Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
GARRETT
My cabin’s small, far enough from camp that I don’t hear the Christmas carols the kids were singing yesterday when I headed to the dining hall.
I’ve gone from pacing inside to circling outside, wearing a path into the ground.
Sutton sits on the felled log by my firepit, tracking my every move.
Frank returned to his cabin yesterday. Probably couldn’t stand being away from his mate any longer.
That’s a drive I never had with Marla. Just an overwhelming sense of loss.
Sutton’s still single, which means he’s not going anywhere.
After the fifteenth lap around my cabin, I grind to a halt.
“Tire your wolf out yet?”
My wolf’s as agitated as I am, probably more. We both know what we have to do. The question is how.
I strip down, open my front door, and toss my clothing in. When I turn around, Sutton’s standing there, his shirt neatly folded on the log.
“I’m going for a run. Alone.”
“I have my orders, Garrett. We both do.” With a thud he drops his boots and finishes stripping. “I’ll give you the space you need.” He shifts seamlessly into a tan and white wolf, making me wonder if he’s part white wolf, especially given how fast he shifted.
I shift quicker than expected. It appears my wolf is cooperating. For now.
At first, I run toward the border, my wolf aware of Sutton behind us, closing the gap. They all think I’m going to run.
I shouldn’t disappoint them.
Putting every ounce of energy I have into darting through the trees, I disappear from Sutton’s view, creating trails where none exist, coming dangerously close to the border.
Sutton’s howl is my only warning. I don’t heed it, pushing on parallel to the markers.
When I catch a patrol’s scent nearby, I follow it, race toward them, catching their attention.
By now, Frank’s informed them I’m not to leave the territory.
The guards’ primary function—keeping outsiders from entering—has shifted to keeping one of their own prisoner.
I don’t know what means they’re allowed to use to accomplish that task, but I’m about to find out.
I nearly collide with the patrol, forcing my wolf to take a hard right, sending a wall of dirt into Tiberius’ and Mason’s wolves. Immediately, both wolves are nipping at my heels, a little too close for comfort.
The guards have speed, I’ll grant them that, but they don’t know what I’m doing. I can outrun them easily… but I don’t. Not yet.
Another howl echoes through the woods. This warning’s from Mason. I’ll have to watch myself with him. He’s the more experienced of the three.
It takes two miles skirting the border before I finally lose the guards, and only because I left our territory and bound across the four-lane interstate. Most shifters avoid the highway. I’m not most shifters. But I’m also not one to defy orders, not easily. That’s what gets a shifter killed.
Damn it, Marla… why didn’t you listen?
My wolf turns back, with barely a nudge from me.
We’re in sync for a change. He and I both needed the run, the challenge of losing the guards, but this is about more than outrunning packmates.
Which is why I head past the patrols without stopping to explain myself and take the most direct path into camp.
Dead center of the camp, I shift back to human form, in front of the Christmas tree, though I keep that behind me where I don’t have to look at it and think of Marla. She died a week before Christmas.
Breakfast is outdoors today, on tables set up in the center of the camp. That means someone forgot to open the vents in the cookhouse chimney again and the place is being aired out. And I’m standing here like a naked fool, staring at the woods.
Despite the dozens of people passing me on their way to and from breakfast, no one throws me clothes, no one says a word.
Damien finally stands up from the table where he and Tess were eating alongside his top shifters.
I run my eyes down the line of shifters.
Tess’s expression betrays her concern, though I’m not sure if that’s for me or Damien.
The others, Hayden and Mila, Frank and Del, Blade and Anna… they’re watching, but remain seated.
I’m no threat to Damien or his rule. It’s not like I’ve ever shown any desire to challenge the alpha, even though I’m from the alpha line. And Damien’s already made it clear that Hayden takes over if anything happens to him.
Damien stops three feet from me, his eyes locking on mine. I know that stare all too well. It’s a mix of trying to figure out what the fuck I’m thinking and what to do about me.
Three wolves—Sutton, Tiberius, and Mason—shoot into camp at top speed, slamming to a halt when they see me and Damien facing one another. Tiberius lunges for me, but Sutton and Mason hold him back. I guess I pissed him off with my run.
“You want to do this here?” Damien asks.
“Does it matter where?”
“Not really.”
“You put a guard on me, Damien. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’ve been telling you that since Marla’s death. Two years, Garrett. I won’t tell you to get over it, no matter how I’m tempted, but something needs to change, before you destroy yourself.”
“Are you past Zachary’s death?”
Damien’s lips thin at the mention of his brother.
“I didn’t think so.”
“We all lose people, good shifters, but we can’t lose ourselves in the process. We have to be strong for the pack.”
“Are you saying I’m a threat to the pack’s safety? Or that the pack matters more than the individual shifters? You’ve condemned Angelina without even meeting her.”
“I trust the people I send out on ops to report to me with honesty, and they did. You lost your objectivity. Hayden says this female shifter—”
“Angelina,” I growl. “Why the fuck can’t you use her name? She’s a shifter, due at least that much respect.”
“Fine. As I was saying, Hayden says Angelina reminded him of Marla. Blonde hair, blue eyes.”
Was she similar? No. Marla had dark blonde hair, and blue-green eyes, nothing like Angelina whose eyes make me think of the open sky and freedom. A freedom I haven’t known since… fuck, since Marla died.
My wolf growls at me, and for once I agree with him. This isn’t about Marla.
“Maybe I haven’t been myself. And Christmas…
” I force myself to take in the tree, with the decorations the teens have started hanging.
Garland made from baby pine cones, and the occasional red, silver, and blue ornament.
I wince when I see a silver ornament, like the one Marla had fawned over in Devil’s Peak.
“The kids are in charge of decorating this year,” Damien says, as if it’s a neutral topic he can use to calm me. “This should be interesting.”
Christmas held meaning to me when I was young. Marla and I traded gifts each year. Small trinkets usually, like a whittling knife for me, a hair clip for her. Even when she refused to blood-bond, she gave me a Christmas gift, a fishing hook. A week before our fight. A week before she died.
“That was Marla’s idea,” Damien continues. “Letting the teens take over the decorating, so they’d feel more important.”
“That’s what she struggled with. Feeling useful. It’s why she asked me to train her how to infiltrate.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was no one’s.”
He’s finally stopped saying it was Marla’s fault for not listening. He doesn’t get it. Yes, she disobeyed orders, but that changes nothing. She’s still dead. Fuck…
I tilt my head, looking up to the top where there’s no star, just the perfect cap of a fifty-foot pine that towers over the houses surrounding it.
Despite its majesty, one of a million others in our forest, it’s the decorations that reflect who we are as a pack.
Straightforward, simple, with a penchant for stepping beyond the norm as required.
This is one of those times.
“I’ll get it together, Damien. My wolf and I are… somewhat disconnected.”
“Not feral?”
“Not even close. We’re at odds right now.” And I’m not sure why. That’s the puzzling part.
“You can’t be that at odds.” He motions toward the guards who chased me. “It took them a full three minutes to catch up to you. I take it you ran them in circles.”
I appreciate the hint of pride in his voice. No one wants a screw up in the family, even a second cousin.
“That’s the thing about an infiltration specialist, we’re great at not just getting in, but getting out of tight spots.”
“Point taken.”
“Call off the guards, Damien. Unless I’m a prisoner in my own pack.”
“I’m responsible for you and everything you do.”
As I was for Marla. That didn’t end well. Maybe if I’d been more observant, like Hayden. Or authoritative, like Damien.
“Move back to the center of camp, Garrett.”
“Where you can watch me? You either trust me or you don’t.”
“Isolating yourself isn’t helping you.”
“I didn’t tell you how to grieve Zach when he was killed. Don’t tell me how to grieve Marla. Unless that’s an order, alpha.”
He raises a brow at the formal address for what had been a friendly conversation. “Not an order. A request from family.”
I hate when he pulls that family shit. But if I want him to call off the guards, I need to play nice. More or less.
“I’ll consider it. Right now, I’m going home. Without any guards.” My voice holds an edge I’ve never used with an alpha before. Surprisingly, my wolf doesn’t chastise me.
With a nod to Damien, a sign of respect I won’t abandon even when I’m pissed at him, I step away and weave through the tables, ignoring the tantalizing smell of bacon and coffee, and that portion of my brain that tempts me to join them, to… catch up, see how they’re all doing.
“We’re having a bonfire tonight, Garrett,” Sadie Lynn says as I pass her. With a slight nudge from Kate next to her, Sadie Lynn approaches me.
Her dark hair is hanging loose on her shoulders instead of pulled up in a ponytail like she normally wears it, and her eyes have an extra sparkle today. She’s cute, smart, a hard-working shifter… and nothing about her calls to me.
Marla had been just as cute, though with a competitive edge. Her wolf never called to mine either, but we’d known each other since we were kids.
I always thought we’d be together. She had other ideas. And then they killed her.
Now, it seems the pack is pushing me toward Sadie Lynn. She deserves someone who isn’t messed up in the head.
“I think I need some time alone, Sadie Lynn. Have fun, and tell the kids… tell them the tree looks particularly cheery this year. They’re doing a great job.”
I keep walking. Sadie Lynn steps aside to let me disappear into the woods where I belong. This is my pack, but it’s not my home anymore. I don’t know where that leaves me.
That scent of lilac returns, but it’s not from anywhere around here. There’s no lilac in the middle of a Colorado winter. That unique scent is what my wolf stored away from our op in Wyoming, in that pass where one beautiful and brave shifter convinced me and my team to leave.
Halfway to my cabin, lost in thoughts of Marla, Sadie Lynn, and Angelina, I circle back to verify that no one’s following me. My wolf eases because Damien realizes I won’t be contained.
Me, I can’t rest. Not until I find Angelina.
Tomorrow. I’m heading out alone—without backup, without permission—and I will find her. If I’m wrong about her, I’ll only be putting myself at risk. No one else will die because of me.