Dark Wolf

by Callie Rose

  “I feel like I just shotgunned a fifth of whiskey,” Ridge says, smacking his lips together. He catches my eye, his own gaze bleary. “What the hell is going on? Where’s Sable?”

  “Man, I cannot wake up,” Dare adds, leaning over and shaking his head as if trying to shock his brain awake.

  My stomach falls out beneath me as I suddenly realize why they look as strung out as I feel.

  “She used her magic,” I say, my voice low and strained. “On purpose, this time. A spell to make us sleep. Then she left.”

  I remember teaching her that spell during one of our training sessions, showing her the sigils and helping her practice them. The witches who captured me as a pup used the same spell on me sometimes, and the memory sends a shudder down my spine.

  Dare rubs the sleep from his eyes again, though it’s clearly not helping, and leans heavily against the wall. “Why? Because she was worried about hurting us in her sleep?”

  “No.” My heart skips a beat in terror as the realization dawns on me. “Because she’s going to look for the lone witch on her own.”

  It’s a testament to the power of Sable’s spell that we all stare at each other blankly for several long seconds before everyone reacts.

  “Mother fuck—what do we do?” Trystan leaps to his feet and somehow manages to not fall over. “We go after her, right?”

  “No question,” Ridge agrees, nodding sluggishly. “Dare, you know a bit about the landscape?”

  He nods. “Yeah, I think so. Fuck, I hope so. I can get us to Wolfsbane Mountain, for sure. Navigating past there will have to be organic. Relying on scent tracking and signs. If we hit magical barriers, we’ll be shit out of luck.”

  I speak up, my heart hammering somewhere in the vicinity of my throat. “The question is, does Sable have any idea where she’s going?”

  “I doubt it,” Trystan says, an abnormal note of fear creeping into his voice. “I mean, she knows the general direction, because we talked about it earlier. But she has no training in tracking, and no fucking way of protecting herself.”

  “That’s not fair,” I argue, even though there’s little heat behind the words. “She’s a wolf. She’s got teeth.”

  “But no experience fighting,” Dare grunts. “If she crosses the wrong side of a grizzly, she’s toast.”

  Ridge shoots me a concerned glance. “We need to go. Now.”

  For what feels like the fourth time in as many weeks, we make quick work of packing essentials. I make the discovery that Sable packed a bag before she left, because her backpack is missing from Ridge’s closet, as well as a handful of Amora’s borrowed clothes. So we focus on getting enough clothes for the four of us for several days, plus enough non-perishables for all of us.

  We’re in the kitchen, picking and choosing what can travel well and feed us later in the event that we can’t find game, when Ridge shoulders his bag and says, “I’m going to speak to Amora, let her know what’s happening.”

  “Hey, have her send a messenger to my dad too, if you can.” I swing my own bag up over my shoulder, leaving it loose since I’ll have to shift when we leave.

  “And to my pack,” Trystan adds. “Clearly, I’m not coming home soon. They deserve an update.”

  Ridge nods. “Will do. Meet me where the road ends north of the village.” Then he vanishes out the back door.

  Thanks to Dare, we know Wolfsbane Mountain is twenty miles north. From there, we have no way of knowing how much longer the journey will be. Even in wolf form, it’s a haul. As long as there’s wildlife out there, we’ll have access to food, but I don’t honestly know what to expect when we reach the outskirts of the witch’s territory. Anywhere witch magic hangs heavy in the air, animals tend to avoid the area, like it’s off limits. Once we cross whatever barriers she has up, we’ll be on our own.

  One thing is for sure—Sable should not be making this journey alone, and I blame the four of us for putting her in this situation.

  “We should have listened to what she was saying back at Elder Jihoon’s house,” I mutter to Dare under my breath as Trystan leads us out the door a few minutes later. “It’s easy for us to say ‘we’ll figure it out.’ We aren’t the ones going through what she is.”

  “I guess.” He shakes his head as we start heading up the road, his jaw hard. “Shouldn’t she trust us? We’re her mates. We wouldn’t steer her wrong.”

  “But what do we really know about any of this?” I scrub a frustrated hand through my hair. “We’re the assholes, Dare. Not Sable. We could easily steer her wrong without even knowing we’re doing it. She’s the only one who knows what it’s like inside her head, what the witch magic is doing to her. We should’ve put more stock in her opinion. She knows finding another witch is a risk, so if she still felt like she needed to do it, there’s a reason for that. It’s because this is bad. Worse than we knew.”

  “Fucking hell.” Dare’s lips press together, worry darkening his eyes. “I just wanted to protect her.”

  “Yeah. Me too. The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Trystan says wryly from up ahead. I didn’t even know he was listening to us. I’m still not used to this new version of the West Pack alpha, who listens and stays out of his own head long enough to be involved. Sable’s been a good influence on him.

  Ridge is several houses down, standing on Amora’s front porch. In the pre-dawn light, all I can see of her is the pale flash of her hands in the doorway as she talks to him. Trystan, Dare, and I don’t stop, continuing on to where the road ends abruptly at the edge of the village. As we wait for him, my mind drifts back to the day I talked Sable into staying as she stood on a spot at the edge of the village and looked out into the wilderness, psyching herself up to leave.

  Somehow, I doubt she even hesitated tonight. I can picture her in wolf form, the moonlight shining off her dappled blonde-and-white fur, a reflection in the night as she bounded into the woods.

  Within moments, Ridge joins us, looking grim. “Let’s go.”

  Without saying a word, Dare, Trystan, and I all strip and shift. Ridge affixes our packs to our backs before loosening the straps on his own pack so it won’t be torn off when he shifts. The magic ripples over him, then the four of us take off into the forest.

  Now that I’m in wolf form, the lingering effects of Sable’s spell vanish, and I feel more clear-headed. I can tell the same can be said for my companions, because they’re moving faster and easier too. The early morning birdsong cuts through the fog and gives me something to focus on as we leave the open fields around the village for the cover of the trees.

  Lucky for us, Sable has no clue what she’s doing. A wolf who doesn’t want to be found can be a tricky creature to track. They’re good at erasing their presence and disguising their scents. The more practice and time they have to hone these skills, the better they get, until they’re nothing but a ghost in the forest. Sable hasn’t had the time or training to pick up those tricks, thankfully.

  Once inside the forest, we stick our noses to the ground and start searching for her scent. I dart through the trees, zig zagging to cover more ground. The dirt here is heavy with the scent of shifters—Ridge’s pack mates going on patrol, going hunting, taking walks. I’m looking for Sable’s specific smell, and I know I’ll recognize it the moment I cross it.

  Found her, Ridge calls out through our mind connection before long, then lets out a yip to pinpoint his location.

  I pop up from my search and see Trystan’s shaggy chocolate brown wolf heading farther into the trees. I follow him, trusting he’s got eyes on our friend.

  Ridge stamps at the ground as we approach, and then whips around with a swing of his tail and takes off, his nose to the ground as he follows her trail.

  As we near him, I smell it too. The unmistakable combination of smells that can only be my mate.

  My heart thuds heavily in my chest as my nostrils twitch. The scent of Sable’s wolf on the dirt makes this all too real. I race after Ridge and the others
, my mind a riot of fear and what-ifs.

  We have to find her before she gets hurt.

  10

  Sable

  I run at a breakneck pace, my paws thudding on the ground and my lungs pumping with cold, fresh air. I can smell the crisp scent of pine and snow that I always associate with the mountains, and there’s another scent that makes me think of dawn and the steady awakening of the earth. Everything around me is sharp and perfect, and I want to roll around in it all, get these scents on me until I’ve forgotten everything else.

  If I focus on the way it feels to be out here racing toward the wilderness, it blocks out some of the burning ache in my heart and the worry about how pissed the guys are going to be when they finally wake up from my spell. I don’t let myself worry about how risky this venture is, especially for a wolf like me who has no business being alone out here, chasing down a woman no one knows how to find.

  A woman who may or may not actually exist.

  If I focus on the sights, smells, and sounds of the journey, I don’t notice the way my heart is breaking.

  This will break my mates’ hearts too. I know that. And I hate it.

  But I couldn’t stay behind and risk hurting any of them. Whatever exists inside of me is like a ticking time bomb, and at some point, it’s going to explode. When it does, I won’t have any control over the casualties, so I need to be far, far away until I get answers.

  The trees thin around a fast-moving mountain spring, and pink-tinged early morning sunshine spills down through the canopy of leaves above, shimmering off the water like fire. I pause just long enough to take a drink. I’m still not used to lapping up water as a wolf, but it’s worth it, because everything tastes so much fresher and clearer in this form. The spring is like a burst of cold energy, spurring me to keep going.

  I splash through the stream, watching my paws on the slippery rocks and tracking the depth of the water carefully so the current doesn’t knock my feet out from beneath me. I’m not interested in learning how to doggy paddle alone in the woods without someone here to haul me out in the event that I can’t cut it. But luckily, the stream barely reaches the bottom of my belly at its deepest point. I move through it unscathed, then bound up the far bank, give myself a good shake, and fall back into a sprint, heading due north toward the hazy mountains in the distance.

  All I have to go on are a few vague directions I pieced together from Elder Jihoon’s diary entry and Dare’s commentary. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. It is a lot of ground to cover though. Twenty miles to the north, heading for a mountain range I spotted before the trees got too thick to see beyond.

  I’m afraid I won’t be able to do this on my own; I’m not even sure if I’m going the right way, or what I’ll do once I reach the mountain shaped like a wolf’s head and have nothing more to guide me. But I have to try. I have to find a way to beat the darkness inside me, or I’ll end up hurting the men I love. Or hurting more than just them. Hurting the whole pack, or all of the shifters. Myself, even.

  For a long time, it’s just me and the wind. I catch glimpses of deer grazing and squirrels foraging. Foxes eye me warily from their dens as I pass, little black noses sniffing the air. But none of the creatures pay me much attention. Probably since I’m obviously not here for them. I hardly give them a cursory glance and continue racing past them. Beyond the intermittent wildlife, this area is blessedly empty.

  But then something prickles against my awareness. My wolf floods with the feeling that I’m not alone—a scent in the air, or an almost inaudible noise, something that doesn’t belong.

  A split second later, four wolves race through the undergrowth, bursting from the trees behind me and fanning out in a practiced sweep to surround me.

  Startled, I throw on the brakes, and my big paws skid across the moss and leaves on the ground. I don’t have a chance to be scared, because my wolf recognizes them immediately, by scent and by sight—my mates.

  Dammit. Even with my head start, they found me.

  I hoped my sleeping sigil would hold long enough for me to get out of range, or for my scent to fade from my trail. Although that was probably a stupid thing to hope for, considering they’re four alphas and my skills are hardly better than a pup’s at this point. My optimism outshines my logic sometimes.

  It’s also possible the spell wasn’t all that strong. I still barely have any measure of control over my power.

  Magic shimmers over all four of them at once, until they’re human and looking at me with such a mix of expressions that I’m flooded with guilt. They’re carrying packs, which they each shrug off as if by unspoken agreement. Unconsciously, I shift and drop my backpack too. Then I stand still, breathing hard as I face them, hesitant to make the first move.

  Archer looks betrayed and guilty, and I know it’s because he was meant to be keeping watch over me. I used magic on him to get away, and out of all the men, I know he feels that cut the deepest. He survived years of magical torture at the hands of a coven of witches, only for his mate to turn around and use her power on him too. His expression makes the bottom fall out of my stomach, and I wonder if I’ve ruined everything with him.

  Trystan’s face is schooled into such an expression of determination that I’m worried he’ll never let me out of his sight again. He’s overbearing and overprotective enough without me adding fuel to the flames, which I know I did tonight. Dare’s eyes are hard to read, the lines of his face set and his jaw tight.

  Ridge, though, radiates pure, unadulterated anger.

  He stalks toward me, hulking and broad-shouldered with his hands curled into fists at his sides. His ash brown hair is windswept from his race after me, and his honey-colored eyes are unblinking as he looms over me.

  Fear creeps into my consciousness, and I cringe away from him. I’m not used to being scared of Ridge—he’s the one who has been most like a protector to me, my champion since the night he dragged me out of Devil’s Ditch after I fled from my uncle’s truck. Ridge is firm but gentle, gruff but kind. Unlike some of my other mates, he never gets this caught up in his own fury. But right now, the heat in his eyes smolders hot as the sun.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he roars, throwing both arms out as if to indicate our current location deep in the middle of nowhere.

  I gasp at the harsh sound of his voice and back away, everything in me screaming to put distance between me and Ridge’s fury.

  But he follows me, advancing as many steps as I take backward. “Why the fuck would you do that? Why would you sneak away like that? Do you have a death wish?”

  His voice cracks on the last word, and his fists unclench as his shoulders sag. I realize then that he’s not mad at me. His rage isn’t anger at me for casting a spell on them and running away—it’s coming from a place of fear. Fear for me.

  Before I can come up with a response that doesn’t sound pathetic and useless, he reaches out and hauls me into his arms. He squeezes me tight to him, ignoring our nakedness, and his breaths are shallow inside his chest where our bare skin is pressed together. He drops his head, burying it against my shoulder as he shudders against me.

  “You can’t fucking leave us like that, little wolf,” he murmurs against the crook of my neck, his words tickling my hair. He splays his hands over my back, fingers digging in like he’s latching on to me so I can’t slip away. “You can’t leave us. We won’t survive it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I’m almost unable to speak through the weight of his embrace. Or maybe it’s the weight of my guilt. “I couldn’t let you keep risking yourselves by being near me. Not without trying to find some way to fix it. To control my magic.”

  “I would walk into hell with you, Sable.” Ridge pulls away just enough to look into my eyes, though he doesn’t release me. “If that’s what I had to do to keep you safe, to be with you, I’d do it and I wouldn’t look back. I want to be with you no matter what. No matter what you are, no matter what happens.”

  A lump
rises in my throat and tears sting my eyes, but before they can spill over, Ridge is kissing me. His kiss is desperate, his fingers hard and bruising on my arms as he drags me against his body and devours me. For the first time, I can feel past his ever-present strength to the vulnerability inside him.

  My big, gruff protector isn’t made of stone like he always seems to be.

  He isn’t invincible.

  I’m his vulnerability. I’m the one thing that can destroy every foundation he has. The realization floors me.

  Losing me might kill him. The bond between us is absolute, so strong and all-consuming that I don’t know where he begins and where I end. And it goes both ways. Losing him—losing any of these men—would wreck me more thoroughly than any of the abuse I ever suffered before meeting them. This mate bond runs deeper than anything I could have ever imagined. I need them and they need me to complete each other. We’re a team, meant to be together come hell or high water.

  Leaving them, even altruistically the way I just tried to do, won’t ever work. The bond will keep bringing us back together, no matter how far I run. Or the separation will destroy us.

  I throw myself into returning Ridge’s kiss, trying to show him just how much I need him. How fucking sorry I am. My tears flow freely now, until I can taste them on my lips. And still, he doesn’t stop kissing me.

  I break the contact between our lips long enough to cup his face in my hands and say, “I’m so sorry I lef—”

  But he doesn’t even let me get the words completely out before he leans back into me, his mouth hot on mine. He kisses me so long, so hard, so deeply, that I wonder if he’ll ever stop. I get lost in the heat of his skin on mine, in the feeling of his hands claiming my body. My head swims as I cling to him, almost forgetting my name and the reason I’m out here to begin with.

  Right now, all that matters is loving this man.