by CJ Cooke
River’s steps faltered as he followed. Exactly! Out of the two of us, I wasn’t going to be the one in trouble.
I could hear the kids chatting quietly as I approached Coby’s room where the switch was set up and slowed my steps to listen.
“What was it?” Abby asked the boys quietly.
“Something bad,” Coby told her. “But Calli whooped it.”
“Is Miss Holly going to die?” Abby asked sadly.
“No way, my sister will save her,” Jacob told her softly. “She won’t let anything happen to her.”
The kids had such an innocent confidence in all of us. Hopefully, they’d never realise we were just making this up as we went along, and that we were just as terrified as they were. We didn’t have all of the answers. All we had were even more questions.
I felt River’s hand on my shoulder before I even realised he was standing behind me. “They’re resilient. They’ll get through this like everything else.”
I nodded, even if I wasn’t sure he was right. There had to be a line when all the shit started to fuck them up. I was about to tell River this when Maverick appeared at the top of the stairs and started to head towards us.
“They’ve successfully stopped the bleeding,” he told us. His face had a slight grey tinge to it like he was trying not to vomit. “Blake has taken his wife home, and the others are standing guard over…” He trailed off. His eyes were fixed on the wall like he was reliving the horror of what we just went through. He didn’t even look away. It was like he’d run out of words.
“Come on,” I told him softly, pulling him by the arm towards the kids’ room, “we’re playing Mario Kart and ordering pizza.”
I expected him to look at me like I was insane, because maybe I was. After what we’d gone through, Mario Kart and pizza felt a bit ridiculous, but it was normal, and what we all needed right now was a bit of normal. We could live with normal, even if it was just pretending for a while.
Maverick nodded and followed us into Coby’s room. The kids didn’t even question the fact he was here. As soon as he sat on the floor, little cherry bomb climbed into his lap and wrapped her tiny arms around him. He stiffened in surprise for a moment before his arms came up to return the embrace, and he sank into it. Abby whispered something in his ear, and he pulled back to look at her in question. Just nodding in confirmation, Abby turned back to me, getting settled in Maverick’s lap and giving me one of her heart-melting smiles.
“You want cheesy pizza, little cherry bomb?” I asked her, only to be rewarded with a huge grin.
Kids were easy to please. It was only when you got older that you made life so much more complicated.
48
Grey
The sun had risen hours ago. Nash, Aidan, Hunter and I hadn’t moved from the living room, standing watch over the girls.
Even though I felt like I’d been on a constant circuit of the room, going from the middle to the window, to the door and then round again, I’d still caught every grimace of pain that crossed Calli’s face.
This was pure torture, and I couldn’t do anything but watch. I had no idea what was going on. Was she actually hurting? Holly hadn’t uttered a sound since Calli and Cassia had started the process. Was that a good sign?
“How long is this supposed to take?” Nash asked. He ran both his hands up his face and into his hair, gripping it in frustration. “I can’t take much more of this.”
“An unsuccessful attempt to turn a female usually only takes four hours,” Hunter told us.
I didn’t want to know how the fuck he knew that. The official word was that no one ever really tried to change women any more because it never worked, and it was brutal for all parties involved. If he was familiar enough with the time span, it spoke volumes of what the Council were doing behind closed doors.
“That’s good then, right?” Nash said, starting to pace the centre of the room. “If it’s taking longer, then that means it’s working.”
Hunter shrugged, and then with a sigh, he pointed out. “She was really weak when Calli bit her. They might just be drawing it out.” He at least had the decency to wince as he said it.
Nash took one step closer to Holly before he stopped himself. I knew he was holding himself back. We didn’t understand what they were doing, and we couldn’t risk unknowingly disrupting it and risking Holly’s life. This was her only shot. The butcher job we’d done closing up her stomach wounds would hold for now, and if she came out the other side of this with shifter healing, she had a chance of recovery. Anything less than that, though, and we’d lose her.
A knock at the front door had everyone tensing, but there was only one person who could get close to the packhouse and not set off the wards. This wasn’t going to go fucking well at all.
I strode out of the room and pulled open the front door. If I was going to have to face the music on this one, I might as well take it head-on like the alpha wolf I was.
Sean’s grim face looked at me from the doorstep. It was like he already knew what had happened, and not only was he pissed, he had that parental disappointment thing going on as well.
“This house smells like you had a massacre here,” he growled. It was the first time I’d had any glimpse of the beast he contained inside him. His alpha power might flood every room he entered, but he had that dragon on lockdown. That was, if he actually could shift into a dragon, I still wasn’t entirely convinced. Maybe he had a cute little house cat inside him, and he just didn’t want to admit it.
“There was an incident,” I told him, “You’d better come in.”
As I opened the door wider, Sean shouldered his way inside. He followed the scent of blood through to the living room and took in the scene with quiet calculation.
“Explain,” he seethed through clenched teeth as he stared down at Calli.
“Last night, we took steps to deal with the shadow demon situation. We summoned one, and there was a miscalculation. We thought we had it locked down, but it appeared in the house where Jean and Holly were watching the pups. Before we could reach them, Holly was badly injured. Calli destroyed the shadow demon but was unable to heal her wounds. We… we’re trying to turn her so she’ll have the strength to heal herself.”
Sean had whipped around to glare at me about halfway through my explanation, and the look on his face offered nothing short of death.
“Calli took on a shadow demon, and no one considered calling me.”
It wasn’t a question; it was a statement that was usually followed with what you could only hope was a swift death. This wasn’t the Sean I’d met, the ‘Uncle’ who had little Jacob sat on one knee and Abby on the other. This was a man who I was pretty sure now single-handedly ran an underground railroad to get supernaturals into hiding. This was a real-life fucking dragon.
I opened my mouth, even though I had no fucking idea what I’d say in my defence, because he was right; the least we could’ve done was have the decency to give him a call. Before I could even open my mouth to speak, I was saved by the dreaded rush of tingles down my spine in a sensation that was far too much like the old wives tale of someone walking over your grave.
“Someone just breached the ward,” I told him, spinning away from his death glare and pacing back to the front door.
Offering a dangerous animal like him my back was stupid, but these were my packlands, and I’d be fucked if I’d cower to anyone on them. Pulling the front door open with far too much force, it violently swung open and slammed into the wall as I strode through just in time to see the black BMW glide up to the house.
Sean and Hunter followed me out, standing behind me on the porch, having my back. It was a quick turn around for the dragon who’d looked like he was about to slice me open mere seconds ago.
The driver’s door of the BMW opened, and an unfamiliar shifter stepped out, rounding the front before he leaned back against the hood, looking at us in disgust. I wasn’t surprised when Councilman Wells opened the rear passenger door
and climbed out of the BMW. It was only a matter of time until he came here. Could he have chosen a better time to drop in unannounced, though? Probably not with the way things had been going around here recently.
“Councilman, if we’d known you were coming, we’d have purposefully made absolutely no effort to prepare for your arrival,” I told him, holding a smile on my face as I did.
He was on my packlands now, and he’d stupidly only brought one shifter with him. It wouldn’t be wise to attack him, but the confidence he had that we wouldn’t was pissing me off more than the fact he was actually here.
Curiously, Wells’ eyes skipped to Sean over my shoulder, and I swore there was a flicker of recognition in them. Before I had time to analyse it, though, his eyes were back on mine, and that cock-sure grin was securely in place on his face.
“Now, now, alpha, is that any way to speak to such an old friend? It’s almost as rude as, say, taking one of my pack members without even coming to me about it first.” Wells’s eyes narrowed in annoyance as he spoke, and I wasn’t going to lie, I could feel a sigh of relief, wanting to force its way out of me. That was why he was here!
“Your pack?” I said, cocking my head to the side in question. “The Council guards hold a pack of their own, an alphaless pack to ensure they answer only to the Council. Hunter was fully within his rights to ask to join my pack without having to seek permission from anyone else.”
I was technically right. If Hunter had an alpha, he’d have had to at least inform them he intended to leave the pack, and proper etiquette would’ve had me speaking with them as well. But the Council guards didn’t have an alpha, so there had been no need to speak to anyone.
“Please, we both know I placed him here because he was my man. What I don’t understand is how you could turn him away from me so quickly. At first, when I didn’t receive any report from him, I was actually worried you might have killed him,” Wells laughed like that was the best joke he’d ever heard.
Hunter flinched at the sound but made no move to answer him or speak in his defence. I’d never questioned him on his role in the Council. We’d all just accepted he’d been sent here to spy on us. He’d only half-heartedly tried to deny it at first, but it was stupid to try and do so because it was blatantly obvious.
Wells, however, had no idea of the existence of Cassia or the fact that she was his mate, and for now, it was best it stayed that way. I didn’t think we could trust Wells, and until he proved otherwise, we couldn’t afford to take him into our confidence.
“Well, as you can see, Hunter is fine. You could’ve just called if you were concerned.”
“But then I wouldn’t have had an excuse to drop by to see the beautiful Calli. Where is she, by the way?” He leant to the side, almost as if he was trying to look around us and see inside the house even though it would have been impossible given the wall of bodies we’d put up in front of him.
“She’s busy,” I told him, refusing to elaborate any further. Anyway, it wasn’t a lie; she technically was busy, really fucking busy.
“I’m going to need to set eyes on her to make sure she’s okay. Out here, all alone with just a ragtag pack of wolves. I’m sure you understand. After all, the only reason why the Council allowed her to remain in your care is because I asked Hunter to guard her, but now that he’s joined your ranks, well, that might be seen as a bit of a conflict of interest.”
Fuck, we hadn’t even considered that. The last thing we needed was for the Council to decide to place another guard with us. The alternative was too terrible to even consider. They could try and take her from us again.
“It’s a good job that Councilman Stone placed his own son, and heir to his pack, here then to ensure no harm came to her,” Hunter chimed in, and I felt my shoulders loosen a fraction as he came up with the answer that had been alluding me. We had another Council plant. They just didn’t know we’d turned that one to our side as well. Not yet anyway.
“Yes, it is convenient that after everything, Stone was the man to get a man on the inside,” Wells sighed before stepping away from the car and moving closer to the front steps. His eyes flicked to Sean again, and I knew I wasn’t mistaken this time. But Wells was too smooth an operator to accidentally look to Sean if he considered him an ally. It was more likely that he was trying to raise my suspicions. What pissed me off was that it was fucking working.
As he took another step forward, clearly intent on going inside with or without our permission, I braced, ready for the inevitable fight that was about to go down. Even his driver stepped away from the car with a resigned look on his face, seeing what was about to happen.
Before either side could make a move, though, I felt a small hand on my leg as Abby wiggled her way in between Sean and I and then popped out in front of me. I didn’t even have time to grab her before she skipped down the steps and stopped in front of Wells.
“Well, well, just how many pups does this pack have?” Wells laughed as the little girl in front beckoned him down to her level.
Locking eyes with me, a smirk on his face, as he went down to one knee in front of her. My wolf slammed against my senses. Having him so close to one of our pups was unacceptable, and he knew it as he kept his eyes locked with mine the whole time. But if he hadn’t been such a cocky bastard and done that, I would have missed the moment Abby whispered something to him and the look on his face flickered to a look of confusion, then fear, before returning back to his standard arrogant bastard expression.
Abby turned away from him, skipping back up the steps and then stood at my side, holding my hand. Whatever she’d said to him clearly had him rattled and the rest of us intrigued.
Wells stood still, considering his next move, then he pulled a business card out of his jacket and passed it to me before retreating back to his car.
“Have Calli call me before the end of the week, or I won’t be able to stop them from moving against you,” he warned, his choice of words almost making him sound like an ally.
Climbing back into the car, the door slammed closed, and his driver returned to his seat, turning the engine over.
We all stood on the porch watching the BMW drive away.
“What did you tell the man, little bit?” I asked Abby, unable to tear my eyes away from the car until it was out of sight.
Abby looked up at me, the picture of innocence on her face and did the cutest little one-shoulder shrug. “He needs to go home,” was all she said before she turned around and skipped back into the house.
“Something creepy, yet cool is going on with that pup,” Hunter murmured.
I nodded as I watched her go in search of the boys. It was kind of impressive she’d managed to give them both the slip and get out here without one of them by her side. But Hunter was right, to a certain degree. We didn’t know what Abby’s parents were or what that meant for her abilities, but one thing was certain, she wasn’t just an average shifter. We’d had a glimpse of it before, but now it seemed like maybe she was something different from even Calli. It was something we’d need to figure out as she got older. I just prayed we hadn’t shown too much of our hand to Wells already.
I watched as Sean moved past us, heading back into the house. There was something there as well. Sean was firmly on our side. I’d never doubt that about him. But did that mean Wells was on our side as well? I was sure there was some familiarity between them. We needed to know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Was Wells aware of what Sean was involved in? Had seeing him here with my pack just painted yet another target on our backs?
49
Calli
Lost inside of Holly’s body, I took in the scene of her soul warping and changing to accommodate the ability to shift. When Cassia had first suggested we change her, everyone’s immediate response had been to do it. But I wasn’t so sure Holly wanted this. It felt like we’d taken her choice away from her, and I wasn’t certain if saving her life was a good enough excuse to do that. Jean was right, though; Holly h
ad been asking more questions about going through the change recently. She was clearly in love with Nash, and I knew the fact his wolf would never see her as his mate was bothering her.
I’d never seen a female shifter before. I’d heard stories about what they looked like when they shifted, but they always seemed just that, stories. Horror stories. The type of things they told young shifters to stop them from thinking they could turn any human woman that caught their eye. I suspected that was why the younger shifters were always made to watch when someone decided to try and turn the woman they cared about, so they could see the reality of the suffering their actions would cause. Still, from what I’d heard of some of the packs, I was surprised it was an effective deterrent. Most of them didn’t seem to really care about others, let alone the suffering of one human female.
Floating here now, though, watching over Holly attempting to survive this transition, it gave me a whole new understanding of the process she was going through. I could see the shimmering light that was Holly’s soul. Human souls were so fragile. It was so different to what I found at my own core. The light just didn’t seem as bright as it should be, but perhaps that was because Holly had been so close to death before attempting this.
A second force was trying to fight its way inside that light. It was tearing her soul into pieces, trying to connect, to meld into one, but Holly seemed to be fighting against it. I could tell it was the shift trying to take hold, and even though it made me feel sick to do it, I used my magic to ease its way. To comfort Holly’s soul and soothe it into accepting the changes. Rather than letting the shift tear its way through, I used my magic to create a path and seal it behind the shift. Once I’d figured out how to do it, the process seemed to be going a lot smoother. Holly was barely resisting at all. Maybe her soul understood what was happening now and it wasn’t seeing the changes as an attack, or maybe the shift had changed enough of her that the rest of her welcomed it. Something about this whole situation just didn’t feel right, and I had to hope Holly wouldn’t hate me at the end of this.
