by May Dawson
The ocean drew me under.
Chapter 21
Joan
There was a throb in my chest as Finn and Jet disappeared over the edge. I'd crossed a line. I'd never have a place in this pack again if anyone learned what I had done.
Finn hadn't deserved his fate. But I would stop at nothing to take care of Maddie.
There she was, at the narrow ledge at the very top of the cavern. Her pale face shone out of the darkness, surrounded by knotted blond hair…and twisted in anguish. For Finn. My heart dropped. She shouldn't have seen that.
I glanced at the back of the last shifter, who stood at the crack, watching his lost brother. Damn it. He might report back to Rippedthroat that I'd found Maddie. I couldn't trust him.
He heard me when I was right behind him. Just as he started to turn, I threw all my body weight against his.
As he fell away over the edge, my fingers frantically found rock and clung to it. With the ocean spread out at my feet, I drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
Maddie. Maddie was all that mattered.
"You were a traitor to your kind anyway," I muttered into the expanse as I took a step back. Maybe he had deserved to die because his pack had worked with the witches, but if I damned him to death, I was saying I deserved to die too. Whatever. It didn't matter now. Maddie was the only one who mattered.
"Maddie!" I shouted up to her, now that no one could hear me. "It's me! It's Mommy!"
She shook her head. Her small face was tearful. Suddenly, I felt stupid for calling myself mommy. I’d been mommy when she was taken from me. That was a long time ago. To her. It felt, sometimes, like an eternity, and sometimes like only minutes since I’d fallen to my knees beside her empty bed, her sheets still warm.
God damn it, she was so high above me. She'd climbed almost two stories somehow, to the very top of this expansive space. I looked around frantically, trying to find a way to follow her, but the cave sides were flat and impossible. Except for the narrow chimney... but only a child would have a chance of fitting.
Finn had led us in here knowing that only Maddie would have a chance to escape. But she didn't need to escape me. I was her mother.
"Maddie, come back!" I called. "I can explain everything!"
I would give anything to pull her into my arms, kiss her little tear-stained face, and hear her voice.
But she didn't answer me.
Instead, she crawled across the ledge on her hands and knees. It was so narrow that her knees barely fit side-by-side. My breath caught in my chest, and as much as I wanted her to come back to me, I willed her to cross safely.
She turned to her right and disappeared, into another cave. There was the faintest glow of light up there, as if she was on her way up and out.
I ran desperately back through the empty caves. I had to find my little girl.
Chapter 22
Piper
There were four men around me, wild-eyed.
My father held his hand out toward me, chanting in Latin.
Two witches had rifles trained on me.
The fourth snarled at me, the sound half-human and half-animal, as if he would command me to stop.
I didn't hesitate.
I bounded through both guards, knocking them to the ground. As my father scrambled for the gun, I whirled on him. He has the keys. I ripped into his side, my teeth clumsy, trying to get the keys.
He ran for the Jeep, running past the guards.
One of the witches frantically squeezed his trigger. The gun went off, the sound ripping painfully through my ears.
Before he could squeeze the trigger a second time, I ripped his arm off. He tried to scramble away as I jumped past him to the second guard. He turned to flee, and I slammed into him, knocking him down. My paws raced over his back as I sprinted after my father toward the Jeep.
Something slammed into my side. I rolled to my side, and jaws nipped at me as a big body tried to shove me down to the earth.
A wolf.
He was enormous, with black eyes and flashing white teeth, and he snarled at me as if he was warning me to stop. The two of us rolled over each other, struggling.
He got a paw on my chest, bearing his greater bulk down on me, trying to hold me to the grass. I rolled to one side, throwing my weight, and he slipped. As his weight came on my chest, cutting off my breath, his throat accidentally dipped low toward my jaws.
I snapped into his throat and locked onto him, holding him tight as he wrenched away, trying to shake me off. But my teeth were deep in his throat. I rolled over him, pinning him as he cried out for mercy.
I should kill him. I shouldn't leave him behind me.
But as fast as the cruel thoughts came, they fell away.
My father was almost to the door of the Jeep.
We'd never be free as long as he was alive.
I yanked away from the wolf and raced after him.
My father threw out his hand toward me. The air around him darkened and shimmered, and then it rushed toward me. I slammed into an almost-invisible wall.
Snarling, I raced around the shimmering edge of the wall, shaking my head to clear it.
But by the time I reached the Jeep, his car door was already slamming shut. I jumped up on the window, my claws scraping the glass. My father was wounded, bleeding, his arms shaking. He reached for the keys and realization dawned on his face as he realized that they weren't there.
I would have howled in triumph.
But then he pressed his hand against the dashboard, his eyes closing, his lips moving as he muttered. My paws slipped across the glass. God damn it. I had to shift back. I couldn't get his door open, I couldn't stop him.
The engine roared to life.
That bastard smiled at me one more time and waved his fingers in a flippant goodbye. Then the Jeep reversed rapidly up the trail.
He turned around, then roared out of the valley, leaving behind the bodies of his guards.
And he left behind the big, sandy-colored wolf, who rolled to his feet, his head low and his posture subdued.
I ran past him and back to Callum. Despite his white face and gritted teeth, he turned his head, trying to find me.
I had to shift back. I paced back and forth, trying to figure out how. I hadn't controlled the shift the first time. I didn't know how to go back. And as long as I was a wolf, I was useless. I couldn't untie Callum or unlock the cells.
I could hear Callum talking to me, vaguely. His voice was a comfort but I couldn't concentrate long enough to make sense of anything he was saying.
How did I go back? I was trying to figure it out when Callum's voice rose, urgent and afraid, and I turned to realize that one of the guards was up on his knees, pointing a gun at me. The barrel loomed in my vision.
If he shot me, it would be game over. My men were all still tied up or imprisoned. The witches would have the upper hand once more. I snarled, ready to leap forward at him.
The enormous wolf slammed into the guard. The gun went off just a split-second after, firing harmlessly into the air.
The guard screamed and there was a snarl and a sound of tearing and then silence.
Somewhere in the distance, Callum was still speaking. His steady cadence all faded together for me and I could not make out his words.
The wolf trotted toward me. He stopped a few yards away, ducking his head respectfully.
I cocked my head at him and a faint, uncertain whine came from the back of my throat.
Why had he helped me? His pack was working with the coven's.
He nosed the grass, and I went toward him cautiously. He bit down on something and lifted it up, and the keys glinted under the sun.
I looked up toward the cells and whined at him, and he ran toward the cells.
A few minutes later, Josh sat down heavily next to me. His arm closed around my shoulders. Arthur was lifting Callum down from the cross, laying him out with Logan's help. Callum groaned in agony.
I leaned into Josh. My wei
ght against his chest almost pushed him over, and he shifted, leaning into me and holding me even tighter. He'd been sweating, but Josh's sweat was pleasantly musky and warm and masculine. His hug reminded me of how he'd wrapped his arms around me so many times before, when I was human.
I felt the shift coming as my body flushed hot. I whined, afraid of the change even though I wanted it to happen, because I knew how much pain was coming.
"It's all right," Josh whispered, his hands stroking my face. "That's my girl. Toughest of all of us, just like I've always said."
I understood him.
Then his words were lost in all the private noise of the change. Muscles, bones, body rearranging. I tried to choke back my howls, my screams, but I couldn't.
And then suddenly, I was just a girl, lying in the grass panting desperately as I tried to catch my breath from all that pain, and my clothes were the last shredded fragments left of what I had been wearing.
Chapter 23
"Piper." Callum wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, as if to protect me, even though he was swaying on his feet.
"I'm all right," I promised him.
"Better than all right," he murmured into my ear. "You shifted."
"And I don't ever want to do it again." I still feel sick remembering the sound of my muscles ripping. Logan told me it would be the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life, and he wasn't wrong.
"You're amazing," Callum told me firmly, and the warmth in his voice made some of the horror fade for me.
"What the hell is your deal?" Arthur demanded of the other shifter, now once again a sandy-haired man.
"They've got our cubs," he said, his voice urgent, as if he recognized Arthur would probably be inclined to rip his head off. "The coven took all the children as hostages. They’re keeping them here, with your cubs.”
"Yeah? Did they have your cubs when you first decided to betray us?"
The shifter's lips tightened, as if he couldn't answer without damning his pack. "It wasn't my call."
Arthur snorted. "Because we killed your alpha. What's your name?"
"Tuck." He held out a hand that no one was going to shake. It took him a second to realize, and then he tucked his hands into his pockets.
"Are we taking him with us or leaving him here?" Logan asked. "We've got to move."
"Yeah, we do." Arthur patted his shoulder and moved to Callum's side. "Can you make it a few miles?"
"Yeah." Callum's voice was quiet.
"If you can challenge Roderick after being strung up, I'm sure Callum can make it a few miles," Logan said. "Come on. We're going to have company soon."
I wasn't sure whether it was Arthur or Callum that Logan was trying to antagonize with that thought. As he swept his hand through his hair, his restless tension felt contagious.
"Do you want to carry Kai and Callum?" Arthur demanded. "Yeah, we're going to have company soon. We've got to be ready to fight."
"Kai.” I'd almost forgotten, in my panic, about how he was doing.
"Josh is back up with him now," Callum told me.
I nodded and headed up the hill toward Kai, but I could hear them arguing behind me.
“What are our options?” Arthur demanded of Callum.
Callum asked skeptically, "You want to use magic?"
"If that's what it takes," Arthur said. "We'll worry about pack ways when we've all fucking survived."
“I thought you hated magic,” Callum said.
“I hate witches,” Arthur said, “because I don’t trust them. I trust you.”
His voice was gruff, but it made my heart lighten.
Up at the top of the hill, Kai and Josh were coming down. Kai had his arm over Josh’s shoulder, and they were moving slowly, like it hurt. Kai was alive. My sense of relief was so intense that it made my eyes hot, as ridiculous as that was. I blinked away tears as I bounded up the hill toward them.
A bloody t-shirt was wrapped around Kai’s shoulder, packed into the wound, and he moved slowly as if he was hurting. But when he saw me, a grin still spread across his face.
"Hey there," he said, and he held out his arm to press me against the good side of his chest. Carefully, I wrapped my arms low around his waist, my hands settling on the rough denim of his jeans. I didn't want to hurt him.
"I knew you'd rescue us," Josh said.
"You did?" I tilted my head to look up at him, crinkling my nose. "Because I thought our odds were terrible."
"Always had faith in you," he said in that easy way he had. It made warmth spark through my chest.
I grinned back at him. When I looked at Kai’s face, he was shaking his head. The big grouch. I squeezed his waist, very gently. "I wish I wasn't scared I'd hurt you if I tried to kiss you."
"I'll risk it," he said, and he held me tight around the waist, and I leaned up on my toes as he lowered his head. His lips brushed mine in a sweet kiss.
“Does this mean we’re done fighting?” I asked Kai.
“Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure if the two of us were done fighting, it would be because we were dead,” he said. “But I like you anyway.”
He was probably right. The three of us started down the hill together, with Kai leaning some of his weight on me. Despite his light-hearted words, the tension in his arms and shoulders gave away how much it hurt for him to move. I didn’t know how the hell he was going to make it on the run.
When we reached the bottom of the hill, Logan muttered, "Well, there's something I never expected to see."
I followed his gaze to where Arthur knelt next to Callum. His hand hovered next to Callum's wounds, and he incanted a spell the same way Callum had the day before.
Arthur looked to Callum, his head tilted, and then disappointment spread across his face.
When I reached them, I rested my hand on Arthur’s shoulder. "Let me try."
"No," Callum said. "Your energy is already depleted from shifting. You can't expend energy on magic too. I'm fine."
"I'm not," Kai blurted out bluntly. "I'm going to slow you all down. You've got to go on without me. I'll hole up somewhere--"
The thought of leaving Kai alone was an instant spike through my heart. I wasn't having any of that. "No, you're not," I told him. "Sit down."
Logan's lips parted, and I pointed my finger at him without looking his way. "Nope. You head up to the top of the hill and see if trouble's on the way. I'll just be a minute."
"When the hell did you get so bossy?" Logan demanded. The look he shot my way was almost betrayed. It made my stomach freeze, but I didn't have time to deal with that right now.
Arthur clapped his hand on Logan's shoulder. "Come on. We'll go together."
"Talk me through this," I told Callum as I knelt in front of Kai. "I've only done it by accident, if I have at all. By--"
"By what?" Callum asked.
Kai looked at me skeptically as I leaned forward, gripping his good shoulder with one hand. My lips brushed his, and he smiled, as if he was uncomfortable kissing me in front of a crowd. But then his breath caught, and he kissed me back. His lips grazed my lower lip, and he drew in a slow, long breath.
"I've missed you," he murmured.
"Missed you too."
"I feel a little better," his lips nuzzled mine, as his hand brushed my elbow, "but I don't know if that's magic or just..."
Instead of finishing the sentence, he kissed me again.
Suddenly my hand was warm against his shoulder. His hand gripping my elbow was suddenly hot. I pulled away, confused, only to see him looking back at me with the same expression. A small frown stood between his eyebrows. Was this the magic?
He leaned in toward me. I pressed my lips to his, and as we kissed, his hands glided up my arms to settle on my shoulders. The bloody t-shirt fell away between us, forgotten, as we traded kisses.
He leaned in so close that he accidentally pushed me over, and I caught his shoulders with my hands automatically, beginning to grin, before I realized I might hurt him. I scrambled up
, wide-eyed, but he just pushed me playfully down to the grass again.
He was grinning now as he leaned over me, and his lips brushed sweetly over my cheek before he claimed another kiss. His powerful arms were braced on either side of my shoulders, and I could see the bloody, ragged wound.
Which was healing.
I pulled away from his kisses to stare, perplexed, at his shoulder.
He glanced down at it. "Is that what you did before?"
I shook my head.
"You're getting more powerful," Callum said, his voice soft. "The chains are broken, Piper. You can shift. You can heal us."
"What else can I do?" I asked, my voice shaky. It didn't feel like the chains were broken. My father was alive, and he was doing everything he could to slip them back around my wrists.
No, not my father. He was never my father. Rippedthroat. He would kill my men and enslave me if he could. Thinking of him as my father left me with a vulnerability for him; it made me a slave to wisps of memory that weren’t even real.
He was my enemy, nothing more than that. He always had been, even when I’d called him Daddy.
"Who knows?" Callum asked, humor in his voice. "Maybe you'll even be able to say I love you."
"Are you really lecturing me right now?" I demanded, but there was something comforting about Callum teasing me. "Are we back to that?"
"Let's move." Arthur called, sliding down the hill toward us. Logan was right beside him, moving at a quick pace. The two of them stopped to strip the weapons off the two downed guards.
Tuck was still staring at me, perplexed. I'd almost forgotten he was here.
"We're taking him with us," I said, indicating Tuck with my gaze.
"Luckily for you, I'd already decided that," Arthur grumbled. He offered me his hand to pull me up, and Logan did the same, extending his hand to Kai.
Kai looked up at Logan for a split-second as if he was debating, and then he put his good hand into Logan's. Logan boosted him easily to his feet, and clapped his good shoulder with one hand, nodding to him. An expression passed between the two of them, almost like an understanding.
