by Leeah Taylor
A hand grabs me at the arm and jerks me around. “If I tell you to shift, you fucking shift.”
I pull away from him. “I told you to stay out of my head. Go find Cooper.”
Carver calls after me when I walk away, and I stop to turn back to him.
His intensity crashes down on me. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t.”
At least not on purpose.
I enter the camp, swinging at every hissing, snapping shadow. My faith in getting out of this in one piece disappears as I follow the trail of bloody, mangled bodies. By number seven, I’ve lost faith in myself.
But at the end of the trail it’s not my faith I’ve lost. It’s any belief I ever had the balls to lead anything or protect anyone.
My steps falter and I grip the tree branch. “Tristan…”
I always hear people talk about out-of-body experiences. They’re amid tragedy or chaos, and it’s like they’re watching from above, or the sidelines. I never could relate to it, until now. Either that, or I just don’t want to do what I’m going to have to do.
It’s not a question of if I have to do it either. Tristan’s face buried in the neck of one of our own is all the answer I need. He stands with his back to me and I put some distance between us with a few steps. I know he’s something else when he turns to face me and his eyes are full of life—hateful—but life is there. Not dead and distant or maniacal, like Ferals.
He sucks his bloody thumb, then the next finger and the next as he creeps towards me. Blood drips down his chin as his lips pull up and reveal a brand new set of razor teeth. They aren’t double rowed like the Ferals we were used to. Just one set, razor edged and pointy.
I can’t make my legs move. With Carver and the mate bond and my wolf being a bitch about it all, I was too distracted to see it. It’s not scrapes or cuts or scratches on his arm, but a bloody, flaming red bite instead. And I’ve seen people turn. This isn’t it.
It’s something else entirely.
“Ya know, Berkeley, I think you were right.” I flinch back when he reaches for me, and he cocks his head to the side with a look I know. “This isn’t going to work out between us.”
Tristan lunges. I stumble back with a squeak and barely figure out how the hell my feet are supposed to work before dodging his next grab. My mind races. All the signs were there. The agitation. The aggression. His insistence he was fine. Hell, he’s looked awful since last night.
And I didn’t see it.
My feet sweep out from under me and the wind knocks out of me when my back hits the ground. I scramble away, kicking to keep his hands from getting any traction, but he locks one around my ankle like a vice grip and jerks me closer. It aches down in my bones as my wolf scrapes its way to the surface and I swing with a clawed paw mid-shift. Tristan’s fist comes down and pain explodes through my cheek. Warmth spreads and trickles down the side of my face with the second blow, and I’m seeing stars. My wolf moans in a daze.
He straddles me with all his weight and leans down. I can see every fang up close and way too personal.
“You reek of him,” Tristan hisses.
His hand follows my curves to my breast and squeezes too hard, making me whimper, but his eyes light up and he grips harder. Fire jolts through me and I swing again. He catches one fist, then the other, locking them in place with one hand and stretches them over my head so he’s forced to hover over me. He slips his other hand around my throat. His fingernails dig deep until warmth trickles down my neck.
“Tristan,” I grit out.
“Maybe I end it here and now. Hmm?” He drags his nose over the contour of my jaw, inhaling deeply while my air slowly runs out. “One little bite and it’s game over for Carver.”
He doesn’t get it. “It’s not a game.”
“Sure it is, baby, and I don’t think I’m done playing it yet.”
Nails scrape deep into my flesh and I jerk out of his hold when a body tackles him. It’s a blur of darkness and shadows in my vision as the bodies twist and roll across the ground.
A howl hits down to my soul. Two shots fly past me and Tristan scrambles to his feet, disappearing in a blink. I crawl over to the massive form crumpled on the ground. I’d know that baritone voice anywhere. He looks like a hulking beast but he’s a gentle soul. A big teddy bear.
I press my hand to the gushing gouge in Jay’s throat.
“Why?” I choke out.
He gives me a weak smile. “Why not? All we got left is life. It’s worth protecting.”
And I failed to protect him.
“Don’t do that.” Jay coughs and chokes, bringing up blood. “You don’t let her do that.”
I don’t have to turn around to know who’s standing there because I can feel him and his comforting warmth trying to wash through me.
I hold my free hand out. “Gun.”
“Berk,” Carver whispers.
“Gun,” I demand.
He heaves a sigh but lays the gun in my open palm. It weighs heavier than it ever has as I cradle it in my lap.
“I can wait.”
Jay shakes his head. “I prefer to die me, Berkeley. Not a big giant fangy me.”
He chokes hard, sending a spray of blood over my arms. I blow out a breath and fight back the tears burning into my vision.
“I’m sorry.”
His bear sized hand covers mine at his neck and pulls it away to lay it over the gun in my lap with a light pat. “I don’t want you to be.”
I have never wanted to be a coward more in my life. Hand the gun to Carver and turn my back, cover my ears, and block it all out. But I swallow the cowardice lump and lift the gun to press it to his temple.
I’ve killed men.
Taking their lives in fights for my own.
But this isn’t an armed man ready to slit my throat to take what I have.
This is Jay.
The big jolly bear.
My eyes close when his do and I imagine I’m anywhere but sitting in the middle of the forest in a pool of blood. If I pulled the trigger, I don’t hear it.
There’s no kick back.
No vibrations.
There’s nothing at all.
Chapter Ten
Carver
“Just find me a change of fucking clothes for her,” I bark out at Cooper.
I’m not sure what blood is hers, Ferals, or Jay’s. She’s drenched in it and I can’t get her to say anything.
“Berk, look at me.”
It’s as if the moment she pulled the trigger, her mind checked out and she went somewhere else. Far away.
A fist full of clothes appeared beside me. “Here.”
I look up before taking them and Josie is staring at me, white as a ghost. “Thanks.”
She nods with a similar far off look. It never really hits me how important someone is in a group until I see the aftermath when they’re gone. I didn’t see, or comprehend all my father was to the pack until he was gone and the pack nearly spiraled out of control. If it weren’t for Cooper keeping me on the rails, the pack probably wouldn’t be left.
I cradle her chin between my fingers and tilt her head back to inspect the bruised cut across her cheekbone. It takes everything in me to suppress the growl.
I’ll kill him.
Slowly.
No, I’ll almost kill him. Slowly. Let him heal and do it again.
“Berkely, talk to me.”
It’s the same blank stare she’s had since pulling the trigger. I’m kicking myself for letting her do it when I should have taken the gun from her and done it myself. Protect her from it.
Cooper kneels down beside her and opens a first aid kit. “Couple of the guys are working on moving the trees. Not waiting till morning.”
“Good. Put as much distance between us and here.”
“Berk.” Cooper makes another attempt but gets the same blank nothing. He dabs at the cut on her cheek and we exchange glances. “Remember senior homecoming? Hmm?” He
tips her head back and continues treating the cut. “You and Carver were at each other’s throats. I was ready to wash my hands of both of ya.”
God, senior year was rough. Berkeley was impossible and now I can admit being just as horrible, but back then I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
Cooper laughs. “Never occurred to us you two were in mate bond hell. Think they’d mention that part.” He says it so conversationally, as if ten more people weren’t slaughtered on our watch or Berkeley wasn’t sitting here in shock because of it. “Come on, Berk, you remember? You dragged me to every dress shop for the tightest, lowest cut dress you could get away with.”
I never knew that. Back then I’d have hit him for letting her do it, but now I can smile, grateful for the memory at all. Back then most of the kids our age were drowning in their own bullshit and angst while the three of us were glued at the hip, taking on whatever life threw at us.
There were no regrets. We made mistakes, fucked up, and owned every single one. Then turned around and made all new ones.
“It was red,” she whispers in the smallest voice. “And too tight.”
“Yep.” Cooper smiles and nods. “Tits were spilling out of it.”
It earns him a glare while my wolf creeps to the surface, and I know the moment he feels it because he’s grinning from ear to ear.
“It was the slap heard around the fucking block too. Remember that, Carver?”
“Fuck, I still feel it.”
Berkeley smiles the slightest, and it’s the first hint she’s going to be okay. I need her to be okay. The cuts can heal. The scrapes… all of it will heal. But there’s nothing I can do for how heavy her heart must feel.
What happens when she blames us for all of it?
Shuts me right back out.
She lifts her shoulder, wincing. “Shouldn’t have kissed that barbie girl whore.”
“Damn right.” Cooper’s grin grows more. “That’s what he gets.” He tilts her head to one side than the other before standing up. “Think you’re going to live, Spitfire. Get out of those clothes, I’m going to check on those trees.”
He eyes me as he heads toward the road and nods. Whether it’s reassuring me she’s going to be fine or letting me know it’s all going to be fine, I have no idea, but I’m grateful for him and his way of handling it when shit hits the fan.
“Come on.” I tug her up to her feet. “Let’s get you changed.”
She’s gone quiet again while I strip her of the blood-soaked clothes and help her into the sweatpants and t-shirt Josie brought over. It makes her look smaller than she is. My Berkeley is fierce, but right now she looks halfway broken.
She sucks in a shaky breath. “I should have shifted.”
There’s a tiny part of me, the alpha dick in me, wanting to tell her I told her so. I demanded her to shift and she, like old Berkeley, defied me. Her alpha. But I’m not just her alpha, not just her mate either, I’m that person she remembers climbing into her window at night when her dad was on another bender, breaking shit, and curling up in bed with her to hold her and keep her safe.
And that’s the person she needs now.
“Don’t do that.” I grab her by the shoulders to make her look at me. “Hear me, Berkeley, do not go down that road.”
The far off look is creeping back in and I can’t let it take root because I’m not sure Cooper’s reminiscing is going to pull her out again.
I shake her gently. “Hey! Stop. It’s nobody’s fault. This is just life.”
“And the minute we submit to that, we lose.”
God, I wish she wasn’t right, but even then it’s still a fact we have to learn to accept and live with.
“Baby, it wasn’t going to matter how it all went down tonight. Tristan was going to turn. People were going to die. And Jay? Jay was still going to throw himself at him to protect you. You have to accept it and move on.”
She hugs herself, taking a step back and creating a void of distance between us, going further than physical space.
“I can’t.” Her arms wind tighter to herself. “No, I won’t accept that. I don’t want people dying for me. Ever.”
“Hey!” Cooper calls. “Let’s get out of here.”
Berkeley seems a million miles away in heart, body, and soul. I had her for a moment and in a blink of gunshots and bloodshed, I lost her.
I shouldn’t have let her pull the goddamn trigger.
Chapter Eleven
Berkeley
It’s all I can do to stop from giving into every carnal instinct and let my wolf takeover. Allow myself to get lost in her and run free. Life would be easier if I shifted and stayed that way. There’d be no more ache down to my bones, calling to me to heed the most basic parts of myself. The nothing in my chest, feeling like a whole fucking lot, would disappear and slip away with the human in me.
It’s obligation and loyalty keeping me from giving in.
Not Carver.
Not Cooper.
Just these people, the few left still looking to me like I have the answer. As if I’m still the person they need to protect them. Considering our numbers were cut by more than half, I can’t fathom why they still see me as anything more than a terrible choice. But they do, and it’s the only reason I’m on two legs instead of four and soaring through the night.
“Berkeley.” Carver squeezes my hand. “Look.”
I sit up to see out the front of the bus in time for a massive mountain to build on the horizon. It looks like any other mountain. Nothing stands out about it other than its size. Hard to believe it’s now home to an entire community, according to Carver.
“God, I’m ready to be home,” Cooper says. “One of Donna’s plates of home cooked goodness and a long soak in the hot springs. Carver, man.” He glances back at us. “Don’t even dream of asking me to go on a run for at least fucking forever.”
Carver laughs softly and looks out the window next to him. “I don’t know, Cooper. I think this one was worth it.”
“How long has it been since you were home?”
Carver thinks about it. “Couple weeks.”
“Why?”
Why besides supplies and searching for survivors?
“Because he just had to go out a little further.” Cooper raises an eyebrow back at Carver. “And then a little further. Every day it was, let’s push it a little further.”
I turned to him. “What were you looking for?”
“Wasn’t looking for anything.”
“Bullshit. Nobody pushes a little further in this clusterfuck of a world unless there’s a reason. What was it?”
Carver sighed. “I was following.”
I don’t look back when Cooper laughs.
“Following what?”
“You really need me to spell it out for you, Berkeley?”
“Yes.”
“You.” His eyes land on me. “I was following you and didn’t know it. We must have, at some point, grazed each other’s paths and I couldn’t turn back from the ache in my chest. And the further we pushed, the less it ached.”
He was out there because of me. After three years, his bond still craved to reunite. So much it put him and part of his pack in harm’s way. Cooper probably gave him shit the entire time, and he followed his wolf, even with logic telling him to turn back.
For me.
So where was he three years ago when he found me gone?
Why didn’t he follow his wolf and find me?
What happened? It didn’t ache enough back then? Sure as fuck did for me! The pack was still more important than me, whether he admits it or not, and I can’t hold back the betrayal of it.
“Oh god, what? What did I do now?” Carver demands. “I can see it. I can fucking feel it. What’s my fault this time?”
I cross my arms and slouch back in the seat. “All of it.”
“Great.” He laughs but with an edge, no amusement, and I’m drowning in serious alpha territory. “That’s fucking fantastic.”
Yep. It’s positively amazing. A quick unfinished fuck in the woods did nothing for the broken pieces between us. The fantasy and escape was nice, but reality hit me hard in the face with a bloody razor-sharp fist.
Did I fuck up? Sure, maybe. I could have waited longer for him. Instead, I bailed out of fear and little hope that everything would be okay again. I bailed because I feared he was dead. But the minute he made the choice to seek out the mountain over finding me was the minute he fucked up.
I’ll take my blame for it.
But Carver was taking his share too.
I kept my attention trained out the front of the bus as it turns off the main road and begins a steady climb. There is the nagging question in the back of my head of why we never crossed paths before now and it’s not until the bus comes to a slow stop do I realize why.
I wouldn’t leave this place often either.
Tall chain link fencing surrounds a wide opening to a mountain, and it’s not the Mountain I’m interested in but the land stretching at the base. In the dark, with only the moon to illuminate it all, I can still see the flourishing gardens.
I step off the bus and the others behind me nudge me out of the way.
“It’s huge,” I mutter.
Carver chuckles. “I told you.”
“How did you even find it?”
“Dad had his secrets. Come on.”
I trail behind him, searching the thick forest around us. Scrutinizing every shadow as they play tricks on me, making me see things I know aren’t there, yet I’m waiting for something bad to happen. Something to take away what feels like a small victory. It may not be all of us, but some are better than none. We made it to the Mountain.
“Do you worry about Ferals and the chain link?”
Carver shakes his head as he watches the gate open. He didn’t even have to say anything. Men came out of nowhere and started rolling the massive chain link open.
“Don’t see many Ferals up here. Maybe it’s the cooler, thin air or because they sense and scent out packs of shifters and steer clear. I don’t know.”