I waited while he answered it and told Grandma where we were, trying to glean information from his side of the conversation.
“Yeah, we can see inside fine,” he said after explaining how we’d stumbled upon the invisible walls outside and finding our way to the door. “Really?” he said, rubbing a hand over his chin. “Is there any way to— I see ... Yeah, right.” He snorted, shooting a glance at me and then quickly away again.
I raised a brow at that, but he ignored me and responded to something else Grandma said. “Now? Okay.”
He motioned for me to follow and opened the back door he’d come in earlier. Beyond the open doorway, I could see a small porch with three stairs leading down to the ground. Strange, I hadn’t been able to see anything of the outside earlier. Maybe it was only visible if you were inside?
I crossed the threshold behind Wes, fully expecting the porch and stairs to disappear the moment I stepped out, but it remained, solid and fully visible. I followed him down the stairs and turned to face the house.
“I can see it,” I said.
As I’d suspected, the exterior walls were made of logs, fitted together like a toy set might be with each log sitting on the other in a tongue-and-groove style. The roof was made of metal paneling that glinted in the light. The porch and railing were constructed of the same wood as the rest of the house and carved intricately around the edges and along the banister. The entire picture, the house with the greens and browns and blues of the woods and waterfall as a backdrop, was like something out of a movie. Or better, a postcard.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
With his free hand, Wes laced his fingers through mine.
“Yup, I can see the whole thing now,” Wes said into the phone. “Tara can see it too,” he added. Had Grandma worried I wouldn’t? Again, I wondered if it took a certain kind of hybrid to get in here.
Wes paused to listen and then said, “He’s waiting for us back at the road. I need to get the bus moved and bring them in. Will it still be visible when we get back? … Uh-huh. Okay, will do … No, we didn’t hit any trouble. It was pretty quiet. What about you?”
I grew restless waiting for whatever news Grandma was giving him. Finally, he told her to be careful, promised to call later, and hung up.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“Let’s walk and talk,” he said.
I happily agreed. We found the trail and began the trek back to the bus. “What did Grandma say?” I asked again. “Why can we see the house now?”
“She said the wards are a two-part deal,” he explained. “The first part is being able to step foot in the clearing. Only hybrids can even find it to begin with.”
“What do you mean? It was easy enough with GPS coordinates. Couldn’t anyone use them and do what we did?”
“Not according to Edie,” he said. “Even with GPS, unless you’ve got mixed blood running in your veins, this trail will take you in circles. You’ll end up passing the clearing over and over without ever seeing it.”
“Hmm. Too bad we don’t have a way to test it.”
He shot me a look. “Testing it would mean someone’s gotten this close. I don’t love that idea.”
“I see your point. What’s the second part of the wards?”
“It’s invisible until you get inside.”
“What about if we leave and come back?” I asked, thinking of George waiting by the road.
“Now that we’re here, we’ll find it again.”
My brow creased. “But all we did was walk inside. How does that make it visible to us?”
“She said the words used in creating that part of the ward are ‘Credendo Vides.’ It’s Latin. Means, by believing is seeing.”
“So, once we believed the house was there, we were able to see it? Even without saying the words?”
He shrugged. “That explanation’s probably oversimplified but more or less, yes.”
“Too bad that doesn’t work with the rest of our problems.”
“Agreed.”
We found George pacing the length of the bus. His hair was disheveled, as if he’d been running an over-zealous hand through it. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
“We found the cabin, but it took a while to get in.” I explained the invisible walls and the accidental way we’d discovered it in the first place. He looked slightly calmer when I’d finished.
“No more leaving me out of the loop for so long. Trying to read you drove me crazy,” he said when I’d finished.
“You couldn’t read her?” Wes asked.
George scratched his head. “Not well enough. It felt … foggy.”
“Has it felt like that before?”
“When we first bonded and she wasn’t letting me in or letting her mind go.”
Wes looked at me. “What about the girls? Are they still foggy to you?”
“A little,” I admitted.
Wes frowned.
“What do you think it is?” George asked.
“Something’s been off since the others were taken,” Wes said. “Steppe did something. I know it was him.”
“I agree,” I said, “but it’s impossible, right? There’s no way to break the bond. Vera said so.”
“No,” Wes said slowly. “Vera said you shouldn’t break the bond, not that you couldn’t.”
I tried to recall Vera’s exact words, but all I remembered of that day was the scary paleness of her skin and her closed eyes as she’d faded away from us.
“Okay, but …” I rubbed a hand across my face. “How could he remove the bond like that? I’m the one that created the bond in the first place, and he didn’t touch me. Wouldn’t he have had to, I don’t know, get to me? Do something?”
“Probably,” Wes said. “Unless …” He and George shared a look. “Unless the bond isn’t really gone.”
“Wes, I hate to disappoint but I can’t feel them. Not Chris, not Rafe, not Curtis. None of them. Not even a little.”
“Right, but remember when Olivia had you and we lost our connection?” George’s face was lit with an enthusiasm that made me wary.
“Yeah.”
“And I told you Alex knocked me out and that’s why we couldn’t sense each other for a while?”
“What about it?” Hope leaped in my chest. Despite rational thought, I wanted to believe his theory. “You think they’re unconscious?”
“Maybe.”
“And if you’re right, how does that help me get it back?”
“Remember at the beginning, when you and I worked together on strengthening our bond so that we could learn to use it better?” George asked.
“Yeah, we made it stronger so that we could turn it up and down when we wanted.”
“Right. Maybe we should try that again,” he said, his words rushed by the excitement of the idea.
I couldn’t tell him no, not when he was this excited, even if the void in me made it hard to believe in the possibility of a solution. “All right. Let’s get the girls to the house and then we can work on it,” I said.
George, Wes, and I headed for the bus.
I tried not to let on my lack of enthusiasm at George’s idea. The idea of having hope frightened me. If this didn’t work, I didn’t want to sink back into the same depression. I couldn’t handle that again.
***
“Try harder. You’re not concentrating on connecting,” George insisted for what could’ve been the gazillionth time.
I ground my teeth together, resisting the urge to tell him where he could stick his connection. “I am concentrating,” I said through tight lips. I kept my eyes shut as proof and pulled my crossed legs in tighter. My muscles protested. The rug underneath me had been comfortable when I’d first sat down two hours ago. Now, my limbs were stiff and my butt was numb.
And I still hadn’t sensed a single thing from the others.
“No, you’re sitting there with your eyes closed and pretending to concentrate,” George said.
>
I couldn’t argue with that. “My butt is numb. I can’t think when I can’t feel my body parts. Maybe we should take a break and come back to it later.”
“No way,” George said. “You can do this. Come on. Try harder.”
“I’ve been trying for hours. I haven’t connected with any of them.”
“Means we haven’t figured out how to get around the block. You need to relax more.”
I let my shoulders slump dramatically. From his vantage point behind me, Wes laughed. George must’ve glared at him because the sound cut off abruptly.
“That’s not what I meant,” George said. “Now, try again.”
George obviously wasn’t deterred by the lack of results—or my deteriorating temper. We’d already tried simple concentration and when that didn’t work, meditation—until I’d almost fallen asleep. Now we were back to concentrating. For all the good that did.
On the upside, my connection to George, Janie, and Emma had strengthened. It surprised me to find a sadness similar to my own lurking in each of them. Even though they didn’t share a mental bond with their pack mates like I did, the physical absence had left a hole in them. There was a loneliness in all of us.
I hadn’t said anything to George, but I knew he wanted me to awaken the bond almost as badly as I wanted it for myself. It made me sad and then, when my efforts to sense something from the others yielded nothing, it made me angry.
That’s where I was now. I was pretty positive George knew it, but he kept trying to talk me down and keep me focused on the goal.
“Concentrate on one of them at a time, Tay,” he said. “Think of Chris. Your connection with him was stronger than the others, right?”
“Right,” I said. And despite my frustration, a pang shot through my gut. I missed him. A lot. He always made me steadier. When I got overwhelmed by the sheer number of Werewolves who looked to me for guidance, Chris was there, telling me I could do it. I could lead them.
“Think about Chris. Picture his face in your mind,” George said. His voice evened out, like an overly dramatic hypnotist. He was trying too hard. We both were.
Still, I kept my eyes closed and called up Chris’s face in my mind. I searched the connections in my head, removing the line that led to George and then Emma and Janie. When that was shoved aside, the emptiness loomed and I panicked.
I couldn’t go through that again. I refused. It was too big, too scary.
I opened my eyes and the bond with George snapped back into place like a rubber band. What little concentration I’d had vanished. “Didn’t work.”
George threw up his hands and stood. “I give up.”
“You can try again later,” Wes said, trying to smooth the tension.
“She can try again later,” George corrected. He headed for the back door. “I’m going for a run.”
“No way, you can’t leave—” I began, but my words were cut short.
A sudden vibration shook the floor and walls, rattling the dishes and windows in its intensity. The sound of rattling glass drowned out everything else, including the falls and whatever Wes was saying from across the room. From the shape of his mouth it looked like “What the hell,” but I couldn’t be sure.
We all froze.
Upstairs, Janie and Emma jumped up and then immediately crouched down again in an effort to keep their balance. I wasn’t sure whether to attempt to reach them or wait it out. I didn’t have a chance to decide. As abruptly as it began, the quaking ceased and everything was still again.
I stared at the boys. “What happened?”
“Earthquake?” Wes said.
George rubbed a hand over his hair, disheveling it all over again. “Didn’t know Colorado had those.
Wes walked over and extended a hand down to me. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. I kept my grip on his hand, waiting for my balance to steady.
“You okay?” he asked, his eyes searching my face for an answer.
“I think so,” I said, taking stock.
George felt dazed and so did the girls, though theirs was turning more to fear than shock now that it was over. “George, can you check on Janie and Emma?”
“On it,” he replied, hurrying upstairs.
“That was really weird,” I said, reaching out to right a lamp that had fallen over.
I wandered the room, straightening pictures and making sure everything was back in its place. Wes caught my hand and pulled me toward him. “Come here. We can clean up later.” He traced his fingertips down the side of my face, watching me closely. “You’re doing great.”
I shook my head. “It’s not working.”
“Something will.”
I sighed. “Tell me something you know for sure.”
“We’ll get them back,” he said.
It was a repeat of a promise, but the more I heard him say it, the more I believed he meant it. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For understanding that I need to. And accepting it. I know you hate the bond.”
“I don’t hate the bond. I hate that we don’t get any privacy.”
“Me too, but they need me. And I can’t ignore that. And …” I hesitated. Saying it aloud would confirm the depth of my loss. Not only to myself but to Wes. And it would mean admitting this bond would never really go away. Not fully, which meant we might never get that privacy he talked about. But I couldn’t deny the truth of it and he deserved to know.
“And?” he prompted.
I met his eyes and said the words that had become as true as breathing. “I think I need them too.”
Chapter Ten
In the gray pre-dawn, I lay in bed next to Wes, unable to sleep. Last night, the rushing of the falls soothed me to sleep almost before my head hit the pillow. I had a vague memory of Wes dragging the quilt up and over me, tucking it under my chin before he collapsed beside me and we were both pulled under by our exhaustion. But now, a few hours later, I was wide awake, my thoughts laced with the worst kind of worry: doubt.
Beside me, Wes shifted and rolled away from me before settling back into deep sleep. I didn’t want him to wake up and find me like this. It would only add to his stress and I hated doing that if I could help it.
I need them too. He hadn’t said a word after I’d said that. He’d nodded and kissed me and then switched gears, coaxing me into helping him straighten all the furniture knocked askew by what we’d labeled “the quake.” Afterward, I helped him make dinner. By the time food was finished, George had returned and the subject remain dropped.
But it was out there now, standing between us like the conversation we kept not having about Alex, and I wasn’t sure he knew how deeply I’d meant it. I needed my pack again. I couldn’t foresee not needing them. Ever. What did that mean for the bond? For Wes and I?
I grew restless. Maybe if I put my body into motion, my mind would slow down. If not, I could at least occupy it with something productive.
Quietly, I pulled the covers back and slipped out of bed. On my way to the door, I stopped and bent over the bag we’d brought from home. My hands brushed the smooth cover of Vera’s journal. As I pulled it free, my wrist bumped something hard and I caught sight of the phone. On impulse, I grabbed it too before slipping out.
In the hall, I passed three more closed doors. Across from my room was the bathroom. Before the stairs, George slept in the bedroom on the left and the girls on the right. They still hadn’t shifted back so they’d settled on the rug instead of the queen bed, but at least they were safe. And not hungry. For now.
I listened intently to both the outer sounds of the house and my inner connection to be sure George wasn’t awake. My thoughts were unruly enough without adding his concern for me. Mainly, I wanted some time to myself. Especially in my own head. If I could keep my worry to mild stress instead of full-blown panic, it wouldn’t wake him. Hopefully.
I crept down the stairs, wincing every time one of the boards creaked underfoot, and into the living r
oom. I sank onto the couch that lined one wall, giving me a direct view of the falls. The gray sky painted the water the color of a bruise. It looked violent, the way the water rushed straight over the edge of the rocks and crashed below. I watched it for a few minutes, connected to it somehow, Mother Nature’s mood matching my own. Then I opened the journal.
On the inside flap was Vera’s name as I’d read it before. Her handwriting was beautiful and elegant and careful, like her. I flipped to a random page and began to read. It was an entry dated from the previous August. A year ago.
I had the vision again. It is always the same. The girl, the Alpha, leads a pack. They are different, a new creation. I can see in their eyes they are two parts where we are one. Gordon Steppe is there. His hate is a red cloud of destruction. He leads his own yellow-eyed pack. They are the same as the Alpha girl’s pack but these are enemies. He does not connect with them like she does. They are very loyal to her. Their bond is strong. With that, they remain grounded in our world. She keeps the darkness at bay.
Gordon’s pack is different. They are uncontrolled. There is darkness in them like I’ve never seen.
When they meet, there is much blood. And yellow eyes. And then there is nothing.
I kept my finger on the page and stared at a spot on the wall, unseeing. Vera had known about the hybrids. She’d known they would be my pack. And now it was clear Steppe’s plan had been to use them for himself. All these months we’d been searching for the rogues and he’d apparently had them all along. All those wasted trips, searching for something he’d already found.
But how had he gotten them to listen to him? They’d been so out of control when I’d seen them before, when Miles had first created them. They were considered the “failed attempts.”
And then there is nothing.
I remembered Steppe in the clearing, smiling as he ordered his pack to attack. They barely needed his permission. They were already so filled with hate and bloodlust, they probably would’ve attacked whether he’d told them to or not. And when it was over, my pack was gone, and it was true. There had been no pack, no bond. Nothing.
Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) Page 14