13. Killian
13
Killian
I whistled cheerily to myself as I hopped out of my car, slamming the door shut behind me.
Then I danced a little jig before walking up to the front door of the house.
I was so happy. So fucking happy .
Today was the one-month anniversary of Lilah’s move into the house, and we were bonding with her tonight. She was finishing her nest, and I’d managed to get off almost half an hour early so I could come home and help her out with the final touches before we finally went through the bonding ceremony.
If it had been up to me, Oliver would have bitten Lilah into the pack as soon as she’d agreed to move into the house. They were both being cautious, and I understood that...well, maybe I didn’t. How could either of them resist the pull between the four of us? I knew we all felt it. I could see it in the way that Lilah and Oliver made moon eyes at each other whenever they thought the other one wasn’t paying attention.
It was both adorable and frustrating as hell.
But all of it ended tonight .
Lilah was going to be pack. It was a full moon. We were going to bite her in, then shift and run as a pack, and our little family would finally be complete.
I couldn’t wait .
I kept humming to myself as I walked into the house and waited by the front door for a moment, listening.
The house was silent—almost painfully so.
I kept whistling, kicking my shoes off near the front door, and hanging my jacket on one of the hooks. “I’m home!” I called out, my boisterous voice bouncing from wall to wall.
Still, silence. There were no sounds of footsteps echoing from upstairs, and the nest was oddly quiet. Maybe Lilah had finished working on it and was taking a nap? The space probably needed her scent to soak into the fabrics and whatever else before she would feel comfortable welcoming us in.
Yeah, that was it.
I smiled and hummed softly to myself as I made my way to the kitchen. I got a glass and filled it with water from the pitcher inside the fridge. I lifted the glass to my lips, prepared to take a sip, but a soft, wounded sound came from the den before I could.
My hand paused, and my stomach twisted, instincts purring to life.
“Hello?” I set the glass down as quietly as I could and slowly made my way over to the den.
The moment I walked through the doorway, the scents of frustration, anger, and grief filled the air, and I stumbled back, my nostrils flaring and my wolf whining inside me.
Emmett and Oliver were sitting on the couch in the den, shoulder to shoulder, silent. Emmett’s expression was as stoic as ever, but there was pain glimmering in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in years.
Oliver was staring at his hands. A piece of paper was crumpled between his fingers, and his knuckles were white as he clutched it.
Lilah was nowhere to be seen, and the longer I stood there, staring at my pack, the more the silence of the house started to feel sinister.
“Where is Lilah?” I asked, my voice uncharacteristically subdued.
Something had happened while I was at work—something bad. Oliver and Emmett were acting like someone had died.
And Lilah wasn’t there .
“Where is Lilah?” I asked again, louder this time. My voice trembled a little, and my hands curled into fists at my side as I looked from Emmett to Oliver and then back again.
Neither of them would look at me. Why weren’t either of them looking at me?
“She’s gone.” Oliver’s voice was agonized but strong as he finally looked up at me. He blinked slowly, his blue eyes subdued, and I reeled back, the shock of his words hitting me like a train.
“She’s...gone?” I tried to make sense of the words, the meaning foreign on my tongue. I shook my head, my brain refusing to acknowledge what my body already understood. I tensed, my wolf agitated, and my claws pricked out, digging painfully into my palms as I curled my hands into fists. “That’s...no. She’s upstairs, getting the nest ready. If she didn’t answer you, it’s because she fell asleep or something, I’m sure of it...”
“I rejected her.”
Oliver’s words were clear, but my brain didn’t compute the meaning.
“What...” I spluttered. “No...”
“Yes.” Emmett’s voice was quiet and resigned, and that, more than anything, made my power flare, and every single part of me ached with holding back the shift.
“What the fuck !” I barked, my wolf making my voice guttural and raw. “What...you...Oliver, you know what she means to me, what she is to us—”
“She’s Hunter Randall’s daughter!” Oliver suddenly snapped, standing tall and flashing his gold eyes at me.
No other words could have kept me from my rampage, could have sent a pool of nauseated terror through my stomach...but those ones did.
“What?” I whispered, all bravado gone. My wolf cowered inside of me, and if I’d been in animal form, I would have been curled up in a ball, hiding my nose with my tail so I didn’t have to hear what Oliver was saying.
He swallowed, his eyes pained, and brandished the piece of paper that was crumpled in his hand. “This came to the house today.”
I looked at it, suddenly painfully sure that I didn’t want to read a single word that was written on that letter.
I reached out and took it, and a long moment passed before I got the courage to spread the paper flat and read the terrifyingly familiar handwriting.
I’d looked at the note that the Slicer had left next to Jack’s body until the words had burned into my retinas.
It was the exact same handwriting; there was no doubt about that. The symbol at the bottom...that was his symbol.
But the words...
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I finally managed, my voice tight with pain. Outside the house was the howl of a pained wolf, and everything inside of me ached to go towards it.
That was Lilah—I just knew it. She was in pain; she was out there, and she needed to come home so that we could take care of her...
“She played us,” Oliver snapped, snatching the paper from me and pressing it to his chest. I could see how his body recoiled from it; he didn’t want to believe the words written there any more than I did.
But Oliver was a rational, facts-based man, and it didn’t matter that his gut instincts were screaming at him. His mind had decided, and he had made the decision for the rest of us—for the pack —without even blinking.
Fury swelled inside me, and I bared my teeth at him, another first for me. I didn’t challenge Oliver on just about anything, but this was wrong. We could all feel it. We were missing something. We’d been whole for a few weeks while Lilah had lived with us, and I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Emmett was staring at the ground with a hollow, dejected look, and even Oliver’s eyes held a spark of pain he was valiantly trying to hide.
“I’m going to find her,” I snapped, already turning on my heel to walk out.
“Killian, wait!” Oliver snatched my hand, stopping me in my tracks, and I growled at him until he let go. His eyes were pained but determined. “You can’t do that. I rejected her. It’s fucking done. Going out there to find her will only make things more painful for everyone.”
“I don’t accept that!” I snapped. “You’re fucking wrong about her. She told us that she didn’t know who her father was—”
“You read the letter!” Oliver’s voice broke, and he closed his eyes, a long moment passing before he opened them again. “He wants to get to know her. He loves her. And he fucking murdered Jack, Killian! He slaughtered him in cold blood!”
“I remember!” I pressed my hands over my ears, childish though the gesture was, to block off most of Oliver’s voice. “God, what the fuck is wrong with you, Ollie?”
Images of Jack’s body—bloodied and unmoving, so fucking still —flooded my closed eyes, and I let out a tiny whimper that was far more animal than human. The pain of our loss was compounded by the aching, yawning feeling inside of me that was only getting worse with each passing second, and I couldn’t decide which pain I needed to focus on.
“I’m going,” I growled. “I need to find her. I need to make this right. I need to fix your fuckup.” I glared at Oliver and turned on my heel to walk away before he could make more than a tiny sound of protest, and then I was outside.
My shift shredded through my clothes, ruining them, but I didn’t care. I landed on all four paws with a low growl, and everything I felt was so much more in this form. My heart beat fast, and the pain of my missing bond was so much that I stuttered to a stop after a few steps, letting out a whine.
After a moment, I managed to get myself under control, and I pressed my nose to the ground, shifting into tracking mode. The pain I felt would ease once I had Lilah back in my arms, and she could explain what was clearly a misunderstanding Oliver was overreacting about.
Even if the letter were true—even if she was Hunter Randall’s daughter—it was possible she’d told us the truth, too. It was possible she hadn’t known who he was and didn’t know what he’d done to us.
I knew Oliver. In his single-minded pigheadedness, he often lost the ability to see nuance when upset. This time, though, he’d gone too far. He’d spoken for all of us when he only had words for himself, and I wasn’t going to fucking stand for it .
Lilah’s scent, tinged with despair and confusion, was the strongest on the porch. She’d clearly collapsed there for several seconds, probably agonized by the pain of a rejected bond in her chest, before she’d stumbled to her feet and staggered away.
I whimpered again as I continued to follow her scent trail. It’s okay, baby. I promise I’ll fix this.
About a hundred yards from the house, her scent changed. It grew warmer and muskier, more animal, and when I looked up, I saw a similar pile of shredded clothes near a bunch of bushes, indicating that she’d shifted.
The wildness of her scent told me that she hadn’t been able to control her shift. The magic had wracked her body, and her wolf form had overcome her—the form that would make all of her feelings that much easier to deal with in the moment.
I picked up the pace. I needed to find her.
I followed her down the block and moved even faster with each passing second. The distance between us was closing; I could feel it in the ache in my chest, but I had a horrible sense of foreboding that made my feet quick on the ground.
Something bad was happening. I just needed to...
Another howl ripped through the air, not two hundred feet away from me, and it was so pained and ferocious and feral that I stuttered to a stop, hiding in a bush that was right in front of me.
I peered through the leaves, and my heart sank at the scene that presented to me.
A small, light gray wolf I instinctively knew to be Lilah was backing away from a small circle of handlers who were all dressed in white. They wore thick gloves and boots that would resist animal bites, and each of them had a clear shield mask over their faces, protecting them from any fluids.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” one of them soothed. They approached, and Lilah let out another growl before she darted forward, almost faster than I could see. Her teeth sank into the white-covered arm of the handler who was approaching her, and my stomach sank at the sight.
A quick glance at the van idling on the curb confirmed my worst fears. Emblazoned on the side were the letters SRU—Supernatural Recovery Unit.
The government’s watchdogs for out-of-control shifters.
Fuck!
I whimpered and watched the others move quickly as soon as Lilah’s teeth were occupied. Wire bindings were fastened around all of her paws, binding them together. Once she was immobilized, the handler she’d bitten managed to pry her jaws off his arm, and then a muzzle was hooked over her face and efficiently buckled into place so she couldn’t snap at anyone anymore.
No...
I watched helplessly as the handlers carefully lifted Lilah and carried her to the open back door of the van. She was placed in the back, and a blanket was tucked under her head before the doors were closed, and the handlers all climbed into the front of the van.
Even the roar of the engine as the van started up and drove away couldn’t cover up the pained wail of the wolf now locked in the back section, and my heart broke even more as I watched our scent-match be taken away.