“I’ll get the first aid kit,” I tell him as I help him hobble to the bed of the truck. I can see he has claw marks on his side and a pretty gnarly gash out of his thigh. “He got you good, huh?”
“He came out of nowhere,” Sawyer hisses as he adjusts himself, trying to find a comfortable position. “He was masking his scent somehow.”
As wolf shifters, we heal faster than humans. But it does not mean we are immune to pain or injury. Sawyer will be hurting for a couple of days, and there will be faint scars from the claw marks.
“I noticed that last week. I don’t know how he’s doing it.” The son of a bitch masking his scent is another reason I think this rogue is getting outside help. But that creates another question. Who would help a rogue wolf terrorize a female shifter?
It takes me forty-five minutes to get Sawyer stitched up. It wasn’t necessary, but it will help his wounds heal faster and smoother. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to do this. Each of us in the past five years has taken turns sewing and bandaging the other. We both have more scars than either of us can count. Luckily my dark tattoos do an excellent job of covering them. Sawyer, on the other hand, is pale and has no tattoos to cover the raised pink lines that mar his body.
Every time I do this, a pang of guilt fills my chest. He shouldn’t be doing this. He has no reason to do so, other than the fact he’s my friend. I’m the one who has a vendetta against rogue wolves, and I’m the one who drug him into this. He always wanted to go to the police academy, and I selfishly stole that from him. This is not how either of us saw our future.
“Sawyer—”
“Dude, don’t start.” He turns his head to look at me, and I can see the annoyance written on his face. “Every time I get hurt, we have this discussion, and frankly, I’m sick of. If I didn’t want to be doing what we’re doing, I wouldn’t be. It’s as simple as that. So, shut your face and get me a beer from the cooler—I deserve it.”
“Yes, you do.” I clap him on his shoulder as I walk to the cab of the truck.
Sawyer has always been better than me, a better friend, a better son, and a better person all around. He would do anything for the people he cares about.
I would like to say the same for myself, but I haven’t seen my family in five years. I have no idea what they’re even up to these days. Remington, my younger sister, is going on twenty-one and should be in college if that’s the path she chose. My brothers, Ranger and Ransom, are twenty-four, and God knows what they’re doing with their lives. The last time I was with the twins, they were chasing tail and making complete assholes of themselves.
Sawyer makes an effort to call and check in with his mom once a week. Whereas I can’t be bothered to send more than a postcard home to let my family know I’m alive.
I return with his beer, Sawyer has put on a pair of basketball shorts, and a loose hoodie. Being shifters, we go through a mass amount of clothing because we hardly have the time to carefully remove and fold our clothes before shifting.
“Thank God,” I laugh. “I was getting sick of staring at your naked ass,” I joke as I hand him the chilled can.
“No one said you had to stare at it.” He shrugs and pops the tab, taking greedy gulps of the amber liquid. “Ahh, just what the doctor ordered.”
We sit on the open bed of the truck in comfortable silence. The mountain pass we are on is remote, not a single car has driven by. I try not to think about how, with us just sitting here the rogue is getting farther away. But I know he’ll turn up again sooner than later, and if we’re lucky, Avery was able to see where he was headed.
“Do you want to talk about what this week is?” Sawyer finally asks after a while, and I can tell how he runs a hand through his already tousled blond hair he’s nervous asking the question. He knows from experience I don’t react well to people asking me about Grey. But today, I find myself wanting to answer him.
“She would have been twenty-one this Saturday,” I say after a long pause. “And just like every year when her birthday rolls around, or it’s a holiday, my brain plays the what-if game. What if she was still alive? What if we had completed the mating ceremony? What if we were living in the house I would have built for her on the lake?”
“I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through,” he says. Like mine, his eyes still scan the surrounding area, in case we get lucky enough to have the rogue wolf come walking by. “To find your mate so young and then lose her so young is unimaginable. But you know Grey wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer like you are. Get off the cross, dude, you have a whole life in front of you, and your head is stuck in the past.”
He makes it seem simple, but Sawyer doesn’t understand how not only am I in constant emotional pain, but so is my wolf. He misses and longs for his mate too. Male shifters crave the peace and calmness a female brings them. It centers then and makes them stronger. But to have barely known peace and have it ripped away like it was, I don’t know if I will ever recover.
“It’s not fair I get to keep on living after she died. I wish I had been with her the night they were attacked.”
“I don’t,” Sawyer says, shaking his head. “If you had died in the attack with the Thornes, who would be here to help me prevent things like that from happening? Who would stop these sick fucks from destroying families, like they did Grey’s?”
“And I still haven’t found the wolves that killed Archer, Genevieve, and Grey.” That’s the whole point of this crusade, to find the wolves who ripped out the Thornes’s throats and then set their car on fire, with their bodies still inside.
“No, but there’s still time, and we will find them.” Sawyer puts his arm around my shoulders. “And I promise you, Ryker, we will.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a minute before we hear movement in the trees to our right. We both jump off our perch on the truck’s bed. Sawyer moves a tad slower, but still ready to fight if the rogue decides to show his face. To our relief, it’s Avery who steps out of the brush, picking leaves and pine needles out of her long dark locks.
Still naked from shifting, she saunters toward us, unfazed by her bare state. “That redhead is fast as hell,” she grumbles as she passes both of us to find some clothing in the backseat. “I tracked him all the way to the border, but his scent disappeared like last week when we were in Calgary.”
Last week, we had been outside of Calgary tracking the rogue after he attacked and assaulted a young unmated female. The sixth she-wolf he has left beaten and violated in his wake of destruction. He had originally started on the western side of Washington State and had made his way from there through Idaho and a piece of Montana before taking a quick turn north. We had been tracking him though Alberta ever since.
“We have to find him soon,” I grumble. “He’s growing more bloodthirsty, and his attacks are coming closer and closer together. His humanity is completely gone by now, and his wolf is working on pure instinct and need.”
Rogue wolves don’t choose to go rogue. Unfortunately, biology has not been kind to the male wolf shifters. Male wolves have biological timeclocks that dictate when they need to mate. The timeclock differs for all of us and whys and whens are unclear, but the wolf that lives inside the man craves the peace the connection with a female brings. And if they don’t find them in time, they turn rogue. Meaning they look for peace in any female they can get their hands on. In some cases, the rogue male is so far gone it forces a mating bond on non-consenting females. In the wolf shifter community, this is considered a form of sexual assault and the worst thing that could happen to a female.
“His last victim is barely alive,” Sawyer growls, surely remembering the bloody and gruesome sight we found the young female in. “But she fought like hell, and that’s the only reason she’s still breathing.”
“It will take time, but she’ll be okay,” Avery assures us. Having survived a rogue attack, she knows how physically and mentally scarring it is for the females.
Turning to us with her hands on her
hips, Avery adds, “He’s obviously headed into Montana, right? Where’s the closest pack to the border from here? He’s going to be looking for a new female, and with his escalation, it’s not going to be pretty if we don’t find him first.”
Both Sawyer and I stop and give each other a look. I know exactly what pack he’s making his way toward as we speak. Familiar faces flash in my mind as I think of the pack, and I feel bile rising in my throat at the thought of him going anywhere near them. My Pack. I don’t know if I should even consider them my pack anymore since I deserted them, but that’s my family, and I can’t let that wolf anywhere near them.
Kicking the rocks under my feet, I push my hands through my dark hair. “Shit!” I growl, a hint of my wolf coming through as I do. Avery jumps back, and Sawyer has turned pale.
“What did I miss?” Avery’s amber eyes narrow in question.
“He’s headed right toward our pack,” Sawyer explains as I pace in front of them. I contemplate my next move as they continue to talk in hushed voices. I should call my dad, the alpha of the pack, and warn him. But I know it will be better if I go and handle it in person.
“We have to go home.” I stop and look at both of them. “We kill him, and then we get the hell out of Dodge. Got it?”
The idea of going home makes my skin crawl, but it gives me extra motivation to get this wolf. The faster I find him, the faster I’m able to get out of Montana and away from the ghost of Grey Thorne haunts me there.
3
Pruitt
The bell above the door sounds as we enter the musty old basement-level shop. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by the interior design, but I can’t help but gasp and take a step back as I look around. The psychic shop is everything and more like they depict on television. Occult items cover every inch of the dark-red painted walls, and a variety of medallions and chimes hang from the ceiling. Bookshelves line the back wall and are full of books of varying genres and items. I’m surprised it’s still standing. In the middle of the room is a round table with a purple tablecloth of sorts on it.
“What? No magic crystal ball?” I ask, snickering to my new best friend, Remington, as I continue to look around the small and overly crowded space. “I can’t believe I let you drag me here. When you said you had something fun planned tonight, I thought it was going to be ice cream.” I can’t help but pout over the missing dessert.
“Esme is the real deal, Pru, just wait and see.” Remington smiles at me from the other side of the room as she continues to stare at—Holy shit. What is in that jar?
No, wait! I’ve decided I don’t want to know.
“Remi, I never would have guessed you believed in all this magic and paranormal craziness.” I met Remi on my first day of classes at the local college, and we’ve been tight ever since. She had said the first day she felt like I was a friend she’d had forever. I couldn’t have agreed more. I had lived in Montana for a week when we met and hadn’t yet ventured out of the farmhouse much. I mostly spent the week getting acclimated to my new home and obsessing over the wolf from my dream. Little did I know ten months ago I would continue to have the same dream almost every night and, it would only get worse.
I started sleepwalking not long after the first dream, and this morning, I woke up face down in the dirt in the woods behind my house. It wasn’t my favorite way to wake up and I definitely would not recommend it.
“Well, my sweet friend, there are still many things you don’t know about me.” Remi gives me a mischievous smile, her ocean-blue eyes sparking. “Last week, Esme told me to not worry or panic about my finals for the semester and guess who passed all her classes?” Remi motions to herself with a wave of her tanned hand. “That’d be me!”
“You needed a psychic to tell you that you’d pass your exams when you’ve been an A student your whole life?” I wrinkle my nose at her. “Seems like you wasted money to me.”
“I hear we have a skeptic in our midst,” a musical voice says from behind the curtain leading to what I would assume is another interior room. A middle-aged woman flips the curtain back and makes her grand entrance.
She is exactly what I expected when Remi told me we would be seeing a psychic tonight. She wears a long patterned skirt, and a loose blouse cinched with a thick belt at her middle.
The woman is beautiful in her own way. Her curly hair is dark with strands of silver starting to show from age, and I can see from across the room that she also has some feathers and other jewels woven into it. Her almond-shaped eyes are dark but reflect the small amount of light in a way I have never seen before. It’s like making eye contact with a piece of obsidian. Very Interesting. Lastly, her tanned skin is flawless except for a small mole above the right side of her lips that are currently giving me a welcoming grin.
“No shame in being a skeptic, my dear, but I have no doubt we will be changing your mind soon.” The woman continues to smile at me, but as she cocks her head to the side and exams me from her place across the room, I notice the slight widening of her eyes.
As quickly as the surprised look appears on her face, it vanishes. “Please, come sit, my girls, and we can get started. Remington, I am pleased to hear your exams went smoothly. And I’m enjoying your new haircut. It’s flattering on you.” She pats Remi’s hand as they sit down across from each other at the table.
Remington reaches up and touches the ends of her chocolate-brown hair. She had cut a couple inches off the other day, and it now rests at her shoulders. “Thank you again for getting me in last week, Esme. I really needed some reassurance it was all going to be okay.” Remi grins at the psychic, a look of trust and calmness on her face.
I suppose if Remi trusts this woman and is relaxed being here, I don’t see the harm in staying, I slowly take my seat next to Remi and across from Esme, who is now digging around in a cabinet behind her. “Are you going to read my palm or something?” I shakily laugh and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans in case she says yes.
“No, my dear, that’s just a parlor trick people perform. We use real magic here,” Esme tells me as she places a deck of tarot cards in the middle of the table. I almost start laughing when I see the excited look on Remi’s face.
Good Lord girl.
“Let me get this straight. Palm reading is bull, but tarot cards are real magic?”
“Pruitt! Shut up and let the lady do her thing!” Remi reaches over and pinches the soft skin on the underside of my arm.
“Ouch!” I immediately rub the sore spot.
“Precisely,” Esme says with a slight laugh. I watch in fascination as she places the stack of cards in her hand and proceeds to knock and tap the top of the stack. She then places the cards on the table and shuffles them around on the purple tablecloth. She whispers something as she does this, but I can’t make out what she says. “Okay, let us begin.”
Esme places the cards facedown on the table in a pattern that doesn’t make any sense to me, but then again, none of this makes sense. I bite my lip and silently watch as she continues to chant and place the cards on the table.
It may be psychosomatic, but I suddenly feel a flash of cold air hit my back, and it causes chills to run down my spine. Esme picks up what looks to me like a totally random card and flips it over, revealing a picture of a man holding a lantern.
“The Hermit,” Esme says.
“Ha! Even the cards know you need to leave the house more!” Remi giggles from her spot beside me.
“You have been lonely for many years… isolated,” Esme explains as she traces the shape of the painted man on the card with a long finger.
I keep my face neutral, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’s not far off. While I’ve always had Addison and I am forever grateful for her, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something big from my life. Lately, I’ve started to think I’m missing something more than just my dead parents.
Esme nods and lifts up another card. “The High Priestess.” The card has a beautiful woman in a
cloak on the front. “One of my favorites.” I don’t miss the knowing look Esme gives Remi, almost like they’re exchanging an inside joke between the two of them.
“This card is telling you that you need to listen to your inner voice. You’ve been ignoring the truth your inner self knows. You need to listen to it. It’s trying to tell you something. This may come over in the form of unexplained…vibes, if you will, or even dreams. Have you been dreaming lately, Pruitt?”
I’m perspiring now, and my heart is racing, but still, I keep it cool and shake my head. “No, I don’t dream. Haven't since the accident.”
Like before, Esme nods and moves on to the next card. I feel Remi give my hand a reassuring squeeze. Apparently, I’m not hiding how uncomfortable I am as well as I thought I was because when I look at Remi, she gives me a small smile.
The next card Esme flips over has a moon on it. On the left side of the card, a dog howls at the moon, and on the right, a wolf does the same. And this time, I can’t help but let the shock appear on my face. I swear if she says something about a wolf, I’m going to freak the fuck out.
“The Moon card. The dog represents our civilized nature while the wolf represents our animalistic one. This hints you may be fighting two sides of yourself now, or sometime soon.”
I exhale and relax. Had she said the wolf represents the wolf you’ve been dreaming of every night, I would have probably gotten up and left. But thankfully, I can’t think of a single thing in my life that would reflect this card.
“Next, we have the Four of Wands,” Esme describes, having moved on to the next card. Four wands are painted on a card with a bright yellow background. “You will learn soon, you have found your home—your community. That feeling of belonging you’ve been craving Pru is close. I promise.”
I feel hot tears stream down my face. Goddammit! I hate crying, and the fact I’m doing it over some stupid parlor trick is ridiculous, but she’s hitting way too close to home now. I’ve never belonged. I never fit in with any of the kids at school growing up. I’ve always felt unsettled and like I wasn’t in the right spot. But this sense of belonging has slowly started to creep in ever since I first got to Montana and even more after I met Remington Weylyn and her family. They welcomed me with open arms, and I have never felt more content than I do when I spend my days at their large lake house. Remington’s older twin brothers Ransom and Ranger have taken me under their wings like another sister, and it makes my heart swell. Not that I would ever admit that to them.
Wolf Bound (The White Wolf Prophecy Book 1) Page 2