by Everly Frost
Danika tips her head in the affirmative. “Pretty much. The alpha needs to assert dominance. But…” She leans back in her chair. “I don’t think we’ll know until we get out there whether this is a case of pure domination or whether there’s more to it.”
I give them a confused frown. “We?”
Iyana breaks into a grin. “We’re coming with you.”
“What?”
They both lean forward, big grins on their faces. “You’re not leaving the house alone.”
“But I have no idea what I’m walking into,” I splutter. “I can’t let you endanger yourselves.”
Iyana scoffs. “I was going to join Tristan when you first arrived. I don’t have anywhere else to go, and I figured he could use my help.”
“I’m ready to leave, too,” Danika adds. “I’m getting itchy wings.”
My eyes are leaking already. “That’s… I’m…”
“Don’t cry on me, Tessa,” Iyana says, nudging my foot with hers.
I jump up and hug her, knocking over her shot glass as my arms close around her. Danika launches herself across the table and joins the hug. I don’t care that it’s awkward and we bump elbows. I need these women to know how much I appreciate their support.
“Thank you,” I whisper, closing my eyes and accepting their friendship.
A sudden crash at the side of the garden makes us leap apart and spin toward the sound.
Helen stands half out of her seat, gasping and clutching her chest. Her plate lies shattered at her feet. She must have knocked it off the table when she stood up.
“Helen!” I shout. My wolf leaps away from my body, separating and racing to her side, reaching her before I do.
The other women remaining in the garden crowd toward her, but my wolf keeps them away with soft growls, herding them back. It can’t hurt them, but they stand clear, allowing me through.
I slide to a stop at Helen’s side with Iyana and Danika close behind me. “Helen! What’s wrong?”
She grips my shoulder, her fingers biting into my arms. “Tristan just broke the lock. He’s already here.”
Chapter Fourteen
I stare at Helen in shock. “How did he break into the house?”
Helen’s face is pale, her dark hair fallen loose from her topknot and the collar of her shirt ruffled, as if the force of the magical break blew through her body.
She leans close to me and all of the sounds around us stop. I suddenly realize that she’s shielding our conversation.
“Remember what I told you about old magic being able to affect old magic?” Her hands shake around my arms and her voice is a hoarse whisper. “Tristan is stronger than you can imagine, Tessa. I think you’ve sensed his power. Even this house can’t control him.”
She releases one of my arms to brush my hair back from my face. “You might be the only one who can truly match him. But he’s not here because of you. Not yet…”
My ears pop as she leans back again before I can respond or ask her what she means. Whatever shield she placed around our conversation is gone in an instant and our exchange is no longer private.
“Tristan needs help.” Helen tries to stand fully but stumbles against the table. I tighten my hold on her while Iyana rounds the table to support Helen’s other side. “I need to get to the medical wing right away.”
Iyana’s eyes are round. “Tristan must be bringing somebody wounded. Help me get Helen upstairs.”
Nobody new has come to the house since I arrived, even though a handful of women have left. If Tristan’s broken through the lock to bring someone who needs help, it must be urgent.
Danika leans forward across the table to me. “I’ll make sure everyone stays safely in their rooms, and I’ll check on Ella to make sure she’s okay. You stay with Helen and help her in any way she needs.”
As the room empties around us, I assist Helen to stand.
“I’ll be fine,” she insists. “My magic just got a shock. I’ll be okay soon.”
“Deep breaths,” I whisper to her as I continue to support her on one side while Iyana holds her other.
Together, we shuffle our way across the floor and up the stairs.
I haven’t been back to the medical wing since I healed after the fight with Cody and Dawson. I shake off the memories while I help Helen into the first room on the right.
She’s standing straighter by the time we get there, regaining the color in her cheeks.
“I’m okay now,” she says, taking her first unsupported step since her shock in the garden. She turns to Iyana and tells her to go help Danika with the other women.
“Make sure they’re all calm,” Helen says.
Iyana gives Helen a nod, but she casts me an uncertain look as she passes me. I take my own deep breaths and fight the impulse to squeeze myself as far into the back corner as I can before Tristan arrives.
Remember, Tessa: Calm. Control.
I remind myself that I’m not the same woman Tristan left here two months ago.
Helen casts me a questioning look, similar to Iyana’s, but I give her a firm nod. “I’ll stay with you. What do you need me to do?”
“Come stand by my side. Remember who you are and what you’re capable of,” Helen says, calling her book to her side. The book flies up into the air, floating on the opposite side of me as I join her at the foot of the medical examination table.
“As soon as I know what we’re dealing with, I’ll ask for your help,” she says.
“Okay,” I reply. “I’ll be ready.”
Seconds later, running footfalls thud in my hearing.
Despite the dulling power of Hidden House, Tristan’s presence is like a dizzying burst of light in my senses. Closing my eyes and daring to expand my senses, pushing against the spells within the house, I make out Jace’s presence, as well as two female shifters I’ve never met.
“Helen!” Tristan’s roar is like a smack across my head, his power pouring ahead of him and flooding my senses. I rush to pull back my power—to stop sensing so much around me—before I’m overwhelmed.
He bursts into the room, carrying a girl whose hair is so covered in blood, I can’t make out what color it is as it falls over his arms. She’s unconscious, her eyes closed and her left arm hanging loosely. Her face and body are covered in slashes that stop the breath in my lungs—cuts from a dagger or from claws, I can’t tell which. She’s smaller than an adult. She might only be fourteen, possibly even younger.
Jace runs in close behind Tristan carrying an even younger girl. Her left arm is held at an awkward angle against her chest while Jace holds her so he doesn’t hurt her. She’s awake, sobbing against his chest, the sound of her cries wrenching at my heart. She’s wearing ragged jeans and a T-shirt with a rainbow printed on it. She can’t be more than nine years old.
What kind of monster would hurt these kids?
My wolf’s energy rises inside me—far from calm—and it takes all of my concentration to calm my anger.
Helen gasps as soon as the men enter, her hand flying over her mouth. Her gaze shoots from the teenager to the younger girl. “Carly! Becca!” Her teeth clench. “What happened?”
Tristan races to the examination table, laying Carly onto it while Jace retreats to the side of the room with Becca.
“Baxter fucking Griffin happened,” Tristan says. “She’s been stabbed in her chest, back, and thighs. He clawed her face. She was trying to defend her little sister.”
Tristan presses the back of his hand against his forehead, his fist clenched, as he backs away from the examination table. “I didn’t get there in time.” His voice is raw, exposed, more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard him sound as he sucks in air. “I couldn’t fucking… get to her… Not fast enough…”
He reaches out to steady himself against the table at the side of the room, his chest heaving, lips drawn back, teeth gritted. He’s naked from the waist up. Bare-footed. The top button of his jeans isn’t done up, telling me he shifted and didn�
��t have time to dress properly after. He’s dripping sweat, beads of liquid slipping down the side of his face and the center of his chest.
A thin line of blood cuts across his chest from his shoulder to his hip. It’s a claw mark, not deep enough to do any damage but clearly intended to gut him. He must have got out of the way just in time.
“Tell me you can save her, Helen,” he says, a demand.
Helen doesn’t reply. Her book zips closer to her side, pages flipping rapidly. She’s already whispering spells as she works over Carly at a frenzied pace. I watch in awe as spells pour from her mouth and she layers her magic, one spell over another, across Carly’s chest—her vital organs—followed by Carly’s head and face.
Despite Helen’s efforts, Carly’s breathing becomes more shallow with every passing second and the furrow in Helen’s brow grows more intense, a fierce but desperate intensity in the speed of her spells.
I want to help, but there’s nothing I can do to heal Carly’s wounds.
It’s all up to Helen.
Which seems to be making Tristan even more agitated.
His growled demand cuts across the space between them. “Helen!” he shouts when she doesn’t answer him. “Promise me you can save her!”
Still, Helen doesn’t respond, but I suddenly realize how I can help her. I need to play interference between her and Tristan so she can concentrate on her work without the distraction of his fear.
I round the table and position myself so that I’m standing between Tristan and the examination table, becoming a visual obstruction. “Helen’s doing everything she can, Tristan. You have to trust her.”
“Trust.” He spits the word. His fierce green eyes focus on me for the first time since he arrived, a deliberate move, as if he’s been consciously blocking my presence until this moment. Somehow, no matter the circumstances in which we see each other, his gaze always feels sharp, as if he’s trying to scrape back my defenses and tear at the heart of me.
With a snarl, his focus rakes up and down me, all the way from my ruby red hair, down my usual flannel shirt and jeans, to my booted feet, and back up again. “I can’t trust someone who lied to me.”
I relax my hands at my sides, restraining my wolf’s energy, which is rising inside me, ready to be released if I need it. “Then trust that she had good reasons for protecting me.”
Tristan closes the gap between us so fast that I fight to catch my breath.
“Helen protected you at the expense of others,” he says, his accusation burning deep in his eyes and in the angry downward pull at the corners of his lips.
I tip my chin, verbalizing a belief I’ve only just acquired. “My life is worth just as much as theirs.”
He snarls, leaning close. Whispers, “Not to me, it isn’t.”
Oh.
I press my lips together. Slowly. I try not to react to his harsh statement, even though it feels like he cut through my fragile self-belief before it was even fully formed.
He’s agitated, maybe even hurting, but it doesn’t excuse his choice to hurt me right now.
The old me would try to escape at this point, retaliate with force, compartmentalize my hurt, and take myself off somewhere to harden my heart. But the new me…
Pain has a meaning in my life and it has to be faced head on.
I breathe it out, the slowest exhale, expelling it as gently as I can, giving my heart the care it needs. From myself. I don’t need care from him.
Tristan is silent, standing so close to me that every inhale he makes threatens to bump his chest against mine. If I were to try to strip back his defenses as badly as he seems to be trying to strip back mine, I might imagine he already regrets what he said.
It hits me with striking clarity that despite his claim that I’m worth nothing to him, the real source of his anger is that I wasn’t there when the girls were attacked. Sure, he would rather lose me than them, but he needed me.
He needs me.
My lips are dry—a condition that would have made me feel even more vulnerable before—but I pull my bottom lip between my teeth to moisten them before I sway toward him.
His gaze drags from my lips to my eyes before I close the scant gap between us. I dare to brush his jaw with my lips, grazing my skin with his sandpaper growth, my position forcing my upper body to press against his.
His shoulders tense, arms twitching as if they’re going to rise around me, but he otherwise remains still.
He said my life wasn’t worth as much to him as the girls’ lives, but…
“Now who’s lying?” I whisper.
I draw back, cast my own challenging glance at him, and glide to the side before he can react.
Helen continues to work behind us, but the other little girl is still distraught and her cries continue to tug at my heart.
Jace has nowhere to sit, so he leans against the wall, his breathing only now beginning to slow after his rush to get here, sweat dripping down his face. Unlike Tristan, he’s not bare-chested and I’m guessing he didn’t shift—the same way he avoided shifting during the fight with Baxter and Cody on the night I came here.
He holds Becca against his chest. Her weeping is a little quieter now, her eyes wide and scared as she watches Helen. If the other girl is her sister, then Becca will be afraid for her.
I have to assume Becca’s wounds aren’t life-threatening because Jace hasn’t drawn Helen’s attention to her, but the pitch of her soft sobs tells me she’s in pain.
I wish there was something I could do for her while Helen is busy.
Jace watches me closely as I approach, his focus flicking between Tristan and me. “Tessa?”
I break eye contact with Jace, focusing on Becca.
She whimpers and I sense her wolf, cowering and frightened inside her. My wolf’s energy flickers inside my mind, asking to be released. I’m not convinced that’s a good idea yet, so I hold my wolf’s energy back, cautious for now.
I reach out to Becca, brushing the hair from her clammy forehead.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I whisper. “I’m Tessa. You’re safe now.”
Her eyes come to rest on me, soft cries releasing from her lips.
“I’m going to look after you,” I say. “Where do you hurt, sweetheart?”
“M-My arm.”
I run my gaze along her left arm from her wrist to her elbow. Deep, red bruises mark her forearm directly below her elbow as well as around her wrist. The dirty partial print of a boot forms a third, shocking bruise across the middle of her arm. Someone took hold of her, dragged her down, and then stepped on her arm.
Tristan said that Baxter Griffin attacked the girls, but I’m suddenly flashing back to memories I’d rather forget.
My voice hardens as I glance at Jace.
“Who did this to her?”
I already suspect the answer, but I don’t want to believe it’s possible. It’s the same maneuver Dawson used to use on me.
My hands start to shake and I can’t stop the motion. Dealing with the pain when it happened was traumatic, but seeing it now inflicted on someone else brings back fears I’ve pushed away for years. “Did my brother do this to her?”
Jace gives me a stern nod. “It was Dawson Nash.”
“How is that possible? Dawson lives in the Highlands.”
Why would my brother be anywhere near here? He shouldn’t be in the city. He should be far behind me back in the Cascade Range.
I gasp a mouthful of air and squeeze my eyes closed, pushing away my questions. I need to restrain my power or Tristan will react to it.
We have enough problems already.
Jace remains silent, his focus shifting to a spot behind me, and I sense Tristan move closer.
“Your former alpha, Peter Nash, has pledged an alliance with Baxter Griffin,” Tristan says. “He sent his son to the Eastern Lowlands to join forces with Baxter against me. The other alphas will soon join him. Since my father died, they’ve been trying to claim my territory.”
I thought I’d left Dawson behind…
Taking a deep breath, I begin reciting lists, the same way Ella does, whispering them beneath my breath. “Blue treasure… Pink ocean… Yellow forest… Violet sunset…”
My breathing returns to normal.
I open my eyes.
I’m aware of Tristan’s gaze burning my back, the slightly unsettled crease in his forehead when I glance his way, but he doesn’t say anything about my list reciting.
I can’t do anything about Dawson right now. I focus on Becca. Focus on what I can do.
“Give her to me,” I say to Jace, hooking my arms beneath Becca without waiting for him to agree.
His lips purse. He looks ready to say ‘no,’ but he surprises me by shifting her carefully into my arms. She’s heavy, but I’m ready for her weight. I sink slowly to the floor with her, curling my legs under her body and releasing my wolf at the same time.
Becca doesn’t try to fight me, turning her eyes up to mine.
My wolf’s energy emerges slowly.
My wolf raises her head at my side before curling her body around Becca, her energy passing right through the girl as my wolf takes up position as close to my chest as she can. My animal stands with her head lowered to Becca’s chest, her gentle eyes meeting the girl’s.
“You’ll be okay,” I whisper to them both, telling myself that too.
Becca is fixated on my wolf, her sobs slowly subsiding and her breathing becoming more regular. As far as I can tell, her injuries are bruising and shock—and fear for her sister. All I can do is ease her emotional turmoil as best I can.
We stay like that for another ten minutes while Becca’s eyelids lower, open again as she fights my wolf’s calming energy, then lower again.
“Everything will be okay,” I whisper to her.
Beside me, plastered up against the wall, Jace stares down at us with an unsettled expression that matches Tristan’s. The way I’m sitting, I’m blocking him from moving away. He has just enough space between my legs and the wall to slip free.
Tristan takes himself off to the other side of the room until, finally, Helen falls silent.