“No, that’s not going to happen,” I said. “That witch is dead.”
Everyone gave me shocked faces.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “It was an accident.”
They were still staring at me.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, feeling defensive. I was the alpha, and I was not above forcing them to adjourn the meeting and forget about all this if they didn’t— But no, I couldn’t do that. They were expressing a valid concern about the safety of the pack.
Just…
What was I going to do?
“You’ve got to take a human mate,” said Henry. “We actually have put together some options for you, with the help of some members of the pack who wish to recommend their eligible sons.”
I shook my head. “Look, I can’t…” I sighed. “I know you are all worried, and you need me to secure the spell and secure the pack. But I’m not in any position to mate with a stranger right now.”
“This is about the bloodhound, right?” said Judah. “You had him with you, in the village. People saw him going into your house with you.”
“I…” I studied my fingernails. “I am doing my best to come to terms with the fact that Landon and I can’t be together. But I need more time before I mate.”
“You don’t have time,” said Neil. “The pack needs you to—”
“I’ll go and get Aston Waterfield,” I said.
“What?” said Henry.
“If I honor my deal with the bloods, they’ll be our allies. A pack of freed bloods against anything that tries to hurt us. If I can get their chips out, they will be loyal to us. That will give me time to find someone else to mate with.”
“All right,” said Henry. “That may be acceptable. The council can vote on it. But we will not be allowing you to go. You’ll choose members of the pack to infiltrate the city. You are too valuable to leave. Besides, you should be using the time to get to know the contenders for your human mate.”
I sighed. I had learned a long time ago not to fight with the council on this stuff. It was better to agree and then leave on my own anyway. They couldn’t actually stop me, because I was the alpha. I could influence them. So, I nodded. “Of course. That is the way it should be.”
“Is there a motion on the table?” said Mary.
“I move that we send wolves into the city to capture Aston Waterfield,” said Henry.
“I second that,” said Neil.
* * *
“What happened to your window?” Sinead said. “I heard you said that a really big bird flew into it, but I also heard that the glass is on the wrong side for that to be true.”
I was in my living room in a robe, and it was nearly noon. I had been feeling a little depressed lately. Sometimes, it was hard to get moving in the mornings. Tonight, the council was going to be taking volunteers for the trip into the city, so I really needed to leave tonight.
I wished I knew something about that bloodstone, so that I would have invisibility, but I didn’t, and I was just going to have to work with what I had. I had no plan for how I was going to get into the city and complete my mission, but when I thought about failing, it didn’t scare me that much, because I was depressed.
I knew it was a bad combination for going to fight, but I didn’t have a lot of time. I had to move now.
“Sinead,” I said without getting off my couch, “right now’s not great. Can I call you later?”
“Um, no,” she said, moving out of the doorway and into the room. “Any other time, sure. But the last two times I called you, you never picked up, and you haven’t been returning my texts, and then I get here, and you don’t even get up to let me in, and I’m worried about you.”
I leaned forward and ran a hand through my hair, which was a little greasy. Should you shower before going on a quest? What was the etiquette there? The thought of trying to get myself into a shower seemed monumental. I flopped back against the couch. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
“What happened to your window?” She sat down on the couch next to me.
I was embarrassed. I looked like hell. I didn’t want her to be here. I didn’t want anyone here. But I was leaving tonight, anyway. And it was Sinead. What would it hurt to tell her the truth? “Landon happened,” I said.
“What?”
I explained all of it, how I’d tried to chain him up, how the chains hadn’t held, how I’d barely gotten away from him, how I’d been worried he’d attack the village, how I hadn’t heard from him since.
She listened, eyes growing wider with every new twist of the story.
When I was done, I waited.
She only shook her head. “That’s… that’s…”
“I know,” I said.
And she surprised me by giving me a sudden hug. She squeezed me tight. “Oh, hell, Camber, I’m so sorry,” she whispered in my ear. “I really wanted it to work out with you and Landon.”
I hugged her back, and I felt like crying. “Thanks,” I murmured. “I should have told you sooner.” I should have known Sinead would know the right thing to say. Anyone else would have lectured me on how stupid I’d been, but she knew that wasn’t what I needed. I understood that it had been stupid. I didn’t need that to be rubbed in.
She pulled back. “So… you haven’t talked to him?”
“No,” I said. “There’s really nothing to say. I know that I have to find another mate, but the thought of it makes me feel sick.”
“Of course it does,” she said. “Your heart is broken.”
I bit down hard on my lip.
“You just take your time, okay?” said Sinead. “Don’t let the council bully you into making any kind of huge decision. And if they give you flak about it, remind them that this bond you form will have to be strong, and that you can’t have a strong bond with just anyone.”
I smiled a little. “You’re right. That’s a really good point.”
“I thought so,” said Sinead. She cocked her head at me. “Ewan says he thinks you’re pulling the same trick you pulled last time, letting the council think that you’re going to let them pick a team to go into the city, but that you’re going to go on your own.”
“No,” I said, but I didn’t look at her.
“If you’re going to do that, take Ewan and me,” she said. “Don’t go all on your own. Please?”
“Sinead, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Just think about it,” she said, giving me a meaningful look.
Man, she saw right through me, didn’t she?
* * *
I planned to leave that night, but when it came down to it, I dragged my feet. I wasn’t even going to go to the council meeting to decide the team, but I did go, and I gave my opinion of the wolves that volunteered, and we put together a team that included Amber’s and Ewan’s friend Tim, and some other wolves that had been part of the raid on the bloods’ headquarters. I knew they’d have no chance of success if they went, but I agreed to a meeting for two days from then where I’d discuss strategy with them.
Then I went home, and I got out a bag to pack. But I didn’t pack. I just pulled things out of my closet, looked at them, and then shoved them back onto the rack. I wasn’t even sure if I should bring clothes. I had no idea what I was doing here.
It was stupid to leave.
I needed a plan.
There was a knock on my door. I figured it was Sinead again, or maybe Ewan, making sure I wasn’t taking off on my own. But when I got to the door, it was Landon.
My heart stopped at the sight of him. I yanked open the door and I almost threw myself into his arms, but then I thought of his yellow eyes and I stopped. I stood there, half outside, and I gaped at him.
He looked at me, his blue eyes luminous, and then he looked down at his feet. “Hey,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“Hey,” I said.
“I don’t have to come in. It’s probably better if I—”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry, of cour
se.” I stepped aside to give him room to go inside.
“Listen, Camber—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
He sucked in a noisy breath and then let it out. “Okay, good. Yeah, that’s better.” Hunched over, he trudged into the house.
I shut the door behind him.
He looked around my kitchen like a trapped animal looking for an escape. His gaze settled on the window. “Did that…? Is that because of me?”
“Why are you here?” I blurted. I cringed. “That came out wrong. I’m glad to see you. I was worried I wouldn’t see you, and now you’re here, and I’m glad.”
“Are you?”
I nodded.
But he didn’t see me, because he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at the window.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He turned to me, then. “I have a lead on the bloodstone.”
“Oh!” I said. “Great. That’s excellent. Tell me where it is.”
“I can’t be sure, but I hear that Ondine Gammon has one.”
“Ondine…” The name rang a bell. “She’s a vampire, right? She lives all the way out in Pattos.” I remembered seeing her on TV when I was a little girl. She used to buy ads that would be her talking about how awful Viggo was and how we all deserved a better ruler.
But then she got silenced by Viggo. He had forced her into exile, outside his kingdom. Out there, it was lawless and the vampires had to fend for themselves. There were no blood bags from the human population.
“Yeah,” said Landon. “She still makes noise when she can—on social media and the internet. But everyone’s too afraid of what Viggo would do to them to listen to her.”
“You think she’d just give it to us out of the kindness of her heart?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe? If she knows that we’re going to use it against Viggo, to take Desta away from him, maybe she’d be willing to let me have it.”
“I guess it might work,” I mused. I cocked my head. “Wait. Let you have it?”
“I’m going to go and ask her for it,” he said. “If she doesn’t give it to me, I’ll take it from her, or I’ll get myself killed in the process. But I’m going to go and—”
“I’m going,” I said. “I was planning on leaving tonight anyway. This only makes sense. I should go.”
“You have the pack here.”
“They want me to choose a human mate,” I said. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
He flinched.
I felt like crying again. I swear, it seemed like I was always fighting off tears lately.
“Well, this is dangerous, going out of the kingdom,” he said. “And you’d have to take the train. How are you going to do that? You’re a werewolf. Your identity cards have all been revoked. You can’t buy tickets or go through the checkpoints.”
“How are you going to do it?” I countered. “You’re a bloodhound.”
“I’m going to sneak on the train, obviously.”
“What? I can’t sneak on the train too?”
“Too? You want us to do it together?”
“I…” My jaw worked. No. I had assumed that Landon and I would never do anything together ever again. “Would that even be… smart?”
“Probably not,” he said. “Just let me go.”
“I can’t. I have to go,” I said.
“Well, if you go, I have to make sure you’re okay.”
“Which would probably mean, you know, staying away from me?”
He looked up at me as if I’d just punched him in the stomach.
“I’m sorry.” My eyes were filling with tears as much as I was trying to fight that. “But you almost… Before, when you were here, when it happened, you…”
“You’re afraid of me,” he breathed.
“No,” I said.
He hung his head.
“Landon, I know it wasn’t you. You didn’t mean it.” But the tears had infected my voice, and it sounded high-pitched and tinny, not the least bit convincing.
He squared his shoulders. “Fine. You go. I’ll stay away from you, like you said. Far, far away. You’ll never see me again.”
Tears spilled out onto my cheeks. “Landon, wait.”
“You’re right,” he whispered, closing the distance between us and caressing my cheek with his furred fingers. “It’s better this way.”
“But I did it,” I said. “I’m the one who made you try those chains. If I’d never tried that—”
“One of us would have tried something like that eventually,” he said quietly. “Now, we know.”
“We can’t be together,” I said thickly.
“We don’t make sense,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, quickly. Then he darted out of the door and into the night.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Now that I had an idea of where I was going, I packed quickly, bringing only a few outfits. Then I went out to where the cars that the pack kept were parked.
Ewan was there. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you’d be doing this on your own.”
“I’m not going to the city,” I said to him. “Well, not right away. I’m going to Pattos. I’m looking for something I need to do an invisibility spell. If I can get that, breaking into the city will be a snap. You can come with me for that.”
“I’m coming with you now,” he said.
“No,” I said gently, pushing my influence through the bond I shared with him as his alpha, turning him around and making him walk back toward home. “I’m sorry, Ewan.”
He walked away, unable to resist me.
I got in the car and drove away.
I drove through the woods and to the city, the same place that I’d driven last time. The car I’d driven was still there, in the spot where I’d hidden it, covered in branches. I hadn’t expected it to be there. Crazy. I would have to alert someone in the pack to come and get it.
I climbed the fence and into the city, and then I stuck to the shadows as I made my way down alleyways and through the city to get to the train station.
Once there, I lost myself amongst the crowds. There were humans here at the station, because often they would come here to disembark for journeys to various places. Business trips. Vacations. Trips to see loved ones on the other side of the kingdom. No one gave me a second look. It wasn’t like within the city itself, where all humans were vampires’ blood slaves.
After wandering around for a little while, I found the train that was heading to Pattos. But security was tight. There was a checkpoint with a line of about twenty people winding through the room. I couldn’t get in line. I’d never make it past the checkpoint. I had to find some way around.
I went looking, but there was security everywhere.
The only option that I could see would be to climb the fence that sectioned off the tracks and then cross the tracks themselves. Then I could find some way onto that train.
But I wasn’t sure how I was going to scale the fence. Someone would see me.
I puzzled it out for a while, getting nowhere, and then I had an idea. I could shift into wolf form and run along the fence, all the way down the track so that I would be back in the woods. Then I could scale the fence and cross the track, and then run back to the train station inside the fence.
I decided it would be best not to try this until the middle of the night. The trains ran until around 3:00 AM and then there was a dead zone of time until the first train left around 5:30. The station wasn’t deserted during that period or anything, but there were a lot less people around. I figured it would be safer.
So, I got some food at a stand within the station, ate, and then hung around, doing my best not to seem suspicious. For hours on end.
It was tedious. I hadn’t packed myself things to do—like books to read or anything like that. I still had Vivia’s old cell phone, and I spent time trying to download apps onto it, so that I had something to do.
Time crept by slowly, but eventually,
it was time to do my thing.
I went out to the edge of the train station, into the shadows, and I shed my clothes quickly. I shoved them into my bag and then shifted. I managed to get my head under the straps of the bag, so that it hung around my neck. It wasn’t comfortable, and it impeded my ability to run, but I made it work.
I took off beside the fence, running as quickly as I could.
I didn’t see anyone in the city while I ran, and after a while, I finally left behind the buildings and was out in the woods.
There, I caught the scent of a bloodhound.
In the city, there had been too many scents. Too many people, vampires, and bloods all crammed together to really pick one out. But now, far away from the buildings, I could make out a smell. It was far away, and I kept losing it as I ran. I hoped that was because it was just some random bloodhound out scouting the woods for werewolves.
I could have scaled the fence right there, but I was worried about the bloodhound, so I kept running until I didn’t smell anything.
Then, I shifted back to human form, dressed, threw my bag over my shoulder and began to climb the fence.
It was dark. Above me, the stars already seemed tired in the early morning sky. It was silent too, no sounds except a light breeze rustling the tree branches.
I reached the top of the fence and I threw one leg over. It was a little complicated with the bag on my back throwing off my balance, but I managed it. I began to climb down the fence, inside, next to the train tracks.
Then I heard something. A crunch, as though someone was in the woods, approaching.
Startled, I lost my footing on the fence. I fell all the way to the ground, and my ankle buckled when I hit.
It hurt, but I forced myself not to cry out.
I peered through the fence, scanning the woods, looking for whoever might be there.
But it was quiet, and I didn’t see any movement.
My heart was thrashing inside my chest. I took deep breaths. My ankle throbbed.
Okay, I needed to shift to heal this. And I’d need to run in wolf form, anyway. I was faster that way. I waited a little longer, and then I took off my clothes and shoved them back in my pack. My ankle was pretty bad off. It was pretty painful trying to remove my pants. It was hard to keep my balance with only one good foot.
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