by May Dawson
Then he was gone, moving to strategize with a few of the guards who were still there, whom he trusted. Although I personally didn’t trust anyone that wasn’t on my team at the moment.
I kept thinking about what he’d said, though, as I headed to the infirmary to check on Blake and Skyla.
The empty academic building always felt haunted. Maddie insisted that it was, and it drove her a little nuts that I couldn’t believe in ghosts even though I’d come to very much believe in werewolves.
When I walked into the infirmary, Skyla was sitting up in bed playing Go Fish with Blake, who had the weary look on his face that card or board games always inspired. When he played Monopoly, he looked as if he might just collapse into a coma and that would be merciful for him. My little brother was a killjoy.
Skyla looked pink-cheeked and happy, despite the fact she was wearing a t-shirt five sizes too big for her and her brown hair looked stringy. It made my heart swell with relief. I’d always tried to do my best by Blake and Skyla, but I’d thought I was just bleakly doing my duty. I’d thought they needed me.
Now I realized how much I needed them too.
“Hey,” I said, pausing in the doorway. “Blake, I need you to go on patrol with me.”
“You want to just leave Skyla here alone?” He asked, brows arching.
Oh, here we went, another fight. Maybe he had a point, but usually it felt like he just argued with me for the sake of arguing.
“Skyla would love to be left alone,” she pronounced grandly, then added in a flat voice, “You cheat at cards.”
“I do not,” he said, scandalized. “Who would cheat at Go Fish?”
“So you would cheat at cards, you’re just saying Go Fish with your sister isn’t worth the effort?”
Blake scrubbed his hand over his face as Skyla stared at him triumphantly. “Fine,” he said. “I’d love to go on patrol. Whatever it takes to make this… mess… less messy.”
He tossed the cards down on the tray table and stood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Chase.”
“Mm-hmm.” Skyla was already seizing his cards, shuffling through them. She yelled after him, “You know you did have a six!”
“Just picked it up!” He called back.
“I’m watching you, Freeman! I’m watching you!” she yelled.
She sounded pretty intimidating for a ten-year-old.
I took the seat next to her bed. “How’re you doing?”
“Should I be worried I’m going to be kidnapped by evil witches again?”
What a question.
“No,” I said.
She looked at me skeptically. “Odds?”
I heaved a sigh.
“Like… five percent. The academy’s warded with magic and there are several other packs headed to the academy to help us fight. The only real risk is the bad werewolves probably want to take over the academy so they can hurt Maddie and the guys when they come back, and we don’t know how many packs they can get on their side.” I hated telling her there was even a five percent chance that she was in danger, but I didn’t want to lie to her.
She nodded. I hesitated, feeling guilty once again that I was leaving her, although I’d also feel guilty if I stayed here instead of patrolling to make sure we were safe. “Are you okay? If I go?”
She raised her brows at me. “Of course I am. I can take care of myself, Chase.”
I didn’t want to argue with her, but she had just been kidnapped forty-eight hours earlier. There’s a limit to how much any kid can take care of themselves, no matter how confident and enterprising.
“If Aunt Jen had listened to me, she never would have let—” She stopped abruptly, then looked at me wild-eyed. “Is Aunt Jen—”
“She’s fine,” I assured her. “They used magic to erase her memories and sent her home.”
“So she won’t bother us anymore?” Skyla asked.
“Skyla,” I said, then struggled for words. I was so mad at Jen for trying to take Blake and Skyla away. I couldn’t judge her fairly right now; I was still too upset. But I also remembered the aunt who had always come for Christmas, who had taught me how to ride my first bike on an icy morning.
“I don’t need anyone but you and Blake,” she said firmly.
“And I don’t need anyone but you and Blake,” I said, “but maybe we can let some other people in our lives? Just because they’re nice.”
Skyla started to grin in a way that was familiar…and obnoxious. “You need Maddie.”
She managed to draw Maddie’s name out into eighteen syllables.
“I do,” I admitted. “You’re taking this well.”
“Taking what well?”
“The fact that you were bitten,” I said delicately.
“Chase,” she said, as if I were being stupid. “You’re a werewolf. It can’t be that hard.”
I laughed. Blake came back in then, so I ruffled her hair as I stood. “We’ll be back.”
“No rush,” she said, picking up the cards and beginning to shuffle. She was still a klutzy shuffler, always dropping cards; it was a nice reminder that she really was ten even if she thought she was going on twenty. “I can probably have a more satisfying game by myself.”
“Har har,” Blake said.
But as we stepped out into the hall, there was relief written across his face.
That was when I realized he felt guilty about her too, as if he were letting her down. Surprise jolted through my chest. I thought Blake saw me as the one-and-only-fuckup who was supposed to fix things and wasn’t able to, but he felt as if he failed our little family too.
Blake smacked me in the chest. “Are we going to patrol as wolves or humans?”
“You want the practice as a wolf?” I asked skeptically.
He shrugged. “Might as well.”
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t know much, but I’ll teach you what I know.”
“I know,” Blake said drily.
I was worried that Blake and Skyla were here, and I was worried they were wolves… but for the first time, I felt a flicker of hope.
Maybe things were going to be okay.
Chapter Nine
Maddie
That night, I woke in the middle of the night and lay there in the narrow bunk above the seats. Jensen and I had both managed to fit, although I nestled against him with my head on his shoulder, my leg thrown over his. That was how we liked to sleep when it was just the two of us anyway, our bodies twined together. The swaying of the train and constant rumble of the tracks made it hard to sleep, because I couldn’t forget I was in a different world.
When Jensen had climbed into the bunk and then leaned over to offer me a hand up, Silas had said, “I’m not even going to fight you for her.”
“Good, because you’d lose,” Jensen had said, although the banter between them was friendly.
Rafe had ignored us, staring out the window at the rain drizzling down the glass. He looked as if he had a thousand more important things on his mind.
I wondered if he still did, or if he’d managed to get some rest.
I pushed aside the curtain and glanced down at the dimly lit cabin. Rafe was still in that seat by the window, his arms crossed over his chest. I thought he was dozing at first, but then he said, “You’re creeping me out, Maddie.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“It’s not better if you stare at me when I’m asleep.”
I rolled over Jensen, then I dropped to the ground, landing lightly on my feet.
When Rafe raised his hands toward me, I settled into his lap. His arm wrapped my waist, and I found the nook in his shoulder where my head seemed to rest perfectly. For a few long minutes, the two of us were silent, watching the rain pound against the window. The only other sounds were Jensen’s and Silas’s soft breathing from the bunks above.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked him finally. I knew where my thoughts kept returning—to the campus, to the Fae world. Our team was scattered thr
ough three worlds, and my heart felt a little broken, as if I was only whole when we were together.
He rested his chin on top of my head. It took him a while before he answered, “Nothing I can fix from here.”
“You’re worried about them all. I am too.”
He nodded, his jaw pressing the top of my head with the movement. Then he said, “I’m sorry you’re awake in the middle of the night. But selfishly…”
“You need to get some rest,” I chided, but there was sudden warmth in my chest because he admitted he needed me—or at least, that was as much of an acknowledgment as Rafe was probably capable of. It wasn’t easy for him to need anyone.
He was a work in progress, that man of mine. But I could live with that. I was a work in progress too, and none of my men seemed to mind.
Rafe suddenly tensed, his gaze locking on something outside the car. I followed his gaze, almost too late to see the billboard that we whipped past.
WANTED, read the top of the billboard. Underneath that headline were six black-and-white portraits: two women and four men.
One of them was unmistakably the incredible Silas Zip.
“So much for no one will know me in my hometown,” Rafe muttered. “I swear that boy is the stupidest genius I’ve ever met. Or the most brilliant idiot. I can’t decide.”
“You’re still mad about the gambling,” I guessed, in case he wanted to talk about the Silas situation.
“Mad is a nice way of putting it,” he grumbled.
It was cozy sitting in his lap, his hard muscular body against mine, his corded forearm draped across my lap. A spicy, warm scent always seemed to cling to his skin, even without my wolf senses. I rested my head on his shoulder, enjoying a few quiet moments.
“It’s all going to work out,” I promised.
Just then, a hard knock resounded on a door down the hall.
Rafe closed his eyes briefly. “You had to say something optimistic. Why do I have a feeling that knock’s not a good sign for us?”
Silas rolled out of bed and dropped lightly to his feet. Sometimes I had to wonder if he ever really slept, or if he just kind of paused. He might be less human than the rest of us were as shifters.
Rafe’s hands went to my hips as I rose, and Jensen dropped down from the bunk, the four of us standing together, ready for any threat that came through the door.
“Let me,” Silas said. He still wore Echo’s face, and he ran his fingers through his now-dark hair, tousling it.
“Of course,” Rafe said drily. He raised his hand toward the door, inviting Silas to take the lead.
When Silas opened the door, there was another mechanical man standing there, his hand raised to knock. He wore the same face as the one in the shop above the gambling den. For a second, I thought he’d found us again to exact revenge. Then I realized it was just an identical robot to the one who had offered us cake and then murder.
“Good evening. There are high traces of residual magic in this car,” the robot said. “You are reminded that magical modifications of physical appearance are not allowed due to the rebel magicians.”
“Right,” Silas said sympathetically. “Those rebel magicians ruin everything.”
“Please remove all magical physical enhancements and prepare for scanning.”
Instead, Silas glanced down the hall. “Where is your police escort?”
“That’s a peculiar question,” the robot said, just before his eyes began to whirr.
Silas muttered a word to activate his spell, just as he reached out and grabbed the robot. The robot threw up a protective limb, but Silas was so quick that he’d already slipped behind it.
He forced the robot into our room. Magic shimmered around Silas’s arm, then he wrenched the robot’s head off. Warm oil splattered across my face.
I winced as I wiped it off with my sleeve. Robot blood.
Silas dug in the back of the robot’s head and produced a card, which he dropped on the floor to crush under his heel. “Windows, please.”
I knelt on Rafe’s seat and threw open the window. Cold, damp air flooded into the room, and the hard breeze fluttered the curtain. It felt as if we were moving fast. Silas pitched the memory card out, then threw the head after.
“You are really hard on electronics,” Jensen said. “Now I know why my laptop always froze if you borrowed it. It was probably terrified of you. And here I’d assumed it was because you were looking at porn.”
“Disgusting,” Silas pronounced, and Jensen shrugged. Silas went on, “Get the packs. Time for us to exit the train.”
Jensen pulled them out from under the seats. He twisted with mine and helped me slip it over my shoulders. I yanked my straps, tightening them, and before I could reach for his, Rafe helped him on with it.
Silas threw his own pack lazily over one shoulder. Magic sparked at his fingertips.
“Any plans on how we get off the train when it’s traveling eighty miles per hour?” Rafe demanded.
“My plan is that we’re going to jump,” Silas told him, “and your plan should be that you trust me.”
Rafe scoffed at that, but the four of us still rushed out into the hall together.
Chapter Ten
Lex
I thought that by the time I reached Kierney pack lands, my father Rand and the alpha might already be on the road with the pack toward the academy. That would’ve made it easier to find my sister and get out of there, even though it made me feel worse about leaving the academy behind.
“I’m not sure what we’re heading into,” I told Penn, my hands taut on the steering wheel as we crossed the border into pack lands.
“I know,” he said. “I’m here whatever it is. You know a fight doesn’t bother me.”
Penn always looked so relaxed, even now, with his elbow resting on the windowsill, exposing the colorful tattoos across his forearms. When I was a complete ball of nerves, Penn’s laidback air made me feel better.
But then, it wasn’t his sister who was in trouble.
“Mel still planning on going to college in California?”
“Yep.”
“You’re going to let her go?”
He gave me a baleful look. “I can’t stop her.”
“Yeah, you can.” He was his pack’s alpha. He could stop her if he wanted to.
“Fine.” He didn’t pretend not to take my meaning. “I won’t.”
“You’re a better man than I am,” I said.
Penn snorted. “That is doubtful.”
“This time,” I said, “I don’t care if she wants to leave or not. I know the alpha is hitting her and…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to say what else the alpha might be doing to her.
The alpha’s wife had died a year and half ago, and he hadn’t wasted any time moving in on my teenage sister, that was for sure.
“We’ve got rope in the trunk,” Penn told me.
“You wouldn’t force your sister,” I said. I’d always known there was no way to force her to come to the academy, as much as I wished she would.
He snorted. “My sister is not in deathly danger. She’s in danger of sleeping with hackeysack players, thinking California-style pizza is normal, forgetting she’s a wolf. Yeah, I’m worried about what happens to a wolf shifter that far from home if she runs into another pack or something but… it should be fine. She’s a big girl.”
“You’ve been telling yourself that a lot?”
“Oh yes. But your situation with Rosemary is very, very different.”
“She’s always refused to go with me before.” But before was different. The day Maddie and I raced out of here, I’d hated leaving Rosemary behind, but I knew it was wrong to force her. “I just want to do the right thing.”
But I was afraid that leaving Rosemary to make her own decision about whether to leave or not, might mean that I never saw my sister again.
“You will,” Penn said. “You always do.”
That meant a lot to me, coming from Penn. Despite his laid
back attitude, he didn’t miss much, and he was quite smart. Dangerously smart, Rafe had muttered more than once. To the point of being stupid.
I decided to believe Rafe was wrong on that count, given that we were going back to the pack that had tried to murder me when I was a kid, I hadn’t really improved my standing with them since then, and Penn was my only backup. I hadn’t even asked Chase; I didn’t want him to feel torn between us and looking after Blake and Skyla. Besides, they still needed enough folks back at the academy to provide defense. I glanced at the clock, wondering if the Northsea pack had reached them yet. They were taking a risk by going; they owned an island, they could batten down the hatches there and ride out the shifter storm.
But if they did that, Tyson, Maddie, and the others might have no place safe to come home to.
“One crisis at a time, Lex,” Penn said.
“Freaking me out,” I muttered. “Can you read my mind now?”
“I just know the look on your face when you’re worrying about Maddie,” he said. “I’ve seen it a lot.”
“Yeah. I can see that.”
I pulled the car down my old driveway and did a quick turn, positioning it for a hasty departure. I wasn’t sure if she would be here, or at the alpha’s house. The thought of her being trapped there made me tense with fury.
I didn’t want to go back to that house, either. The memory of being staked outside like an animal, lashed by the wind and the rain, covered in my own blood…
I shook it off. “Last time I was here, it got violent.”
“I would hate for us to resort to fisticuffs,” Penn said, getting out of the car. He clipped his holster onto the back of his belt and pulled his jacket to cover it in one smooth motion. On my side, I did the same.
“I wish you wouldn’t say fisticuffs. It makes me worry about the fact that it’s just the two of us.”
“There’s not just about it,” Penn assured me.
We headed up the porch steps. The porch was full of greenery and blooms from my mother’s many potted plants, and she swung the door open before we reached it.
