Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sullivan
What the hell had I been thinking? As soon as I had realized they were fucking and she wasn't being murdered by a rogue yeti, I should have turned around and let them be. But no. My cock shot straight up, its head pointing right at the display that had been laid out before it.
Now things really were weird because, truth be told, I was incredibly attracted to Wren. There was something about her that called to my instinct to serve and protect, even though she could take care of herself.
Now wasn't the time to be thinking about what my attraction meant or if I even wanted to pursue her. I wasn't much for sharing, and it looked like that was exactly where it was headed with Kingston and Zayn.
After we had finished eating, we headed back to the cabin, Wren staying behind us. I couldn't blame her for being cautious around us, and she hadn't even heard me joking about eating her when she'd fallen at the warehouse. Or had she?
Back at the cabin, there was still no Zayn, and we all shifted to come up with a plan. With the murderous state he'd been in, there was no telling where he was or what he was doing. If he didn't find his sister, he might very well kill every deer between here and wherever he'd ended up.
Wren grabbed her clothes and pulled them on. They seemed to be doctored from men's clothes and smelled faintly of mildew, but she didn't seem to mind. There was no point in her shifting if we were going to go find Zayn.
"We should split up. I'll go after Zayn and you two can go deal with the mess you made before the human authorities find out." Wren lifted her arms and gathered her hair in a ponytail, did some twisting, and by some miracle, it stayed in a bun.
"Absolutely not." Kingston crossed his arms. "If you think I'm going to let you go on a wild goose chase alone, you're sorely mistaken."
I tried to hide a smile as she glared at him. "I agree with him."
She let out a sharp exhale. "I'm capable of keeping myself safe."
"Obviously not, since you were taken." Kingston was playing with fire, and I was enjoying the show. Wren was a coalition agent, and she'd probably have won in a fight.
"I was passed out from-" Her eyes went to me and then back to Kingston. "I escaped, didn't I?"
"What were you passed out from that you didn't wake up when they kidnapped you?" I hadn't taken my eyes off her.
"I'm a heavy sleeper." She was lying, and I narrowed my eyes as she looked in the direction Zayn's scent was and sniffed the air. "A storm is coming. If we're going to go after him, we need to go now before his scent gets washed away."
Kingston sniffed the air, his brows furrowed. "I don't smell any rain."
She shrugged and stepped off the porch. "Foxes have a superior sense of smell. Summer storms in the mountains are always heavy downpours too, so I better get moving."
I blocked her path. "You didn't see Zayn like we did. I'll go with you and Kingston can go back and call his other guys to help him take care of the mess Zayn made."
Kingston didn't look happy with that idea, and he rubbed the back of his neck.
I could see the wheel in his head spinning, and then he sighed.
"I don't want to split up, but I think Wren is right that the situation back in the woods and in the house needs to be taken care of. Let me have a minute with Wren."
I headed in the direction Zayn had run off in as Kingston pulled Wren close to him and buried his face in her neck. A pang of jealousy washed over me, and I shook my head at my absurdity. Wren was from a different world, and after she was done in Crescent Valley, she wasn't going to stick around.
A few minutes later, she joined me, and we walked in silence for a few minutes before I finally decided to break the awkwardness. "You're going to have quite the report to make to the coalition when we get back."
"I quit." She stood a little taller, her shoulders pushed back.
"Can you do that? I thought once you were in the coalition, you cut ties with everyone and everything and devoted your life to the job."
"I was never given the choice." She glanced over at me. "We should shift. We'll be able to go faster and protect our feet."
I wasn't letting her change the subject so quickly. "But won't they... I don't know... send an assassin or something after you?"
She laughed, the sound making my chest warm. "I guess you could say I have an in with the person who runs the entire thing. He's my father."
I had no clue who ran the coalition. They were very secretive, and unless there was a reason for them to intervene, they let packs and wolves be. Or did they also oversee other shifters too?
"Do you know about all the other types of shifters?"
"I'm not at liberty to discuss."
I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. "I know there are foxes, bears, and dragons. What else is there?"
Her eyes widened. "How do you know about dragons? Where have you seen them?"
"I think you're right, and it will save our feet and be faster if we shift." Before she could respond, I jumped forward and shifted.
I heard her do the same, and I continued toward Zayn's scent. It was over the top of his sister's, so he was still following her. The question was, how far away had they gotten?
Zayn had apparently gotten far because we had been running for what felt like hours. The sky had turned cloudy, and thunder boomed overhead, the impending summer storm getting ready to dump on us.
The entire run, I could tell Wren was holding back. She'd kept up with me and wasn't even panting, while I was about ready to keel over. I was in excellent shape, but running for a sustained amount of time was tiring.
Letting out a yip to get Wren's attention, I slowed down to a trot as the first raindrop landed on my head. We were getting farther and farther in the mountains and were currently headed down a slope.
A loud crack of thunder sounded overhead and made me nearly jump out of my skin. Wren made a sharp right, and I followed her. The rain really started coming down, and I could hardly see in front of me.
I had absolutely no clue where she was leading me. Luckily, her red coloring made it easy to see her. After about a minute of running blindly behind Wren, she turned left, and we were bathed in darkness.
No. Not again.
My chest immediately tightened, and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I tried to steer clear of caves at all costs because you never knew what was lurking inside. First, I'd led my brother into a dragons' lair, and now Wren. I had to get us out before she met the same fate as my brother.
I scrambled backward, backing right into a rock wall and banging my head on something hard overhead. I yelped as the burn of something cut my head and then my back.
Wren was next to me, her eyes widened in surprise. Or maybe it was fear. Oh, God. Had she seen a dragon? It didn't even feel like we were that far into the cave.
I couldn't breathe.
My eyes darted around wildly, looking for light to escape to. There was some coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t tell if it was to my right or left.
My head hit something again, and this time it took me to the ground, pain erupting in my skull.
"What's wrong?" Wren had shifted and was squatting next to me, the warmth of her hands going to my back. "Calm down. The ceiling isn't very high, and you keep banging your head."
Crouching down, I moved toward one of the light sources and found the exit, but it was hailing so hard I'd probably have been knocked out.
I stayed hovering as close as possible to the exit, my body shivering as the chill from the golf ball-sized hail chilled me.
Or maybe it was from the gashes on my head and back.
Wren had followed me and sat down, putting an arm around me, her fingers starting to work through my hair. I was so tense I could barely feel it. Her hand moved to my head and warmth spread across my scalp.
What the hell?
My heart started to calm down and my muscles relaxed a bit. I moved to lay my head in her lap, and she continued to do whatever she was doing. I'd hit my head harder than I thought because I could have sworn her hand was glowing.
"Want to know a secret?" Her fingers moved down to my back where I'd cut myself on a rock too.
"When I was about ten, I got so mad at my dad that I ran and ran until I couldn't run anymore.
I ended up halfway across Colorado and stumbled right into an area that allowed hunting.
Unlike wolves, I could shift since I was about five and knew better than to leave the coalition's property while in fox form. "
Her words soothed me, and my eyes grew heavy. I was certain my wounds were already healed, which was odd because they would have taken at least an hour for a cut that would normally require stitches for a human.
Had she healed me? Was that what had happened in the back of the SUV after the fight that should have killed me?
Wolves had accelerated healing, but there was only so much our bodies could repair if it was in a vital location where blood loss was high.
"I remember hearing a gunshot and being so scared I was going to be shot that I hid under a pile of leaves.
I didn't move, even when night came, and I knew I'd be missed at home.
My dad was so mad when he found me." Her hand was back on my head, this time rubbing by my ear.
"When I started training with the coalition and had to be around guns and learn to use one, I felt myself go back to that day when I thought I was being hunted. "
I shifted, my head still on her thigh. I was acutely aware that if I turned over, my face would be all up in her business. "It's being in a cave…"
She didn't stop running her fingers through my hair, and I relaxed further. When was the last time I'd enjoyed a woman's touch like this? A long-ass time.
"I assumed it was that or the dark." Her fingers moved to my back, and I stiffened as they brushed across my scars. "These are from a very large animal."
I figured she'd already seen them when we were walking back from her little tryst with Kingston. Neither of them had asked about them, though, unlike Zayn, who had come right out and asked.
"It was in the cave." I wanted to turn and see her reaction but also didn't trust myself to be so close to her while she was naked.
"I'd overheard a conversation about the dragons in the cave under the waterfall and I had to see for myself.
I made my little brother go with me and there was a dragon sleeping… "
Her fingers traced one of the scars. "But it wasn't sleeping… was it?"
"I think it was a younger dragon, or maybe a baby dragon.
It was maybe the size of a really large bear.
" I sighed and shut my eyes, trying not to cry at the image flashing in my mind of the gigantic beast we'd run into trying to escape.
"I assume it was younger because when we turned to leave, the dragon standing behind us was the size of a school bus, and it was not happy. "
Her hand paused briefly before she continued tracing the nasty scars. "But you got away."
"With the dragon being so big and blocking the only exit we could see, which was no wider than a normal door, we tried running underneath it.
It grabbed my brother and threw him toward the exit while shooting fire up to the ceiling.
I'd never been so scared in my life, Wren.
" I shuddered. "I scooped my lifeless brother up, and as I got to the doorway that would lead us to safety, the dragon swiped me. "
"I'm sorry." She sounded so sincere, and I rolled onto my back and looked up at her. Her eyes glistened in the dim gray light that was coming in from outside. "Did your brother… is he?"
"He survived. Paralyzed from the neck down. Can't shift because his body won't let him." I shut my eyes. "And it's all my fault."
"You can't blame yourself for something like that. How were you to know there were really dragons in there? Mothers are very protective of their young." She cupped my cheek, and I leaned into her touch.
Fuck.
"I went into the cave hoping there would be. My brother didn't want to go." Sighing, I sat up, not wanting to let myself enjoy her touch too much. Kingston and Zayn would kill me. "So, now I fight to help pay for his care."
"Does the pack not help with all that?"
"They do, but it gets expensive without human insurance, and if he needs a procedure, we have to find doctors and nurses who are shifters to come do it. That, and providing the location, and all the medical equipment…"
"Let me talk to my dad and see-"
"No." I turned to face her. "I don't want the coalition involved. The last thing we need is for them to whisk him away and to never see him again."
She frowned and looked down at her hands. I felt like shit for not even hearing her out, but I couldn't take any more procedures or surgeries that left us all feeling hopeful, only to let us down.
"We should get going now that the hail has stopped." She got up and stayed crouching, moving outside into the steady rain.
Why did I suddenly wish it was still hailing?