The Wolf’s Whisper: The Complete Series

33. Caleb

I woke up in motion. A strange sensation, but it wasn’t until a sharp bounce threw me into the air and I crashed back into a worn seat cushion that I realized I was laid out in a vehicle.

Wait, hadn’t I just been in a prison cell?

I groaned and tried to open my eyes, but they fought me for several seconds. By the time I managed to open them, a familiar face craned over me.

“Hey there, asshole. How ya feeling?”

“Good to see you, too, Keller,” I managed to say. “What happened? When did you guys get me into the truck? Also… why am I not in prison?” Then my brain came online enough to remember I had something important to tell them. “Some of those cops knew about shifters! They used wolfsbane on me.”

“Oh, we know. Smelled them as soon as we stepped in. They tried to play it cool, but once we found you in a stupor, it was easy to put two and two together.”

It took some effort, but I sat up and tried to take inventory of my situation, even though parts of my mind felt stuffed full of cotton. I was in the back of Keller’s truck, a tarp spread under me as a precaution in case all the exposure to wolfsbane made me upchuck. As for my best friend, he was in the passenger’s seat. Glancing over to the driver’s side, I saw another familiar person, the scar on their face lit up whenever streetlights flashed against the truck. There are only three ways to scar a shifter: injuring them before they enter their wolf form, their alpha hurting them, or using a silver weapon on them. Although I didn’t know the origin of this man’s mark, I recognized it as belonging to Carl.

Not a bad bloke. But taciturn, and not a fan of mine.

Great.

“It’s night,” I stated flatly, simply because I didn’t know what else to say. I’d been in prison for hours, possibly more than a day, and largely unconscious through most of it. The last thing I remembered was going near-feral trying to break out of the bars.

“It is,” Keller said cautiously, like he was afraid I’d go off at any second. I supposed I couldn’t blame him for that. I hadn’t exactly been rational lately.

I didn’t answer, instead reaching out for that bond I felt between Emily and me, hoping the way it’d suddenly cut off was just my imagination. But there was nothing. Only the faintest echo of connection.

Fuck, it couldn’t be. I didn’t know how I’d survive if I’d somehow failed Emily again. I didn’t deserve to live if she lost her life thanks to my idiocy.

I brewed in that despair and rage for a few minutes before I realized my friend was still looking at me expectantly.

“How did you guys get me out?” I asked.

“Zach sent Carl here to post your bail.”

“Really?” I scoffed. “ Zach did that?” That sounded the same as telling me that we had just discovered pig shifters and they all knew how to fly.

“Hey, I know there’s bad blood between y’all, but we had our own source on the inside tell us some funny business was going on. That’s why we weren’t exactly surprised to run into a couple of Black Hawk shifters working as cops.”

I couldn’t believe fellow shifters had used wolfsbane weapons on me. That shit was incredibly dishonorable amongst our kind, and for human hunters and witches, not fellow wolves. Disgusting.

“There may be a hearing scheduled for this assault case that a human put against you, but Zach’s got a couple of lawyers getting on it. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t blame you for any of this.”

“That’s not true,” Carl cut in. “He doesn’t blame you for being targeted, but he’s pissed about you keeping the girl secret.”

“The girl?” I blurted without thinking.

“Caleb, they know about Emily,” Keller said. “Like I said, we have someone on the inside who’s been helping to bring Gray down. We know that he threatened you, and you were keeping the girl a secret. You should’ve brought her to the pack."

Keller shot a meaningful look my way, as if warning me not to ruin the convincing story he’d cooked up. I owed the man more than I could ever repay. The truth was, I hadn’t told anyone about Emily, not only because I was afraid they’d snatch her away, but because I feared they’d turn her against me.

It was selfish. There was no other reasoning for it, and now, because of that, she was gone.

God, I was worthless. The pack was right. I was a screw-up.

“I should have, because now she’s gone,” I said.

“Gone,” Keller repeated. “What do you mean, gone?”

“What else could I mean?” I snapped, my wolf growing within. I felt so raw, so ready to fall apart. I knew I shouldn’t bite the hand that fed me, metaphorically speaking, but all this rage had to go somewhere. “She’s gone! I could sense her, and now I can’t. It’s like she never existed.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Keller said. “I need you to slow down and explain to me why you think she’s ‘gone’ and what exactly that means. The last thing I knew, she was about to shift, and then I helped her take off. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I mean, she’s dead,” I said. “Last I talked to her, she was terrified and running for her life while fighting the shift. Then the cops got me and said they had to hold me—that was the order. Next thing I know, while I was in the shift, I felt the bond between us snap.” I stared at him. “I know you’re gonna say I’m crazy, but even now, there’s a gap in my chest. It’s the space she used to fill, and it’s empty.”

My voice cracked at that last part. I’d lost Emily… Kaia… yet again. How was it that no matter how hard I tried to be a better person, no matter how much I tried to do the right thing, I always somehow fucked up and ruined everything? Was I cursed?

“Okay, let’s just calm down for a moment,” Keller said evenly. “Just because you can’t sense Emily doesn’t mean she’s dead. I know I’ve never been a guardian, but I do know that those bonds are different from mated bonds, and it’s not like you guys have had long together.”

I felt my gut sinking. “No, but we have, uh… mated.”

“What?” That question was from Carl, who nearly jerked the wheel to the side as he glared toward me.

“We didn’t bite each other’s glands or anything!” I said defensively. “It’s not like hers developed, anyway, since at the time, she couldn’t shift. But she asked me to help her with an… issue, so I did.”

Keller shook his head, and I could tell without a single word that he wished I’d done things differently. “Caleb…” he groaned. “Really?”

“I know, I know,” I said. “It complicated things. Believe me, I honestly didn’t plan it. But when she asked me to help her out with something she wanted to experience before she became a wolf, I just… well, I couldn’t find it in me to say no.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” Carl sneered derisively.

I deserved that. I knew what it sounded like to them. I’d had plenty of fun with traveling shifters or others I met when I journeyed away from our territory. I’d built up a reputation as a fuckboy. I’d always liked to think it was just backwater, traditional pack shifters who were jealous that my lovers left me satisfied, but the situation with Emily and me looked pretty bad from the outside.

“Hey, look, I know you’re freaking out right now, but we don’t know that something happened to her,” Keller said. “There hasn’t been any news about a wild animal running amok, and you got poisoned, remember? For all we know, the wolfsbane has cut off your connection, and it’ll come back once it fully leaves your system.”

A valid point, but I just shook my head, my stomach twisting. “The way it cut off wasn’t from wolfsbane. It was like she was never here.”

I watched as a series of emotions crossed Keller’s face, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. The more I woke up, the emptier I felt, reality pressing down like the world’s most malicious weighted blanket. How was I supposed to keep on going?

“Just hang in there, okay, Caleb? Don’t give up hope until we get some evidence that something’s happened. For the moment, why don’t you lie down again? You’ve got a lot of stuff to work out of your system.”

Sleep? How was I supposed to sleep? But once I fell back, the deep blackness of blessed unconsciousness took me.

I paced.

I paced, and I paced, then I paced some more.

“Hey, would you stop wearing a line in the floor and sit down to eat?” Keller was clearly trying not to sound irritated and failing spectacularly. Not that I blamed him. I knew my movement wasn’t helping anyone, but I felt like I was going to crawl out of my own skin.

“This is a waste of time,” Carl said from where he sat in my living room, his expression stony as ever. “You know Zach ordered us to take him back to Maplewood.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Keller said with a wave of his hand. “We’re gonna. Just give the man a chance to shower and change. I’m sure Zach doesn’t want him stinking of wolfsbane.”

Carl simply grunted. I’d stunk up the truck with the herb’s sour, rotting scent, and while I’d heard it wasn’t offensive to humans, it certainly was to us.

Not that I cared about Carl’s damned truck. I was holding onto Keller’s proposal that Emily wasn’t dead, and that our bond wasn’t an official or fully formed one. It was an appealing idea, one that meant Emily was still in the world, but it felt entirely too good to be true. Like it wasn’t something I deserved.

“Caleb, come on, let’s pack a travel bag for you, alright?” Keller said. “In case we stay at Maplewood for some time.”

I scoffed. After being exiled from the area where our alpha set up his entire family, of course it took fucking up all over again to be invited back.

Whatever. It wasn’t like I belonged there, anyway.

I didn’t say anything, just nodded dully and followed Keller to my room, if only to get some space from the ever-glowering Carl. But while my best friend focused on my dresser, pulling out more sweats and other soft, comfortable clothes I wore after hard shifts, I meandered to my back closet.

It was a space I didn’t use all that often. There were formal riding leathers for the rare occasion I did an official show or went out for an event, plus a suit and some heavy winter clothing in case my natural ability to stay warm was far too conspicuous. But what I cared about was the old, slightly yellowed shoebox all the way in the corner.

I carefully took it out with both hands and sat on the floor. Hands shaking slightly, I opened it as the numbness in my chest also cracked apart. There wasn’t anything revelatory in there, just a few small things I’d managed to keep from my childhood. One such item was a remnant of Kaia’s baby blanket.

Her parents had taken everything after her disappearance, but it was a palm-sized corner I’d managed to cut off when no one was paying attention. I knew the family would never allow me to have the whole thing. I was supposed to be her guardian, and I’d failed her, yet I had to have some small reminder of those times I’d held her, all swaddled up in the pale yellow blanket.

Next was a tiny little bracelet I’d made for her. Too big for her to wear at the time, but something she’d grow into once her baby instincts faded and her wrist joints fully formed. But she’d never gotten to that point.

I looked at the old, chipped beads and how they spelled out both our names. I remembered a few of my guy friends mocking me for making girlie jewelry, but I’d haughtily told them they just weren’t mature enough to understand what it was like to be a guardian.

Things were so much simpler back then.

“Hey, what else do you need packed, buddy?” Keller’s voice was patient and full of care. Instead of comforting me, it just made my skin crawl. I didn’t deserve kindness at the moment. I’d been given a second chance, and failed, and an innocent woman had suffered for my mistakes.

Where are you, Emily? Are you safe? Are you even here anymore ?

I didn’t say any of those questions out loud. Instead, I focused on answering whatever Keller had asked.

“Just bathroom stuff.”

“Right, bathroom stuff. I forget that you know what soap is.”

I knew my friend was teasing me, to get my mind off the swirling emotions inside, but I only offered him a shrug as my fingers traced over the bracelet beads.

The fact that these were the only two items I had to remember Kaia by was so utterly wrong. If I were being honest with myself, they belonged so much to Kaia that they didn’t ring at all of Emily , the woman I’d been falling in love with. They were the same person, but they also weren’t, and the emotions I held for both were quite separate.

If… if Emily was gone, I needed something of hers, anything of hers, to prove to myself it wasn’t all some fever dream. And if she wasn’t gone, well, I needed to make something right.

For the first time since I’d come to, it was like my mind had broken out of its wolfsbane and grief-induced stupor, and I knew what I had to do. I squared my shoulders and walked out of the bedroom.

“Hey, where are you off to?” Keller peeked his head out of the door to the bathroom. I hated doing it, but I knew that I had no choice.

“There’s something I need to do,” I said honestly, because I was long past the point of lying to my friend. Either Keller would accept it, or we’d fight about it. “For Emily.”

“Gods, Caleb, come on. I already covered for you once. Please don’t put me in this position again.”

I sent him a wry grin, the kind I knew spoke volumes. “I’m sorry. I have to.”

Keller let out a long, pained sigh. “You better go out one of these windows, then, because Carl will be a whole lot less amenable than me.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “For everything.”

“I just need you to get to the point where I’m not constantly pulling your ass out of the fire, okay?”

Him and me both.

…but I didn’t think I could do that by lying.