“I’m the guard. The sentinel. I’m not really in the pack, but…I watch, for them. They’re deciding what to do. Your strength is a…complication.”
There was that ridiculous word again. Strength. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He waved a hand at me, almost like an afterthought. It was like the human gestures were coming to him bit by bit as he settled into the persona. “Alpha tendencies. Only some of us have them.”
“Alpha…”
“Natural dominance.” He’d been speaking in basic phrases—a lot like the wolves did when they were turned—but at last he geared up into a proper paragraph. “It’s the ability to convince others through charisma, or force. The Elder can do it. That’s why he…was in charge. Kane can, too. It’s why Ilsa allied with him to begin with. She can be charming, but she doesn’t have the same power. And I can’t order anyone, but sometimes I can…persuade.” He paused. “That’s why Kane called challenge against me.”
I looked at him out on the ledge, metaphorically and otherwise. Kicked out of the main pack, huh? “Is that why they didn’t tell me about you? You don’t count to them anymore, or something?”
“I count. Just not as a person.”
“Ouch,” I muttered.
“It could be worse.” His voice went quiet. “Going solo permanently…that would be worse.”
There was a long, significant silence.
“You could let me in,” he said softly.
“You’re telling me about all this,” I said, swiveling back to the original point, “because I ordered Kane to back off the other night. That’s what weirded everyone out. Because it worked…and wasn’t supposed to.”
“Not to mention,” he said, a little dryly, “that I was just trying to persuade you to open the window, and it didn’t work at all.”
I stared at him.
“You’re stronger than any of us,” he said. “The Elder’s too ill. You outdid Kane. I can’t compete. You’re…”
I stomped over and slammed my hands down on the windowsill. “Strong, am I? Alpha wolf? Is that where you’re going with this? You really don’t get how insane that is. What part of falling apart at the seams do you not understand?”
“They’re scared of you. Even Brandon is. That, I understand.”
I had absolutely nothing to say.
“They’ll stay back until they know what to do. But Ilsa has the pack keeping an eye on you. Brandon at school, and—”
“You, here.”
His mouth quirked. I looked down at my hands.
“I’m already trying to avoid Brandon,” I said. “I have no idea what to do about you.”
“I could help…”
“That’s what everyone’s saying. But what do you want?”
To my surprise, he answered honestly. “To catch the feral, before Kane does. We searched for him at the full moon and didn’t succeed. Fixing that is what I want. And I want your help.”
Bitterly, I wondered if he realized what he was asking of me. Catching a werewolf gone completely mad, when I had a hard enough time standing up straight? “This is about getting back your rightful place in the pack, isn’t it?”
“It’s bigger than that.”
“Of course it is…”
“B,” he said, and he actually said my full name this time—which no one did anymore. After the change, I’d made sure of that. I didn’t even know how he’d learned it. The sound was startling enough, but it also made me shiver just from the resonance to it, the soft sigh at the end. “The pack didn’t want me to speak with you. But I know what the Elder promised. That finding the feral would answer your questions. I…have questions too.”
I doubted he had as many as I did. Even the barest mention of the Elder’s promise—and what a thing to call it—knocked me sideways. I tried to hold back the flood of his memories, but it barely worked. I was still haunted by the images of bloody victims, miles of running, that strange man’s silhouette that he’d slashed into my head.
The worst part was that it was triggering memories of my own, too—and they were all old ones I didn’t want to relive, because those memories had terrible, terrible teeth.
I opened my mouth to speak again, or maybe scream, but nothing came out.
Raoul frowned, leaning closer. “What did he show you?” he asked.
Find him, I recalled the Elder saying. I shuddered. Before I could answer, though, I heard something creak. It was Grey downstairs, moving around.
I tensed and backed away. “Raoul, you can’t stay.”
“But we have to—”
“My brother,” I said with sudden force. “Ilsa said he’d be left out of this. You have to keep to that. No matter what they’ve decided about me—even if that means watching me, I don’t even care anymore…just stay away from Grey. Promise me.”
I almost meant that as a command, but it came out as a ragged plea. Raoul silently pressed his hand against the screen. Without thinking about it, I put my own hand up to meet it.
“I promise,” he said.
I let out a shaky breath.
“I’ll be back,” Raoul whispered. “I’ll try to keep the others from intruding. And I’ll try not to alert your brother. But I can’t be sure when we can speak again.” He paused. “Don’t mention me to the others.”
“All right,” I said uneasily. “Raoul—”
“Be careful,” he told me, before I could finish. The warmth I felt quadrupled on those words. Then it was gone.
In a flash of movement I couldn’t even follow, he’d disappeared.
Chapter Fourteen
Raoul kept his word, for better or worse, about keeping the pack out of my business. It meant I didn’t see him again for days, either. That left me with the not-exactly-small issue of school—but at least Lacey’s plan to get me away from Brandon went into action in record time.
We scheduled a few days’ worth of projects scattered across different classes, so no one teacher would get too annoyed. With as much work as I was still managing to get done, I was even starting to make up for my absences. In fact, I almost started feeling like I was a normal student again. Having something mundane to focus on was actually a terrible relief.
It didn’t last long.
Lacey told me one morning to meet her in the gym. She just didn’t explain what we were doing, so I found a mystery before me when I arrived. Everyone from her usual crowd was already there. They’d cleared the floor and pushed back the bleachers, and green fabric hung everywhere. Someone had borrowed lighting from the drama department, and propped up a digital camera. Everyone was there: Emily and Lin wrangling equipment, Jake behind the camera, and Madison on the improvised stage, fussing with her hair. While I stood gaping, Cee appeared.
“You made it! Here, take this.” She thrust something into my hands before I could protest: costumes, with plenty of draping fabric that I was sure I’d mangle with my crutches in ten seconds flat. “Sorry I didn’t explain. It’s a whole big thing. Senior project business, remember?” Her head snapped to the side. “Hey, Jake? Stop gawking.”
He was messing around with the camera, aimed at Madison. From his guilty expression, I’d have bet the zoom was all the way in. “Sorry.”
“Anyway,” Cee said, returning to me. “It’s for our presentation. We didn’t want to do boring talking heads, so everyone’s pitching in something. Lin’s on sound, Jake’s pretending to direct, and Emily’s going to try giving our effects a whirl. That’s what the tarps are about, backgrounds and things. We wanted to do a camera test first. Maybe you could work with Lin on sound? Grey said you had a good ear.”
I didn’t ask why he’d told her that. Cee excused herself when Emily waved her forward. She looked ready to make a speech, about whatever our topic was—I hadn’t even been told—until Jake interrupted her by blasting music out of the speakers.
Lacey laughed. “That wasn’t the plan, Jake.”
“Who cares? Improvise!”
She nearly
retorted, then gave in and called, “Not without help! Come on, Mad!”
For once, to my surprise, Madison didn’t protest at all. She just grinned. As if it actually had been the plan all along, they both started dancing.
I finally understood in that moment why Cee had included Madison with the most talented students in the school. She was limber, athletic, and perfectly poised. Then there was Lacey. I tended to avoid watching dancers—my inner seven-year-old ballerina was still bitter—but even I could tell the difference between people who can be taught and the people who’ve just got it. Lacey was having so much effortless, exuberant fun that it hurt to watch.
I turned away, eyes stinging, which is when I saw someone else in the doorway.
Brandon was pacing back and forth outside the gym, watching everything but me for once. “What’s up with him?” I murmured. Jake heard me and swiveled the camera around. “Jake, what are you…”
He grinned. “Want a closer look?”
He beckoned me over, and I hauled myself up to the display. In the magnified view, I saw Brandon’s face coming into focus, and I sucked in a sudden, startled breath. He was far too pale, except for the shadows pooling beneath his eyes.
What had happened? Brandon wasn’t the type to feel guilty about, well, anything, even that football incident, so I doubted that was it. Maybe it really had been a bad full moon for him, too. Maybe he wasn’t as indestructible as he seemed. Above all, though, he seemed anxious, and that was a new look for him. I swallowed, thinking hard.
Then I saw another figure appear in the hallway: Antonella.
“Where have you been?” Brandon hissed at her.
“Keep filming,” I muttered at Jake, trying to get closer without giving myself away.
I couldn’t hear much over the music, but I saw Brandon’s hands waving, and Antonella looking concerned. Bits of conversation got through. “It must be her” was one. “Ilsa wants…” was another.
I gaped. He’d told his girlfriend about Ilsa? A complete, stone-cold normie knew about the pack and I was supposed to be keeping secrets?
“Punishment,” I heard him say. “They’ll do anything…prove…”
I strained closer. Being me, this was a bad plan. One of my crutches clattered into the metal supports of the bleachers, and Brandon and Antonella spun towards me. Jake did the inverse, whistling loudly as he focused the camera on Lacey and Madison again. So I was stuck holding the bag as Antonella demanded, “Why are you spying on us?”
“Why are you here at all?” I shot back.
“I have this room reserved.” She produced a permission slip and waved it under my nose. “I need it for rainy-day practice, and this place is supposed to be used for sports. Not whatever kind of amateur night you’ve got going on.”
Lacey was about to retort with an insulted defense of everyone’s genius, but I stuck with skepticism. “Practice? Just you?”
Antonella only smiled. Brandon folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. It was a smug gesture, even if he looked too weary to really carry off the expression. Still, he wasn’t backing off. Practice. What the hell.
As the argument escalated, I shook Cee off and wandered into the parking lot on my own, leaving everyone else to duke it out. Once I’d gotten far enough away that I was out of Brandon’s hearing, I leaned against a painfully expensive car and mentally hollered, Raoul, we have got to talk.
I had no idea if he heard. I didn’t even know if it was the right call. But I had to put all this together somehow, and he was the only one I dared ask.
Now, I thought, more privately—and a whole lot more dourly—I just have to wait.
*
The remainder of the day passed uneasily, and the evening was worse. Raoul still hadn’t shown. By the time darkness fell, I was resorting to pacing around my bedroom, hurting my knees in the process, and doing a poor job of keeping quiet. Eventually I sat on the end of my bed and glared daggers at the window.
“You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on me,” I muttered. “Some spy you’re turning out to be.”
There was no response to that either. Finally I decided I’d had enough of waiting.
I pushed myself up and opened the window. If I had to climb out and find Raoul myself, I was convinced right then that I would. Unexpectedly, though, I finally got a break—and it was nearly one to my tailbone, from jumping backwards in surprise. Raoul was already there.
He watched me levelly, waiting for me to speak. It took me a few seconds, especially since that warm aura of his was distracting as hell, but I went with the first thing that popped into my head. “Stalker.”
“You did call me.”
Which meant it had worked after all. That weirded me out more than anything else. “You could have replied.”
We both sized each other up through the screen. I was only wearing my pajamas, and suddenly felt very conscious of that fact. He was in jeans, and a light t-shirt that was maddeningly blank. Some sort of give-away slogan would have been helpful. You know, I Eat Babies! or something so I’d have an excuse to hate him.
As it was, my instincts said to trust him. I just wished I knew I was right to.
I folded my arms and tried to be blunt. “I need to know what’s really going on with Brandon. And why he’s so worked up about Ilsa that he’s even told his girlfriend about her.”
There was a long silence. “We should go somewhere private,” Raoul said at last.
“Grey won’t listen in on us up here.”
He still looked uneasy.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll get dressed.” I limped a few steps away before I remembered to add, “Don’t you dare watch.”
Raoul smiled, as if I’d said something quaint. I ignored it and yanked on some clothes.
I don’t mean to sound like that went quickly. I had a few inelegant moments of fumbling with my jeans—under the best of circumstances, that usually involves toppling onto the bed at least twice—and wrestling on my shoes, the ugly ones with the foot supports shoved in. By the time I’d also donned a shirt and bra, not in that order, I discovered that Raoul had already removed the bug screen and was waiting for me.
“Um. I have…stairs…?”
He waved toward the woods beyond. I crept closer, taking a deep breath. It filled my head in an instant: the night air, cold and damp, the wind rustling in the trees, the distant sound of a car departing. Then I sensed Grey a floor below me, slowing into sleep, and Raoul’s glow of warmth, rich and bright and enough to make me sway where I stood.
“This way,” he said. “I won’t let you fall.”
Metaphorically at least, it was too late for that. I reached out for his offered hand. About five seconds later, once the rush had faded and I fully realized I was clambering onto the roof, my brain switched gears and screamed, What are you doing?!
Raoul, already at the ledge, said, “Jump with me.”
I was the verge of gibbering at that point. The ground looked like it was a mile away. At last I felt his touch again, helping me down the slope. Then he started murmuring a count. “On three,” he said, lacing our fingers together. “One…two…”
I waited for three and jumped.
By rights I should have broken everything. I should have ended up in a tragic, shattered heap at the back porch steps, unable to move for days. But Raoul had taken all the force somehow, tumbling us from freefall into a cushioned roll. I did crack a rib, but I’m pretty sure that was from the force of my heart trying to hammer its way free. I can’t say how long that moment lasted, with him staring down and me wanting to bare my throat and… Well, it did end, eventually, once the strange, wild look on his face broke into a grin.
“Come on,” he said.
Before I could catch my breath, he had me on my feet and running.
Forests here aren’t easy to run through. They’re dense, damp, crowded with underbrush, and whatever idiot said moss never grew on the north side of trees hasn’t been in my backyard. This is n
ot sprinting territory. How Raoul found clear passageways, I’ll never know. How my legs stayed under me is even more of a mystery. But in a way, it reminded me of Ilsa’s memories, the ones of running wild with the rest of the pack…and so I just let it happen. Somehow, with Raoul’s help, I never fell.
At last we reached the curving edge of the creek, where we came to a splashing stop.
“There. No one’s near.” Then he turned to me, his eyes intent. “Tell me.”
I came to a wobbly seat on a nearby rock, and slowly regained my breath. Getting my thoughts in order took longer. At last I told him all the fragments I’d been stockpiling, including Brandon’s confession to Antonella about Ilsa. Out there in the forest, where it was so dark I was sure my eyes were straining out of human shape to compensate, it all felt unreal. Raoul, though, looked troubled and tired—but not surprised.
He gathered himself, as if it were difficult to manage speech again. Just how close to wild was he?
“The last full moon was harsh,” he said, his eyes shining strangely. “Usually the hunt is about food. This time we were trying to find the feral. We got neither. Too scattered.”
“Is that why Brandon looks so worn down? I can’t imagine him being that upset about it, but…”
“It’s more than that. And it’s more than just Brandon.” Raoul sighed. “Ilsa probably told you it’s the hunt that keeps us healthy. She’s been blaming our failure for Brandon feeling ill. But he’s not alone. None of us are well.”
I felt a flash of guilt. The original plan had been for me to help that night. Things might have turned out differently if I’d been there. Still, Raoul cut off that thought soon enough.
“She’s lying,” Raoul whispered. He stepped closer, ankle-deep in the river, with water crawling up the fabric of his jeans. It wasn’t until then that I noticed he was barefoot. He seemed oblivious to the cold. “It’s all connected. All these pieces. The feral, our sickness, all your questions…all these secrets.”
I bit my lip. “You said none of you were well. What about you?”
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