Chapter 37 Mona
Cynthia offered to let me borrow her cell phone while Grayson and Orion were gone, but I was worried I'd cling to the thing, so I thanked her but said no. They've only been gone half a day—I've gone this long without seeing them since I got to Silent Peak—but this feels different.
I pass the day doing drills with Eli and Kellen.
Eli is stern, walks with militant posture, like Cynthia and Andrea, but he's gentle as he walks me through adjustments and suggestions for improvement.
Meanwhile, his husband, Kellen, is definitely the more fun, easygoing of the two—and has zero problem throwing me in the deep end, picking me up and throwing me around while I practice.
I know my bruises will be gone by tonight, and wolves don't have the same gender roles that humans do, but there's something demeaning about being tossed around by Kellen, like he's my hyperactive teenage brother. It's a refreshing change of pace, but still totally sucks.
He reminds me of Orion in some ways; how wild he can be. Seemingly relaxed. Beneath the surface, a feral alpha.
Which sends me on a whole other spiral of missing my mates, and at one point, after trying to exercise to redirect my thoughts and finding it useless, I call it a night and head back to the cabin.
Kellen and Eli stay over, but by the end of the night, I'm not feeling great and go to bed early.
I sneak into Grayson's room after stealing a handful of Orion's dirty clothes—I'll never fucking admit to it—and bury my face in their scents.
I wake up feeling even worse. My head is groggy, and I feel nasty hormonal. Eli asks what I want for breakfast, and I almost cry in response. And when he tries to comfort me in panic, I snap and tell him I can make it myself.
After apologizing profusely, he and Kellen agree Cynthia might be a better match for me for the day. So Eli takes off and, even though all I want to do is curl up in Orion's bed, it's way too early. Tomorrow is the full moon—tonight, technically—and I try to remind myself they'll be home soon.
But my omega is irrational. So I force myself out of the house.
Cynthia suggests we practice shifting, but I'm not interested. Nothing seems to fit right; my skin feels itchy, so I just spend the day walking and exploring, and my guards follow.
Sometime early evening, after a long, uncomfortable walk that left my skin feeling weirdly overheated and my stomach slightly off, I pause to catch my breath. That's when I hear it—a sound beckoning from the woods.
My head snaps up, and I find Kellen and Cynthia already looking toward it.
"Get her home," Cynthia commands.
Kellen doesn't argue. But just as his hand wraps around my upper arm, a scent drifts toward me. Grass and cottonwood trees.
"Wait!" I hiss, ripping my arm away. "That's Joey!" Before either of them can stop me, I sprint into the woods. I may not be strong, but I am fast, and maybe those suicide drills did me some good. I ran from all those alphas when I was on the road, and I know how to evade them if I need to.
Which is why Cynthia and Kellen don't catch up to me at first. "Joey!" I call out. "Heather!" I don't smell her, but she's his mother. If he's injured—
I hear the sound again, like a whimper. The sun is setting soon, but in the forest, the brush seems darker. My legs pivot and I run deeper into the woods. The sounds get louder now, and Joey's scent grows stronger. I try not to think about the worst-case scenario and panic. And then I find him.
In wolf form—he's tiny. His paw is bleeding, like he got it caught in something.
"Joey!" I cry. Kellen and Cynthia are right behind me.
Cynthia skids to a stop in front of Joey, and she kneels down to inspect his foot.
She tries to ask him questions, but he won't shift back to answer. She gives me and Kellen a worried look.
"I need to get him to Doc." Then she shoots me an anxious look. "Why don't you come with me, we can run and be there in twenty minutes." The hospital is a little further away from the heart, down the mountain.
"You go," I urge. "We'll head to the cabin and call ahead.
The cabin is five minutes away. We can call Doc and Heather and have them ready.
He should be—" I pause, shifting from side to side.
That ache in my chest, like I felt around Andrea—it returns, urging me to reach out to Joey.
I wrap my hand around his hind leg, near the injury, and it's like his wolf takes a deep breath of relief.
"He should be healing by now," Kellen finishes. "She's right. We'll head straight to the cabin and stay there. I'll call Eli, he can come stay with us. We're still in lockdown, these woods should be full of enforcers."
Cynthia's face pulls tight. It should be full of enforcers. So, where are they all? But with another push, she nods, lifts Joey, and after offering strict instructions that we return immediately to the cabin, she's off.
We race back through the woods toward the cabin while worry pulls tight in my chest. I'm sure Joey will be fine. He's a shifter, he's strong.
We hadn't gone far, so with our quick pace, it isn't long before we reach the clearing.
I burst through the wood's edge, but the sudden silence is jarring—there's only the sound of my feet hitting the dirt road, my labored breaths as I try not to panic.
Especially when the faint scent of sulfur wafts toward me.
Pausing, I turn around, finding the path empty. Anxiety claws up my throat.
"Kellen?" My voice shakes. "Kell?" The answering silence makes my skin crawl.
My gaze darts between the woods and the bend up ahead, the cabin just past it. Every second I hesitate feels like a ticking bomb. He's probably right behind me. But what if he's not? What if something happened to him?
I call his name again, louder this time.
Instinct tells me to run to the cabin. I'm not an alpha or an enforcer. If something hurt Kellen—
I swallow the worry, the fear, and I run. But when I round the bend and approach the cabin, I find Andrea on the front steps. I skid to a stop.
"What are you doing here?" I ask suspiciously.
She snarls, lips curling back, revealing sharp teeth. Her blond hair is full of dirt. Blood smears on her arms. It seems as if her shoulders grow an inch as she sways, like she's manic. Footsteps behind me make my shoulders drop in relief.
But when I turn, it's not Kellen behind me.
It's Stance.
"What are you—" the words disappear when his fist lands hard across my temple, followed by a second across my chin. I stumble back, then land like a heavy sack. I think he broke my jaw, but it's the instant headache that steals my attention.
Beep tries to shift, the sensations crawling up my hands and arms, down my legs. The sulfur scent gets stronger, and then Beep's efforts stop abruptly. "Beep?" I whisper.
Something is blocking me. Her.
"What—" I try to roll over, to get up, but my mouth hurts, my head is killing me. I try to help her shift, even though we learned that doesn't work, but I have to do something. But my shifter magic is quiet and heavy. Sluggish, like it's carrying silver through my system.
I feels faintly like I did my whole life before Beep found me.
The gravel scrapes at my back as Stance drags me by one leg toward the back of the cabin. My vision darkens at the edges. Just before I pass out, my head lulls to one side—and I see Andrea, knocked unconscious, being carried by a second rogue wolf.