29. Tálstrom
The brothers don’t take long to discover my escape route. The security cameras recorded how I’d taken advantage of a weakened section of wire fencing, biting and clawing at the metal until it gave way and allowed me to squeeze through. The back door had been more problematic, but I know how locks and hinges work. Luckily for me, the cameras didn’t manage to catch that trick.
In the days since my successful bid for freedom, I’ve spent most of my waking moments, and all my sleeping ones, in the company of Isobel. She’s been a little surprised at the privacy I grant her when she is changing or in the bathroom, but I’m not a pervert or a voyeur. She is mine to watch and protect, not leer over.
It has been a couple of weeks since I left the ruins of Vieux Sang burning behind me, and each day the bonds I once feared dead and empty are reviving and growing stronger. I’ve reconnected with my blood brothers and sisters, sending them the occasional reassurance and proof of life down the threads binding us together, but nothing that would help pinpoint my location. The ones I share with Luc and Nick are also strengthening with every beat of my heart, and I feel immense relief when they respond to my cautious probes with their own reassurance and affection.
The one bond that still concerns me, though, is Quin’s. It lies inert, with only the occasional pulse of life giving me any clue to his continued existence. He is alive somewhere, but the very fact that his bond hasn’t responded like the other means that he is either under the same Hellish chemical influence Simon and I have endured, or he is deliberately shielding me from his own experiences.
Given who has him, it could be either option.
With the recovery of each bond, I can feel Simon coming back to life. He is still suffering from the initial, devastating blow of his loss, but day-by-day he grows stronger and more aware. He no longer looks at the world as a place to be avoided at all costs, and instead is showing interest in the people and activities going on around us.
I pace beside Isobel as she makes her daily rounds to the animals in her care. I have to shorten my stride to accommodate hers, but it is a change I don’t mind in the slightest. I can’t properly protect her if I’m not by her side.
My presence alongside Isobel has an interesting effect on the animals. Most wildlife would see me as a threat, as a predator, and behave as such. But the ones at the sanctuary seem to know that I’m not like them. While Isobel’s family haven’t yet discerned that I am actually a shifter, the wild beasts all know.
“Okay, Storm. Time to go unload the flatbed truck and ATV trailer. Dillon has managed to get a fantastic deal on raw meat from a local hunter, and he’s gone and bought a couple new freezers and fridges to store it all. We’re rearranging the barn to make way for it all.”
I pad silently in step with her on the grass verge, Isobel’s own steps crunching on the crushed gravel path. The sides of the red painted barn emerge from the surrounding trees, and I can hear the voices and laughter of Isobel’s brothers and grandfather coming from the dark recess inside.
“Okay, slowly now. Dane, you have that rope? Good. On the count of three, boys.”
We walk through the open entry of the barn to the scene of Isobel’s grandfather standing with his back facing us on top of a flatbed truck with a rope in his hands. Dane and Dillon are standing to one side of the truck, also holding ropes, as they use the hemp tethers to maneuver a large pallet off the flatbed and onto the ground. Isobel and I skirt around the other side of the truck, and I glare at the load straining against the straps with a wary eye.
One wrong move and someone could end up hurt.
As though the gods hear my thoughts, a squeal of distressed metal precedes the crack and ping of a metal pin shearing in half. Time slows as one of the straps holding the load to the pallet flies free, heading directly for Isobel. I plow into her, knocking her out of the way, only to watch in horror as she falls belly-first toward a row of sharp tools and shelving hanging on the wall.
I don’t think.
I shift.