Hawthorn was sitting in my lap sketching monsters when a yawn echoed out of the second bed. The other brother turned over and regarded us with a lazy gaze. His nostrils flared.
And the peace was gone.
Taking in my scent, Lupine gasped and jerked into a sitting position. A high-pitched hiss came through his teeth. “Hawthorn,” he said, leaping out of bed. “Get away from him!”
Lupine grabbed his brother, yanking him out of my lap and across the floor.
“Lupine, stop it!” Hawthorn struggled, pulling free of his grip. “He’s a friend, a guardian!”
“No, he’s not, Hawth! What is wrong with you? Can’t you smell it? He’s a human, a Finder!” Lupine went wild-eyed.
“Okay, that’s it.” I stood up, towering over the untamed werewolf child. “Look, kid, I’m not here to harm you—”
“Get back, you! How did you even get in here?” Lupine shoved his brother behind him. The little girl had woken up now. Her hair was ruffled, limbs tucked into her body as she pressed against the wall. Fear and confusion mixed on her face. She looked at me like I was going to hurt her, like I was the monster.
It made me mad. “Look, Lupine,” I snapped. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. I’m—”
“Nothing?” Lupine interrupted. “I know what you do, freak! You’re a tracker, a trapper! It was your kind who killed my father!” Raising his voice further, he shouted, “Human! Someone come help!”
“Hey!” I yelled back, and immediately regretted it. Frightened tears started pouring down the little girl’s cheeks. She threw the blanket over her head, disappearing from sight.
Lupine let out a bark as I went toward her. “I’ll show you, Finder!”
The kid’s body had a faint glow as his face extended. His fingers became short and round as he dropped to his knees. Brown fur crawled out of his shirt and through the back of his pants.
In seconds, all traces of a human kid were gone. The Monster shirt and a pair of jeans lay torn on the floor, and I was staring at a wolf. A small one, about the size of a coyote, but he had fangs and claws that could shred skin. The way he snapped his jaws at me, I knew he was about to demonstrate this fact.
Chapter Seventeen
Run!” Hawthorn screamed at me.
Instinct took over. I did as I was told, bolting through the curtains.
The werewolf kid howled, then came galloping after.
I tore down the aisle, trying to remember the last time I’d ran this fast. Two winters ago, I think, while capturing a feral yeti in the Cascade Mountains. It was one of my first out-of-state jobs, and I’d gone with professional Finders from the government and a group of guys from Training. I had been terrified, especially when the monster hurled a boulder at us then chased us down the mountain. I was inexperienced then, and built up a tolerance to fear afterward.
I remembered that fear, the unstoppable panic. Lupine caught up quick, and I hollered at the top of my lungs, “Fawn!”
Damn it, what had she been thinking, giving me this job?
The sound of paws disappeared. I glanced back to see if he’d stopped chasing, gone back to guard his siblings. My stomach dropped. Holy hell! Lupine soared through the air, jaws open, teeth ready to pierce my throat.
I threw an arm up just in time. Pain seared my flesh, like someone had grabbed me with hot tongs. We tumbled to the floor, Lupine detaching. Rolling to a halt, I looked back. He was up and ready for round two, muzzle covered in crimson. Blood dripped from his jaws and onto the carpet. His ears were pinned, fur bristling across his spine.
My arm was on fire. I was stuck in a flinch, between the vicious wolfling and my arm with blood shooting out of it. I’d been wounded by Otherworlders before but nothing this bad since I pissed off a harpy on a trip to Malheur.
Lupine charged in. I started to scramble up when a black shadow leapt over me. A coal-colored wolf blocked his way. Head lowered, it let out a bark that had to have woken the entire care facility. Instantly, Lupine morphed from arm-eating beast to a frightened pup as he skidded to a stop. He tumbled over onto his back, paws in the air, whimpering. The black wolf approached, giving him a hard nudge with its nose. Lupine leapt up and, tail between his legs, sprinted back to the purple curtains.
I collapsed on the floor, shaking like a maraca. My heart hammered as the black wolf turned to stare at me with large green eyes—eyes that I swore I’d seen before. Its ears fell back. It made a funny noise, something between a bark and a whimper.
Fawn came jogging down the aisle, pushing through wolves that had left their beds to investigate. She fell to my side, wadding up and pressing a blanket to the remains of my arm. “Good God, what did you do?!”
“What did I do?” I spat in disbelief. “What did you do? You sent me in with a psychotic werewolf kid who tried to kill me because he knew I was a Finder! Oh, yeah, that was really my fault.”
“I didn’t think he would attack you—”
The black wolf barked. Fawn looked up as the creature lumbered by her and crawled under a blanket on the floor. Beneath the blanket came a faint glow, like when Lupine had changed. Black hair popped out the other side.
Ilume stood up, clutching the blanket around her. “Mom.” She addressed Fawn with an agitated tone. “He needs medical assistance. Now.”
Fawn bit her lip. The pair stared at each other. “Fine. You’re right.” She stood up, offering me a hand. “Come on. Let’s go clean you up.”
“Ouch. Ouch!”
“Will you stop squirming?” Ilume said, getting testy. “Jeez, you’re worse than a pup, you know that?”
“You’d be squirming too if someone jammed a needle through your—ouch!” I tensed, sprawled on her bed as she bent over me, aiming the needle back into my arm. I gritted my teeth as she went in again, pulling the skin tight. Some part of me was sure she enjoyed this, stabbing me repeatedly. “Holy mother of Gandhi! Don’t you have some Vicodin or something? Seriously, you’re killing me!”
“Oh, shut it, you daisy. And no, we don’t.” She chewed her lip. “I can’t believe she put you in there. I told her it was a dumb idea, that they might react badly. We don’t know them well enough yet, and putting easy meat in their way . . .”
“Easy meat,” I laughed, not humored. “Gee, thank you. I love it when you refer to me as if I’m a dinner item.”
“Why not? You looked at me like I was on the menu last night.”
I got stabbed again. “Ow! Okay look, I’m sorry, all right? It was stupid what I said, I just,” I paused, trying to figure out how to phrase it. With my luck, I’d say something with all good intention and she’d take it wrong. I didn’t want that needle pointed down toward other areas. “You’re really pretty, okay? You can’t just, you know, whip stuff out and think I’m not going to comment.”
She stopped stitching. I expected the evil eye as I turned my head but instead saw this whole new look on her face. It lacked her usual superiority, like the wall between us was down. Like we were friends.
Then it was gone. Wall rebuilt.
“I often forget the moral code that humans follow,” she said, clipping the stitching. She tied the ends up in a knot, making me cringe. “Shape-shifters are always less serious about being seen unclothed. As wolves, we don’t need them. It’s only taken seriously—and even then, not as serious as humans—by those with mates. I should have thought about it. I’m sorry, too.”
Wow, she apologized. “Where’d you go today?” I asked, switching subjects.
“Hunting. Duh.”
“With who?”
“Why does that matter?”
“You went with Rex, didn’t you?”
Her eyes rolled to the ceiling. “You know, he’s going to be my . . . mate.” She had trouble with that last word. “I’m going to hav
e to learn to hunt with him whether I like it or not. Secondly, I’m trying to appease him so he doesn’t tear your innards out next time you two meet.”
“Hmm,” I mumbled, admiring her stitch work. My arm looked like it’d been strung with a pair of tiny, clear shoelaces. “Funny, I didn’t see you with him when he left this morning.”
Ilume stilled. “What?”
“He left before dawn, disappeared in the woods,” I said. “You weren’t with him?”
“No, we left after breakfast. It was around nine. You saw him before then?”
“Yeah. He was probably just warming up or something.” I grimaced. He was more than likely showing off for her. “I’m sorry by the way.”
“For what?”
“That you had to be the poor sucker he honed in on.”
She tucked her scissors away in a bedside drawer. She pulled off her rubber gloves, wrapping my needle in them. “It was my fault really.”
“Your fault?”
She tossed the gloves in the garbage. Her fingers combed through her hair. “I could’ve had another mate, but I didn’t want to leave Canada, and my sister saw him first. It wouldn’t have been fair.”
I remembered that guy in Whirlwind, the guy she’d been talking to that first night I met her. “Well, that’s pretty big of you, giving up the guy you like for your sister.”
“Yeah.” She grew distant all of a sudden. She looked out the balcony. Her eyes were glassy.
The pain registered on her face as she squeezed her eyes shut, dug her nails into her forehead. Like blood from an inside wound, this must be just a snippet of the real damage. She hadn’t just liked this other guy—she’d loved him. Loved him but loved her sister more.
I reached out to touch her. She startled as my fingers collided with her hand then slid away.
“Don’t,” she said, swiping at her eyes. “And don’t tell anyone, all right? I’ll rip open your other arm if anyone finds out that Thagen and I were more than friends.”
“Thagen?” Whoa, wait! That’s who we were talking about? “Are you talking about the wolf that split the pack?”
She hissed, “Who told you that?”
Oops. “It might’ve slipped from one of the wolves.”
She shook her head. I quickly added, “Hey, it’s okay. I won’t say anything.”
Even if she didn’t ask me to, I wouldn’t. Rex would probably crap himself if he heard his mate-to-be had loved someone else. He’d shoot the messenger, too.
Once she collected herself, Ilume stood up. “Go ahead and rest,” she said, heading for the door. “I’ll bring you dinner soon.”
“Is meat the only thing we have?” I didn’t want to complain, but it was all I’d eaten for the past two days.
She tilted her head, thinking. “There might be some noodles in one of the cupboards. I’ll look.”
“Thank you. Ilume?”
“What?” She blinked over her shoulder, almost out the door.
My mouth seemed to move on its own, saying, “I know this doesn’t matter, but you deserve better than him. Better than both of them.”
Silence. Again, she flashed me this funny look, like we had a connection. She turned away and swept out the door.
I settled back into her pillows. They reeked of the outdoors, like bark and dust and pine. As I stared out the French doors at the setting sun, I realized my heart was pounding, and I had this weird, sort of nagging sensation in my chest. Like how I felt when I was with Nilydra, that feeling of need, of desire.
Chapter Eighteen—Ilume
I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
Jared kept popping into my head as I hunted. I had left him alone in a mansion full of wolves that may or may not try to eat him alive. No, they wouldn’t. It was true; I knew my wolves. They respected me, which meant it was highly unlikely he would be dead when I came home.
Still, the thought of finding him half eaten hurt my focus. Why worry about this human, this troublemaker? We barely knew each other. You’re worrying because he’s important, I had reasoned. He can track the enemy. He will be the difference in the Rooks’ casualties, the one who will help us stop a war with the Jackals.
It didn’t help, of course, that the minute I returned I had to shove a vicious pup off Jared’s back. I’d warned her that the stray pups needed werewolves only to care for them. Count on the mother of an alpha to take things into her own hands.
As I sat in my bedroom, brooding and stitching Jared up, I wondered what would’ve happened if I hadn’t been there. He’d have a lot more than a mangled arm, that’s for sure. I blamed myself, not my mother. It was my fault that his arm looked like minced hamburger, for I’d assigned the job. I’d written it out on his chore list, HELP FAWN.
When he wasn’t wincing, Jared stared at me as I sewed up his wound. It made me uneasy, the unreadable look in his eyes. What was he thinking while watching me so intensely? Did I have a big nose or something? A piece of meat in my teeth?
Jared had called me pretty. I went into shock for a minute then tried to remember the last time Rex had called me that. Nothing surfaced. The word pretty wasn’t even in his vocabulary. No, he called me other names, many of which were borderline insults (hot, sexy, bangin’—words you use on loose women, not tough alpha wolves). Jared’s comment had indeed flattered me, and it made my heart do this weird flip.
Maybe that’s why I spilled the beans about Thagen and me while we sat there, finishing off his stitches. Besides my mother, I was pretty sure no one else knew, but it had been easy with Jared. Someone had told him who Thagen was, and Jared didn’t judge me or tell me how stupid I’d been to love a rebel.
And then he touched me. His fingers barely brushed my hand, yet it felt like an electric stream had gone through my skin. I drew away, surprised. What had just happened? Electric currents were never there when Rex touched me. Well, more like when he grabbed me, or smashed his lips into mine without consent. I had never felt anything like that. Not since Thagen kissed me in the lake.
I lay awake that night, unable to sleep. It didn’t help that Jared was beside me, totally crashed after eating dinner. He snored lightly, injured arm hanging off the bed, probably drooling on my good pillow. I’d tried to move him, forgetting what a weight he was. Eventually I gave up and just locked the door, knowing if Rex came in he’d remove him and throw him off the balcony.
What does this mean? I observed Jared’s face. He had thick eyelashes, which I hadn’t noticed before. His bangs fell over one eye, down his cheek. One arm rested on his lean chest. He had good fingers, too, slim, no dirt under the nails. It drove me nuts when Rex touched me with his sausage fingers that reeked of old kill.
Jared’s nose twitched. He sniffed as he rolled over. I closed my eyes, just in case he woke up. I’d die of embarrassment if he saw me watching him while he slept. A yawn echoed in my ear. The mattress shifted. When I opened my eyes, I saw he had returned to the floor, sprawled over the dog beds.
I laid my head back down, feeling lonely for some reason. Why did I feel like this? Why did some tiny part of me wish he hadn’t moved to the floor? This is bad, Ilume. So he’d said a few nice things. So he looked at me now as an ally instead of an enemy. He’d adapted well to being a captive. He had an incredible amount of calm for a hostage, but maybe that’s what Hunters High had taught. No fear.
It didn’t matter. Crushes were no longer optional—especially on a human. My heart was in fragments, and Rex had them fenced in like barbed wire. I couldn’t even spare a piece. He would be my mate very soon. I would have to take him as mine or risk losing my pack, my home.
Jared was merely a tracker, a weapon, a pet. His stay was only temporary, and heaven only knew what would happen when Rex no longer had use for him. I couldn’t always protect him. As much as it hurt, I doubted he�
��d leave these woods alive.
There was no chance for such a ludicrous match as ours—Jared’s and mine.
Ever.
Chapter Nineteen—Jared
The next morning, the real work began.
The second I saw Rex in the kitchen, I knew that chores and babysitting man-eaters were behind me. We exchanged stiff, unpleasant glances and then the alpha male said, “You’re tracking for me today. After breakfast, borrow some tennis shoes from Aspen and meet us on the porch.”
Arguing wasn’t an option. I gave a stiff nod, causing Rex to huff and lumber out of the kitchen, chest stuck out like he was all tough shit. Whatever. I was ready to be out of the house anyway.
A dozen wolves waited outside with Rex. He and Ilume were the only ones in human form. She flashed me an odd, empty smile. “We’re scouting the east side today,” Rex told me. “Your job is to look for any unidentified scents, footprints, or noises as we travel through. Our goal is to find their hideouts and keep out the trespassers. You’ll recognize their smell. They don’t match ours.”
“What am I tracking exactly?” I threw the question out for anyone who would answer. The wolves all hesitated, glancing between one another. A wolf near the back of the crowd whined.
Rex said, “An enemy pack, The Jackals.”
“Oh.” That’s what I thought.
“Come on.” Ilume hopped down the steps. “Team one is already out hunting in the west. Let’s get going. We’re wasting time.” She turned her attention to the pack. “Just a reminder: everyone needs to be quiet as possible—no loud noises or growls or barks. This isn’t an average hunting day. Jared is the only one allowed to speak, and that’s only if he finds something.”
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