Sylvie was waiting for me in the diner. I went to her and kissed her deeply, which drew a surprised sound from her that was muffled by my mouth. She laughed a little when I pulled back, then bit the corner of her lip.
“Did you have fun playing?” she teased.
I remembered my wolf tackling and rolling with Rourk’s wolf by a stream. I remembered nipping at the heels of Aranelle’s wolf as we raced through a field of dandelions lit by starlight. With a grin, I nodded. “I did, actually.”
The diner had been packed with every single full Hunter from the pack. I’d spoken with the Elders and made sure the howlers were kept carefully away from Kyla and Sylvie for now. I wanted to make sure I was completely bonded to the pack before I risked testing my ability to control them around the scent of vampires. In all, there were forty-two Hunters here. Less than when I’d left, but not by much.
I caught sight of Pax in the corner ordering some food. Every werewolf in the pack played a role in keeping the town functional. It was the price we gladly paid for independence and privacy. So Shaun and Pierce showed no reluctance to get behind the counter and cook hot meals for all the hungry bellies after our run in the woods.
I’d almost forgotten how much I missed the food here. Even the fare at The Wet Flea had been a poor imitation.
Pax had come limping back a full day after our fight. He was heavily wounded but acknowledged me as his Alpha and fell in line as a werewolf should. Nobody degraded him for what had happened. Strength rose to the top. That was simply the way of things, and Pax was no longer the strongest. There was no shame in it, but he also wasn’t the Alpha anymore.
Sylvie sat with me while I scarfed down enough food to feed four full-grown men.
She watched me with an adorable little smile while I ate, like she was enjoying seeing how much I enjoyed it. I had to keep reminding myself not to offer her any. It would’ve just been a cruel reminder.
Aranelle approached us. “May I speak with Riggs?” She was asking Sylvie—a sign that she was granting Sylvie the proper respect deserved for the mate of the Alpha.
Sylvie looked over her shoulder as if she wasn’t sure who Aranelle could be talking to. “Oh,” she stammered. “Uh, yes. Sure.”
Aranelle gave a small dip of her chin. “We confirmed they are where you thought. The Cleaners seem to be the only ones in the building, too. Maybe a dozen of them, but we’re not sure on that number. Those are just the ones we’ve seen.”
I nodded. “Good. We’ll move in a few days. Tell everyone to make any preparations they need to make.”
Aranelle nodded to me, then gave another slight bow to Sylvie before she went back outside.
It was only an hour or two till sunrise, and I was already feeling anxious having Sylvie out in the open like this. I’d begun checking the sunset and sunrise times obsessively. I made sure to check several different sources to account for any possible glitch, and also demanded Sylvie be safely indoors and sheltered thirty minutes before sunrise.
I knew she wouldn’t die instantly the moment sunlight touched her, so I shouldn’t have been so paranoid. But I couldn’t help it. Somewhere along the line, I’d gone from needing to protect her to save my integrity and honor a promise I’d made myself, to… It really was love, wasn’t it? If I lost her, nothing else would matter. There was no alternative. I had to keep her safe and happy at all costs. She’d become my entire world, and nothing mattered more to me than keeping her alive and well.
“That was weird,” Sylvie said once Aranelle left the building.
“The Alpha’s mate gets all the respect the Alpha gets,” I said.
“So that’s my claim to fame? I’m the place you put your cock when you get horny?”
I sensed the tightening of tensions in the room as every werewolf with a functioning pair of ears heard what she’d said. She still wasn’t used to how acute our hearing was and had likely thought she was just teasing me and me alone.
“You’re more than that,” I said. “Of course you are. It’s not just about sex. It’s about being strong enough to handle the Alpha. You’ve tamed me. Who is stronger? The wild horse or the small woman who manages to convince it to kneel so she can climb on its back and ride it till it froths in the mouth?”
She smirked. “Are you saying you’ll froth at the mouth for me?”
“When did you become so naughty?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Can I blame it on the vampire thing?”
“Blame what you like. Just swear to me you’ll never change.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “Actually, with this whole eternal life thing I think I can actually promise that. No wrinkles for me, right? I won’t need to worry about you leaving me for a younger woman.”
“I’d be yours if you were gray and wrinkled as a raisin.”
“Easy for you to say, considering you know that won’t happen. What about you? Will you be my little gray, wrinkled raisin in a few dozen years?”
I grinned. “Nobody knows exactly if werewolves are eternal. People have a habit of getting themselves killed before old age can take them. But I do know my grandfather claimed to be over four hundred and he looked like he was in his early twenties.”
“What about the guy with gray hair?” Sylvie asked. “Is he five thousand, then?”
“Rourk? He dyes it.”
Sylvie sputtered with laughter. “Really? He looks so serious, but he’s over there using ‘A Touch of Gray’ in the morning?”
I grinned, partly because I knew Rourk was listening. “For a time, it was a bit of a gimmick in our clan. The Silverbacks with streaks of silver in their hair to match our wolves.”
“I guess that’s a little less dorky.”
“He’ll be glad to know you approve.”
Sylvie seemed horrified as she looked around the room and noticed everyone was obviously listening to our entire conversation. She cupped her hands around her eyes and lowered her head. “Super wolf ears. Right,” she said.
The three days leading up to our attack on the Coven were as close to happiness I could ever remember being. I spent most mornings running with the pack. I napped throughout the day so I could be awake for every moment of the night and be with Sylvie, but I also made time to check on the town and get the place running like it used to.
Pax, it appeared, had been lazy. I helped reorganize some systems and roles within the town and also put in time with the howlers until I was sure I could control them appropriately. Once I was sure, I let them join us on our runs.
By night, I spent as much time as I could with Sylvie. Admittedly, a good portion of that time was spent with our clothes off behind a closed door. The woman was a little minx once she’d let her guard down, and she made sure my naps were filled with delicious dreams of her hot mouth against my skin and her tightness gripping me in all its wonderful glory.
On the final night before we were going to move on The Coven, she sat up in bed with the sheet pulled around her bare breasts. I could still see the outline of her nipples hard through the fabric.
“You should make some time to talk to Kyla,” she said. “One on one.”
I hadn’t been expecting the conversation to go there. I sighed. “I’ve spoken to her.”
“Alone?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“Riggs. You realize she still feels like she’s in trouble with you, right? Is that what you want?”
I appreciated the way Sylvie posed the question, even if her opinion was clear in the tone of her voice. She wasn’t commanding me to speak to my sister. She was just trying to make sure I’d given it the appropriate amount of thought.
“I’m trying to forgive her. The truth is, being here has reminded me of how important the bond with our wolf is. How real he is. I’d been neglecting him, and he was in a sort of hibernation before we came here. But that’s also reminding me how fucked up it is that Kyla chose some vampire mate over her wolf.”
“About that,” Sylvie said care
fully. “Where is this guy she cared so much about that she left everything behind?”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure, to be honest.”
Sylvie folded her arms, which distractingly pressed her breasts up. As much as I wanted to dive back into her and take her again, she was right to press me on this. I got out of bed and slipped my clothes back on but turned to point at her before I left. “You stay just like that,” I said. “Don’t put any clothes on unless you want me to tear them off. With my teeth.”
Sylvie wiggled her eyebrows. “Is that supposed to be a threat? Because now I want to put on several layers and watch you try to chew through them.”
I found Kyla in the bowling alley, of all places. One of the benefits of being the Alpha of a pack was a sort of hard to define telekinesis. It didn’t come in complete sentences or clear pictures, but I developed an instinct that was based on what the werewolves in my pack knew. If someone was behind me and one of my pack knew it, I would feel the urge to spin and face them. If I was looking for something one of my pack knew where to find, I’d more often than not wind up finding it in the first place I looked.
So I wasn’t surprised when I felt drawn to the bowling alley of Silverback and found Kyla playing a game by herself on the center lane.
The smell of the place was laced with nostalgia. Waxed floors and the faint must of bowling shoes. The distant buzz of arcade machines both noisily chirping from the back room.
Kyla saw me, then set down her bowling ball and waited as I approached.
“I had completely forgotten how much we used to come here,” I said.
She nodded. “Me too. But I saw it and knew I couldn’t leave without playing a game. Looks like I’ve gotten rusty.”
I checked the score on the screen hanging above her lane. “Very rusty,” I agreed.
We both sat a comfortable distance apart on the uncomfortable sofa ringing the lane.
“Sylvie convinced you to come talk to me, didn’t she?” Kyla asked.
I grinned. “Is it that obvious?”
“She’s good for you. I think she makes you a better person.”
“She does.”
“I’m happy you found someone. Really, Riggs,” she said, smiling. “I’m so happy for you.” If she wasn’t my sister, I thought I might’ve missed the touch of sadness in her eyes.
“Where is he?” I asked. My tone made it clear who I was asking about. The vampire she’d left our pack for. The one she’d never been willing to tell me about. The one who had made her seem like a different person for those months leading up to the time she finally left.
Kyla looked down at her hands, working her lips to the side in silent thought. “I killed him.”
I stared, waiting for the punchline.
She wiped at the corner of her eye. “Three years ago. I learned what his talent was. He was a former Cleaner with a knack for mental control. I heard him bragging to an old friend one night when I wasn’t supposed to be at Blackridge. He explained how he was so good he could ‘turn a werewolf to a vamp and make her think she wanted it.’” She swallowed, then looked like she was about to be sick. “His friend called bullshit, but he insisted. Eventually, he admitted that was exactly what he’d done with me.”
I was startled by the sudden sound of popping fabric. I realized I’d clenched my hands straight through the old, cracked leather and into the padding beneath the bench. “Fuck,” was all I could manage. The word slipped between clenched teeth and was practically drenched in outrage and fury. I couldn’t believe it. Except of course I could. It was exactly the explanation I’d clung to many a dark night to explain why my sister had run off and turned vamp, even if it meant killing her wolf.
But knowing I’d been right didn’t feel vindicating like I would’ve expected. It felt like having a hole punched through my chest—like I could hear the wind howling through the emptiness in me.
A month ago, it was the same feeling that would’ve driven me away. It would’ve made me want to find a bar somewhere or a new city to disappear. Some good food in my belly and I could try to forget.
Except this felt different. I thought of Sylvie. I thought of how I could talk to her about this and I realized I expected her to help me get through it.
I put my arm around Kyla’s shoulder and let her cry. I hated that she’d had to hold it all in as long as she had, and I needed to remember this was her pain. Not mine. Whatever I was feeling was a crumb compared to the torrent of emotion she’d been bottling up over this. Worse, I was the asshole she’d probably been suffering most because of.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ky.” I rubbed her hair, holding her tight. She was still my little sister. Still the badass who had learned to stand up for herself. A small part of me wished she hadn’t finished the job, just so I could have a few choice words with him. Once she’d calmed down, I chuckled into the silence that had been hanging between us. “Most people would’ve settled for an angry breakup text, you know,” I said. “But you fucking killed the guy?”
Kyla grinned up at me. “I waited until he came to my room that night. Told him what I knew and gave him a chance to defend himself. I don’t think he thought I was really going to do it. But…” The humor in her eyes darkened. “I did though, didn’t I?”
“You did. And we’re going to get one more chance to punch back at the Coven and the toxic fucking culture that led to someone like him. Tomorrow.”
She nodded. “You think we have a real chance to get them all back?”
“I’ve got a plan,” I said.
“Of course you do.”
45
Sylvie
I woke at sunset the night we were supposed to leave. It had been days since I fed, and when I looked in the mirror, I noticed how sunken in I looked. I looked like a grape that had been left in a hot car for a little too long. I was mortified and didn’t want Riggs to see me like this.
I went to Kyla, slipping out of the room while he was still asleep. For all his gruff desire to never take his eyes off me, the poor man was operating on scraps of sleep. That meant he was sleeping with both eyes these days, and I was able to go find Kyla without him knowing.
We’d been given a cute little cottage to stay in near the edge of town, and Kyla was set up right beside us. I knocked on her door.
“Shit,” she said as soon as she saw my face. “You look terrible.”
I pointed to my face. “This looks better than I feel.” It was the truth, too. I felt like I was about to pass out. My legs and arms felt as if there were weights attached to them.
“You need blood,” she said. Kyla looked frustrated with herself. “I knew this might happen. You’re still so young. I should’ve made sure we took the time to find you someone to feed on, but I got so distracted with everything going on. God. This was the whole reason I came and-”
“Nobody is perfect,” I said. I tried to give her a comforting smile, but worried I looked more like a ghoulish zombie craving a fresh squeeze of brains. “But what can we do?”
“Normally I’d say we hop in the truck and go hunting for the first human we can get our hands on. But Riggs said we have to leave tonight. Probably within the hour.” She crossed her arms.
“What about his blood?” I asked. “Riggs. You said it was taboo, but…”
She hesitated, then considered. “Knowing him, he would let you do it in a heartbeat. The man hates all things vampire, but you seem to have quickly re-written his stance on that. If he sees you like this, I’m sure he’ll let you. But you understand it has consequences, right? He’ll have a fuzzy sort of window into your thoughts. He’ll know where you are at all times. And that’s all just hearsay. I don’t know what it actually feels like or what really happens. I just know it is something nobody does. Vampires don’t feed on werewolves.”
“Well,” I said. “They also don’t usually date, right?”
She grinned. “Werewolves don’t date. They bond and take mates. You’ve got t
o learn the lingo.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Okay, well, they don’t usually take mates cross species. So we’re already breaking rules. Why not one more?”
“Come on. We need to ask him now while you’re still aware enough to feed without trying to drain him dry.”
“That’s a risk?” I asked. “Riggs is so-”
“It’s a risk. You’re like a bottomless pit for blood, Sylvie. You could drink him to death in a minute or two if you wanted to.”
“I don’t,” I said, slightly offended.
“Then let’s go while you still have the willpower to make that choice. If you get much more blood hungry, you’ll be like your sister was. The lights will turn off up there,” she said, tapping my head. “You’ll have to be nursed back to health, and we don’t have time for that.”
I turned down the lights so Riggs wouldn’t see the full extent of how much I’d shriveled. I thought his night vision must’ve been better than I anticipated, because when Kyla and I came in to wake him, he sat up, eyes wide.
“Sylvie,” he breathed. “What’s wrong with her?”
Kyla hung her head. “I overestimated how long she could go without feeding. Ana Black turned her, and it seemed like that was jumpstarting her development enough that she could go a week or two without feeding already. I was wrong. She needs blood. Now,” Kyla added.
Riggs seemed to process everything quickly. “What do I need to do?”
“Sit still and let her feed on you,” Kyla said.
Riggs didn’t hesitate. He surely knew all the risks that would come with any of his pack finding out about this, but I could tell the only thing he cared about was helping me. He sat on the edge of the bed shirtless and rolled his head to the side, exposing his muscular neck for me.
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