The easygoing trouble twin took off toward us at a run as soon as he heard his name. Greenery seemed to whip past my nose even though my physical body told me I was standing still, and the strange combination of sensations made me sick to my stomach. I pulled back without meaning too, and suddenly the pack bond shattered around us with a jolt.
Streamers that had connected me to five other shifters moments earlier now flung back in my face as if a stretched rubber band had snapped. I cradled a suddenly aching head with two paws. Ow, I winced, glad I wasn’t able to transmit this new misery to my fellows.
Or at least I hoped I hadn’t. Luckily, when I finally managed to open my eyes, Lia was eying me quizzically, suggesting that I was the only one affected by the blow-back.
In a perfect world, I would have rekindled the pack bond in order to ask Lia how she was feeling. But the notion of trying to hook back into our previous linkage didn’t seem very palatable at that moment. Instead, I simply licked her ears soothingly, and the gentle whimper of pain that had been threading out of the other wolf’s throat for the last several minutes slowly ceased.
In fact, by the time Cinnamon arrived, his younger cousin was gamely standing on three legs, ready and willing to limp back toward our waiting vehicles. I made as if to go with them, but the trouble twin shot me a glance that clearly stated I’ve got this covered.
Then he gently nipped the end of Lia’s tail, teasing her back into good spirits. Even my over-protective streak had to admit that our pack’s youngest member was in good hands.
Or, rather, in good paws.
So I merely watched their retreating forms for a moment to make sure Lia would be able to handle the journey ahead. Then I whirled on my heel and ran flat out toward the pack with whom I suddenly shared an even stronger connection.
Chapter 13
WE GORGED ON RAW, DRIPPING deer meat until we could barely move. And while my human brain found the feast distasteful, I had to admit that the uncooked flesh filled a void within my lupine body that had previously been gaping cavernously empty.
As a result, I expected my wolf brain to dance with satiated joy as our stomach finally reached full capacity. But the backlash from the broken pack bond had knocked her into silence instead.
While I licked my muzzle clean as best I could, I debated my wolfless state. Until recently, I’d generally figured a day without comments from the peanut gallery was a good day. And, from a more functional perspective, my animal half’s current absence was actually a boon because it kept her submissive nature a secret from Quill for a little while longer at least. I trusted our newest pack mate, but I’d learned the hard way that a halfie could never be too careful about who she took all the way into her confidence.
Still, I missed the animal’s gentle presence at the back of my mind. So I prodded gently at the hole she’d left behind, hoping my wolf would rise back up to greet me.
Nothing. Well, my animal half would return when she was good and ready. And, in the meantime, I should probably have been thinking about wounded Lia rather than about my sleeping wolf anyway.
If we take off now, I estimated, our exuberant, newly fed animal bodies will likely reach the parking area just about when our injured member limps in on three legs. Perfect timing.
We’d bandage the girl’s wound in an effort to get by without stitches, then we’d make tracks toward Mrs. Abrams’ promised hospitality. And I can treat Cinnamon to that store-bought meal he’s been hankering after while we’re at it, I thought with a smile. The trouble twin deserved a hamburger for being willing to forgo our recent feast in order to help his younger cousin out.
I yipped an order, and the three wolves currently clustered around the deer carcass came to attention in an instant. Together, we bounded away through the forest, soon hitting a broad human trail that I suspected would lead us directly back to the parking area where we’d left our vehicles.
Now that I’d started worrying about Lia, though, my earlier enjoyment of the day had fled. So I added a little extra speed to my already fleet feet and couldn’t resist feeling along the pack bond in search of the girl’s presence.
Or, rather, I couldn’t resist stretching toward where my memory of the pack bond had once lain. Because, like my wolf, our pack’s nebulous shared consciousness was now missing in action.
To sooth the ache resulting from suddenly being alone in my own head, I closed my eyes for a moment, soaking up the tranquility of the forest we were traveling through. It was easy to run blind along our current trail, and it felt good to stretch my senses to their limits. Even without my wolf lending her assistance, I could occasionally catch a whiff of Glen, Ginger, and Quill as they trotted along in my wake. High above our heads, a scarlet tanager sang his raspy tune, while below me...
...below me a warm but motionless body tumbled me out of my reverie and back into the present. I’d literally tripped over Cinnamon’s prone form before I saw him. And when I looked down, I nearly lost my lunch.
The trouble twin’s fur had turned a more rusty red than its usual ginger hue due to copious quantities of dried blood. Wounds dotted his body from head to tail, and the male who usually vibrated with energy and good humor was now as still as death.
For a gut-wrenching moment, in fact, I didn’t think his wolf was even breathing. Immediately, my throat tightened in despair. Lost....
But, finally, Cinnamon’s ribcage slowly rose and lowered, and my lungs mimicked the motion as I inhaled a gasping breath of air. Only then did I realize that I’d shifted back to human form without conscious volition and that a twig was sticking into my bare skin as I knelt by my injured pack mate’s side. But I didn’t move except to lean closer to the comatose wolf’s warm body.
My brain was fuzzy from the shift, which might be why I couldn’t quite figure out what had happened. Our attackers wouldn’t have followed us all the way from the campground to this national forest, would they? But what else could have torn Cinnamon to shreds? A bear?
“Where’s Lia?” Ginger pushed me out of the way and slapped her brother hard across his furry muzzle. Although her aggression wasn’t aimed at me, the female trouble twin’s actions jolted me out of my dream-like state and I realized what I’d been missing. Our youngest pack mate wasn’t lying wounded by her cousin’s side, and a quick glance up and down the trail showed no signs of her smaller form either. The girl was well and truly gone.
Cinnamon stirred, although he seemed too exhausted to shift and clue us in to what had recently occurred. Still, his twin bond allowed the pair to speak without words. So I wasn’t surprised when Ginger’s face became even more grim before she passed along the news.
“It was the same wolves from this morning,” she said simply. Then, commanding our pack as if I wasn’t even present, she ordered, “Spread out and see if you can find Lia’s trail. We might still be able to catch them if we run fast enough.”
Glen and Quill had remained four-footed while the trouble twin and I examined our fallen comrade, and they now obeyed Ginger immediately, sniffing in a broadening circle around Cinnamon’s bloody body. There would be two trails, I knew, one tracing the path by which the attackers had arrived and one pointing to where they’d gone after doing their dirty work. If Lia was alive and walking, it would be easy to hone in on the proper direction. But if not, we’d be forced to guess which trail wended into the past and which into the future.
Sure enough, Glen yipped once, eyes hooded as he picked out a trail, and Quill soon repeated the gesture from the other side of us. The two wolves looked to me for direction, but how was I supposed to know where Lia had been taken?
The pack bond, my wolf whispered, her voice a mere thread of sound within our shared body. She was right, of course. But I’d barely been able to catch the elusive fragment when in lupine form, and I knew my strength had long since faded beyond the ability to don fur once again.
Still, I had to try. I closed my eyes and concentrated as best I could while Cinnamon’s labored
breathing and the knowledge that Lia was being drawn further and further away from us with every second of delay tore at my attention.
Nothing. It was like staring down into a well at midnight—any sign of the pack bond was well and truly absent.
So I raised my hands in surrender and guessed. “I don’t know, Glen,” I said quietly. “How about you take the trail you’re on and Quill can take the other?”
Beside me, Ginger growled out her frustration even as she fell back down into fur. I could tell from the drag to her steps as she followed after Quill that the trouble twin was just as exhausted as I was. But she loved her cousin and wasn’t willing to relinquish any faint hope that the lost girl might yet be found alive.
I loved Lia too, of course. But there was nothing I could do when shifting again was beyond my abilities. So I settled into the only job remaining—nursing Cinnamon back to health.
“LIA’S GONE,” HUNTER said, stepping out of the woods moments later. His timing was suspicious and I should have grabbed the thick branch lying just within arm’s reach, then threatened the uber-alpha until he left my wounded pack mate alone.
But, instead, I found myself springing to my feet and running toward his strength. Hunter was as naked as I was, probably having shifted only moments earlier, and he didn’t seem to know what to do with the body slamming up against his own. After an agonizing pause, though, his muscular arms rose to wrap around me.
His hug was tentative at first. But then his embrace tightened as I clung to his shoulder blades, fighting back tears.
“Dead?” I asked with a gulp when I finally felt capable of opening my mouth without keening.
I stumbled as Hunter thrust me back at arm’s length. His dark brows lowered menacingly over amber eyes nearly hidden by enlarged pupils. “Dead?” he parroted back. Wolf-like, he shook his head vigorously as if trying to push water out of his ears. “No, of course not,” he continued after searching my face for a moment. “The SSS doesn’t kill the halfies they take right away. We have time to find her.”
I collapsed onto the leaves like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I’d steeled myself against the worst, and, somehow, hearing that Lia was still alive took that strength right out of me.
“That’s good news,” Hunter said, clearly confused by my actions. “Right?”
His wolf was so rampant now that I was surprised the bloodling was able to spit out human words. But I appreciated the semblance of humanity since it helped me regain my own senses. Feeling like I was a thousand years old, I nonetheless forced myself back to my feet and grabbed Hunter’s hand, leading him over to join me on the ground by Cinnamon’s side. The trouble twin had dropped into an exhausted slumber a few minutes earlier, and he seemed to rest easier when I stroked his fur. So I resumed my ministrations while gathering my composure back around me.
“Of course it’s a good thing,” I said at last. Yes, it was wonderful that Lia was presumably still alive. On the other hand, imagining the sixteen year old’s terror at being captured and her fate if we were unable to reach her in time made the pack’s recent shared pain over her cut foot seem like a bee sting by comparison.
I just need to make sure we find her as quickly as possible, I decided. Which meant figuring out everything Hunter knew about the Shifter Sanitation Society so we could plan a fast and effective strike.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, changing gears and looking at Hunter with the assessing gaze I should have used in the first place. My previous show of girlish emotions was embarrassing, and I made up for it now by casting a flurry of questions in the uber-alpha’s direction. “How did you find me and how did you know to look for Lia?”
Now it was Hunter’s turn to avert his eyes, and I didn’t miss the evasiveness in his reply. “I spoke to Savannah Abrams’ mother this morning,” he said finally. “Imagine my surprise to learn that one Fen Young was also on her way to interrogate the worried parent.”
Flared nostrils were the only sign of the uber-alpha’s annoyance, but a shiver ran down my spine nonetheless. It looked like my wolf was alert enough for Hunter’s dominance to affect us, even if she didn’t seem keen on joining in the conversation. Just what I needed—a wolf too weak to help out, but just strong enough to get us both killed.
“Yeah, we were headed that way,” I mumbled when my companion seemed to require confirmation of Mrs. Abrams’ information. I winced, steeling myself to be struck by a blast of icy alpha dominance.
“I thought we’d agreed that you’d head west?” Hunter said through clenched teeth. But the virtual blow I’d been expecting wasn’t forthcoming. And despite the danger possibly lurking in the woods around us and the very real threat that Hunter presented to my weak wolf, I couldn’t help but laugh from relief.
“You agreed we’d head west,” I told my companion firmly. “But my pack and I decided that since Lia and I are halfies and have a vested interest in this issue, we might as well check it out and see what’s going on.”
There was no way to describe the sound that emerged from Hunter’s lips other than “growl.” Okay, maybe “snarl” would do the trick too. Not a good sign. It looked like his wolf—always awake, but usually in check—was in almost complete control of their shared body now.
Sure enough, the first hints of fur began sprouting from the skin of Hunter’s forearms, and I didn’t want to wait around and see what would happen next if the uber-alpha’s annoyed animal half won out over his thin veneer of humanity. So I did the only thing I could think of...or maybe I should say the one thing I’d kept thinking about over and over ever since Hunter marched into my life.
I reached across Cinnamon’s nearly lifeless body to grab the uber-alpha’s hair where skull met neck. Then I pulled his mouth down to meet mine.
As before, Hunter was frozen for an instant by my forwardness. But then his lips claimed my own, and I realized that the reality of kissing the uber-alpha was as different from my earlier daydream as the change in my vision when I left wolf form behind. A world that had once seemed a near gray-scale of blue and pale yellow abruptly exploded into a rainbow of passion.
For several long moments, I forgot about wounded and lost pack mates, weak inner wolves, and sadistic secret societies. There was simply no way to focus on the wider world when the uber-alpha in front of me was sucking my consciousness deep into his soul.
Instead, my reality had tunneled down to two simple facts. Hunter was kissing me. And Hunter was my mate.
Chapter 14
“SERIOUSLY?” GINGER’S angry exclamation hit me at the same moment her body slammed into Hunter’s side, deftly knocking us apart. She attacked the uber-alpha with fingernails that worked as well as claws, raking red stripes down her opponent’s chest before he was able to capture her hands with his own.
“Cinnamon is dying, Lia is missing, and this is what you’re doing?” Ginger shrieked, wrenching herself around in Hunter’s arms so she could face me. “Kissing him?”
“Cinnamon’s not dying,” I answered, red-faced. Yes, Ginger was right—letting my attraction for Hunter sidetrack me from the really important issues at hand had been a bad move. But I couldn’t quite figure out why the young woman was so irate.
Intense worry over her twin was the only feasible explanation, so I rushed to set her mind at ease. “He’s stopped bleeding and his vitals are steady. Yes, your brother’s hurt and he’s exhausted, but he’s going to be fine.”
I glanced at Hunter, asking him without words to release my pack mate from his grasp. The uber-alpha raised one eyebrow, clearly convinced that Ginger would simply transform back into the blazing ball of fury that had pushed apart our lip-lock if she wasn’t imprisoned by his iron grip. Still, he obeyed, unhanding the young woman and taking two long steps backwards as if putting space between himself and a rabid skunk recently released from a live trap.
Ginger immediately dropped to her knees beside her brother, her fingers frantically pushing through the matted fur around his l
upine throat until she, presumably, found a pulse. I only then realized that Cinnamon’s earlier whining had stilled some time ago, meaning that he had, indeed, looked dead when his sister came on the scene. No wonder a single tear dripped down Ginger’s cheek before she angrily dashed it away.
With Cinnamon’s vitality confirmed, I thought we were out of the figurative woods. But when the trouble twin rose to her feet once again, her ire was aimed directly at me. “So that’s your solution? At the first hint of adversity, you’re ready to throw away our hard-earned independence and go to him for assistance?”
I wrinkled my brow in confusion. Yes, I’d been thinking about asking Hunter for help in finding Lia, but I hadn’t actually voiced my thoughts. Leave it to Ginger to assume that an uncontrollable kiss had instead been a calculated ploy to bring a reluctant ally over to our team.
“Calm down,” I told my angry pack mate. Then, glancing in the uber-alpha’s direction to see how he’d take my reply, I added: “We’re not throwing away any of our independence, but Hunter is the obvious solution to finding Lia. He’s already been on the trail of the SSS for a while now and he’s strong....”
To my relief, Hunter nodded as if agreeing to lend his support to our upcoming adventure. Ginger was less complacent, though.
“He’s strong,” the trouble twin spat back. “Is that all that matters to you? I’m strong. You’re strong...or would be if you didn’t keep your wolf on such a tight leash. You and I have been doing fine leading our group together and we’ll do even better now that you’ve finally figured out the pack bond. We don’t need a bloodling to step between us.”
Hunter growled and I glanced away from the angry trouble twin in order to meet the uber-alpha’s eyes. Had the object of my affections so quickly changed his mind about helping Lia? I didn’t think so. But I got the distinct impression that I was missing something obvious, something that both he and Ginger were dancing around with both their gazes and their words.
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