Chapter Thirty-Three
I’d hidden it from everyone, but I was injured. Not a little, but a lot. I’d been overwhelmed by wolves, and I hadn’t been able to take the time to find whatever magic I’d taken from Zach, and the supposed demon magic Anika had sworn she’d felt.
And I still believed that was because I needed my demon blade to access it.
I would have died before I’d shifted, because that taboo was too ingrained in me. A wolf didn’t shift where the humans could see. A supernatural didn’t flaunt her power in front of the humans.
It wasn’t just about me or my fear of discovery. It was about things that neither the supernaturals nor the humans were ready for. It was about the hell that would come for us when the humans discovered we existed, and the people who would die. The war that would begin.
Hell was for the demons, and I wasn’t doing anything to bring it to the rest of us. Not if I had a choice.
I was angry, though. I wasn’t immortal. If I was going to protect the city, the humans, and the most vulnerable of the nonhumans, I needed tools. Not just my wolf or my shapeshifter. They kept me from dying during my battles, sure, and they would help me heal.
But when I couldn’t shift and fight or shift and heal, because there were humans and a city full of cameras, then I was less. I just was.
And Gavin Voss was putting us all at risk by sending in wolves to shift where anyone could see.
I kept my mouth shut about my injuries and drove Zach to Shadowfield to see Doc Hayes. Zach couldn’t shift and heal, but the doctor and time would fix him up. And I would shift and run through the woods. I would heal.
But damn, I missed my magic, and I missed my blade.
And I realized I was still grieving the loss of them both. Funnily enough, I missed my blade more than my magic.
“Go on in,” I told Zach after I parked. “I’m going to run a bit.”
He pushed his door open, a quiet groan escaping before he turned back to look at me. “How bad are you?”
I made a shooing motion. “I’m fine. I just want to shift and heal up before I get ready for work.”
He frowned, but finally, he got out of the car and walked toward the community building that housed the wolves’ clinic. But I could see him lifting his phone to his ear as he walked, and I sighed.
Most likely he was calling Jared.
I left the car, finally, dragging my left foot as I limped toward the woods. No one was watching. I could limp if I needed to.
I remembered walking through those very woods on the hunt for an exsoloup back when I didn’t know the pack. When I didn’t really know Jared. They’d treated me like garbage then.
Now, though…
“Kait, Kait!”
A hiss of pain floated from between my clenched teeth when I turned to see who was calling me and why they were delaying me from my shift.
First, I saw only a lone wolf, her long hair loose and flying in the wind as she raced toward me, and then I saw the others. A dozen of them, then maybe a dozen more.
I frowned, swaying a little as my body fought to stay upright now that the adrenaline had left me, and watched them come.
The wolf who’d called out to me, a dark-haired girl named Sonya, reached me first.
“What do you need?” I asked. “Did something happen?” Fear seized my heart and I grabbed her arm. “Is Voss here?”
I couldn’t possibly fight him right now. I needed half an hour. Just thirty minutes and I’d go at him as my wolf, my teeth and claws ready to—
“No, no, Kait,” the girl said gently, just as the others reached us. They milled around, some of them reaching out to touch my arm, one of them frowning as she pressed her fingers against my ribs, half of which felt caved in.
And then, some of them began to shift to their wolves. “We’re going to run with you,” Sonya said. “We’re going to protect you while you heal.” Her lips trembled as she watched me. “Run and heal, Alpha. We’ll be with you.”
There were murmured agreements all around, and smiles, and then, one after the other, they burst into their shifts.
I burst into tears.
It was probably the sweetest thing I’d ever experienced.
They’d accepted me as their alpha. Oh, they’d never choose me over Jared, but that was the way it should have been. My pack would never have chosen Jared over me.
But both packs accepted both alphas as theirs.
Energized, I shifted and took the lead, running free and wild through the deep woods with the wolves spreading out around me. We ran and played and chased and ate, and I healed.
I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect until my alpha arrived, trotting into the woods, his head up and tail high, face stern, the huge wolf surveying his pack and his woman, his love, his wolf.
I was lying beneath a tree, watching the evening sun through the growing leaves, thinking about dozing. Jared came to me and nosed away some younger wolves who were too close to me, then stretched out beside me.
He licked my face tenderly, and we lay against each other until the day began fading into night. I was reluctant to shift back. I might have stayed in the woods forever if I could have, with my alpha and my peace, but the woman had work to do and a more complicated life to live.
I kept my shift until the very last moment, though, shifting only when we reached the back door to Jared’s house. Just inside the door, hanging on hooks, was a row of thin robes. Both Jared and I dressed, not wanting to appear dirty and naked in front of his housekeeper Nell and her assistant Evan.
Nell kept the house pristine. Not that it hadn’t seen its share of blood and gore.
Before we left the room, Jared pulled me to him and wrapped me up in his arms. “You’re okay?”
I tightened my arms around his waist. “I am.”
“Zach told me what happened.”
I pulled back to look up at him. “How is he doing?”
“Ben patched him up. Voss is trying to weaken you and your backup. And he’s trying to make you afraid by attacking the people you care about.”
“He’s trying to piss me off,” I growled, “and he’s succeeding. I’m going to hunt him down, Jared. He wants me to run so he can chase me, and to hide so he can find me. I’m not playing his games.”
“I have people searching for him day and night, Kait.” He blew out a breath, attempting to keep his frustration under control. “He’s able to hide from me. I don’t know how. I can’t track him. I can’t catch his scent. When I get to a place he’s been staying, he’s gone before I get there.”
“He’s not like us,” I said. “He’s a freak. A mutant werewolf with magic. I’ve never even heard of such a creature. The only thing I had that stopped him has been taken from me.”
He took my hand and led me from the room, down the hallway, and into the kitchen.
“Sometimes I wish you were a normal mate,” he said, pulling out a chair at the table.
“Then I’d forbid you to return to the council.
I’d keep you from hunting Voss.” He tilted my face up and kissed my lips.
“I’d feed you until you were fat and happy, fuck you until you were exhausted, and make sure you never wanted for anything.
” He kissed me again, and I grinned against his lips.
“You’d be bored in a week, Alpha. I know you want me just as I am, even though you worry.”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “I am happy because you’re you,” he said. “And because you’re mine.”
“I thought I heard voices,” Nell said, hurrying into the kitchen. “Jared! Sit down with Kait. I’ll make you both some dinner.”
I was hungry. I’d missed my dinner at the mayor’s, after all.
“Maybe a little something,” I said, even as my stomach growled.
“My goodness,” Nell said, rushing to the cupboard. “Is there a wolf hiding under the table? I can feed your friend, too, Kait.” She laughed heartily.
While she cooked us up a “little” something, I told Jared everything that had happened at the mayor’s house. I told him about Anika Draper, too.
When I was nearly finished, Lucy called.
“Lucy,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m just feeling restless and…alone, I guess. I wish Sam would come home.”
“Call him, Luce. Tell him you need him. He will be there.”
“Maybe I will,” she said.
I knew she wouldn’t.
“How is Rick?” Jared asked when I finished talking to Lucy.
I linked my fingers with his as we walked from the kitchen. “He’ll be okay. This time.” My body tensed up at the thought of Rick’s vulnerability. “I wish he wasn’t human,” I said fiercely. “It’s just so easy for them to die.”
Jared grasped my shoulders and leaned forward to kiss me. He pulled back, then stared down at me, softening only when I reached up to touch his face.
“What are you thinking?” I murmured.
He tightened his arms around me. “I was thinking that human or not, we will always worry about the ones we love.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I promised to call him if I needed him, kissed him goodbye, and called to check on Rick on my way to the car. I hoped I wouldn’t wake him.
My call went straight to his voicemail, which was a surprise. He never turned his phone off. But it was likely he had a concussion, and he wasn’t going to be able to deal with phone calls. He needed to rest.
I left him a message, then hurried into a night which I figured would be business as usual as I dealt with clients and their ghosts.
But as sometimes happened, I figured wrong.