Maybe I could go back to being Bryn.
“I’m calming down. I’m breathing. I’m ready.”
My body rebelled against those orders, but I ignored it, closed my eyes, and let myself be pulled into thoughts of Chase.
Dark hair. Blue eyes. Lopsided grin.
Chase.
He had a small, sinewy scar that pulled at one edge of his mouth. He appreciated rooms that locked from the inside and despised being caged. He moved like flowing lava. He thought he loved me, even though I could count on one hand the number of times we’d actually met.
Chase.
My body relaxed. My heartbeat slowed until I could only imagine the low, soothing whoosh of blood through my veins. Chase’s scent enveloped me, and as I breathed it in and out and felt his presence all around me, I lost myself to the pull of his psyche at the edges of mine. Like a sand castle at high tide, I broke, dissolved, and drifted slowly away.
“They want to see you.”
As my mind settled into Chase’s, and we became Chase-Wolf-Bryn, the senses we shared flared to life. Smell came first, the way it always did, and I recognized the person speaking to Chase because underneath the familiar scent of Stone River, he smelled angry. Not the fresh rush of adrenaline that came with fury, but the rotting irritation of bitterness as it decomposed.
Marcus.
If he’d found my adoption galling, the fact that the entire Senate wanted to see Chase, who hadn’t even been born a Were, must have chafed, too.
Senate? Us? Now?
On one level, I was aware that this was why I’d come here, but going to the meeting hadn’t been part of the plan. We were supposed to eavesdrop. We weren’t supposed to venture into Alpha Central ourselves. My thoughts blended into Chase’s, my questions into his.
Why did the Senate want to see Us?
Deeper in Chase’s mind, his wolf was anxious, antsy about going into a room filled with Others. Wolves who weren’t Pack. People he didn’t trust.
We have to go, I thought, even though, like the wolf, I didn’t want to. Chase nodded to Marcus, not bothering to conceal his dislike of a man who’d always hated me. If I’d been in my own body, I might have made a comment specifically designed to press werewolf buttons, but instead, I let Chase’s thoughts guide mine. We were about to walk willingly into the wolf’s den. Literally. We couldn’t afford a divided front at a time like this.
Chase pushed forward, and as we neared Callum’s house, his fists clenched. From the depths of his mind, I tried to prepare him for the rush of power that slammed into Our body the moment we crossed the threshold of Callum’s door. Each alpha in this room carried with him the weight of an entire pack, and it nearly brought Us low. These men played at being human, sitting around a table in Callum’s living room, but the air between them was so saturated with primal instincts that Chase almost couldn’t breathe.
Jaws should have been snapping. Bodies should have been pinned to the ground. Heads should have been bowing, blood should have been spilled, and one man should have ruled them all.
That was what the wolf inside of Chase said. That was the only conclusion supported by the pulsating, electric, lethal undertone in this room.
“I take it this is the boy?”
Chase took two steps back. Wolf wanted to come out. We had to get out of there.
No, I said softly, finding my own voice in Chase’s thoughts. Keep your head angled at forty-five degrees to the ground, but stand up straight. Don’t back down, don’t challenge. Don’t even move.
There wasn’t another wolf within a mile of Callum’s house at the moment. The power in this room would have been too much for them, and the Senate didn’t deal with packs. The alphas didn’t touch wolves that weren’t theirs. So why had they called for Chase?
“Come in,” Callum said evenly. Chase could have resisted the order. He was mine more than he was Callum’s, but I echoed the sentiment. Step forward. Keep your head tilted downward, but don’t look at the ground. Look at Callum. Keep your mouth closed. Whatever you do, don’t show your teeth.
The closer we got to Callum, the more we could feel the others, prowling just outside our thoughts. They didn’t push. They didn’t attack. But they were there.
“He isn’t Rabid.”
For a second, the voice sounded so like Devon’s that I wondered if he was pulling a ventriloquist act from somewhere in the depths of Callum’s house. And then I realized—
Shay.
“He hasn’t Shifted yet, which means he has more control than most young ones. Impressive, Callum.”
There was something irreverent in Shay’s words, a tone that told me that Shay remembered being under Callum’s rule and wanted everyone else to forget it. In his own domain, Shay was king, but here, he was young, foolish, and couldn’t hold a candle to Callum’s years, his experience, or his power.
Perfectly contained. Understated. Overwhelming. That was Callum.
Bubbling, roaring, biting at the bit. That was Shay.
“Chase.” Callum’s words brought our eyes to his, and inside of Chase, I almost flinched. If I’d been me instead of Us, I would have.
I knew those eyes. I knew Callum. And he knew me.
Bryn.
I felt the call. I wanted to respond but didn’t. I wasn’t Callum’s anymore. He couldn’t tell me what to do. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was there, or if he simply saw me every time he looked at Chase, thought about me almost as much as I thought about him.
There was no room for questions like these in a room full of the most dominant wolves in North America. We had to stay in control.
“Callum.” It was Chase’s voice and Chase’s response. I guided his body language, but I couldn’t guide his words. I couldn’t respond to the look in Callum’s eye or wonder what it meant.
“The Senate would like you to describe the Rabid, his attack, and your recovery.” Callum didn’t phrase the words as an order. He kept his voice low and soothing, but I saw the way the other alphas’ eyes lit up at the question. They had a vested interest in finding out more about this Rabid, about what had happened to Chase.
Sandstone and fish. Cedar and sour milk. Ocean salt and sulfur.
Their scents flooded Chase’s senses, making it hard for him to concentrate on anything else.
Don’t let your lip curl up. Don’t growl. Don’t show your teeth, I told him.
He didn’t, but inside him—inside Us—his wolf was awake and ready. It wanted to take control. I wouldn’t let it.
Wolves, it argued back. Not Pack. Protect girl.
If my presence here caused Chase to lose it, I would never forgive myself, so I channeled everything I had into keeping him calm. Soothing his wolf. Guarding his mind as his story spilled in monotone from his lips.
The alphas asked questions—more detailed questions than I’d ever thought to ask. What was the length of the duration of the attack? How long had Chase lain on the pavement before Callum’s wolves had found him and brought him back? Did he have any insight into how he’d managed to survive? How did he guard his mind from the Rabid? Did the Rabid ever take control of his physical body? Had it ever asked him to attack Callum? Could that happen?
No, Chase explained. Callum had brought him into the pack and trained him to use his pack-bond to guard against the Rabid’s psychic advances. Chase refrained from mentioning that I’d manipulated that bond, that I was the one who chased away the Rabid’s presence in his dreams now.
Finally, the questions stopped. One of the alphas, the one who smelled like sea salt, had the last word. “You’ve done well with him, Callum. You’re a strong boy, Chase, and you’ll been an even stronger man. Stone River is lucky to have you.”
That didn’t sound like a compliment. It sounded like a complaint, but I didn’t have time to process that fact, because the next instant, Chase and I were dismissed.
“You can go now,” Callum said. Chase wanted to argue. He wanted to stay. And for a moment, I wanted to let hi
m, but the older, wiser part of me, the part that had learned about surviving in a werewolf pack from the very best, couldn’t let him.
Go.
I read the order on Callum’s face. I might have imagined that he knew, on some level, that I was there in Chase’s head, but I wasn’t imagining the compulsion behind his request that we leave.
I wasn’t imagining the promise of violence if we didn’t.
Go, I told Chase. Leave the house. Go as far away as you can and still hear.
After all, Callum hadn’t specified where we had to go.
As the door closed behind us, Chase’s body relaxed. He walked quickly, keeping one ear to the conversation in Callum’s house.
It was silent.
They wouldn’t talk as long as they could hear us. There wasn’t a single man in that house who had become an alpha by virtue of their stupidity. The alphas didn’t trust Us, and they weren’t taking any chances. I wanted to scream. Chase wanted to scream. His wolf wanted Out.
The incessant plea—Out, Out, Out—gave me an idea.
Are your senses better in wolf form? I asked Chase silently.
His response told me that he wasn’t sure of the answer. In wolf form, Chase always had trouble thinking. Trouble remembering.
Shift anyway? I asked him. I might be able to think for both of us.
Yes, the wolf inside of Chase said. Yes!
Chase shuddered. The muscles in his neck relaxed. His head rolled to the side, and then pain, white-hot and bone-shattering, enveloped his body.
I felt it. I welcomed it. And as Chase’s human form gave way, a rush of power washed over the pain, turning agony to ecstasy and back again.
Run. As a wolf, Chase wanted to run. It would have been so easy to lose myself to the same overwhelming need, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. In wolf form, Our senses were doubled, and as We padded away from Callum’s house on all fours, the alphas finally began talking. We could hear them, but they couldn’t hear Us.
Wolf didn’t want to listen. Wolf wanted to run.
No. Unlike Chase, whose conscious thoughts were scrambled and wordless post-Change, I was still me. I could still remember why We’d Shifted, and I could still make out the meaning in the words the Senate was saying, even if I could only decipher about one in every three.
“… Change … powerful.”
“… miscarriage …”
“… five in the entire country! Five!”
Five what? Five Rabids? I hoped to God that wasn’t true.
“Two in your territory, Callum.” Shay’s voice traveled better than the other alphas’. He talked more loudly, putting more power into his voice, because of all of them, he was the youngest and he had the most to prove. Wolf understood this better than I did, and I pulled my understanding of the situation from instincts that weren’t mine.
“Your numbers are growing. Two babies, one new wolf. Stone River is already the largest pack.”
Wolf knew what this meant, his innate grasp of the intricacies of Were politics putting mine to shame. More babies, Wolf said, meant more wolves. More wolves meant a bigger pack. A stronger pack.
A stronger alpha.
I got the message loud and clear: in the wild, math was simple. The strongest alpha was only as strong as the force of his pack. And right now, Stone River was the biggest pack.
Alpha. One alpha. One pack.
Wolf growled the words, and I absorbed them. To werewolves, dominance was everything. The most dominant wolf had all of the power. The strongest wolf was meant to dominate them all.
Unite the packs. Unite the power.
That was the siren’s call that set each and every alpha on edge when the Senate was called. They needed to challenge each other. One of them needed to dominate, the others needed to submit. Wolf’s instincts gave way to my explicit knowledge of the situation, and I did the math.
Callum had the biggest pack. Callum had a knack for seeing the future. I would have bet my life that Callum was older and stronger and more everything than any other person in that room.
Callum was the biggest threat, and the fact that his pack was growing faster than the others did nothing to assuage the others’ fears, their instinctual suspicions that if Callum had wanted to, he could have been their alpha, too. The realization startled me, but it didn’t surprise me. It took me off guard, but it made perfect sense. Callum was experienced. He was powerful. He was smart.
He was Callum.
“Five births, and two of them yours.” Shay again. I hated him, but appreciated his enunciation, because the rest of the alphas’ voices blended together in a blur.
“… no births …”
“Only one …”
The other alphas didn’t like the idea of Callum’s pack growing while theirs shrank. They had to have known, the way Wolf did just being in the room with them, that if Callum tired of democracy, the entire North American continent could be his.
“… Rabid …”
At that word, Chase’s wolf ears literally perked up. Even with his mind jumbled, he recognized it.
This was why we were here. Why we were listening.
“Answer … not that simple …”
“—prerogative—”
I could only catch bits and pieces of words, but even that shocked me because they weren’t the words I’d expected to hear. The alphas should have been talking about strategies for hunting the Rabid. They should have been sharing what they knew of his potential location. They shouldn’t have been saying …
“… unless … we need …”
“… turn … blind eye—”
Blind eye? Blind eye? They couldn’t have just said those words in a discussion about a rabid wolf. They couldn’t have. The men in this room were a twig’s snap away from attacking each other in one giant dominance struggle. This Rabid had killed in their territories. His very existence was a challenge, and alphas didn’t abide challenges.
Alphas were strong. They kept their packs safe. They eliminated threats.
“—in exchange … desirable …”
“So we barter with murderers now?” Callum’s voice carried, for the opposite reason as Shay’s. He had nothing to prove. It was power, not volume, that carried his words to my ears, and Wolf crouched, belly brushing the ground at the sound of the tone.
Callum wasn’t Chase’s alpha the way he used to be. But even now, that tone, that power—
There was an instinct to obey. To fold. To give in to the power of his words.
But Shay didn’t. “Is that your final word on the matter, Callum?”
“It is.”
For a moment there was silence, and then Shay spoke up again. “And what are you going to do about it?”
Nobody spoke to Callum like that. Not the other alphas. Not his own wolves. Not even me … most of the time anyway.
Shay wasn’t challenging Callum. Not exactly. He was daring Callum to challenge the rest of them. To force his will on them. To prove he could.
To do it.
One pack. One alpha.
“Are we a democracy or aren’t we?” Shay threw down the gauntlet. “Do we vote or do you decide?”
Vote on what? Decide what? To barter? To turn a blind eye?
Challenge them, I screamed silently at Callum. Do it. Take them. Take it all.
He could have. Every part of me, every memory, every instinct I had said that Callum could stop this. He could make them understand.
He could make them submit.
But he didn’t. “We’re a democracy,” Callum said, his tone never changing, his surety never called into question.
Wrong. Wrong-wrong-wrong. Wolves weren’t meant for democracy. Werewolves weren’t meant to vote. Callum was safe. Callum was strong. Callum should have done something.
He didn’t.
“All in favor?”
In favor of what? I couldn’t hear the vote go down, didn’t hear anyone’s answer but Callum’s, but I knew based on the tone of his voice tha
t it must have been in the minority, that the others were voting to do the unthinkable.
I tried to wrap my mind around it but couldn’t. The Senate wasn’t going to hunt the Rabid. They were going to make him a deal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“NO!” I SAT UP IN BED, THE SCREAM TEARING ITS WAY out of my throat. On the other side of our bond, Chase was going wild, his wolf giving in to bloodlust, hunting. Rabbits. Deer.
Chase needed to kill something.
I could relate. My own fingernails dug into my pillow, and I came dangerously close to tearing it apart. As I extracted myself from Chase’s mind, I was hit with two pangs of withdrawal. One was his. The other was mine, and they mirrored each other so perfectly that at any other time, I would have turned the feelings over and over in my head, remembering the feeling of his skin and being inside it and hurting in sync with his loss.
With the way that we’d both just been betrayed. Again.
Callum could have fought the other alphas. He could have fought them, and he could have won, but we just weren’t worth it to him. Chase and my parents and Madison Covey and who knows how many other children who’d been torn to shreds—they weren’t worth it.
I wasn’t worth it.
“Bryn!” Ali came rushing into the room, a knife in her hand. The image seemed wrong. Ali wasn’t a fighter, and I could take care of myself.
I was the one Callum had trained to fight, not her.
“Are you okay?” Ali’s eyes were wild, and for the first time, I felt her pack-bond brushing against what was left of mine.
Ali was Pack, and I’d scared her to death.
“I’m fine,” I said, thankful that she didn’t have a Were’s ability to smell the truth. “Bad dream.”
Except it wasn’t a dream. It was real. The Rabid was alive, and if the Senate had their way, he wouldn’t be experiencing a shift in condition anytime soon. And Callum had just stood there and let it happen in the name of democracy.
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