“I made that deal, because having children raises my status in the pack. Having them with a beta? That puts me second only to Aisha, and she’s childless.” A curious expression twisted her features. “You really care, don’t you? I thought…” She laughed. “I don’t know what I thought. That you’re fae, and fae always have an agenda, but not you.”
“I won’t let you do this to him.” Graeson had enough demons riding him. I wasn’t letting this she-devil she-wolf climb aboard too. “He deserves better than this, better than you.”
Muscles tensed, I lunged for her, ramming my good shoulder into her chest, crying out when agony radiated across my upper back. My spur emerged, and I raked it down her jugular. She gurgled and staggered back, clutching the raw meat of her throat. Blood oozed through her fingers as I gaped at her.
This was not right. Something was wrong. A spur didn’t cause that kind of damage. Her hand slipped, and I saw them.
Claw marks.
Numb, I glanced at my hands. Silver-white fur covered my arms and tickled my nape, the magic climbing higher than ever. Crimson stained the fingers of my right hand. The taste of her blood tightened my throat a beat later.
Recalled magic, it must be. But how? One practice session did not a master make.
Another howl rent the air, this time in a different direction. Gods have mercy. He was circling us.
“Don’t…go,” Imogen wheezed, dropping to one knee. “He’ll…kill…me when he…smells your blood...”
Rubbing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I struggled to find the images Dell had loaned me. They were my memories now, but fear kept them blurry and out of focus. No use. I reached for the source and smashed into a barrier.
“Dell.” I chanted her name over and over in my head. “Are you there?”
A trickle of light glimmered behind my eyes, and I felt Dell’s arrival. “I’m here.”
Relief made me giddy. “Give me directions to Graeson’s tree house.”
Another stack of pictures cascaded through my mind, and I overlaid those where this path crossed that one.
“Get up.” I hauled Imogen to her feet. She wobbled and leaned against me. “Come on. We have to get moving.”
Hooking her arm around my shoulders, I tightened my grip around her back and hauled her down the trail ghosting my vision. Warg strength suffused my limbs, not enough to pick her up and carry her, but enough I managed to half-drag, half-hobble with her to the platform where Graeson had bared his soul to me.
At the base of the tree, I gripped the first wooden slat and groaned. “This is impossible.” Imogen was healing, but she needed to keep pressure on the wound. She couldn’t do that and climb, and neither could I. “Take off your shirt.”
Too weak to comply, she turned wide eyes on me. I sighed and cut through the fabric with a claw. Once off her body, I tore the shirt into one long strip, knocked her hand aside and bound her throat. She cried out in pain, and the noise tapered into a growl. A deep, rumbling sound that didn’t vibrate her throat.
Because it came from behind us.
I glanced over my shoulder, and my knees turned to water. The silver wolf taking his time approaching us was covered in blood. His muzzle dripped with it and his paws were splashed with it, the kill was so recent.
Please let that be from a bunny.
“Climb.” I knotted the shirt around Imogen’s throat and shoved her behind me. “Get as high as you can.”
“What about you?” She didn’t wait for my answer.
“I’m just waiting on you,” I snapped. “Move.”
Trembling as she climbed, Imogen wasn’t going fast enough. She was tipsy from the blood loss, and fear clouded her like rank perfume. I breathed it in over my tongue and wanted to spit out the taste. Graeson, though, smelled of the woods, of coppery wildness that made my stomach taut with hunger for a taste of the freedom he experienced on four legs.
He lifted his head and sucked in air until his sides rounded.
“Camille.” Imogen grunted. “Hurry.”
I risked a glance behind me and spotted Imogen high enough I could start climbing. Pulse thrumming in my ears, I waited seconds longer. I needed more room, or all the wolf had to do was jump up and latch on to my leg to haul me down to the ground under him.
Movement from the wolf snagged my attention. He sauntered closer, head cocked at an angle as he watched Imogen climb as though confused about why prey would do such a thing. I checked Imogen’s progress and all but crossed my fingers the wargish limbs would help me scuttle up to the platform.
“Graeson.” The mental touch slid off his mind like water off a duck’s back. There would be no reasoning with him when he was like this.
Heart a wild thing fluttering in my chest, I spun and grasped the first rung. I made it up three before teeth closed over my ankle. I blessed my leather boot, fisted the wooden slats and kicked out with my other foot. Graeson whined and hit the ground. The precious seconds it took me to establish a new foothold was all he needed. He leapt again, and his teeth pierced my lower calf and ripped. I kicked him off a second time but barely, his fangs shredding meat as he fell.
“Hold on.” Imogen reached down for me. “Take my hand.”
I flung my arm up, and our wrists clasped. My ruined foot found purchase, and I hauled myself up higher. The wolf below me howled with rage. The tension in my chest released a fraction. I’d made it. I was higher than he could reach. I could take my time and—
Steel jaws clamped over my heel and hung on tight. At once Imogen and I supported our weight…and the couple hundred pounds of snarling adult male warg dangling from my foot. Together we held our position. His grip slipping, Graeson began swinging his body and shredding my boot through to my flesh. The taste of blood incited him, and he struggled with renewed vigor. Warm moisture plinked onto my cheeks. The strain was ripping open Imogen’s wounds.
“You have to let me go.” I heaved a sharp breath. “I can’t hold on.”
“Camille.” Her hand clamped down over mine.
“You wanted this, remember?” I let my hand go slack. “Save yourself.”
Her expression twisted, a decision being made. “No.”
A moment of clarity cooled my fevered thoughts. She was too weak. She couldn’t save me. I was too far gone to rescue myself. All she could do was fall with me, and what was the point in both of us dying?
Breaking her grip was easy. I twisted my wrist, and Graeson’s weight did the rest.
The wolf dropped like a stone, and I tumbled after him, landing on my back so hard I lost my breath. Catlike, he landed on his feet and limped a circle around me.
“Camille,” Imogen called.
I didn’t dare respond, not with the wild-eyed beast so close to my head. I lay there in the grass, in the same spot where Graeson had shared his secrets with me, and knew that if he did this, if he killed me, I would be the last to ever be fed those morsels of his soul. The death of an innocent, my death, would break the man who had teetered on the edge of the abyss. The wolf, though, seemed to have no such reservations.
I was prey, naughty prey who ran from him, prey who—Graeson once said—smelled like I belonged to him.
Having never specifically asked if the wolf was a separate entity or merely a facet of Graeson’s personality, I wasn’t counting on the man’s views to sway the beast.
Tense seconds passed while Graeson sniffed, first my hair and then across my soft belly. My gut knotted as his muzzle nudged my shirt up above my navel, and he breathed in the scent of my skin. The pelt on my arms delighted him, and he rubbed his face against my fur. Satisfied with that, he continued his inspection until his nose brushed the mangled flesh of my calf. He lapped at the warm blood spilling out, and a low whine surged in the back of his throat.
I didn’t breathe until his sharp teeth were out of biting range.
Head lowered, he sat on the ground beside me, as though pondering what he ought to do with me now that he’d caught me.
I hoped that decision involved not being eaten.
Seeming to come to some conclusion, he lowered his belly to the grass, rested his head on his front legs and simply stared at me.
With no place to go, I released the magic stinging my arms. It was half gone already, and holding on to it only made me weaker. I could steal a drop from Graeson if I had to shift again. His blood was more potent than Imogen’s, and I needed every advantage if he came at me with teeth bared.
An eternity later, my eyelids began to flutter. Too much magic spent, too much blood lost.
The solemn eyes of a wolf locked with mine, and then there was darkness.
Chapter 13
My bladder woke me. More to the point, the leaden wolf’s head pressing down on the swollen organ woke me. I came awake to find the promise of midday had burned off to twilight. The radiating pain in my calf slammed into me a second later, and a gasp punched past my lips.
I had a choice to make. Risk the wolf’s wrath and find a toilet, or lay there and let nature take its course. I made up my mind not to die in wet jeans, and the rest went easier from there.
Palms braced on the ground, I levered myself up into a sitting position. Graeson eyed me and slid his head lower, until his chin rested on my thigh.
“Oh thank God.” A voice drifted down to me. “You’re alive.”
“For now.” I tested my injured leg, and stars exploded behind my eyes. “Let’s see how long it lasts.”
“Your family is nearby.” Imogen peered over the platform’s edge. “Cord wouldn’t let them anywhere near you.”
A flutter of panic that they might be close enough for him to take notice winged through me. “I’m going home.”
“Are you sure that’s smart?” Her tone screamed I was suicidal. “You’re injured, and he’s…”
“I don’t have much choice. I’m not staying out here forever, and he seems calm enough now.” My fingers curled into my palms, the urge to stroke his fur and find some shred of Graeson lingering in his eyes overwhelming. “Tell my family to stay with Meemaw tonight.”
Rude as it was to presume she had room for guests, I would use Dell as leverage mercilessly. I had brought her little girl home, and Meemaw would grant me this favor in kind. None of the wargs would want to see Graeson harmed on my account, and the good ones wouldn’t want him to wake from his fugue with my blood on his teeth.
“Okay.” She bobbed her head. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for Bessemer?”
“No.” A snarl laced my voice and perked Graeson’s ears. I’d had about all I could take of the alpha’s interference. “I’m good.”
That Bessemer hadn’t put in an appearance all these hours later made it clear to me that his hopes aligned with Imogen’s. He wanted me gone, and he wanted his beta cowed. Two birds, one stone.
I planted my boots and tested my weight on them. The wolf sat up to see what all the fuss was about, but seemed more curious than anything. Pushing to my feet in slow motion, I gave him plenty of time to protest. He sat there until I managed to stand, and when I wobbled, he darted next to me. I leaned on him with a grimace, afraid I’d draw back a bloody nub, but the madness that had seized him seemed to have abated now that he had a captive audience of one.
I waved at Imogen, hoping it wasn’t a true farewell, and found her eyes as round as saucers.
Graeson hadn’t killed or maimed me…much. Clearly that shocked her.
That made two of us.
Together the wolf and I picked our way back to the trailers. The homestead was as we’d left it. The driver-side doors on Isaac’s truck still stood open, and a basket of laundry had exploded over the ground. Aunt Dot must have dropped it when we peeled into the clearing.
I grabbed the plastic bag Mai had smuggled from Edelweiss, shut the doors and locked the truck. My leg wasn’t up to gathering the clothes. Those would have to wait until tomorrow.
At my home, three tiny speckled eggs nestled inside a handful of grass on the highest step. A sweeping sense of déjà vu rocked me back on my heels. They were partridge eggs. I recognized them, because Lori and I had found a nest in the grass one summer while on vacation. Dad had given us a book to help us identify the species, which I did after Lori had given up on skimming. As a treat, he took two of the delicate eggs, thanked the nest for providing for us, and boiled them to go with our dinner.
This was the third item to show up on my steps that directly linked to me, to my family, to my past and my memories.
Cold rage ignited in my gut. There was only one reasonable explanation for it, and it made me sick. Bessemer had sifted through Graeson’s memories. The alpha knew secrets I had only ever told Graeson. But what if a side effect of joining the bond was leaving mental residue behind? I had never told Graeson about the eggs or the scrunchie or the shampoo, but had Bessemer gleaned those from the bond some other way? And what about the rabbit? Had he known Lori and I kept one as a pet? Or had Aisha truly used it as a lure?
Half afraid that if I stopped now I might not get moving again, I stepped over the nest and into my home. No, I realized. That wasn’t entirely true. I was just afraid I might spin on my heel and hunt down the alpha to bend his ear for a while, something neither Graeson nor I were fit to do at the moment. Grilling the alpha would have to wait, preferably for when I could stand with the beta at my back.
The wolf followed me without complaint, which I took as a good sign. I dropped the bag on the kitchenette table and limped into the bathroom, where my attempt to shut out the wolf for privacy was met with a rolling bass rumble of threat.
Heaving a sigh, I left the door open and handled business. While I was sitting, I untied my boots and kicked them into the corner. My pants were already halfway off, so I peeled those down my legs gingerly. This interested Graeson enough that he entered the bathroom with me, cramping the small room with his size while he inspected my leg. When he retreated, I tried to shut the door so I could strip for a shower. He was having none of it, hackles rising when I cut off his eye contact with me.
Defeated, I pulled my shirt over my head and started the shower. He allowed this and flopped down in the doorway, head on paws. A bra and panties were all that preserved my modesty as I stepped into the tiny glass enclosure. The bloodstained ensemble reminded me of Graeson’s earlier bikini comment, and I blushed. I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t home, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Wargs were blasé about nudity, but I wasn’t that kind of shifter.
The heat from the water relaxed my tense muscles and washed away the blood caking my leg. It lubricated my inhibitions too. Soggy and tired, I wanted to feel clean and safe again. Graeson’s dozing posture made stepping out of my underwear that much easier. My bra landed in the basin with a splat, and my panties followed. While I was bent over, I braced myself and inspected my calf. The cocktail of warg blood had done me good. The raw edges were knitting together much faster than they would have otherwise.
Not until my teeth began chattering did I realize I had used up all the hot water. Packed into the tight stall, I dried off then made the short grab for gauze from my medicine cabinet. The one good thing about the size of my bathroom was pretty much everything was within reach of everything else.
After slathering my leg with antibiotic ointment and binding it in gauze, I wriggled into pajamas, skirted the wolf and hobbled into the kitchen in search of food. The uncertain temperament of my houseguest meant I couldn’t afford not to eat. I had to replenish what the shifts had cost me in case I had to sprout claws in order to defend myself against the guilty-looking wolf drifting shadowlike in my wake.
“I have a frozen pizza, some of those microwave pocket things and an unmarked container, contents unknown,” I told the wolf, wishing I could turn back time and ask Isaac for steaks or roasts or whole chickens instead of a few staples. “Let’s try the fridge.”
A carton of eggs, an unopened pack of bacon and a container holding biscuits I knew must be homemade because of the
ir size and shape.
“You sneak.” I glanced over the door at him. “You left groceries at my house.”
The wolf flicked his ears.
“I can do breakfast. Nothing fancy,” I amended before he got excited, “but it’ll get the job done.”
First I cracked open a bottle of ibuprofen and tossed back a handful. I washed them down with the half glass of remaining orange juice then set about hard scrambling eggs and microwaving bacon.
Graeson sat there watching the whole production. The man might have judged my dry eggs or slightly burnt bacon edges, but the wolf made whiney-growly sounds of encouragement.
A muffled ringing noise sent me dragging into the bathroom to dig out my cell. “Ellis.”
“Where are you?” Aunt Dot snapped. “They won’t let us leave. They said that Cord—”
“I’m at home, resting.” I cut her off before she got too worked up. “Graeson is with me.”
“He’s with you?” she shrilled. “They said he was trying to kill you.”
I flinched. “Um, about that…”
“Tell them to let us go,” Isaac boomed in the background. “We can’t just sit here while some crazy wolfman is stalking you.”
Had I expected the captives to be happy? No. Had I expected them to try and break free the second Meemaw turned her back on them? Honestly…yes. But I hoped the fact I had requested they stay put, which proved I was indeed still alive to make such requests, might sway them.
Apparently I hadn’t hoped hard enough.
Exhaustion plagued me. “Put Meemaw on the phone.”
“Camille,” she cackled. “I’d ask how you are, but if you’re giving your family hell, then I imagine you’re just fine. How’s Cord? Did you kill him?”
“No.” My heart thumped once, painfully. “He’s right here. We’re about to eat dinner.”
She clicked her tongue. “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you against feeding wild animals?”
“Dad did once.” I hadn’t meant to answer her rhetorical question, but my brain was mush and the words fell out of my mouth. “He wanted me to stop feeding wild rabbits lettuce from my taco bowls.”
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