50. Emily
P art of me hadn’t believed Caleb would let me stay, but after making a total of twenty-two sandwiches—and using all the bread, cheese, and half the deli meat in the house—I’d proven I was at least useful to have around. I couldn’t throw down in a fight, but I’d at least keep our warriors fed, though Daphne was half as responsible for that, given her well-stocked pantry. I guessed it was a normal wolf thing to have that much food around. That was still a big surprise when I first opened the door.
“You can’t hide here,” Caleb said. “It’s one of the first places Gray’s men will look.”
“You think they’ll be looking for me?”
Caleb rolled over from where he lay on the floor of my temporary room. We could’ve laid on the bed, but neither of us felt like sleeping. Much like childhood weekend sleepovers, the floor was for hanging out, and the bed was for rest.
“No. I’m sure Gray gave up on that, but now he’ll be looking for anything to give him a leg up on Zach. Capturing his wife or his son would be an easy way to end an alpha fight before it even begins.”
Dear Lord, I hadn’t even thought about that. Each hour brought a new revelation about how dire the situation was. I’d never been a part of a war, and there were so many little important details that, if forgotten, could lead to catastrophe.
It felt so strange that lives were on the line and real, wonderful people were to die because of one power-hungry man.
“Your pack is so big, and with the men Tayen brought… do you think he’ll stand a chance?” I asked.
“If this is just wolf on wolf, no, we’re guaranteed to pull ahead,” Caleb answered. “The issue is, I know Gray. He doesn’t fight with honor. He won’t stick to shifter laws. I don’t know if he’d show up with grenades, wolfsbane, silver weapons, or hell, even a rocket launcher. He’s ruthless and unpredictable that way. What’s worse, he knows how to manipulate people: how to get under their skin, spot their weaknesses. If this is something he’s been planning a long time, he has complete profiles on all of us.”
“That’s what worries you?” I asked.
“Not just that.”
“What’s up?”
“No, I don’t want to get distracted right now. We need to focus on where you’re gonna hide and a plan for how you’ll stay safe.”
“If you think he has full profiles, do you think he also has items with our scent? Would any of his men specifically be tracking me down, or just looking for females in general to use as hostages or bargaining chips?”
Caleb let out a series of curses. “Shit, I didn’t even think of that. I’m sure Daphne has some scent-blocking spray somewhere.”
“She does. But also…” I ignored how my inner wolf snarled at the idea of hiding apart from Caleb. She wanted to fight at his side, to rip, tear, and spill blood to protect him. I stopped for a second and tried to calm her, but I still felt her rapidly rising to the surface while parts of me simply slipped away.
“But also?” Caleb prodded.
Caleb’s cool hand on my cheek helped center my thoughts, and I fell back into my body. The room around us faded from hyper-clarity to more normal vision. How close did I get to fully shifting?
“Sorry,” I said, ignoring how strange my voice sounded in my ears. “I think I should hide somewhere with strong smells.”
“What, like a high school boys’ locker room?”
I chuckled. Caleb always knew how to make me smile. “Actually, I was thinking of the bakery? Even when we walked by there after closing, it still smelled so good. One of the workers explained that they keep their syrup vats in the basement to help maintain the temperature. I’m sure if I went down there and made a hidey-hole in a palette of flour, my scent would be hard to catch.”
Caleb kissed me. It lasted only a flash of a moment, but I grew warm at the touch. I got swept away in another wave of giddy romanticism now that we’d confessed our feelings to each other, but then he was talking again.
“That’s brilliant,” he said. “Let me go ask Zach if he knows about the spray.”
“No need,” I said, smiling softly. “If she has it, I know where it is. She showed me where supplies are.”
Caleb stood, then offered his hand to help me get onto my feet as well. “By all means, lead the way.”
“Aye-aye, Captain!”
“Captain?” he laughed as I led him down the hall. “Where’d that come from?”
“Oh, just trying out different pet names. I’m guessing that one was a miss?”
“We can workshop it.”
“Happily.”
It was strange to go back and forth on the eve of war, but it put me at ease. I knew that no matter what happened, Caleb would always be watching out for me, always making sure I was safe. We had some difficult times ahead of us, but I believed we’d get through it.
“Here we are!” I said with a little flourish of my arms as we arrived in the bathroom. I opened a small closet barely wider than my forearm and saw multiple shelves stocked with not just toilet paper but sunscreen, bug spray, calamine lotion, and any first-aid equipment one might need for a child without accelerated healing.
“This is quite a setup," Caleb remarked.
“Daphne is good at taking care of everyone, but if she’s gonna have any scent spray, I assume it’d be in here.”
“Let me take a look.”
I shuffled to the side to let Caleb into the space, and sure enough, he pulled out a lavender-colored can decorated with teal swirls. Caleb pressed the can into my hands, then kissed the top of my forehead.
“This makes me feel a lot better,” he said.
“Me too,” I said. “I’m not thrilled about separating from you, and neither is my wolf, but this is a compromise she can get behind.”
“I hope so. This isn’t exactly orthodox.”
“Has anything about my entire life been orthodox?” I asked wryly.
“Not even remotely.” He let out a small laugh, then a tiny, bittersweet smile. “I do hope once all of this is handled and we come out the other side, you’ll get a dose of normalcy.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears.”
“Oh, I can think of better things I’d like my mouth on.”
I flushed, and my mind quickly calculated how irresponsible it would be to fool around with my brand-new boyfriend, given the situation.
“I—”
But before I even got one more syllable out, a howl cut through the night.
“They’re here!” Caleb hissed as he jolted upright.
I was instantly on high alert. It was amazing just how fast my body produced adrenaline since I’d first shifted… and pretty nauseating, too. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, that’s a scout’s warning. We know they’re here.”
My heart was thundering in my chest. “But doesn’t Gray also know that now?”
“Most likely.” Caleb grabbed my hand again, this time more firmly. “We gotta get you to the bakery!” He first pulled me along, then stopped and grabbed the spray. “Wait, we can’t have our scents leading them to us. Here, arms out.”
I did the TSA pose and held my breath as Caleb generously sprayed me. Once he was satisfied, he tossed me the can, then stood with his own arms spread.
“You do me?” he asked.
Normally, I hoped those words would lead to a very different series of actions, but I nodded and tried to spray him the exact way he covered me. It took less than a minute, but each agonizing second meant we were closer to Gray and his men bursting through the front door, killing us where we stood.
Once I was in full control of my wolf, I wanted to sign back up for therapy. It’d do me a world of good.
“Let’s go,” Caleb said as soon as we were both covered, his hand around my wrist. While his grip was firm, it wasn’t forceful. I felt guided, protected rather than corralled. It wasn’t like when Gavin had occasionally tugged me. Caleb was making sure I was safe.
I desperately wanted to be. I just wanted peace for a week where there wasn’t anyone lying to me, assaulting me, or otherwise threatening the people I loved.
We burst through the front entry of Zach’s house, the door already hanging open. No doubt Zach had launched himself outside the moment he heard the howl. As we tore down the street, I saw dozens of wolves running in different directions, and though they weren’t moving in unison, it wasn’t frantic or chaotic, just each of them headed to an assigned position.
It wasn’t the right time, but it just reminded me how much I had to learn about the pack. I hoped one day, I’d be integrated enough to have a task in emergencies beyond just hiding , but that time hadn’t arrived.
I just hoped we all survived long enough to have that conversation.
We made it to the bakery, and I turned the handle, only to realize it was locked. I panicked, wondering if my entire idea was up in smoke because I’d forgotten something as simple as securing a key, but Caleb urged me aside and jimmied the door open like it was nothing.
“Perks of a tortured past,” he said with a rueful shrug before giving me a quick kiss. “Be safe, alright? Remember, if there’s any trouble…”
“I run.”
“Yes. You run, and you call me for help.”
“I will. I promise.”
One more kiss, but it was entirely too quick, interrupted by yet another panicked howl. With that, he urged me inside, then rushed off into the night.
It looked like I was on my own for the moment.
I closed the door and headed towards the back. I assumed the door to the basement was located there. But then my body lurched to the side.
“Not now,” I groaned in a breathless whisper. “Stay down, girl. This is for our own good.” My inner wolf tore at the barriers of my mind, infuriated, feeling tricked, but I placated her as best I could. “If you want to protect him, you have to let Caleb do what he needs to. What he needs is for us to be safe.”
I didn’t know if I could direct my thoughts to her. I wished I knew more about my wolf, that we were an actual team, but I just couldn’t draw on our connection the way I did before to save Simon.
Then she relented, and I stumbled past the employee entrance, where I encountered dozens of ovens and complicated machines. It took me longer to find the door leading to the basement, and then I heard sharp barks and sounds of conflict.
Holy shit, were people fighting already?
Although I’d accepted the coming storm since Tayen told us about Gray’s attack, now it was real. Somewhere above my head, Caleb was fighting not only for his life, but mine and everyone else in the pack.
Nothing could happen to him. Because if it did…
No. I couldn’t think that. I just needed to hide.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I’d have normally turned on some light. My wolf eyes adjusted much more rapidly, however, and saw far more sharply than my human pair ever could. I looked around and tried to figure out the best place.
Instinct told me to go to the far end and duck behind supply boxes, but then what if someone came down? I’d be trapped in that corner and have to fight past them to get to the stairs.
No, I needed someplace sneakier. Someplace they wouldn’t necessarily expect right off the bat.
That’s when I turned around and noticed a tiny inset door below the stairs. Hoping it led to a Harry Potter-like crawl space underneath, I hurried over. It didn’t respond when I pulled the handle, as if it was made of solid steel, but when I pushed, it gave way with a groan, revealing a dusty, cobweb-filled space. It was short enough that I couldn’t stand up straight and was filled mostly with paint supplies, light bulbs, and tools.
Perfect.
I shut the door, and this time, I was cloaked in total darkness. It was intimidating, and I felt panic claw its way up my throat. But I pushed that down, down, down into the deepest depths. For the moment, I needed to be as brave as possible. For myself. For Caleb. For the pack.
I pressed myself against the wall, hoping for some anchor in the complete pitch black, when I remembered something I’d learned from hide and seek when I was a kid. For doors that opened inwards, it was easy to hide behind them—that way, when someone stepped in, they’d be blocking sight of you with the door. Thus, I pressed myself against the wall right beside the entryway. It wasn’t easy, and I used my hand to lead the way, but I made it. I just didn’t want to know what my palms looked like, or how many spiders were in the general vicinity. Sometimes, it was best to not think about such things.
Then I waited.
Thanks to a long scholastic career, I’d gotten used to periods of boredom, times when I had to stay extremely still and concentrate, despite the fact that my mind wanted to be anywhere else. But none of that anticipation or anxiety compared to the sounds of a fight creeping closer and closer.
Then I heard gunshots.
I yelped when I heard the first one, a crack of lightning across the night. I’d heard guns a few times in my life, but none of them could compare to now. It sounded like they were going off right above my head, even if the echoes were quite a distance away.
Looked like Caleb was right, unfortunately. Gray had no interest in fighting with honor. I just hoped for all our sakes that he wasn’t using silver or wolfsbane weapons, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
It was torture just standing there, listening, dreading, not knowing what was happening. It built up inside, a slow, sickly cancer that ate away at my mind. I tried my best to focus my heart and mind, keeping them both steady. The last thing I needed was my pheromones flooding so they broke through the spray, or my heartbeat escalating so any enemy heard me a mile away.
It felt like full years were passing, a long, endless march of fear and violence testing my limits to the extreme. In some moments, I was sure everything was fine and the fight would be over in a few minutes, and in others, I worried it’d last forever. My thoughts ran in circles, not helped by my wolf’s pacing. She wanted out. She wanted to fight. On and on, it went, a never-ending crescendo within.
Until the door opened.
At that, the cacophony stopped. I went dead silent, holding my breath as best I could.
“Hey, what are you doing in there?” a voice barked. “You about to snack in the middle of all this?”
I didn’t recognize that voice, and I doubted any Lincoln Hill members were swinging by the closed bakery while fighting for their lives.
Which meant two of Gray’s men were right above my head.
“Just giving it a look,” another voice called back. “Don’t you think it’s strange we ain’t seen no kids around? No grannies or sick?”
“They’re all hiding in the Chapel or someplace safe.”
God, yes. Go to the Chapel. Get the hell away from me!
“Nah, I think some are wise to us or hidden in all sorts of little mouseholes. These old packs… I don’t think the boss understands what they’ve been up against. You gotta meet them on their level.”
“What, you do?”
“Yeah. My family didn’t escape Europe by the obvious route. Gray wants them hurting so bad, they can’t help but surrender, but if you wanna hurt people like this, you gotta hit them where they’re weakest.”
“Whatever, man. You do what you gotta do. I’ll keep looking for anyone who needs a silver dagger.”
“Told ya to go for the tranq guns.”
“Eh, not my style. Never had the best aim, anyways. I prefer something more hands-on.”
It was far more insidious than I’d ever expected—two people casually talking about the violence they planned to inflict on my newfound people. For the first time, I was so glad the process of getting my parents to visit Maplewood was so slow. I couldn’t imagine them hiding out with me, unable to hear or even see and smell as I did. Thankfully, they were safe at home, away from all the violence and turmoil.
Unless Gray had gotten to them there.
The thought stuck out, and my whole body went cold. Surely he wouldn’t… ever since the Maplewood Pack got custody of me, he’d given up on me, or at least that was what everyone had assumed. He wouldn’t need to go after my parents.
But in reality, none of us knew that for sure.
To my great surprise, instead of being filled with fear, even horror, an indescribable rage built up inside me. I tried to clamp down so it wouldn’t affect my scent, but it burned like a star, resplendent, unforgiving, unstoppable.
Shit, shit, shit! Get a hold of yourself!
But my wolf was again snarling, all teeth and claws in my mind.
Protect! Must protect! Save pack. SAVE PACK!
I didn’t know how she was so loud without making any noise, but I lost track of the mercenaries after me.
Until I heard one open the “Employees Only” door above my head.
He was getting closer. How much longer until he found me? Something inside said I’d never been that lucky, and I shouldn’t count on that changing now.
But what to do? I couldn’t run out past him.
At least not yet.
If I thought my time waiting before was painful, it was ten times worse with the stranger prowling above. I listened as he made an entire circuit of the place, thankfully passing right by the basement door. For a moment, I was in the clear… then he circled back to do another perimeter sweep.
“Oh, what’s this now? A little rat hole?” He said it as a taunt, like he knew I was listening, and I realized that was part of his strategy. Hiding from a predator was a game of patience and perseverance. If I let my fear override me, I’d make a rash decision that put me in danger, like leaving my hiding spot because I assumed he already knew my location. He was bluffing. He had to be.
But what was the plan if he found me? If he was determined to search every square inch of the building, confrontation was inevitable. I refused to be a victim anymore, which meant I needed to be proactive.
Having a mental task helped, and I felt my heartbeat calm as my mind threw itself into all the variables. I ticked them off one by one, extrapolating as best I could from my limited experience. As he walked down each basement step, I lived through another mental scenario, one after the other, most of them ending in violence or even death.
“What do we have here?” He’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and in my mind, I solidified several different options. I wasn’t naive enough to think I’d radically change course as the situation developed, but I had to adapt if I wanted to live.
Just as I expected, the enemy walked away at first, heading towards the far corner I’d originally spotted.
“Hey, you still in here?”
The other guy was back! I couldn’t tell where he was, but I knew he saw the open basement door. To hide from one person determined to find and kill me was already a Herculean task. Two was monumentally more difficult.
“I’m down here,” the original called back. I was sure from his voice that he was facing away from me. But then the other one was racing down the stairs, landing with an audible thump at the bottom.
“Did you find anything yet?”
“No, nothing. But someone’s here, I can sense it.”
“Did you check behind that door there?”
“What door?”
Fuck!!! Of course the second one had spotted it. It was only natural that he was scanning the area opposite his friend.
I braced myself and drew in the longest, quietest breath I could, then held it in.
“Would you look at that?” the original hunter said, turning and walking in my direction. “Didn’t even notice that.”
“So much for those European ancestor instincts.”
“Don’t get cocky. I’d have noticed it eventually.”
“I believe you.” Surprisingly, it was the newcomer who approached the door, not the original. I focused with all of my might on slowing my heartbeat. I imagined I’d been locked in an iceberg, my entire body getting sluggish as I froze. A bit macabre, but it helped.
Closer. Closer. I listened to his footsteps march forward like a funeral procession, one right after another until he was in front of the door.
As he opened it, light spilled in from the entryway—one of them must have turned on the light during their search—but I stayed completely still, chest frozen. I didn’t even blink for fear they’d somehow see it.
Just as I’d hoped, the door was completely blocking me from his sight. I could see nothing but a sliver of his shirt through the gap between the wall and hinges.
“Ain’t nothing here. Guess those instincts aren’t so shabby after all.”
Then he closed the door.
As nice as it’d have been to sigh in relief and finally breathe normally, they were still far too close. All I could do was close my eyes and celebrate inside.
“Hold on a minute. I’m not so sure about that.”
That was the original one, and I knew by his tone that he had some idea of my trick. The jig was up. It was time to implement one of those alternate strategies.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
I took another long, slow breath, bracing myself and listening as the original man turned the door handle, then pushed it open.
“See, you gotta watch out for these kind of thi?—”
He didn’t finish his sentence, and that was because I’d kicked the door with all my might, slamming it into his side. I expected him to stumble, but instead, I kicked it hard enough that it cracked nearly in two, sending the man crashing to the ground.
I was so much stronger now.
I ducked around the door and lunged out, ducking into a sloppy roll, then popping up in front of the other man.
“What the?—”
I slammed the top of my head into his nose as hard as I physically could. It turned out that was hard enough to break it, given the warm blood in my hair.
Gross.
But if he was a shifter, he’d heal in a handful of minutes, so I didn’t let myself celebrate. Instead, I bolted all the way up the stairs. I needed to get away. I promised Caleb that I’d be safe, that I’d run if I was in danger, and I fully intended to keep my promise.
“Get up, you idiot! Grab her!”
“Shut the fuck up, man! She busted my nose.”
I erupted out the bakery front, fully intending to sprint into the woods, but skidded to a stop when I came face to face with what’d been happening above.
The first thing I saw was fire. Several trees were lit up, and I saw a couple of people putting out the blaze with hoses while a dozen wolves protected them, fighting off interlopers. Even from where I was standing, I could smell that they weren’t from our pack.
I saw broken glass on the ground and other fights between wolves. Some against humans.
“There you are!”
I didn’t have to turn around to know it was one of my pursuers, and I brought myself out of shock. I bolted forward, but I knew I’d invited disaster by stopping for even a moment. Dammit!
I help.
This time, I didn’t falter when my wolf cried out, her voice sounding far less feral than before.
Let. Help.
I wanted to tell her no, because I couldn’t trust her to do what we needed, but I wasn’t going to outrun my pursuers as a human.
Okay, I thought, slowly letting go of the grip on myself. But remember our promise to our mate.
Yes. Be safe. I keep us safe for our mate.
It was the longest sentence she’d ever uttered in my mind, and I took that as a sign. In mid-step, I let my senses expand, and then I fell out of my body.
I’d never moved while shifting before. My body jerked in a couple of directions, but I still kept momentum all the way up until I fell on my four legs. For a fleeting moment, I was afraid they’d catch me right then and there, but in the next second, I was enveloped by steam. Soon, I was exploding out of the dense fog in wolf form.
Run. Hide. Protect. Be safe.
She repeated it like a mantra as we whipped by trees faster than I ever could. After a moment of shock, I thought, Why the hell not, and joined in.
Run! Hide! Protect! Be safe!
At first, the chant started off as two separate voices speaking together, but the more we repeated it, the more we merged into one tone, like two sides of the same coin instead of separate creatures fighting for control over the same body. We were different parts, but whole.
I’d never felt so close to her, or to myself, and that revelation spurred us onward. I trusted her completely and gave up the last of my reservations. Either the two of us would make it out of this night as a team, or not at all.
It wasn’t until we erupted onto a narrow path that I realized where she was going. It was the same way Caleb had carried me after our kiss in the woods, when he’d practically absconded me to Zach’s house for us to while away a few hours, making each other cum. At first, I wasn’t quite sure why she chose this direction until I remembered what had set Caleb and me off.
The ravine.
We reached it far more quickly than I’d expected, and instead of sailing over it, my wolf jumped down into it, landing on all fours, then pitching to the side and rolling this way and that. I wasn’t sure what she was doing at first until she popped up with our body completely coated in the muck. My lighter fur was now much harder to make out in the dead of night, and whatever scent had broken through the pheromone-suppressing spray was now totally muted.
Hell, yeah!
Pride swelled in my chest as she crawled further through the ravine on her belly until she pushed herself up against a fallen log. I tried not to think of how many creepy crawlies lived in the wet, rotting wood. Instead, I watched as our two pursuers, who’d shifted as well, sailed over the ravine and bolted off further into the forest, no doubt chasing a scent trail that didn’t exist.
I hadn’t expected that to work in a million years, but it did. All thanks to my wolf.
Thank you, I breathed internally.
Protect. Be safe.
I nodded, but the closest thing I’d felt to safety during our frantic run ebbed, and we slowly separated again into two different entities. That was alright. Now that I knew that bridge existed, I believed I’d access it again. I still wasn’t in full control of my wolf, but we were many steps closer than before.
We waited a good long while, just listening. Although I felt the temptation from my wolf to join in the fight, Caleb’s words lingered in both our minds. Stay safe. Hide.
He put his trust in us, so we’d listen.
But sitting still wasn’t exactly my wolf’s forte, and I felt her energy draining as she fought to keep herself as tranquil as possible. Bit by bit, I felt my humanity rearing closer to the surface.
We’ve got to make it out of this ravine before you go back to sleep, I urged, seeing how it’d be so easy to get stuck in the mud.
My wolf let out a huff, but pushed us up to our feet as we climbed up the embankment.
It was more a series of jumps, each decreasing in power thanks to the poor traction beneath our feet, and wherever we landed, we’d always slide back a few steps. But it was progress—careful, quiet progress.
However, as we were making the last jump, the one that hopefully put us over the edge, a chunk of the ground completely slipped out from underneath us. Our side banged hard into the wall of mud.
Something about it utterly knocked the wind out of us, and soon I was in my human form, sliding down the sharp incline.
Fuck!
I dug my feet into the muck and tried to push myself upwards, reaching blindly above my head for a root, something, anything I could grab onto, but there was nothing there. My muscles were already screaming from everything that had happened before, and adrenaline only went so far.
“I’ve got you!”
Suddenly, there was a hand over the embankment, and it gripped my wrist. The hold was painful, but more than worth it as I got dragged to safety. I couldn’t believe it! I was saved. Once I’d been pulled out of the ravine and was on solid ground, I lay there a moment, panting and looking up at my savior.
“Bray!” I gasped, surprised to see him.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said with a crooked smile. “You’ll give me a hero complex.”
“Well then, stop acting like a hero,” I whispered, realizing we were still in the middle of a battle, but even just lying still for a few seconds was helping my body recover. Shifter anatomy was incredible.
“I’ll try. You know, I put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.” We shared a quiet chuckle, then he offered me his hand. It was tempting to stay on the ground, yet I knew it wasn’t safe here. I took his hand and let him help me to my feet.
“Come on,” he said, not letting go of my hand. I didn’t like that, but didn’t think he meant anything by it. It was perfectly natural under the circumstances. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
I took a couple of steps before I saw a dark stain across his side, and another spatter across his collar. It took another beat to realize exactly what it was.
Blood.
“You’re hurt!” I blurted out, not realizing how selfish I’d been about not checking in on him. If he was in human form, it was because his wolf form had sustained some real damage or he’d run out of energy. I should have noticed!
“Don’t worry about it,” he dismissed. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” It was an awful lot of blood, even for a shifter, but he was walking pretty normally and wasn’t in pain...
“It’s no big deal. I promise.”
If he was injured as a wolf, how was there blood on his human clothes? I didn’t get how we kept most of our clothes when we shifted, but stains didn’t transfer from one form to another. Was he injured while human? As far as I knew, injuries in human form took longer to heal, yet he was walking along like nothing was wrong.
A sinking feeling welled up in my gut, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was wrong, and my inner wolf only echoed the sentiment.
Scent pack?
I didn’t know what she meant until I took a deep breath and realized the blood on him smelled familiar. But I’d never been around Bray when he was wounded. It smelled like pack … which meant it didn’t belong to him, but someone from Lincoln Hills.
I froze and missed a step. My mind was suddenly racing as I tried to figure out the least suspicious way to extricate myself from him.
“You okay?” An angelic smile spread across Bray’s good-looking features.
“I’m f-fine,” I sputtered, trying for the life of me to sound normal. I still saw suspicion bloom in the other shifter’s eyes. God, I wished I was better at lying. “I think we should head back towards camp.”
“No, that’s where the worst of it’s going on. Trust me, I’ve helped a few others get to a safe place this way—a little cave I found.”
I knew there weren’t any caves near the camp.
“Well, then, we should see if we can go back and lead anyone else to safety. I’m in good shape, I promise… I want to help.” Even though I knew I was right, I hoped to God somehow it was all in my head. Bray would send a beaming grin and agree that both of us should be heroes for the night.
Instead, he just shook his head, and his grip on my hand felt pulverizing.
“What tipped you off?” His tone switched from quiet and pleasant to a nauseating chill. Each word dripped with a venom I’d never expected from his mouth. “I thought I was doing pretty good at playing Prince Charming.”
There it was. I yanked and tried to get away, but he just gripped my wrist even harder. I heard my bones pop in his grasp. He was bigger, stronger, more experienced, and faster, too.
I didn’t know whether he wanted to take me as a prisoner, or worse, but I didn’t want to stick around and find out. If I was going to live to see another day, I needed help.
I took the deepest breath I could, opened my mouth, and screamed.
“ Caleb!!!”