Chapter 17 – Ryder
Seventeen
RYDER
Carina takes off out of the house with Morgan staring after her with an expression of utter devastation. Conan and Xander glance at me, Xander shuffling his feet as this visit took an unexpected and awkward tone.
I stare after Carina as the door slams shut.
“Stay here, don’t move.” An instinctual tug leads me outdoors—and then urges me to follow her.
A feeling beyond the bond. Not friendship, considering we barely know one another, but it’s something.
Something that propels me to where she’s standing by the edge of her front lawn, gazing at the vast mountains on the other side of us.
Taking Carina from her coven was supposed to be simple. She’d fight me for the week, I’d keep her locked up until the other witches came, transaction would be completed, Dad would be healed, and Carina would be on her way. We’d all move on from this.
Pitying her wasn’t an option. She’s gone from a captive to making herself the pack’s guest by agreeing to this. It’s a High Priestess’s sacrifice for not only Highridge, but everyone on Earth.
Which is why it’s sitting so painful in my stomach. Why my wolf is growling to protect her, but for every reason I give about why claiming our pre-chosen mate can’t happen, he ignores it.
If she hears me approach, she doesn’t turn. The light breeze picks up her hair, the sun flickering through and lighting up the paler strands. I stop three feet behind her, far enough to let her remain in control. Her head tips up until she’s gazing at the cloud-splattered sky.
“I’ve been to the witches’ resting place plenty of times over the years,” she starts, acknowledging my presence with a story rather than a curse. “Death ceremonies, mainly—or visiting past family members. All those times, I was passing my real mother’s grave and never knew.”
Her scent is sour—tainted by grief and the weight of the truth. It’s then I realize how unprepared I am to manage another’s emotions.
“It’s surreal learning I’m from elsewhere.” Her head swivels, presumably in the direction she thinks British Columbia is, except her sense of direction sucks and she’s facing the wrong way.
Stepping closer and taking her shoulders, I turn her until she’s facing west. Her cheeks flush pink and through tears, she releases a soft chuckle that’s quickly stolen by a sob.
“It doesn’t change anything,” she continues, gazing up at the mountain in front of us; the one blocking the path to Vancouver.
“Knowing a stranger birthed me doesn’t make Banff any less my home, Mom my mother, or Highridge my coven.
But it’s different, in a strange way. Like, I shouldn’t be here.
I’d be part of another coven, a different family, a whole other life if whatever happened back then didn’t. ”
My heart clenches for reasons I pretend to not care about. If Carina was in Banff, would fate have still made her my mate? Would I have found her? Dad says those with a n?kak?stis bond always find a way to one another, so I’d like to believe so.
Does it even matter? If we never crossed paths, my life would be much simpler. For one, I wouldn’t be consoling this woman who my arms ache to hold.
“There’s too many unknowns,” she continues, tone thoughtful. “Why the coven hasn’t been seen since. What my birth mother was running from. What she protected me from.”
“Twilight Grove.”
“Probably.” Her shoulders cave in, making herself look even smaller in my oversized hoodie.
“If I really am descended from one of the first witches, that’s why Twilight Grove wants me.
” She twists her head, and I’m slammed with every sorrowful emotion at once until it’s my breath that’s decimated.
“They want to do to me what they did to Harlow and make me into a Dark witch.”
My heart pounds faster, my wolf pleading to be freed—to save her. Before today, I wouldn’t have cared about Carina on a personal level. Dad’s health was all that mattered. She wasn’t my problem.
Except now…now it is my fucking problem, even if I don’t want it to be. Turning away from the bond and not fulfilling it by releasing her, never letting my wolf out to claim her, is one thing. But sending her on her way to be irrevocably changed. That’s something else. That’s…unthinkable.
Protect.
They’ll make her different—Dark. Maybe evil. She won’t be the kamahki who agrees to fulfill deals, who soothes dying shifters, and agrees to be taken by an enemy coven.
She’d be the enemy. Her coven’s enemy. My enemy.
Swallowing down every drive to keep her, I know this can’t change anything. Carina’s already decided to go for the good of her coven and witches all around. Dad will be healthy and when she goes, it’ll be of her own choice.
The breeze blows again, and she crosses her arms over her chest. Before I can consider my actions, I lift the sweater’s hood over her head and readjust her hair before sliding back beside her.
She twists to follow my trajectory, peering around the edge of the hood. Purple eyes sparkle with a strange contentedness that makes me want to dig a hole for her to hide in—and then one for myself to bury my body in.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
Because forces beyond you and I are demanding I care. I play my actions off with a shrug. “You’re sad.”
Her gaze drills into me, digging for the truth. She waits. A slow smile builds. That slow smile becomes everything right and wrong in my world. I want more of those.
She’s beautiful. Achingly so.
“That’s it? I’m sad, so you become compassionate?”
Telling her the truth will only lead to more issues, and that’ll never be something she needs to know.
“Either way, thanks. It’s annoying how weather changes so abruptly here. One second it’s summer, the next, it’s practically winter.”
Not sure why I tell her what I do. Maybe it’s simply conversation to help dry her eyes of the tears that threaten my teeth being ground to dust. “We normally start moving to the caves by now, but with Dad being ill, we’ll be going slower this year.
Mainly the children and any females who want to leave soon. ”
“Caves?”
Before yesterday, no outsider had ever been told details about our living situation, but putting aside her genuine curiosity, it feels right to tell her.
Perhaps because today has shown Carina isn’t my enemy.
Perhaps it’s the kick in my stomach. Or because she’s sad and talking will keep her mind off her complicated past. Maybe it’s the wolf inside me wanting her to know about pack life.
Whatever the reason, I hate myself.
“In the winter, we move to a set of caves in the side of a mountain. The cabins aren’t warm enough, especially considering how cold it gets up here, and how unequipped the children and elders are.”
Movement catches in my peripheral vision; Conan and Xander come out to the front steps. They’re growing anxious being on coven territory for so long—as am I. They can wait.
“You okay?”
She blows out a long breath riddled with hidden truths when replying with the opposite, “Yeah. I guess. Going with Twilight Grove is one thing, but hearing I’m one of the four added another layer. It frightens me how this will end.”
Her quivering worries me. It scares me because my wolf is howling to brush against her leg and reassure her she’ll be okay. But we can’t do that.
She releases another deep breath and looks up at her house. “I should pack a bag. Now that you’re not hauling me away, that you know I’ll help, I’d like to grab some things and not be treated as a captive.”
“O-of course.” When’s the last time I stuttered? Her words throw me because I hadn’t considered the ramifications of her being there voluntarily. If she won’t run, there’s no need for her to sleep my cabin. Moving her out would be the smartest thing.
Despite her plans to pack, she doesn’t budge, glancing from her house to the mountains in the distance. Her breathing quickens, and the animal inside me is pleading to recognize the signs of her panic attack even before she does.
I swing in front of her, grasping her upper arms until my body interrupts her view. My wolf approves, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, touching this woman after barely knowing her a day.
If she was smart, she’d blast me across the yard. If I was smart, I’d back the fuck up and avoid filling my nostrils with more of her scent than what’s necessary.
But I’m not smart and I’m not sure I have been since the second Carina Hargrove and I collided.
“Breathe.”
Because holding onto her arms isn’t bad enough, I push a finger into the underside of her chin to tip her head up, forcing desolate lavender eyes onto me. She allows me to control her body and my wolf rumbles in contentment. If she’s so pliable and submissive now, then in my nest—
Shut. Up.
“What if they succeed?”
In turning her Dark? Fuck, I don’t know what to say, considering I hardly understand what it all means. What I do know is I can’t handle her falling to pieces. Not when my wolf craves being the one to pick them up, even when I’m not certain the shape they’re supposed to create.
“They won’t,” I murmur, pressing a thumb into her shoulder to silently remind her she’s still with me.
“They’ll try.”
“They’ll fail. Regardless of what happens, you won’t be there for long.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Her eyes mist with confusion.
“I’ll make sure of it. I’ll bring you back home.”
And that was me digging myself a grave.