Amber snorted in amusement and smile at him. “You’re resourceful, I’ll give you that.”
He was almost embarrassed by the way he swelled with pride, but it was the first time in a long time that he’d been given a compliment like that.
Chapter 6
AMBER
Amber went through the motions of brushing her teeth while staring into the mirror with a blank expression. Her eyes used to be hazel; now they leaned more toward brown with a hint of red. She leaned over and spit in the sink then rinsed her mouth with water.
Dylan would have loved it. He would have wanted to catalogue every change and post pictures on social media. Her fingers clenched tightly on the edge of the sink. Claws crept out of the tips. The porcelain cracked under her hands and her breath came in short pants. Angry that she was in this situation and having to relive these memories all over again pushed her eyes all the way to red.
A hesitant knock on the door startled Amber. She stepped away and the claws slipped back into her fingers. With a deep breath, her eyes returned to normal.
“Are you…okay?” Tommy asked hesitantly. “I thought I heard something break?”
Through the pack bond, she was flooded with concern, and a little fear. It was brave of Tommy to approach her when he thought she was freaking out. She had to get it together. They deserved better than an unstable alpha who might bite their heads off.
She plastered a smile on her face and opened the bathroom door. “I’m fine, just had a…” she sighed, then finished lamely. “I dropped something in the sink. Did you find the extra blankets?”
It was apparent from Tommy’s expression that he knew she was lying, but he didn’t call her on it; he just nodded and walked back to the living room. Amber followed. She didn’t want to be by herself right now. All that did was give her time to think about things she didn’t want to think about.
Tommy seemed to want to intrude in her apartment as little as possible, but Genevieve did not have that problem. She was sprawled on the couch with a bag of chips and a beer from the fridge.
“Why is your reception so crappy?” Genevieve asked as she flipped to another grainy channel on the television. She had been grumpy and embarrassed the entire drive back to the apartment, but once she had settled on the couch with more food, she had calmed down. Any attempts to talk about what had happened had been met with stubborn silence, so Amber had given up for now and decided they’d had enough arguments for one day.
“I don’t pay for the enchanted signal,” Amber shrugged. “I don’t really have time to watch TV.”
Genevieve looked at her like she was an alien, then flinched away from the window. “There’s someone—”
A knock at the door interrupted her warning.
Amber waved Tommy behind her and approached the door as quietly as she could. She was nervous, and the wolf prowled inside of her, ready to face any threat to her territory. The peephole showed Donovan standing in front of the door, a pleasant expression on his face.
Donovan, she mouthed to the other two, motioning for them to stay back. She unlocked the door, but left the chain, and cracked the door open.
Donovan raised a brow. “Amber,” he greeted with a nod. “I’d like to talk.”
“How do you know where I live?” she asked.
Something flickered across Donovan’s face. “I simply asked arou—”
“So you didn’t have two of your pack members following us all day?” She was fed up with the bullshitting.
Donovan took a deep breath like he was trying to remain patient. “May I come in? I wanted this to be a friendly conversation.”
She yanked the chain out of the latch and opened the door wide. It wouldn’t have stopped him if he’d really wanted to get in anyhow; keeping it closed was just petty.
He walked in, eyeing the other two before taking a seat at the small table. Tommy crossed his arms and stood in the middle of the living room while Genevieve stayed on the couch and shoved a chip into her mouth. Her chewing was the only sound for a moment before he cleared his throat and turned his attention to Amber.
“I have been thinking over the offer I gave you yesterday morning, and have decided it was unfair to not extend the invitation to all three of you,” he said, looking around the room at the pack. “Your new instincts won’t allow you to split your pack up like that, and honestly, if you had accepted, it wouldn’t have reflected well on either of us.”
Amber crossed her arms and looked at him closely. This reeked of desperation. “If we were to even consider this offer, I’m going to need some honesty first. How did the wolf that attacked us lose control? What happened to him?”
“Loss of control is an issue for bitten wolves,” Donovan said, leaning back in his chair in a display of nonchalance. He traced his thumb along a groove in the table. “And he has been punished appropriately for his actions, but the nature of that punishment isn’t something I can share with you.”
“Why not?” Genevieve asked, licking chip dust from her fingers.
Donovan’s jaw clenched. “Despite your education, there are still some things you don’t know about werewolf laws. Things you will not know until you are part of a proper pack.”
“It’s amazing to me that even while you’re here practically begging us to join your pack, you still talk down to us, like we’re less than you because we’ve been bitten,” Amber snapped.
Donovan bristled immediately and rose to his feet. He seemed to grow in size as his eyes bled red. “I am offering you something no other pack would ever consider, but if you are going to throw my generosity back in my face with insults, then you can consider my offer withdrawn,” he bit out.
Genevieve dropped the bag of chips and stood, advancing on Donovan. “You can’t call it generosity when you told your wolf to turn us.”
“Careful what you accuse me of, little girl,” Donovan growled.
Amber dropped her arms, claws pricking at her fingertips. “Get out of my apartment, and don’t come back.”
Tommy and Genevieve stepped closer, and she was relieved to feel their determination through the pack bond. Donovan didn’t intimidate them.
The last of the facade fell away and he snarled at them. “I will make you regret this,” he threatened before turning and yanking the door open. He slammed it shut behind him, and Mrs. Huntington banged on the wall they shared, shouting demands for quiet.
Amber walked over to the wall and banged right back. “Kiss my ass, Mrs. Huntington.”
The woman huffed and shuffled away. Amber let her head drop against the sheetrock. She was drained, and while she knew turning Donovan away had been the only option, that didn’t mean she was confident everything would be okay.
“He needs you for some reason,” Tommy said, echoing his comments at The Market.
“It’s because she’s an alpha,” Genevieve said, crossing her arms. “I’m just not sure how that helps him.”
“We keep coming up with more questions and no answers,” Amber said, laughing humorlessly. She ran a hand down her face and squared her shoulders. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow. We have a little time.”
Chapter 7
AMBER
The smells of the hospital were almost overwhelming. Amber tried breathing through her mouth, then grimaced. That made it worse. She had gotten used to the smell of antiseptic when she first started working as a nurse, but now, she could easily smell the rot of infection and the feces from someone a nurse hadn’t gotten to help yet.
Pressing her hand over her mouth and nose, she grabbed a file to distract herself. She’d get used to this, too. Eventually.
Burning through her time off wasn’t an option, especially with the money she had spent getting Tommy a new wardrobe. Since he needed a place to stay, she was already thinking about seeing if she could upgrade to a two bedroom apartment without breaking her lease. She’d be able to afford it; she just wouldn’t be able to put money in savings like she had intended.
It had been cramped with all three of them in the studio apartment, but she was glad they both agreed to stay with her for now. Having to come to work today made her uneasy. The wolf inside her was practically pacing, constantly tugging at the pack bond to make sure it was still there.
“Amber, can I speak with you?” her boss Cory asked.
They got along fairly well, though Cory did have a reputation for playing favorites. But now, the elf’s voice was off. The tips of her pointed ears were pink, and she was staring at the floor intently.
“Sure,” Amber said, setting the patient’s chart down on the nurse’s station. An ominous feeling crept up her spine. She thought of every patient she had worked with for the past month. She hadn’t screwed anything up, at least nothing too bad. Everyone made mistakes. If she had really messed up, surely she would remember what she’d done.
Cory led her away from the ICU and into a little office. A man from HR, the one that none of the nurses liked, was waiting for them.
“What’s going on?” Amber demanded, stopping just inside the doorway.
Cory had a hand on the door, but couldn’t shut it without hitting her.
“Please stay calm, ma’am,” the HR representative said, lifting his hands and moving them in an overly deliberate manner. “Neither of us will attempt to harm you. You are safe here. You are not trapped in this room.”
Amber looked at him like he was crazy, then at her boss. “Cory, is there something wrong with him?” she asked.
Cory shifted on her feet. “Look, it was reported this morning that you are an unregistered, bitten werewolf. It’s against hospital policy. No one would insure us if we let someone who had been a werewolf for less than a year work here. I’m sorry.”
The HR representative pushed some paperwork toward Amber. “This is your final write up for nondisclosure of a condition that makes you ineligible to work here. Please sign it, and we can give you your final paycheck,” the HR representative said, tapping an envelope next to the paperwork.
A series of thoughts tore through her mind. Who reported it? It had to have been Donovan. He had found out where she lived, and apparently where she worked.
She bit her tongue to keep from shouting at the two people tensely watching her. They expected her to attack them. That was the stereotype after all. Bitten werewolves were out of control when they were new, while born wolves were zen masters of control. It was all bullshit.
Still, the rage she felt was amplified by the rage of the wolf inside her. She wanted to find the other alpha and rip him apart.
Forcing her arm to move, she grabbed the pen and scratched her signature onto the paper.
“This isn’t right,” she said, looking up into the eyes of the HR representative. “And you know it.”
“Legally, the hospital is obligated to—”
She grabbed her final paycheck and walked away. Her claws dug into her palm as the howling in her head drowned out everything else.
Chapter 8
AMBER
Amber sat in her truck staring at the contact list on her phone. She could call her dad; he would give her whatever she needed. Tightening her grip on the phone she dropped her hands in her lap. No. She refused to slink back home a failure. She had lost her nursing job, but she could do something else. Fix cars maybe, or work as a waitress.
She flung her phone into the passenger seat and started her truck. It grumbled and clanked, then turned on. Genevieve and Tommy weren’t expecting her back at the apartment until tonight. She was supposed to be working a twelve hour shift. That gave her almost eleven hours to try to find something else. Anything.
With her tires screeching against the pavement, she sped out of the parking lot, leaving the hospital in the rearview mirror. She cranked up the radio and tried to drown out the whirlwind of negative thoughts racing through her mind.
The wolf was restless, and angry. It was ready to fight, but there was no one to fight. She couldn’t growl at the insurance company or at a policy that wasn’t even written by the asshole who fired her.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly. Donovan was responsible for all of this. For the attack and for taking away the job she had studied four years to get.
The light turned red just before she was able to get through. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop halfway onto the crosswalk. A guy walked past and smacked the hood of her truck then gestured rudely.
She snarled and had the door halfway open, intending to beat his ass, before she realized what she was doing. Yanking the door shut, she counted down from ten with deep breaths. This wasn’t what she wanted, at all, but she wasn’t going to let it ruin her life. Somehow, she was going to make it through the Trials and become an alpha. She was going to prove everyone wrong.
Amber parked in front of a small cafe with a woodsy theme and a “Help Wanted” sign in the window. The restaurant was built into a massive tree that was obviously grown by elven magic. No tree grew that wide naturally.
The outside seating was covered by a canopy of heavy, flowery branches. As she walked up the pathway cool air skated across her skin. They had likely charmed the area to be a perfect seventy degrees year-round.
Pixies were fighting with birds over dropped food, trying to grab little morsels and hide under the bushes that fenced in the property. She ducked under one that flew straight across the path in front of her.
The door opened ahead of her as a couple walked out of the cafe. The scent of coffee and fried food drifted toward her, making her stomach growl. She hadn’t even thought about lunch after she’d been fired, but her new appetite was more than happy to remind her.
She stepped inside and looked for the hostess, but the post was empty. The place was nice but not too fancy. Elves tended to go for the be one with nature vibe. She’d always liked it, and their food was great. Nobody could grow a vegetable quite as well as an elf.
She was startled by a loud squeal and then a shout. “No, you can't have him!”
The angry shout brought the wolf to the surface as Amber whipped around to see what was going on. A witch with curly, blonde hair floating around her head like she just stuck her finger in a light socket had grabbed a pixie around the middle. Another witch with black hair had the small creature by the wings.
“It’s a stupid, little pest,” the dark-haired witch snapped. “I can take it if I want. You don’t own it!”
“I won’t let you—”
The other witch yanked back and the pixie’s wings were ripped from its body. It let out a piercing squeal of pain.
“You bitch!” the blonde witch yelled, lifting her hand to cast a spell.
The other witch’s friend moved faster and Blondie was thrown back, the pixie flopping out of her hands onto the floor. The witch that ripped off its wings jumped forward, foot poised to crush the pixie.
Amber stepped in her path and shoved her from the side just in time for her foot to come down on the tile floor instead.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she shouted, forcing herself between the witch and the pixie. “Leave it alone.” Nobody really liked pixies, but that was just cruel. There was no reason to torture the damn thing.
The witch lifted her hand, turning her hateful gaze on Amber. Amber grabbed it, squeezing the witch’s wrist tightly.
“Try it and see what happens,” she growled, her eyes flashing red. She had just ruined her chance to get a job here, but she’d be damned if she just stood by and watch those witches pick on a defenseless little animal. She couldn’t fix everything that had gone wrong today, but she could stop this.
The witch smirked and a flash of green hit Amber in the face. She doubled over and vomited, lumpy slime pouring from her mouth. She shoved the witch with a growl, then vomited again.
Light flashed through the cafe, blinding her and everyone else. A hand wrapped around her arm and someone dragged her toward the back.
“We need to run,” the blonde girl whispered.
At least she hoped it was her. She smelled right. The cool air of the patio swept over them as she let the woman drag her outside. She stopped and vomited, the putrid slime making her gag all over again.
“Come on,” the blonde said impatiently. “Vomit and run.”
Amber tried to glare at her, but she still couldn’t see right. Spots danced in her vision, and everything was blurry.
“What did you do to me?” she asked the woman leading her farther away from the restaurant.
“Just a blinding light spell,” the witch said. “Sorry, I couldn’t warn you without tipping them off, and we really needed to get out of there.”
They slipped behind a building and her vision finally cleared. The witch clutched the bleeding pixie to her chest, but it looked like it was dead.
“I’m Ceri, by the way,” the witch said, smiling at her. “Thanks for trying to help back there. Most people don’t give a crap about pixies.”
“It’s messed up to hurt them like that,” she said, shaking her head. “And I’m Amber.”
Another wave of nausea hit and she doubled over, vomit splattering on her shoes.
“Witch on a stick, she really hit you hard with that spell,” Ceri exclaimed. “If you come back to my house I can make you something to counteract that. It’ll last for hours if I don’t.”
Amber burped loudly, and unpleasantly. “Please. This is fucking awful.”
Ceri peered around the corner, to make sure it was safe. “Come on, my car is parked down the street.”
Chapter 9
CERI
Ceri ran two tires up on the curb in her haste to get the car parked. Amber flung her door open and hit her knees in the grass, vomiting for a third time on their drive here.
The witch grimaced and jumped out of the car. The sooner she got a remedy down this girl’s throat the better. The pixie, still in her hand, was worrying as well.
Misfit Pack (The Misfit Series) Page 5
