by Bella Jacobs
Luke, Creedence, and Dust have been working on psychic shielding in order to keep us out of their personal business, but I still catch my share of unchecked emotional responses.
Luke is angrier, and more hurt, than he lets on. Dust is tormented by guilt. And Creedence secretly wants comfort so badly, sometimes it’s all I can do not to sneak up behind him and hug him until he can’t breathe. But none of them seem to want to hurt me, or each other.
Even this morning, when Creedence came back from that trance he goes into when he’s seeing the future. He’d been red-faced and so angry that he railed at Dust for five minutes straight before anyone could get a word in edgewise, but he didn’t truly want to hurt him.
He just wanted to strangle him.
Lightly.
For a prolonged time…
“But you didn’t pick up on Dust’s secret,” Luke says, always willing to play the devil’s advocate—or just the devil, depending on his mood. “We might be better at hiding shit than you think.”
“We can’t read thoughts,” Kite says wearily. “We pick up on emotional resonance. Dust feeling upset about our handlers being taken out blended in with Dust feeling upset that my people were murdered at a party. Both are very different than Dust meaning any of us harm.”
Luke shrugs. “Maybe Dust is feeling upset about having to murder us in our beds tonight, too. Not everyone approaches homicide the same way.”
“Enough,” I say, my tone sharp. I’ll tolerate a lot from Luke, but not kicking a man who’s already down. Dust is swimming in regret. The last thing he needs is Creedence and Luke both on his ass. “That part of the discussion is over. Dust kept a secret he shouldn’t have. He’s sorry, and it won’t happen again. It’s time to move on. If you can’t do that, then you can leave. We won’t try to stop you.”
“If I leave, you’re down to three little helpers, Princess. Maybe two if the cat doesn’t come back.” Luke’s dark eyes glitter as he faces me down across the room. “You sure that’s what you want, chica?”
What I want is for Luke to go all in, to promise he’ll be here today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes to dethrone Atlas and shut down every other threat to the survival of our people and this planet. I want him to say that he respects my perspective and values—even if he doesn’t agree with them—and that he’s willing to work to find common ground between hopeless naïveté and ruthless cynicism.
Even more than all that, I want him to confess that he feels it, too, this super-powered pull that snatches at my chest every time we’re breathing the same air.
I treasure Kite as my first love, I adore Dust as my oldest friend, and when I’m not too miserable and scared to access other emotions, I want to get close to Creedence—really close and really naked—and for him to do all those wicked things he promised to do the one time we kissed.
But with Luke…
With Luke there’s something else, something primal and a little scary but that I desperately want to learn more about. I want to reach out and touch my fingertips to his flame, even if it burns me. But all he wants is a fresh start north of the border, and he doesn’t even want that badly enough to fight for a place in this circle of five.
If I tell him to go, he will.
For a moment, I consider it. Because that’s one of the things Luke does to me, too. He makes me crazy and inclined to do stupid, impulsive things.
Instead, I force myself to say, “No, I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay, but I need to move on to the problem-solving portion of the discussion. Our handlers are dead, we can’t be certain the safe house they arranged for us is safe, and we can no longer count on financial, logistical, or any other form of assistance from the outside. We’re on our own, and it’s time to sort out where we go from here.”
Luke holds my gaze for a long beat. “All right. I vote no on the safe house. It’s too much of a risk.”
“I agree,” Dust seconds softly. “Though, it might not be a completely lost cause. I could go in alone, bring back anything I find that might be useful.”
“Useful like what?” Luke prompts. “Passports? Money?”
Dust nods. “Those things. There might also be medicine and gear for the crossing. Even in summer it can get below freezing in the mountains at night. We’ll need to be prepared for the weather.”
“We could cross in kin form instead.” I recently added a fox to my repertoire of alternative shapes, and I’ve been practicing shifting into kin form at will. Without accessing my spirit world, where Atlas is waiting to take me out, it isn’t easy, but I’m getting there.
Slowly, but surely.
“At least one of us will need to go over as human,” Dust says. “To carry money, passports, any additional weapons we acquire between now and then.”
I nibble my thumb, thoughts racing. “Okay, but I’m going with you to the safe house.”
“Absolutely not,” Dust says, at the same moment Luke grunts, “Hell, no.”
“Hell, yes.” I stand up straighter. “I’m the logical choice. My fox is the smallest kin form, so Dust can easily carry me on his back. But my fire form is dangerous, so I’ll be able to offer backup if our enemies are waiting for us.”
“You’re forgetting one important thing,” Dust says. “I’m replaceable. You’re not.”
I feel warm fingers on my wrist and look up to find Kite standing beside me. “He’s right. I know you prefer to think of the good of the group, but this is our reality now. If we lose you, we’re all lost. You’re the only one who can stop Atlas. Your safety has to come first. We all know that, and none of us resent you for it.”
Glancing around the room, I see the truth of his words reflected in Dust’s sober expression and even Luke’s relatively calm eyes. “Okay,” I say tightly, my breath rushing out. “But I have to do something. I can’t just sit here, locked in a hotel room, trying not to get killed.”
“We’ll start your training tomorrow.” Luke motions toward the woods outside our sleepy little motel. “We’ll start with a two-mile run, get you warmed up while we’re ditching civilization, and then I’ll teach you how to suck less at kicking ass.”
His tone makes me feel prickly all over, like one of those cactuses that shoot spines when you get too close to them, but I nod and say, “Okay, sounds good,”
Because I am an adult.
I am a grown-up, I am a grown-up, I am a grown-up. It’s a mantra I repeat a lot these days, when I’m wondering why I’m the one in charge of remaining rational all the time, when I am—
1. The youngest member of our five, aside from Kite, who is still light years ahead of me when it comes to life experience.
2. The least knowledgeable about shifter rules, limitations, powers, risks, customs, and—oh, yeah—actually being able to shift into one of my kin forms.
3. The newest recruit on this mission. Dust, Kite, and Cree have been plotting and planning together for months. And sure, Luke was kidnapped around the same time I was, but he’s a former werewolf gang member who spent years in prison and is infinitely more prepared to fight a supernatural war than I’ll ever be, even if we had a hundred years to whip me into shape.
4. Scared. I am so, so scared.
I’m as terrified as I am determined to see this through.
I want to save the world, I really do. I want to give all the innocent people out there struggling to survive on our increasingly hostile planet a shot at a brighter tomorrow, but I still feel so helpless and small.
I am one girl.
One woman, but just barely.
At twenty-four, I know I should feel like a full-fledged grown-up, but until Kite spirited me away from my house two weeks ago, I still lived with my parents. I have never lived by myself, never gone to bed without hugging my mother and father goodnight, never woken up in the morning without being greeted by the smells and sounds of people who love me cooking breakfast down the hall.
But the people who loved me are also the people who poisoned
me, who nearly killed me and my sister. That ugly, undeniable fact worms into my heart, eating away at the organ I’ve always trusted to be my touchstone.
How can I follow my heart, when my heart has been a fool that couldn’t tell the difference between unconditional love and absolute control? How can I lean into the bonds I’m supposed to form with these men—the one I’ve already formed with Kite—when a vicious new voice in my head constantly reminds me that I’m an idiot who shouldn’t have the luxury of letting my guard down. I can care about other people, but I can’t let myself need or depend on them. I can’t allow myself to let go and become so horribly vulnerable ever again.
Just imagining it makes me feel like I’m suffocating, like I have to claw my way free of the bonds tightening around me, even though these bonds are my only shot at survival.
“Want to go for a walk?” Kite asks.
“It’s raining,” I murmur even as I decide I don’t care and nod. “But yeah. I’ll grab my poncho and meet you downstairs.”
I snag my poncho from the closet and head for the door without looking at Luke. I’m as frustrated with him as he is with me and that’s not going to be resolved any time soon. Maybe ever. We might very well spend the next few months resenting each other and part ways at the end of the summer, never to cross paths again.
The thought makes me angry. And resentful.
And stupidly sad.
“Hang in there,” Dust says as he opens the door to let me out. “It’ll get better. We’re going to be okay, I promise.”
I reach out, squeezing his arm in what I hope is a reassuring way. But I don’t say a word before stepping out onto the covered walkway and starting toward the concrete stairs leading to the ground floor.
I’m not sure we’re going to be okay, and I refuse to tell lies—not to myself or to anyone else.
Chapter 3
Kite
I’m losing her.
As we walk through the persistent drizzle, down the path leading into the woods, up into the foothills of this part of the Rocky Mountain range, Wren’s hand is warm in mine, but she might as well be a thousand miles away.
I can feel it, the way she’s pulling back a little more every day.
I just found her, just told her how much I love her, just made her mine.
But she isn’t mine. Not the way I thought she would be once we were bonded.
Yes, I can sense what emotional state she’s in most of the time. And yes, I’m so connected to her that sometimes it’s like her body is an extension of mine—I feel the texture of what she’s touching, sense she’s hungry before she realizes it herself—but there’s a part of her I can’t reach.
She’s tucked it away and started work on a wall to keep everyone else on the other side.
Sometimes I find it comforting that she’s pushing the others away, too, but mostly it scares me. My inner selfish idiot wants to keep her all to myself, but that path only leads one place—a funeral pyre, and a graveyard with matching his and hers headstones.
Wren has to bond with a marked member of each of the four kin groups—feline, canine, forest, and antiquity—or Atlas is going to kill her. It’s that simple.
Even if she forges the bonds, harnesses the powers she’ll gain from each of us, and gets a grip on her own hard-to-handle abilities as a Fata Morgana, she might still die.
We all might. These could be our final weeks, days, hours on earth. I don’t want to spend them wallowing in misery or longing for things to go back the way they were before my people were killed, before Wren realized how dangerous this quest truly is, before falling in love started to feel irrelevant compared to everything else going on in our fractured world.
Because falling in love isn’t stupid.
Love is what we’re fighting for, and I’m not betraying the memory of the people I lost by enjoying what time I’m able to steal with my mate, my Wren, the Bird Girl who stole my heart the first time I laid eyes on her face.
I stop, holding tight to her hand as I draw her off the trail and onto the bed of brown pine needles blanketing the forest floor.
“What’s up?” Her blue eyes blink up at me from beneath the hood of the cheap yellow poncho we bought with the last of our cash back in Wilbur.
But I don’t answer her with words. Words aren’t getting us anywhere lately. Instead, I wrap an arm around her waist, cup her cheek, and kiss her, holding nothing back. I don’t try to hide from her or spare her or give her only what I think she can handle. I tell her the truth, show her how much I need her, how much I’ve missed her, how lonely I am with her heart walled away and mine shivering on the other side.
After the briefest hesitation, she returns the kiss, wrapping her arms so tight around my neck that the hood of my jacket slides down. But I welcome the rain sliding down my neck. It’s cold, but clean, washing away the fog of pain and confusion that’s haunted my thoughts.
I may not know who killed our leaders or how close they are to killing us, but I know that I love this woman. I know I want to live for her, won’t hesitate to die for her, and that she was woven into the fabric of my soul long before we met.
Most of all, I know I’m not going to let her slip away without a fight. Pulling back just long enough to strip off my jacket and spread it on the ground, I return to her with a moan as her mouth presses hungrily to mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as we tumble to the ground, her breath coming faster as I roll her beneath me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I insist, pulling her poncho off and running one hand down her ribs to the curve of her waist. “I understand.”
“I don’t.” She arches into my touch as I slip my fingers beneath her T-shirt to caress the hot skin beneath. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Your entire life has changed.” I kiss her forehead, her temple. “Your past was rewritten, your present set on fire, and your future is one big question mark with a bunch of devils brandishing pitchforks dancing around it.”
She makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yeah. You get it. Of course you do.” She cradles my face in her palms. “I know that, Kite. I do. In the moments when I’m truly myself. The fear and confusion just get so big sometimes…”
“And when they do, I’m here, baby,” I remind her. “I’ll come running. You don’t even have to call my name.”
She smiles, and her eyes begin to shine. “I love that song so much. That’s all I want to do—put on a Carol King record and roll around in bed with you all day with nothing to worry about except whether or not we’ll be able to find a cupcake place that delivers.”
“We don’t need store-bought cupcakes.” I cup her breast in my hand, loving the way she shivers as I brush my thumb across her tight nipple through the thin fabric of her bra. “I know my way around a cupcake pan. I’ll whip up a batch of homemade red velvet so fast you won’t realize I’ve left the bed until you smell them cooking.”
“No, I’d know you left.” Her hands drift between us, tugging my belt through the loops of my jeans. “I always know when you’re not as close as I want you to be.”
“And how close is that?” I murmur, groaning as her hand slides into my boxers to grip my cock, her cool fingers erotic as hell against my burning length.
“Inside me,” she whispers. “Where you belong.”
I couldn’t agree more, which I attempt to prove to the best of my ability, considering we’re naked on the forest floor in the pouring rain. But I don’t feel the cold. All I feel is bliss and love and the absolute certainty that I will always belong here, in Wren’s arms.
I glide into where she’s so wet, so tight, and it’s so good I almost lose control in that first deep thrust. But then she sighs into my mouth, the relief in the sound giving me the strength I need to hold back. I want more than relief for my woman. I want her pleasure. I want her coming, crying out my name, her body pulsing around my cock, assuring me that we’ll always find our way back to ea
ch other, no matter how hard things get.
“I love you,” I breathe as her legs lock tight around my waist and her hands tangle in my hair.
She lifts into me, every shift of her hips assuring me that she loves me, too. That she needs me, needs this, every bit as much as I do. But the moment she comes, crying out as her body squeezes so tight around me I can’t hold back another second, is still a revelation.
A miracle.
All I ever want, and all I’ll ever need.
I come calling her name, grateful that shifter children can only be conceived with the focused intent of both the mother and the father. I love having nothing between us but skin and heat and love so intense I can’t help but feel like the luckiest bastard in the world. Even now, when the sky is so dark I’m not sure there are any stars left to wish on.
After, I hold her close, covering us with her discarded poncho while she rests her head on my chest, fitting so perfectly against me we don’t have to work to find a snuggle position.
Despite the rain and the cool breeze, I’m almost asleep when she whispers, “There’s something I need to tell you. I have to trust someone with it, or I’m going to go crazy.”
Instantly awake, I turn to face her as she shifts onto her side on the jacket beneath us. “You can trust me with anything. Always. I hope you know that.”
“I know, and I do trust you,” she says, nibbling the pad of her thumb. The sight of her nude and propped up on one arm, the position emphasizing the dramatic curve from her waist to her hip makes me wish I had charcoal and paper.
I haven’t had much time for drawing the past few years, but now I ache for the tools to capture every elegant, sensual line of the woman I love.
“But?” I prompt after a moment.
“No buts. It’s just…” She rolls onto her stomach, her chin propped on her fists, concealing most of her from my gaze, making it easier to focus as she says, “You remember the dream I told everyone about, the one where my birth mother came to me and told me that Scarlett is still alive?”