by D. Fischer
Brushing away the crumbles of bark left on my skin, I sigh my agreement.
“I think you haven’t had the right motivation,” she whispers conspiratorially. “It’s almost like she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“She doesn’t,” I murmur, stepping over a fallen branch.
“Well, yeah.” She snorts, scrambles over the branch with less grace than I, and follows close on my heels. Though nature is as a part of witches as the moon is to the ocean’s waves, Sara still prefers the sound of her high heels clicking against pavement instead of leaves crunching under rubber soles. Her groan of disgust is telling this.
“I mean, it’s like she’s prolonging this. What she’s doing obviously isn’t working. Why doesn’t she try other tactics?”
Swatting away a fly, I shrug. “I brought it up yesterday, but she insists on pushing forward with her plan.”
Kaya is still slinking around the halls at night too. When I can’t sleep, I see the shadow of her feet pass under my doorstep. The shuffle of her gait is hard to miss as well as the squeak of her door’s hinges. My inability to learn is troubling her as much as it is troubling me.
“She’s doing the best she can,” I add. “There’s not a lot to go on.”
Sara’s cold fingers wrap around mine, and she tugs me to a stop, turns me abruptly, and levels me with a rare serious stare. “I don’t like her, Jinx.”
I tuck a smile away. “You genuinely don’t like anyone, save for a few.”
Folding hair behind her ear, she whispers, “I mean it. There’s something off about her. I can’t place it. Like the very air around her is smothering and wrong.”
“She’s only trying to help,” I add soberingly, feeling a bit defensive but trying to keep it from my tone.
I watch as her throat bobs with a swallow. She seems uncertain I’ll side with her assumptions, whatever they may be. “You’re right,” she says eventually. “I’m just being paranoid. No one has attacked. You haven’t advanced. Jacob is being an ass. Cinder said the Bane wolves are at the bar every night, but they do nothing. It’s like they’re only around to tease us or something. I don’t like it.”
“I know.” And I do. I’ve noticed how fidgety my best friend has been. Glenda had scowled at her last night. I was helping Glenda clean up after supper, and Sara had been sitting on the counter, eyes casting this faraway look while she tapped her slipper against the tiles. No matter how many times Glenda huffed her annoyance, Sara never broke from her daydream nor the gnawing of her bottom lip. Eventually, I abandoned the dirty dishes and tugged Sara away before the surly cook chose to eat her instead of the dessert.
Sara leans closer and whispers, “Every day I have a sinking feeling that something terrible is going to happen. Every day, Jinx.”
I put my hands on her shoulders and try not to let this feeling of hers fester inside myself. “It will work out in the end. We both know it. Weird feelings often pan out to be nothing.”
The look she gives me tells me she knows I don’t believe that either. She rubs her hands together, warming them with friction. “It’ll work out between you and Jacob too, you know. I just know it. Something so good can’t end so abruptly. Besides.” She sniffs, regaining some of her prim composure. “I don’t have all the juicy details yet.”
I chuff.
“What?” Sara straightens. “Oh, come on! I know the rumors, but not the real story! Give a girl some details.”
“The details are what ruined whatever Jacob and I had in the first place,” I mutter.
“Maybe talking about them will help.”
I cross my arms over my middle, feeling the emotions rise like a tidal wave once more. Quietly, I peer around the forest and say, “I wouldn’t be so sure that this problem between the alpha and me will ever be resolved, whatever it is.”
As she folds me into a hug, I relax into the warm she always radiates. She says softly in my ear, “He loves you, Jinx. When you’re not watching him – which is all the time now – he’s always watching you. He can’t take his eyes off you. Only someone who, like, loved you would do such a thing.”
I pull away. “He only watches me because I’m under his protection. Because I’m new. Because he’s seen me naked. Spin it however you want. I don’t think it goes much further than that.”
She adjusts the bag’s strap on her shoulder. “What do you think happened between you two?”
“We had sex,” I admit quietly, looking anywhere but at her. “And the next day, everything changed. That’s all I know.”
“So you keep saying.” She kicks a stick and it rolls into a bush. “What happened during the sex? Was it boring or something?”
“It wasn’t boring, and nothing odd happened. It was–” I blink, remembering the way our bodies moved together in vivid detail. “Probably the best sex I’ve ever had. In fact, it was so heated his canines slipped out.”
She blinks at me, aghast. “Like, when they mate?”
I nod. “What? Why are you laughing?”
“It just proves my point! That wouldn’t happen unless he wanted you so bad his instincts screamed at him to mate with you. Jeez, Jinx. Are you really so ignorant?” I don’t miss the anger seeping into her cheeks, turning them a scarlet red that matches her hair.
“It didn’t happen though, did it.”
“You wanted it to happen?”
I push past her, done with this topic. Done with the jabs. Done thinking about the alpha with the coffee-colored eyes.
“Jinx, come on!” When I don’t respond, she skips along our worn path to catch up with my brisk pace. “He was giving you a choice, Jinx. Did you ever think the reason he didn’t bite you was because he wanted to give you the choice?”
I stop in my tracks, scowling as a vine springs through a crack in the earth and circles around my ankles. Damn magic.
A squirrel chirps and curses above us for standing too close to his tree. Another vine snaps from the trunk and whacks the tiny territorial beast in the rump.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she whispers over my shoulder. In my peripheral vision, I can see her angrily fumbling with the shoulder strap of her bag. It had gotten tangled in her dash. “By mating with you, you’d be stuck with him forever. Cinder says it’s incredibly hard to hold back the urges to mate. Did you ever think he did that for you? Did you ever think he wanted to make sure you had the freedom to choose? The freedom you’ve always desired?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “I thought – Well, I thought –”
“You thought all he wanted was sex?” she questions. Her hands move to rest on her hips. “He’s been chasing after you since I’ve arrived. According to you, you were free to do as you pleased when they brought you here, even as a suspect for the murder of one of his kind, which you actually did do.”
“Sara,” I warn, not wanting to dredge up old haunts that are still stinging like reopened wounds.
“I’ve heard about wolf shifters and their hostages. They’re usually shackled to something solid in the garage, heavily guarded, and peppered with a thousand questions under the gleaming glint of some sort of sharp torture device.”
I tug at my fingers while she breathes to tamper her rising annoyance at my less than desirable lack of observation. She’s right.
She takes a deep breath, and the vines around my ankles slowly uncurl. “They didn’t do any of those things to you. Jacob even put you in the alpha’s room like some sort of royal guest. He liked you from the very beginning.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, but the words ring false to my own ears.
“Did you know he warned Cinder away from you?”
“What? Why would he do that?”
“He thought Cinder was in love with you.”
I frown. Cinder has always been a flirt, but after the first and only time we mistakenly had drunken sex, we’ve been nothing but good friends. In fact, he’s always been generous to me, the way family is to family. He gave me a place to stay
when I had nowhere to go. He fed me when I didn’t have the money to pay for my own food. And still, he didn’t judge me when I wouldn’t give him a single detail about my personal life. To do that – to warn him away – Jacob would have to actually care for me. Right?
She pats me on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Jinx. This world has its place for idiots.”
I smack her on the shoulder, and together, we pick through the forest, side by side once more. She’s right. I had assumed. I hadn’t considered all the facts. I had picked the worst possibility and ran with it. And now, Jacob is paying the price for my idiocy.
“I fucked up,” I whisper to her, bumping my shoulder against hers.
“Yeah,” she declares, pushing the word out harshly. “Yeah, you did.”
Shame settles hot in my face, and I scrape my nails over my forehead, eyes downcast to the forest floor. After a few minutes of stewing over the truth she had shoved down my throat, I allow her to take the lead, content to be lost in my own thoughts. “How are you and Cinder anyway?” We round a couple of bushes, and she stops, causing me to bump into her back. “What the hell, Sara!”
“Jinx,” she whispers, and instantly, the hair stands up on the back of my arms. My adrenaline surges, practically tasting her fear as the breeze blows it up my nose. I move around her and peer at the ground. Ten feet away is a wolf. A black wolf I recognize. The wolf I once saved in this very forest.
On a pile of blown leaves, he’s sprawled on his side, breathing shallowly.
“Damien,” I shout, running to the beast without a second thought. I drop to my knees and hover my hands over him, searching for injuries, anything that would take such a large wolf out. His fur is wet. Damp. I don’t think twice before touching it. It’s . . . Slick with a sticky . . . Is that red?
I look at my knees, the jeans soaking in the surrounding wetness. And then I realize I’m kneeling in mud – mud created by blood. The red seeping into my pants is a deeper stain than the red along my fingertips.
“My Divine,” Sara whispers, her hand hovering over her lips as big dollops of tears spring to her eyes.
“Help me turn him over!” I shout to Sara. She stands so still, so pale. The purple tote dangles on her shoulder at a forgotten angle. “Sara! Help me find where he’s bleeding from!”
She snaps from her shock and rushes to my side. “Is he still breathing?”
“Yes,” I say automatically, gently moving around his fur matted with gushing blood. Where’s it coming from, damn it! Then, I curse. Along his side is a small but deep gash. “He’s been stabbed.”
“Go, get help,” I say, tears beginning to run down my cheek. “Sara! Go get help!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jacob Trent
I pace outside the makeshift hospital room, shoes gritting against the floor littered with dead grass clippings from all our shoes. It took Trevor, Travis, and myself to carry Damien’s wolf in. He hadn’t even lifted his head. It had draped and swayed over Cinder’s arm with each step. And minutes ago, it was Jinx who was the one pacing, pale-faced and tear-streaked. I had sent her away to shower off the blood and get a cup of coffee with Sara. Anything to wipe the shocked expressions from their faces. I could see it in Jinx – the way she curled in on herself and rubbed at the dried blood on her fingers. She’s blaming herself for this. I can’t bear it.
Amelia slumps against the wall and watches me. I’m seeing puddles of red all over again. I’m seeing corpses and hearing screams and feeling the hot dragon flames of the Realms War. Amelia’s arms are loosely crossed over her middle. Blood also stains her fingers from where she had checked Damien’s wound outside. Occasionally, she moves her gaze to the door leading to where Damien and Reese are. I can hear his yips of pain, and my wolf wants out. He wants out because within the bond between alpha and Damien’s wolf, he can feel Damien’s agony, anger, and fear. At least he’s awake. He’s awake. Alive. Breathing.
I tug on my ears, turn, and pace the length once more.
Amelia had helped Reese stop the bleeding, and when it became clear she was needed more out here than in there, she had stepped out. I had roared with anger, seized with memories. Roared and watched Jinx flinch as the sound beat against the walls. Amelia came to make sure I wasn’t alone, but Damien’s blood freckles her shirt. It stains her fingers. It clings to her scent. I don’t think she notices. I think she too is in shock, and she’s hiding it behind a practiced blank expression.
“Where’s Rex?” she asks. I’ve already told her. She must not have heard me.
“He took some of our wolves to the bar.” That was before this mess. Minutes sooner, actually. Cinder has been there most of the day, checking supplies.
She nods, touching her trembling bottom lip. “That’s right. That’s right. Cinder is working tonight, and the rest of the pack is waiting to tail the Bane. Do you want me to call them back? I can call them back.”
“No.” I stop in front of her and drop my hands to my side. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
She chuffs. “Of course, we’re not okay! Someone attacked Damien! Right here! On our territory!”
“How did they get in undetected?” I hadn’t felt Damien’s attack through the link, but then again, Damien is too confident in himself. Guarded and reserved, he hardly ever shares his feelings in the pack link. He must not have been worried when he confronted whoever his attacker was and hadn’t given off the vibes of fear. The attack must have been too abrupt for him to see it coming. But that still doesn’t explain why I didn’t feel his pain.
“I don’t know,” she whispers, looking toward my feet. A little color leaches into her cheeks. “Everyone else said they didn’t smell anything unusual. Travis and Trevor found nothing. There weren’t any tracks that didn’t belong to anyone here. We’re all stumped.”
“I’m not,” I growl again. My eyes flash wolf when I meet her gaze once more.
She tips her head to the side. “You know who did this?”
My top lip curls. “We have a mole in the pack.” I’ve been so wrapped up in my own shit that I failed at the one task my father left to me: take care of the pack. We have a mole, and I’ve done nothing to investigate it.
“You think one of our own did this?” Her words come out like a hiss of blame. She blinks hard and pushes away from the wall to stand upright. “That would explain why the perimeter runners wouldn’t know any different. If one of our own had done this to Damien, they would have never picked up their scent and thought it a threat. Damien wouldn’t have thought that either. Oh, shit, Jacob. How are we supposed to figure out who did this?”
I flex my jaw. “Where are the wolves who were running perimeter?”
“Cafeteria. They’ve been told to stay in the cafeteria.” She swallows. “With Jinx.”
When I move to thunder my way down there, she grabs my arm and stops me. Her fingers are cold against my skin, and I stare at her grip until she releases me.
“They wouldn’t try anything with all the other wolves in there,” she hisses. “She’ll be fine. No one is going to harm Jinx out in the open like that. And besides, Sara is with her, and she’s pissed enough to explode.”
The lingering effects of Amelia’s cold touch are calming, and the atmosphere around her begins to radiate the same. She swiped her grief aside to calm her alpha, and I have half a mind to thank her for it because I can feel it trickle through the pack bond.
“Make sure they don’t leave the cafeteria,” I tell her, reluctantly turning to face the door. Undisturbed drops of blood trail along the floor until they disappear under the door. Heavily, I thump my back into the wall and settle my stance. “I want to question them personally.”
Under alpha order, they’ll be forced to tell me everything. Every truth. Every lie they brought into my house. Everything. An urge to punch the wall ripples down my arm and straight into my already clenched fists. Because of my irresponsibility, one of my wolves might die.
Amelia nods and then leaves. I watch
her shuffle down the hallway until she turns the corner to the stairs. Her footfalls thunder down the steps and echo back to me, quieting the further down she goes. Rubbing my face, I push off the wall and creep toward the door. My hand hovers on the knob, trembling slightly. My heart hammers in my chest, and through the pack link, I can still feel Damien’s pain.
Steeling my nerves, I turn the knob. The door gently swings open, and I slink inside the dim room. A scent like hand sanitizer stings its way up my nose as soon as I enter. Reese is hooking an IV bag on the metal pole, guided only by the light seeping through the blinds. My eyes fall on the black wolf lying so still on the hospital bed, his chest rising and falling at a slower than normal rate. Concern drains the color from my face, and crippling fear nearly roots me to my spot by the door.
I can’t lose another wolf. I can’t.
Gravely glancing around me, Reese grips Damien’s paw and whispers, “If he can make it through the night, he’ll be fine.”
“Do you think he’ll make it?” I ask, my throat clogged with emotion.
I approach the bed as quietly as I can and rest the tips of my fingers on the white sheets. Damien’s wolf is huge and black, similarly featured as my own except for the tuft of white fur under his belly. That white fur is now stained red, and at the sight of it, the reassurance of Reese’s words does nothing to soothe the rage swirling in my gut.
Reese shakes her head in short succession. “His eyes were open in the beginning, but he was in too much pain to get a feel for his true state. Adrenaline can make people appear more stable than they actually are, but he lost a lot of blood, Jacob. Since he’s in wolf form, we can’t give him any. We can only wait.” She pauses to release a breath and lowers her voice. “I sedated him. Please, don’t try to wake him until he’s ready.”
“Okay,” I whisper. I don’t know what else to say.
From the bedside table, Reese grabs supplies and sets them on the foot of the bed. “Can you help me with this?” she asks, holding up packages of gauze. I nod, gently turning Damien upon instruction so she can wrap his body to protect the stitches. When he wakes, if he wakes, they’ll be itchy as hell. Shifters heal faster than humans, and since he’s still in shifter form, it’ll be faster yet.