Devon sat down next to me and started playing with Kaitlin’s feet.
“I seem to recall this grounding that you speak of,” he said. “Remind me again—is this the grounding that kept you from going with me to see the delightfully horrendous film adaptation of my seventh-favorite Broadway musical, or the grounding that came about because you almost got yourself killed? And didn’t bother to bring me along? Hmmmmm?”
Devon loved playing the martyr almost as much as he adored cheesy movie musicals, and my being housebound was almost as bad for him as it was for me. Our age-mates in the pack (or “the Philistines,” as Dev sometimes referred to them) couldn’t quite grasp the appeal inherent in most of the things that Devon enjoyed.
“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” I huffed, finally releasing my hold on Alex’s captive foot. I smiled at the way he joyfully flailed like there was no tomorrow once it was free.
“How many more times do you have to apologize?” Devon asked, pretending to ponder the question deeply. “At least thrice more, I should think,” he said, slipping into a distinctively rhythmic pattern of speech that made me think that a reenactment of his seventh-favorite musical might just be forthcoming (again). Instead, though, he turned his gaze to Kaitlin and without even looking at me, he said, “You could have been killed, Bryn.”
The way he was looking at Katie and the words he’d said reminded me that even though Devon was Dev, he was still a Were. He still had an innate desire to protect what he loved and to guard his females with his life. Without another word, he gently moved his hand up to Kaitlin’s head and gently stroked her downy-soft hair. Katie blew another spit bubble, completely unaffected by the nearly rapturous awe on Devon’s face. She was already used to getting that reaction from Weres, and when she was Katie and not the more tempestuous Kate, she reveled in it.
Just you wait, I told her silently. It’s all fun and games until they ground you until you’re thirty.
At this rate, Katie’s teen years were going to be a million times worse than mine, which was a scary thought in and of itself. No one but Callum and Ali had ever cherished me as much as the entire pack seemed to relish doting on Ali’s babies. Live twin births were rare in any pack, and Katie was only the second female born in Callum’s territory in the past hundred years. Something about the chemistry involved in werewolf conception made it impossible for girl embryos to survive the first trimester, unless they were half of a set of twins and had a brother to mask their presence in the womb. I was a little vague on the medical details, but from day one, it had been clear that the twins were special—and that Kaitlin had a very, very long road ahead of her.
Which is why it was my duty as her older sister to ease the way, and that meant disabusing my pack of the notion that girls (in this case, me) needed protection. Unfortunately, Devon was the closest thing I had to an ally, and even he would have throttled me if he knew that I was working on a plan to see Chase.
Chase.
Just thinking his name knocked the breath out of me, yanking me back to that night in Callum’s basement, as I’d watched Chase Shift, anchored in place by those three little words.
I got bit.
A grounding of epic proportions had not changed the fact that I had to see him again. On one level, I knew that it was a bad idea, knew that he was “unpredictable” and “not yet in control of his wolf” and that I would “find myself in a most unpleasant situation” if I “came within two miles of him.” I even recognized that Chase had all of the instincts and none of the discipline of a full-grown Were, and I’d lived in this world long enough to realize what that could mean. Callum had impressed upon me again and again that Chase was a danger to me—and that I could be just as dangerous to him.
He survived an attack that would have killed a full-grown man, Bryn, Callum had said, his face absolutely serious, his jaw set, but he isn’t out of the woods yet. If we can’t teach him control, or if he were to hurt a human before he learns, the Senate would have him put down.
The Senate. As in the combined force of each and every pack alpha on the North American continent. When they met, the Senate tried for democracy, but I knew that when Callum said they would put Chase down, what he really meant was that Callum wouldn’t use his power to stop them. He might even be the one to snap Chase’s neck himself. Callum had few weak points, but I was one of them. Senate or no Senate, he’d kill Chase if Chase hurt me.
That was the only reason I’d managed to stay away this long. Up to this point, I hadn’t even tried to break my house arrest, because the idea of something happening to Chase made me want to vomit up my internal organs.
He was, without exaggeration, the only person who could possibly understand what it meant to survive what I’d survived before my adoption into the pack. He was the only chance I might have to fill in the gaps in my memory of what had happened that night before Callum and his guard had saved me from the fate the rest of my family had met. I needed Chase, and I wanted to be near him, and some part of me couldn’t shake the feeling that it was mutual, and that I would be the one to save him from himself.
Nobody knew what it was like to be torn between what it meant to be human and what it meant to be Pack better than me.
A high-pitched yip tore me away from my thoughts. Katie, ever the adventurous twin, had taken my mental absence as an excuse to Change, and now, instead of watching two babies, I had in my charge one human infant (to all appearances at least) and one rambunctious, wiggling-all-over, feet-too-big-for-her-body, whining-to-be-let-out-of-her-crib pup.
“I take it nap time ended just before my fortuitous arrival?” Devon asked.
Deciding not to mention that nap time had been briefly followed by story time, I nodded. Even in just a few weeks’ time, Dev and I had started picking up on the differences between the twins: their idiosyncrasies, temperaments, and internal schedules. For example, without fail, when the twins woke up from their afternoon naps (or soon thereafter), Alex almost always needed to be changed, and Kaitlin, in contrast, needed to be Changed. She already loved her wolf form and would have spent all day as a puppy if Ali would let her.
Personally, I didn’t blame her. In human form, the twins were far more advanced than most newborns, but as wolves, they were already more like toddlers than babies. Once she Changed, Kaitlin could walk (or run) on all fours and stick her damp little puppy nose into everything.
From her crib, Katie yipped again, clearly impatient. Little sis wanted what she wanted when she wanted it.
“Good girl,” I crooned, scooping her up and setting her on the ground.
“Aren’t you supposed to be encouraging her to stay in human form?” Devon asked me. For once, his accent and the set of his impeccably groomed eyebrows were completely his own.
“Moi?” I said innocently. “And how am I supposed to do that, hmmmm?” I threw Devon’s own pet noise right back at him. “I seem to recall something about my being completely human and unable to control the forms of subordinate wolves.”
Trying to force my will on Katie would have gone against everything I fought for on a day-to-day basis—not to mention the fact that opening up my pack-bond enough to force something on either of the babies would have left me vulnerable to having someone else’s will forced on me. That was a can of worms that I wouldn’t open unless and until I had to.
Kaitlin, blissed out in puppy form, sniffed at my shoes and then sneezed.
“And also,” I added, “I like her better this way.”
Katie nosed at the carpet and then gave it a good chew. When it proved recalcitrant enough that she couldn’t pull it up, she growled.
“Who’s a fierce little girl?” I asked her. “Who’s going to kick butt and take names and help her big sister get into all kinds of trouble someday?”
Devon snorted. “Sometimes, I think the term bad influence was invented specifically with you in mind.”
Considering that he knew nothing of my deep-seated need to fight my way to Chase again, that was probably an understatement. Rather than say something that might give away my thoughts, I opted instead for a surefire distraction.