“I have to agree with Lukas on this matter,” Michael added. “My own healing methods don’t work on this poor child now. It refuses to be healed by anything shifter or magic. She has lost so much blood that she can’t shift. But, as you can see, Lukas did shift and those wounds transferred from his wolf body to his human body. This is new territory, and the only way this could happen is if shifter magic is at play. And I believe that Gabriel is helping them with that.”
“So, there’s no way to heal her?” Grant asked, his heart breaking.
“Only the old-fashioned way,” Michael told him comfortingly. “The way that humans heal themselves, that is. Through long, hard work, and prayers. But I have a feeling she is going to be okay. This one doesn’t just give up the fight once it’s started.”
Grant sat himself, still in his wolf form, right next to Britta, but out of the way of Michael and Lukas so that they could do their work. He couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like his worst nightmare was coming true, and he couldn’t do anything but watch. She could die.
He refused to think like that. Now, he would just think of positive things. He imagined her waking up, better than ever and ready to go for a run with him in the woods. He imagined her being able to shift in her human form, and then laughing at how it was just her luck that she was brutally injured on her first mission.
He imagined her okay. That was all he really wanted. For her to be just okay.
“Michael, if this is true, this is worse than we thought,” Hann told Michael, who solemnly nodded his head. “If all of those rogues out there have this magic, this poison, whatever this is, then they can really harm us. More so than before. And there’s already more rogues than we thought. This could turn out to be a slaughter–and we’d be on the losing side.”
No one in the room knew what to do. Hann had never talked like that. Hann was always the easy-going, laid-back alpha that laughed with people and said that everything was going to be okay. To hear him talk like this now, and to sound so bleak and negative about their potential fight that was to happen soon, was crazy.
But he was right. He was being realistic. And everyone in the room had chills like never before.
This wasn’t going to turn out okay. Even if Britta pulled through and was fine in the end, those rogues were still coming for them. And nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter 23
Britta felt like a garbage truck had run her over again and again.
When she slowly opened her eyes, she shut them quickly again from the bright light that was all around. Was she dying? Was this what “follow the light” meant?
One more look out into the world proved that no, she wasn’t dying, and the white light that was killing her head was just a bedroom light that faded as her eyes became accustomed to the light. Her head still pounded in pain, though.
Britta slowly took in her surroundings. She was in some bed, in some type of house, and Grant was sleeping in a chair next to her, his head resting on the bed by her. She smiled when she saw him, and her heart leapt with joy. What was he doing here?
Better yet, what was she doing here?
And then, the last few moments that she remembered before waking up in a strange house and a strange bed came flooding back to her, all at once. The fight with those three rogues that somehow recognized and followed Lukas. Her killing of one, but then her weird feelings as she fought the other one. Her wounds that wouldn’t heal.
Remembering those wounds, she had the weird desire to look down at her body. Which was crazy, because she was in her human body. She wouldn’t have those wounds. But low and behold, there those wounds were. The cuts, jabs, and scrapes that those rogues gave her were still very much in plain sight.
Which was crazy. Impossible. Never heard of.
Why were these wounds, which she’d gained as a wolf, still on her human body? That . . . never happened. Britta’s heart beat in her chest a bit faster as she tried to make sense of everything else. She remembered falling to the ground, but she obviously didn’t die. She didn’t remember anything else at all.
She wondered how long she had been out. She hoped it hadn’t been too long. And where the hell was she? Whose house was this?
She didn’t want to wake Grant up, mainly because she knew that he was a cranky person when he hadn’t gotten his sleep, but also because she knew that he would tell her everything that had happened. And something about the truth scared her. She didn’t know if she wanted to know the truth.
She gave up and realized that she had to learn what really happened, so she gently nudged Grant awake. She felt pain crawl up her arm from the pressure, and she had to bite her lip so that she didn’t yelp in pain. She felt horrible. The fact that she couldn’t even move was crazy.
Grant slowly awoke, as if he was in a dream at first, but when he realized that Britta was up, in her human form, and smiling down at him, he snapped out of his dreary state immediately.
“Hey, you,” Grant said, a huge smile forming on his face as he took in her face, her body, every ounce of her. “You’re up. How are you feeling?”
“That was a shit question,” Britta laughed, rolling her eyes where she lay in bed. “I feel horrible. What happened?”
“I’m gonna get Hann so that he can fill you in,” Grant told her before he quickly left, returning with their alpha. Grant gently clasped her hand, and only squeezed it in comfort when Britta squeezed him, letting him know that it didn’t hurt.
“Hello, Britta,” Hann said as he sat down on the other side of the bed and smiled at her. “It’s good to see you’re awake and in your human form again.”
“Human form?” Britta asked, confusion in her eyes. “Could I not shift back to my human form earlier?”
“No, dear,” Hann replied, shaking his head softly. “You were too injured. When we put you in this room to rest, you were still in your wolf form. You must’ve shifted when you were sleeping.”
“Hann . . . what happened?” Britta had to know. Her curiosity was killing her.
And then Hann jumped in with the story of everything they’d learned, including what Lukas learned in Michigan as a refresher. Britta nodded and agreed that the magic poison, or whatever the hell it was that the rogues possessed, seemed to do the trick and make her incapacitated. This would definitely give them the upper hand in the battles, sadly. Britta couldn’t believe that Gabriel would go to these extremes, though. He, obviously, really wanted to bring about destruction and the downfall of the society that was trying to progress without him.
“I don’t think I have any broken bones, though,” Britta told him, confused. She was fairly certain that she would’ve gained at least one broken bone in her fight with those rogues, though she felt no broken bones in her body. She felt horrible, of course, but she knew that she had nothing broken.
“Michael and I have been talking about it and throwing out some theories,” Hann said. “And your new state helps us prove one of the theories we’ve been talking about. I believe that the magic poison, or whatever these rogues have, doesn’t stop the healing process in us. It definitely slows it down, though. For example, if we hadn’t stitched you up and stopped your wounds from bleeding, you would have died because your healing process had been momentarily slowed down. Maybe when you shifted into your human form, it helped speed up the process in regard to your broken bones. Also, it’s been a few hours–and time always helps.”
“And Lukas had wounds when he shifted into his human form as well?”
“That’s correct.”
“Hann . . . this isn’t good. How are we going to defend ourselves if they have an added incentive to kill us? They can really cause damage with this.”
“I know, my friend. But trust me. We will find a way to end up on top. We always do.”
And with one more smile and a wink, Hann got up and left, leaving Britta in a state of bewilderment.
Britta looked back over to Grant, who had the strangest look in his e
yes. She couldn’t decipher it.
“Come here,” she motioned to him, indicating that he should climb up and cuddle with her in the small bed she lay in.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said tentatively, hesitating as he took in her bruised body.
“You won’t.”
Grant climbed into bed, and Britta helped him slide under the covers. He wrapped his arms around her, and Britta instantly felt warm and safe. The cold air of uncertainty was gone now, and she had Grant to thank for that. She had missed him so much. She was so happy that he was here with her. Wherever here was . . . .
“Hey, where are we exactly?” Britta asked finally as she rested her cheek on Grant’s strong chest. She loved the way he felt. She loved his strong, steady heartbeat that threatened to lull her to sleep.
“Some house in New York that Michael and Hann use as a safe house or something, I guess,” Grant told her as he softly stroked her hair.
“Grant?”
“Yes, babe?”
“I think something horrible is going to happen. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know when it’ll be. But the atmosphere there? It was horrible. They’re planning something big, and I’m scared that we won’t all make it out. We need to be prepared.”
“We will be. We’ll go back to Maine, and we’ll train like never before. We’ll make our whole pack get their asses in the gym to practice. We’ll be prepared, babe. We just have to be confident and realistic.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend? You know, the guy that is negative about literally everything? Where the hell did all of this optimism and positivity come from?”
Grant laughed as Britta smiled up at him. She felt her eyes soften with drowsiness, though she was determined to stay awake for a little while longer.
“I think, when you were asleep for a while, I began to refuse to think of all of the negative things I was thinking. I couldn’t bear it. I was going crazy waiting for you to wake up and say you were okay, so my mind naturally went to the most horrible thing I could think of. I decided that that line of thinking wasn’t helping anyone–especially me. So, I simply stopped, and I just filled my brain with positive things.”
“I love you.”
There wasn’t anything else Britta needed to say other than those three words that she felt with all of her heart.
Before she fell asleep in the arms of her loved one, she heard him say “I love you” back, making her smile before she crashed.
Chapter 24
It had been a week since everything had happened, and Grant still felt like his life could change at any moment. He kept on having thoughts that Britta’s condition could make a turn for the worse, which was crazy because Britta was almost completely healed now.
They were back in Maine, and Grant was taking over Britta’s lessons at the gym so that she could rest. Lukas was also trying to get back in the best shape possible, and Michael made it clear that they would both make a full recovery. Thank God. Grant didn’t know what he would do if Britta didn’t.
Britta, for her part, turned out to be the worst patient in history. She kept on wanting to go out and run in her wolf form, or Grant would come home and find her cooking in the kitchen. She wasn’t supposed to be on her feet at all in the beginning, but no one could seem to get her to stay put. She was staying at Grant’s place so that he could take care of her, something they were both more than a little nervous about when they first decided it. However, they both loved living together. Grant hated her as a patient, of course, but he loved her, and he would put up with her crazy BS any day of the week.
Grant knew that Hann and Michael had started spreading the information to all the other packs about what the rogues were planning–and, more importantly, the magic that they had on their claws and teeth that made it fairly easy to take down their opponent. They were telling the packs to try and keep it tight-lipped, though. They didn’t want a rogue or a sympathizer to hear and then to go running to Gabriel or someone else and then tell them that everyone knew about their plans and their new weapons of choice. Michael wanted to try to trace Gabriel still, and he felt like he could if everyone just laid low and pretended to be oblivious.
Though everyone knew that once those bodies of the rogues Lukas and Britta killed were found, questions would be raised, and Gabriel and his rogues would be on high alert. They probably already were on high alert. Michael and everyone had to tread very carefully.
“Hey, Grant,” Finn called to him from across the room. Grant had just finished up teaching a small class about different defensive maneuvers. Grant and Finn were now fine in every way possible, and Grant was, surprisingly, beginning to see him as a friendly face.
“What’s up, man?” Grant asked him as he walked across the room to talk to him as everyone else in the class began to leave.
“I was just wondering how Britta was doing,” Finn told him, sweat beading from his forehead. “I heard that she’s doing better, but I just wanted to know if I could do anything to help her out.”
“She’s doing better. But there’s nothing you can do. All we can do is wait. She says that she’s great, and she plans on being back here next week to start her classes up again, so you guys won’t have to deal with my shitty teaching anymore.”
Both Grant and Finn laughed at that. Grant was a good teacher, but he was no Britta. And he knew that.
“Well, that’s good to hear. I can’t wait to hear her shit on me, time and time again. Can you believe I miss that?”
“The woman has everyone miss her–even the people who hate her. She considers it her gift.”
They both laughed again at the love that everyone seemed to have for Britta before Finn waved goodbye and left. Grant couldn’t believe everything that had changed in the last few weeks. He had started off hating Finn, for selfish reasons, of course. Now, he actually found he had a soft spot for the shifter from another pack. He never thought he would.
He never thought that he would be in love with Britta, either. And he sure as hell never thought that she would be in love with him.
Things had changed so much in such a short amount of time, but he wasn’t going to complain. He was in love, and his girl was healing. He couldn’t ask for anything more than that.
Chapter 25
“A war is brewing, my friends,” Michael told the little group in Hann’s living room. Britta was with the usual alpha group–Kato, Ethan, Ross, and Hann–but Hann had included some others–Lukas, Annie, and Grant–because they were directly involved with the situation that had unfolded a week ago.
Britta was fine now. Hell, she was more than fine. She still hurt a little, sure, but she hated being cooped up and told to not do anything for twenty-four hours straight. For a whole week. She was ready to get back out in the world and do some good. Teach some shifters. And she couldn’t contribute to the war that was going to come if she was stuck in bed.
“I’m sad to say that word has reached us that the rogues in Michigan have disbanded and gone their separate ways,” Hann added.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Annie asked, confused for everyone in the room. Weren’t the rogues leaving and not forming the uprising good for everyone else?
“Yes and no,” Michael jumped in. “We believe the only reason that these rogues have gone their separate ways is because they had orders from Gabriel to. We believe the only reason he did this was because he knows that we know. Someone tipped him off. Maybe he got scared when he heard of the three rogue bodies that we left behind. It doesn’t matter how he got scared or left, but he’s gone and no longer in Scotland. We’re back to square one: we don’t know where he is.”
“And what are the rest of the rogues doing, then?” Britta asked.
“They’re lying in wait for their leader to give them orders,” Hann sighed, leaning back in the chair that he was sitting in. “The uprising isn’t over. It’s just momentarily disbanded for the time being. Gabriel is more than likely trying to find a
new home. He’s scared. He’s worried that we know too much. He’s no longer a step in front of us. He knows that we’re preparing ourselves for what will come, and he knows that we know that he is using some sort of magic to try to let the rogues win this war. He knows that we are trying to make our own shifter magic poison like he did to offset what they have created.”
“And are we?” Kato asked. “Making some type of magic offset so that their magic doesn’t hurt us like it did to Britta and Lukas?”
“Yes,” Michael nodded his head in encouragement. “We are trying our hardest to find a counter spell or potion to make sure that those rogues can’t slice through our society while barely lifting a finger. If and when they strike, they will devastate our ranks. We have to do everything that we can to make sure that this doesn’t happen. This can’t happen.”
“So, is Gabriel a lost cause, then?” Ethan piped up, asking the question that was on everyone’s minds. Everyone and their mother wanted Gabriel captured and away from leading this horrible, destructive movement. The realization that they were so close to capturing him and finding out where he was in Scotland, only for him to leave and realize that they were on to him, was devastating.
They were so close . . . .
“We’re trying to find out where he is now, of course,” Michael told them. “But we no longer have a lead. And all of the rogues have gone to various parts of the world, so tracking them is going to be harder and less fruitful. That doesn’t mean we won’t try, though. We will try, and I believe Gabriel will slip up again. And when he does, we will be ready.”
Everyone sat in silence for a few seconds as they took in everything that Michael said. They could only hope that Gabriel would get cocky and slip up again. They could only hope. And hope they did.
“So, what do we think the other rogues are going to do?” Britta asked, confused. “I mean, they’re obviously still planning for an uprising, aren’t they?”
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