that. I got why, though—this was the home of paranormal Britain. Dracula and all that shit. It wasn’t a surprise we’d be drawn here. “Not really.”
He snorted. “Have you never heard the phrase ‘open mind’?”
I gave him a blank look. “Nope. What does that mean?”
He shoved me in the shoulder, grinning. “Think about it. Vampires, I get. But the rest of us? Why the hell are we here?”
“Tourist industry?” I offered, heading for our cosy, homely shit-tip of a kitchen and ransacking the fridge. I took out a lump of cheese, a tub of coleslaw, and some raw bacon, drawing on the ever-effective puppy-wolf eyes as I turned to Gray.
He scowled, pointing at me. “Fine, but on one condition. Hear me out.”
Hear his wild theory in exchange for getting my bacon fried perfectly, as opposed to the blackened crisp I’d produce? I was getting way more than he was in this deal but I wasn’t complaining. I motioned for him to continue as I dug into the coleslaw with a fork.
“I just think it’s weird,” he said, tenderly laying strips of bacon in a frying pan. “Take Birmingham. That’s a wolf-only place. And Manchester.”
“Witches,” I input.
“Inverness.”
“Faeries. Although I did hear that a coven of hags had eaten a few of the fae families.” He levelled me with a look. “Go on, wise conspiracist,” I said, trying not to smile and shoving more food in my mouth.
“But here we’ve got a bit of everything. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately, about why we’re all drawn here. It’s probably nothing.”
“It’s definitely nothing,” I muttered, then bit off a sizeable chunk of cheese.
“But since that light, and the pulse, it seems like anything can be possible.”
“And the fact the church was flattened,” I added, then realised I was adding evidence to his theory. Dammit.
“Exactly!” He flipped bacon with enthusiasm, the smell of sizzling meat hitting my nose and making my stomach growl despite the food I’d already given it. It seemed that lately I couldn’t eat enough to satisfy my hunger. That’d better not be another knock-on from the red light. Although it was probably more to do with my period coming up … three weeks ago.
I swear three weeks ago.
I put down the coleslaw and cheese and went to the calendar hanging on the wall, my heart beating so hard. I wasn’t pregnant—chance would be a fine thing—but that wasn’t what I was worried about. Gods, please, no, I thought, counting from my last period. Gray watched me but said nothing as I did the calculations. Yep. Three weeks late.
Without turning, my shoulders drooped, I said, “You didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah.” His voice was guarded as hell. “Wondered when you’d figure it out.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I repeated, anger finding its way through the shock. I spun so I could glare the full force of it at Gray’s guilty, red face. He busied himself putting the bacon on a plate as I growled at him. “I’m in season, and none of you bastards thought to tell me?”
LYRA
Everything started to stack up quickly. The fact I’d been devouring food so quickly. The lone wolf stalking me and, when faced with a whole pub full of threats, refusing to be budged. Even Cas’s reaction to me being threatened. It was mating season, and whatever scent I was putting out was screaming female in heat, come and get it. I was an all you can eat freaking buffet.
I was seething but, loathed as I was to admit it, the bacon took the edge of my anger. It wasn’t their fault I was breeding, but they could have given me a little warning. “How long?”
“Since Wednesday.” Gray’s chair scraped as he took a hesitant seat across from me at the kitchen table. Silence, except for the tacky melting clock replica ticking on the wall. Gray’s nervousness and dread were palpable.
“Two days,” I exhaled. Not that bad, as far as lengths of deception went. “Alright, I guess I forgive you.”
Gray slumped over the table, the strands of his brown hair fanning around him. “Thank god.”
“So that’s why the rogue came for me,” I said, finishing the last of my food. “Not because of the red light.”
“Not necessarily.” I jumped as the voice seemed to come from nowhere but as I vaulted out of my seat, more than a little on edge, Jack gave me a reassuring smi
le, shutting the front door behind me. Jack. Smiling. Reassuringly. Did this bitch in heat stuff mean everyone had to be nice to me?
Jackpot.
I matched his smile, feeling a lot softer towards him after this afternoon … until his words hit and my stomach curdled.
“Not necessarily?” I repeated, scowling. “So the rogue did come for me because of the light flare?”
“Maybe.” Jack stripped off his coat and took a seat, running a hand over his face. Stress showed in the creases on his forehead, the tightness of his shoulders. “The lone’s name is Max Jackson.”
“Poor guy,” Gray muttered.
I snickered. I was glad my name didn’t rhyme, though I suppose Max Jackson was better than some of the names I’d seen. There was a Russian kid in my class in year ten called Semen. Not pronounced the same but still. Semen.
We both earned reprimanding stares from Jack. “He’s from Nottingham. I managed to track him down, spoke to his old alpha, and he only left last night.”
“Huh?” I sat forward. “That makes no sense. A wolf walks away from their pack and comes straight for me?”
Jack nodded. “What I was thinking at that point was he’d come in this direction and happened across your scent.” He took a tight breath like he was bracing himself and levelled a serious stare on me. “You’re in season, Lyra. That’s the reason he came after you.”
Holy shit, someone who told me the truth. I gave Gray a look to say, look, this is how it’s done, buddy. To Jack I said, “I know. I figured it out.”
Jack looked relieved that I hadn’t gone off on him to say the least. My temper was legendary in this house. “I thought it was a coincidence, but his alpha said Max was acting strange. Turned his nose up like he’d caught a scent, and then started packing his bags.”
