Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology

by Barnes, Jennifer Lynn

  “The death of a werewolf at the hands of a human.” Shay caught my gaze and held it. “That’s not a debt I’d like to pay. If I were you, I’d save myself some trouble and put a bullet in the girl myself.”

  If I killed Caroline, Shay would end this—but he knew I wouldn’t do that. He was hoping I wouldn’t do it. I’d bet everything on the assumption that Shay wouldn’t want me to expose his past deeds to the Senate, but clearly, I’d overestimated my hand.

  He’d wanted me to overestimate my hand.

  He’d laid a trap for me, and I’d walked straight into it.

  And now Jed was dead, because of me.

  “If Pack Justice demands blood,” I said, putting my body physically in front of the others’, “you’ll have mine.”

  A few hours earlier, I’d been willing to sacrifice Sora for the greater good. What kind of person would I have been if I weren’t willing to sacrifice myself? Shay wanted a life in exchange for his second’s? Fine. He could damn well take mine. If I didn’t fight it—didn’t fight him—it wouldn’t constitute a challenge. Devon would inherit my pack once I was gone, and Shay wouldn’t be able to touch them.

  Any of them.

  Shay smiled again, like he’d known all along that I’d offer my life up to save theirs. But he made no move to hurt me. Instead, he made a tsking sound under his breath. “Didn’t Callum teach you anything about Pack Law, Bronwyn?”

  He was calling me Bronwyn. The way Dev did. The way Callum did.

  “You can’t trade a human’s life for a wolf’s,” Shay told me, violence creeping into the edge of his voice, reminding me that a human life was nothing to him. “And unfortunately, you aren’t a wolf.”

  He wouldn’t accept my life for his second’s. For all I knew, maybe he couldn’t.

  An eye for an eye.

  One second, Shay’s gaze was boring into me, and the next, he had Chase on his back and on the ground.

  You can’t trade a human’s life for a wolf’s.

  No.

  I couldn’t hang on to the here and now, couldn’t keep the rage from bleeding over everything—red, red, red.

  This was what Shay wanted. He wanted me to attack him, wanted me to give him an excuse to kill me, one that would be absolutely and 100 percent above reproach in the other alphas’ eyes.

  In Callum’s.

  If I attacked Shay now, that would constitute a challenge. If I broke Pack Law and challenged him, if he killed me as a result of a direct challenge, he’d inherit my pack. And the Senate might actually let him keep it.

  This was the plan, I thought. All along, this was his plan.

  Shay wanted me to lose control. He was goading me, the way he had Caroline—and none of that mattered, because this was Chase.

  Protect. Protect. Protect.

  Strong arms wrapped their way around my torso, holding me in place. Caroline? Lake? Did it matter? Did anything?

  I needed to get to Chase.

  I needed him.

  But Chase just met my eyes. I felt him, felt his calm, felt the warmth of his body in bed next to mine when I woke up each morning. I felt myself fighting with him in the forest and knowing that I would always be his first and last and only. I felt my lips on his, his breath on my face, our hearts thumping as one.

  I felt him.

  I loved him.

  Stay. One word, from his mind to mine. The only order he’d ever given me. The only thing he’d ever asked.

  I couldn’t.

  I didn’t want to.

  But I did—and in that last second, so much flowed from his mind to mine: everything he’d never gotten the chance to tell me about his past, his scars, his certainty that his entire life—the good, the bad, and the inhuman—had all been leading to one place.

  One person.

  Me.

  Love you, he said. It sounded simple when he said it. It always sounded so goddamn simple.

  Shay’s fingernails grew into claws.

  He thrust them through Chase’s rib cage.

  I love you, I love you, I love you, I told him, over and over and over. Forever.

  I couldn’t close my eyes. I couldn’t look away. But I did what Chase had asked me to. I stayed put, and I watched, and Shay Macalister ripped out his heart.

  An eye for an eye.

  A wolf for a wolf.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  TIME SLOWED FOR ME. MAYBE IT STOPPED. THE WORLD just faded away. Nothing mattered. Nothing was real. Shapes blurred together. The smells, the taste of the summer air on my tongue—gone.

  All gone.

  The only sound I could hear was a strange and gut-wrenching keening: a strangled sob, a whimper, a scream.

  It took me a few minutes to realize it was me.

  Shay just stood there, smiling, like for the first time in a long time, all was right in the world. Like my pain was his bliss.

  Chase. Chase. Chase.

  I thought his name, over and over again, but I didn’t feel it, didn’t feel him. The bond we’d shared, the connection, his thoughts, his feelings—

  There was nothing left. Nothing of him, and nothing of me.

  I should have done more. I should have fought for him. I should have died for him. I would have. I wanted to.

  There were never any answers. If I’d been faster, stronger—if I’d been smarter, if I’d been more, he would still be here: warm against my side, calm in my mind, loving me the way I loved him. Loving me better.

  But he was gone.

  My ears roared. I pulled away from Lake’s grasp. She let me go, and I struggled to stand straight.

  It didn’t matter that the rest of the pack was there, in my head. I was alone, would always be alone now. I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around my midsection, like I was the one who had been gutted, like everything inside of me was in danger of spilling out.

  If death was numbness, I’d died when Chase had—but by some cruel twist of fate, I was still here. I was here, and he was gone, and that wasn’t the kind of thing I could fix.

  “Now we’re even,” Shay said.

  I was empty inside. Hollowed out. Dead. But something about Shay’s words cut through the shock and the horror and the pain and brought another emotion to the surface.

  Rage.

  It sparked. Caught fire. Spread through my body, through my blood. There was no red haze, no instinct, no Resilience. There was only me and a certainty that Shay had started something that I would end.

  If he wanted to play, I would play—and the name on his lips when he took his last breath?

  It was going to be mine.

  “We’ll be going now,” Shay said. “My wolves and I.”

  I knew he didn’t just mean the legion surrounding us in the woods. He also meant the baby, the pup, the little girl, who he would never see as a person so much as a prize.

  She was awake now—so fragile, so small. Maddy cradled her body against her chest. Through the bond, I could feel a need rise up inside of Maddy, one that put my own desire to protect those I loved to shame.

  Maddy wouldn’t just die for her daughter. She’d deliver herself to hell to save her even a single second of pain. She’d do horrible things, and wonderful things, and everything in between—and she wouldn’t hesitate, not even for a second.

  “I take it you’ll be coming, too?” Shay asked Maddy, pretending politeness, as if the girl who’d just given birth wasn’t covered in dirt, bloody, heartbroken, and nearly feral.

  “You’ll understand, of course, if I require you to switch packs before traveling with us.” Shay leaned forward and blew out a light wisp of air into the baby’s nose before turning his attention back to Maddy. “Since Bryn would likely take my head on a platter, I can’t risk having a Cedar Ridge wolf running amok among our ranks.”

  He thought he’d played this—played us—so perfectly. He thought he’d won, but it was obvious then that Shay Macalister had no idea what I was capable of, or how long I was willing to wait.
r />   I was human now, but I wouldn’t always be. The odds were on his side, but someday, somehow, that would change.

  Bryn. Maddy’s voice was quiet in my mind. I didn’t make her ask me for anything. I didn’t react to the unspoken request or Shay’s machinations in any visible way.

  All I did was let Maddy go.

  I pulled my mind from hers, unable to do anything else.

  There were rules—rules about who we could kill and how and why. Rules about a human life not measuring up to the life of a werewolf. Rules about retribution and inter-pack relations, Senate meetings and territory.

  The rules said the baby was a member of the Snake Bend Pack.

  The rules said her alpha mattered more than her mother.

  We all knew that Shay wasn’t bluffing. He would take the baby, knowing that if Maddy didn’t follow, the pup would likely die. Given King Solomon’s dilemma, Shay would have cut that precious bundle in two, because that was the kind of monster he was.

  Face streaked with tears and dirt, Maddy stepped forward and offered her mind up to Shay, allowing him to Mark her, to violate her, to possess her in every conceivable way. I felt the change, saw it fall over Maddy’s body with the weight of chains. The pup in her arms stirred, pressing clumsy feet against her mother’s stomach.

  Foreign. Wolf.

  Maddy wasn’t Pack—not to us, not anymore. The rules said she was Shay’s now. The rules said that no one else could claim her unless he willingly let her go—and he would never, ever let her go.

  That was reality. That was the truth. Maddy was gone. Chase was dead. The rules said the only way I could attack Shay with impunity was if he offered up his own life or attacked me first. Personally. Directly.

  Rules had let him kill Chase.

  Rules had let him send Lucas into my pack to kill me.

  I hated the rules. I hated them, hated that I was a part of this world, that Callum had ever saved my life, that I had grown up thinking this was normal, and that the only slice of normal I’d ever had was gone—without warning, forever. I would never, even for a second, get to be just a girl again, and Chase would never get to be.

  Because of the rules.

  “You never stood a chance,” Shay told me, in a voice best reserved to lovers whispering in bed. “Look around, Bryn. Everything you see is mine—and what isn’t now”—his eyes lingered on Lake—“will be soon.”

  I looked around. I saw his pack, his numbers. I felt their power, the way he’d meant for me to. I thought about what we had lost, and I thought about the rules.

  That’s when I realized—what Shay had done. What I could do. The possibility took root in my mind and filled the emptiness inside me with one purpose.

  One plan.

  “Until next time,” Shay said, directing the words at me before turning to Maddy. “Time to go, Madison. We’ll have plenty of time later to discuss your reluctance to give me my due.”

  Shay was still putting on a show for me, letting me know that while he wouldn’t kill her, he would hurt her—because she’d chosen me, twice. Because the rules said he could.

  One purpose. My heart beat with it. Each breath in and out of my lungs fueled it. One plan.

  I hadn’t found a way to save Chase. I was too human. I’d stood there and let him die because he asked me to. Because I hadn’t seen another way. Because Shay had come here with a plan, and I hadn’t.

  One purpose. One plan.

  Shay turned to go, jerking Maddy alongside him. The rest of the Snake Bend Pack pulled in to follow. I felt the brush of fur against my ankles and legs as they passed. I heard the snapping of teeth, and I let myself think the words that had knocked over a long line of dominoes in my mind.

  He brought his entire pack.

  I waited until they were out of sight, all of them—Shay, Maddy, the Weres in wolf form and the ones who’d chosen to run as humans. They disappeared to the west, through Shadow Bluff territory, and I absentmindedly added the Shadow Bluff alpha to my list.

  The list of people responsible for the bodies on the ground.

  The list of people I would never forgive, never forget.

  Wordlessly, I knelt next to Chase’s body. In death, he’d Shifted back to human form. His face was frozen in an expressionless mask. His eyes were open, his body a bloody mess.

  I brought my hand to his cheeks. I closed his eyes. I expected to feel something, to feel him, but I didn’t.

  I love you. I love you. I love you.

  Gone.

  I straightened and stood. No crying, no tears, no asking God why. All that mattered was taking from Shay what he’d taken from me.

  The thing that mattered most.

  Lake opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Caroline was equally silent, her eyes bloodshot, dead. Maybe I should have blamed her for this, added her name to the list. She was the one who had fired the shots, she was the one who’d gotten under my skin enough that I’d put my pack on the line to protect her.

  But there were only three of us now—three teenagers, alone on a mountain, our dead scattered like petals at our feet.

  “We should put the bodies in the cave,” I said. “We won’t have time to bury them.”

  “What?” Caroline sounded like I felt. I was half-surprised she didn’t take a swing at me.

  “We’ll come back,” I told her. “But right now, you and Lake need to move the bodies, and I need to call Devon.”

  Lake reached out and touched Caroline’s arm. Caroline continued glaring at me, but she didn’t voice an objection. She must have seen that I had a purpose.

  A plan.

  “And after you do that, and we do this?” Lake asked.

  I didn’t smile. Not yet. Maybe not ever again. I just ground my teeth together, got out my phone, and answered Lake’s question.

  “Then,” I said as I dialed, “we’re going to catch a plane.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  IT TOOK US AN HOUR TO GET TO THE CLOSEST AIRPORT, a tiny little strip of a thing that didn’t fly commercial. I’d been willing to commandeer a plane by force if necessary, but there was no need: pilot, plane, and a small white envelope bearing my name were waiting for us when we got there—courtesy of Callum.

  He’d known we’d come here, and he’d known where we’d be headed—and why. Any doubt I might have clung to that he hadn’t foreseen Chase’s death—hadn’t already apologized for it—evaporated.

  There wasn’t an apology in the world—before, during, or after—that could make this right. A plane and a pilot and the Stone River alpha’s reassurance—via note card—that he would be glad to send Devon’s father to stay at the Wayfarer in his son’s stead did nothing to change what had happened.

  What Callum had let happen.

  I didn’t bother calling him. I sent permission for Lance to enter our territory via text. Then I closed my eyes and waited—for the plane to land, for Shay to realize that he’d pushed the wrong girl too far.

  Devon met us near the northern border of Shay’s territory. I was betting that to get to Maddy’s hideout, Shay would have had to take his pack north, up and around Cedar Ridge, and then down into Shadow Bluff territory and over. Even at werewolf speed, the return journey would take time—more time than it took Devon to get here from the Wayfarer, and more time than it took Lake, Caroline, and me to fly.

  In a fair race, I wouldn’t have been able to outrun Shay, but werewolves had a tendency to forget about things like planes, and I was done with fair.

  Now was the time for playing dirty.

  “This is what you want?” I asked Caroline.

  “It is.”

  I didn’t ask her if she was sure—didn’t need to be told that the answer was yes. Digging my fingernails into her flesh, I made good on the assurance I’d given Shay in the mountains: Caroline wasn’t just any human.

  She was ours.

  With little ceremony and only Devon and Lake as an audience, I made Caroline a member of the Cedar
Ridge Pack. I tied her mind to mine, to the others. I Marked her, the way that Callum had once Marked me.

  She didn’t flinch, and I got the feeling that Caroline would have gladly gotten in bed with the devil himself if it meant taking Shay down a notch.

  Hurting him, the way he’d hurt us.

  “So that’s it, then,” Caroline said. “I’m one of you.”

  I got a vague and fuzzy sense of her thoughts on the other side of the pack-bond—not nearly as clear as they would have been if she was a Were. I heard enough to know that this was not a place she’d ever expected to be.

  Welcome to the club.

  She startled at the sound of my voice in her head, and I figured it wouldn’t be long before she learned to shut me out, the way Ali did, the way I’d shut Callum out, growing up.

  Let’s do this.

  Even with the addition of Caroline, four was a small number to represent our pack, but Devon was my second-in-command, and at the moment, he was bleeding power, anger, pain.

  Our eyes met, and his took on the sheen of tears. He crossed the space between us and opened his arms. I’d been intent on staying strong, on keeping my emotions in check, but seeing Devon undid something inside of me. He’d been there when Callum brought me home to the Stone River Pack. He’d been the reason it had started to feel like home—and he’d been with me every step of the way since then.

  It was killing him that this time, he hadn’t been there, that I’d been gutted, and he wasn’t there to stop it.

  Without thought or hesitation, I launched myself into Devon’s grasp. I buried my face in his shirt—purple silk that smelled like him, felt like him. I didn’t cry, but my body shook like I was sobbing.

  Devon murmured to me, held me, hurt for me. Through the bond, I could feel his emotions, and I felt him feeling mine. We only stayed that way for three seconds, maybe four, before I stepped back, sending a death glare around the group, daring them to comment.

  No one said a word.

  I went over the plan—again and again. It was simple, but we couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong.

  We were going to do this by the rules.