“Hell yes” clashed with “Not now,” and I stood there until the couple made their decision.
“Right now it’s enough to know our little wolf truly is a little wolf.” Bianca patted her mate’s chest. “Can we come to you again if we change our minds?”
Their relief at getting confirmation of their child’s leanings sent a pang rocketing through my chest. Predators birthing children doomed to be seen as prey amounted to a death sentence in aggressive packs. They were right to be glad. I had to stop projecting my own abandonment issues onto them. It wasn’t their fault my parents had left because I was less, because I wasn’t normal.
“Of course.” A coarse hand gripped my elbow, warmth spilling up my arm, and Graeson led me away from the crowd, knowing as he always did that I needed to distance myself from the happy couple through no fault of their own. “I appreciate the rescue. I’m glad for them, but I’m not myself, and I don’t want to take away from their joy.”
“You were magnificent.” His eyes shone golden with pride. “I had no idea.” He brought my hands to his lips and kissed each finger. “Your talents never cease to amaze me.”
“It’s nothing. Just a trick I learned.” Embarrassed, I rolled a shoulder. “It made me popular with pregnant coworkers.”
“It’s not a trick, it’s a gift.” He linked our fingers. “You are a gift.”
Heat rose in my cheeks, and I had to look away before my vision went glassy. “You’re just trying to butter me up so I’ll stick around and handle my half of the pack duties.”
A chuckle radiated from him, and I sneaked a glimpse at his smile.
“You’re half right.” He wrapped my arms around his waist, and a pleased vibration rattled his chest when I linked my fingers behind his back without prompting. “I do want to butter you up.”
I leaned my cheek against his pecs and blinked at the hot prickle of tears behind my eyes. “You’ll get tired of me.” It was my greatest fear, letting him in, him seeing the lack in me and leaving.
“Maybe.” He kissed the top of my head. “Just in case, I think we should spend the rest of our lives together to be sure.”
I shut my eyes against a feeling too large to contain within my chest until I could breathe again. “Where do we go from here?”
Another press of his warm lips, this time against my temple. “You and I, or the pack?”
“The pack.” Forcing myself to step out of the circle of his arms, I glanced around the clearing. “We can’t stay.”
“I made some calls while you were in town. I found an RV campground about an hour north, near Chattanooga. They’ve got room for your trailers, and they have decent security in case we end up parking there for a while. They’re also the nearest location with full hookups.” He tapped the end of my nose with his fingertip. “Best of all, thanks to a sewage geyser erupting from their blocked septic tank earlier in the week, the place is a ghost town. Only two slots are rented, and those just for a few days. We’ve leased the rest of the campground for the week, so human interactions should be minimal.”
Gooseflesh rose in stinging peaks down my arms, as though someone had walked across my grave. Like death, the return trip to my honorary home state seemed inevitable.
“That sounds good.” Stinky but better than the alternative, squatting in a human-filled campground with a baker’s dozen wargs itching to get hairy and run under the moon. I hauled out Isaac’s phone and shot Theo a quick text update with the promise of directions once I had them, though he sounded confident he could locate me on his own. “We should get moving so we can settle in before dark.”
All too soon the trailers were hitched and the trucks idling. Our pack was thirteen wargs strong and required six additional vehicles, some with flatbed trailers, to get our caravan mobile. The strangest sensation swept over me, a wave of deja vu, reminding me of the summers when my extended family traveled together in a mile-long procession that drove locals crazy but made us laugh as their cars wove in and out of lanes to pass us.
The fuzzy warmth of the nostalgic moment evaporated as I tracked a blur of midnight fur rocketing through the trees. No doubt one of Bessemer’s spies off to make their report. Dismissing the mild annoyance, I swept aside the fading tendrils of the family memory. Those misadventures rang hollow without someone who had been there to share them. Even if he were here, Theo would hardly be in a mood to reminisce while his mother and brother were missing.
Another layer of guilt drifted onto my shoulders, the panic I wasn’t doing enough, the certainty I could try harder.
“We’re going to get them back.” Graeson rubbed my shoulders. “We’ll make your family safe again.”
His vow rang eerily similar to the one I had made Dell earlier. I hoped it being a double promise meant it was twice as likely to be kept.
“I believe you.” I trusted his word. Graeson was pigheaded and stouthearted. His promises had weight. “We’ll keep your people safe too.”
He clicked his tongue. “Our people.”
Pocketing the phone, I headed for my truck, thoughts divided between the family I had been born into and the one I was making.
Graeson and I cleared half the distance before an explosion rocked the ground beneath our feet and billowing clouds of blackness enveloped the sky.
Chapter 4
Ringing in my ears deafened me to what was being shouted around me. Pulling on my magic earlier meant I had summoned my wolf’s sensitive ears in the bargain, and ow. How were Graeson and the others managing the pain?
Rugged hands cupped my cheeks, and I turned my head to find Graeson kneeling beside me. Kneeling. In the grass. I was sprawled on the ground. When had that happened?
His lips moved, and I read my name there. “Ellis. Ellis. Ellis.” Over and over, he chanted it like a prayer.
“I’m okay.” My throat vibrated, telling me I’d spoken. “I can’t hear.”
A nod tipped his head, and he set about massaging my scalp with a serious expression pinned in place. Sound drifted back to me in slow increments, aided by the stinging discomfort at my hairline.
“You got hit by shrapnel from the explosion.” His fingers brushed my forehead. “I removed the piece of metal, and the cut isn’t too deep. It’s messy, though. Head wounds are bleeders.”
He took my right hand, rolled his thumb over the nail concealing my spur and met my gaze.
I tried to sit up, got struck with vertigo and let him lay me back down. “Are you sure?”
He nodded and offered his palm.
Gritting my teeth against the nausea, I extended my spur, fingernail dropping to the ground, and pierced the meat of his hand. The bite of his blood hit my veins, and the vision of him—gold dust and sparkles—filled my head as a pack bond of two sprang between us.
Being alone in his headspace, cocooned by his affection, broke a flush along my skin.
“Give it a minute.” His voice rang through my head. He kept a hand on my shoulder, pressing it flush with the grass. “You’ve stopped bleeding, but there might be more damage we can’t see.”
Aided by his donation, the world rushed back in a burst of frantic sound as the pack rallied around a column of twisting smoke beyond the trees.
“Better?” Gaze raking over me, he kept me pinned.
“I’m good.” I ground my palms over my ears to scratch the healing itch of what I suspected was a set of new eardrums. “What was that?”
Clasping hands with me, he hauled me to my feet gently, so my swimming head got time to adjust to being upright. Vertical again, I spotted dozens of wolves gazing at the black column rising up to pollute the sky. Chandler wolves.
“Graeson?”
He didn’t answer, and he didn’t let go. He started walking toward the source of the explosion and dragged me behind him. I didn’t mean to resist, but a bone-deep dread filled me the closer we got, and then my knees stopped working altogether.
My free hand flew to cover my mouth. “Oh gods, no.”
/> A twisted metal sculpture glinted in the heart of the flames. The paint had bubbled, and the explosion had blasted out the windows, but I’d recognize the frame of Aunt Dot’s vintage Ford F100 pickup anywhere.
Iron bands wrapped around my middle, yanking me to a gut-clenching halt as I ran straight for the inferno.
“You can’t get any closer,” Graeson yelled over the hissing and crackling. “Whoever did this used a magical accelerant. Look. Fire sprites.”
Tears blurred my eyes, from the heat and the heartache, but now that he’d pointed them out, I saw them everywhere. Red, yellow and white sprites leaped and twirled through the wreckage. They wouldn’t stop until the metal was molten and the spell released them back to the heart of the volcano that birthed them. The cycle would take hours to complete and leave nothing but ash.
The missing gas cans melting into plastic puddles several yards away were just overkill.
“I’ll talk to Bessemer and bargain for more time.” Graeson loosened his grip a fraction as he backed me away. “We’ll wait it out.”
“No.” My voice cracked. “This kind of trouble is why he wants us gone. He’s not going to cooperate and risk endangering his people. Not when he’s so close to dusting us off his hands.” Turning my back on the raging inferno felt like surrender, like accepting defeat, but there were more lives at stake than just those of my family. The pack was in more danger every minute we lingered, the tentative peace with Bessemer easily broken when he realized fae troubles had marked his land, his people, once again. “We should go.”
The destructive spell had been cast. There was no extinguishing it without witchy intervention I couldn’t afford and wouldn’t ask anyone else to pay. The flame-mouthed sprites were ravenous.
“Are you sure?” A growl laced his words as he glanced around the clearing where the Chandler wargs had gathered. “Once we leave, there’s no coming back.”
“She wasn’t in there.” The steadiness of my voice surprised me. “She and Isaac are together.”
Safe, I almost added, but I was afraid I had already lied to myself and didn’t want to compound it.
“Come on.” He tucked a strong arm around my waist and led me to my truck. “Hop up.” He patted the seat, and I climbed in, let him click the strap in place over my lap and shut the door. “He needs her alive. He needs both of them alive.” He circled around and slid into the driver’s spot. “The girls the kelpie took were kept for a period of time before he killed them and left them out in the open for us to find. It’s how Charybdis’s magic works, how his mind works. This…” his fingers clenched on the wheel, “…is foreplay.”
And Charybdis meant to wring every ounce of pleasure from my pain.
Chapter 5
A night breeze swirled around my ankles, kicking up the scent of fried foods and all but vibrating with the gentle hum of cicada song. The air was cooler here in Chattanooga, closer to the mountains, but I’d been jogging hard for hours. Perspiration rolled into my eyes, camouflaging wayward tears. Sweat dripped from my clothes, and my throat was drier than the Sahara, but the spiking pain in my side distracted me from the ache in my heart.
Feet made of lead, I lapped around the track circling the RV park rather than face those empty trailers and the expectant faces.
Heavy footsteps synced up with mine, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Graeson pounding the asphalt behind me, hair slicked back and droplets falling onto his damp shirt.
I might have laughed if I’d had oxygen to spare. “How long?”
Twice I had caught a whiff of almost but not quite recognizable fur, there and gone before I could identify the babysitter Graeson had sicced on me. However, his much more familiar scent had eluded me until he chose to reveal himself.
“The whole time.” Winded but steady, he put on a burst of speed to even us. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“Afraid Charybdis will jump out of a bush and grab me?” I threw back my head and let the moon beat down on my face. “There was a time when that’s exactly what you wanted to happen.”
A noncommittal grunt escaped him before he caught my elbow. “Enough exercise for today. Let’s go. It’s time.”
“Time?” Legs running on autopilot, I dragged him several yards before stopping. “For what?”
“To own our titles, mate.” Chest heaving, he searched my face. “We have no pack bond. Our members need that connection to keep their wolves level. It will bind us together, cement our bonds of fellowship, give them a sense of belonging to their people if not to a place. Plus, it’s a more efficient means of communication.” He spun me back the way we had come. “I asked them to have everything in place by the time the moon reached its apex.”
Scowling up at the treacherous orb, I let him march me back to our section of the RV park. Except he kept going, past the walking trails and bathrooms, beyond the laundry hut and the main road, and into the shadowy embrace of the poplars leading into a dense forest large enough a dozen wolves might stretch their legs unnoticed by their human neighbors.
Flickering dots illuminated the ground ahead in a winding circular path, candles as bright as stars fallen to Earth. Graeson escorted me, my arm now tucked in his elbow, and stopped when we reached the dried lip of an evaporated creek bed that crumbled under my sneakers.
A sense of wonder captivated me, rooting my feet to the spot. I was about to take part in activating a pack bond, in cementing the bedrock of this group, and it was a ceremony no fae I’d ever heard of had been privy to, let alone acted as a cornerstone.
Everyone with the exception of Graeson and me had changed from their trip outfits and now wore white. The men dressed in loose-fitting linen pants with flowing tops, and the women wore fluttering dresses so sheer the tips of their breasts were visible through the fabric. Flower chains adorned their heads, and even a few of the males wore single wildflowers pinned over their hearts.
I smoothed a hand down my drenched tank and scrunched my toes up in my shoes. “I’m not dressed for this.”
“That’s where I come in.” Dell stepped from behind me carrying a plastic sack, the kind from a grocery store, and a jug of water. Arm looping through mine, she tugged me away from Graeson. “You’re with us.”
“You know what that means.” Jensen approached Graeson with a second bag and jug. “Step this way.”
Graeson crossed to me, lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles in a dramatic farewell that made Dell snort beside me.
“Okay, girls.” Dell whistled through her teeth. “Let’s get our alpha ready for the ceremony.”
As we peeled aside to go our own way, I saw the males rallying around Graeson and urging him in the opposite direction.
Bianca’s touch whispered over my elbow, and a comforting brush of her magic followed. The last of the four females in our pack, one of the six who had accompanied Graeson to Abbeville, gripped the other. She walked so close her thigh brushed mine, and a hard lump jostled me. Glancing down through the gauzy material of her dress, I saw a bulky dagger that desperately wanted to be a sword secured in a leather holster to her upper leg.
“I’m Nathalie Wilson.” She put distance between us so the handle no longer created friction. “No one’s bothered to introduce us, but since I’m about to see you naked, I figured we should be on a first-name basis.”
“Um, what?” I dug my heels into the decaying leaves. “Why would you see me naked?”
“The purification ceremony.” Bianca squinted up at me. “Cord didn’t mention it? I thought he must have since you two performed the first half together.”
Casting my thoughts back over the past few hours, I struggled to pinpoint any rites I might have undergone.
“Sweating out your impurities?” Nathalie scrunched up her face. “He really didn’t explain this to you?”
“Nope,” Dell chimed in from up ahead. “He wanted it to be a surprise.”
A groan of utter mortification escaped me. A surprise meant they had put their
heads together, decided I would freak out over whatever was about to happen, and decided to ensure my cooperation via ignorance and peer pressure.
Same old Graeson.
I was so going to yank Dell’s perfect hair for this later.
“Here we are.” Dell arranged her supplies on the ground and tugged her dress over her head. “Get naked.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Let’s get it on.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, because she must be talking to someone else. Right?
Bianca carefully stepped from her gown, and Nathalie shucked hers in one smooth motion, then hung them both on a low limb to keep them wrinkle free.
I stood there in my three-quarter yoga pants, a sports bra and stained racerback tank top. Suddenly I was the overdressed one.
“Don’t be such a prude.” Dell linked her fingers around my wrist and hauled me into the creek bed. “Boobs are boobs are boobs.”
I gripped a sapling on the way past and hung on for dear life. “Yes, but these are my boobs.”
“We’ve already seen them through Cord’s memory,” Nathalie contributed. “His wolf saw you shower and broadcasted the images through the pack bond.” She belly-laughed at my dawning horror. “It was better than pay-per-view.”
I died on the spot. The elbow Dell was yanking must have belonged to my ghost, because no way had I survived the detonation of that bombshell.
Sniffing my shoulder, Nathalie pursed her lips. “I never noticed before, but you don’t smell much like him.”
“It’s probably a fae thing or a Cam thing. Trust me.” Dell dug her fingernails into my wrist. “They’re sleeping together.”
Atomic heat blasted my cheeks, but the fierce glint in Dell’s eyes kept me from denying Graeson hadn’t done more than spoon me and only then while he was in wolf form.
“We don’t need details.” Bianca showed mercy. Or so I thought before she winked at me. “Once the pack bond activates, we’ll get our PPV channels back.”
“You’re looking at this all wrong.” Dell pried my hand loose and dragged me stumbling forward. “The pack bond goes both ways, and you’re alpha. Think of Cord as a set of rabbit-ear antennas for your television. You’ll get the best reception of all, and Nathalie here has loose morals.”
Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) Page 4
