In the here and now, I was sweating. I was cold. But I wasn’t done yet. Forcing my muscles to relax, I went further, deeper, the memories flashing before my eyes at rapid speed.
I saw a man with violet eyes threatening to burn me to death in my sleep. I couldn’t fight back, couldn’t move—
I felt myself waking up in a cabin belonging to the monster who’d killed my parents, tied to a chair and wearing a frilly white dress designed for a little, little girl. The Rabid had touched me and cooed to me and backhanded me to the floor.
At the time, I hadn’t let myself be scared. Didn’t ever let myself be scared, but now …
I pictured myself standing still, as the members of Callum’s pack circled up around me. I pictured Sora, long and lean, her familiar face devoid of emotion. I pictured myself just standing there, heart pounding, knowing that if I fought back, I might die.
I remembered letting her break my ribs and bloody my lips, blacken my eyes and strip away every illusion I’d ever had that they were my family, that I was theirs.
“No.” I opened my eyes. I wasn’t going to do this. There was no sense in opening up old wounds when Shay would be calling a meeting of the Senate later today. This wasn’t the time for me to be feeling anything that might remind the other alphas of what I was.
Or, more to the point, of what I wasn’t.
“Sooner or later,” Jed said, opening his own eyes, “you get to the point where you know fear the way you know a lover. You know what it smells like. What it tastes like. How it feels.”
Listening to Jed use the words lover and taste in close proximity to each other was flat-out disturbing. His voice was dark and almost tender, and I just didn’t want to go there—on so many levels.
“You memorize that feeling, Bryn, and you build a place for it in your mind. You keep it under lock and key, and when you need to …” Jed’s pupils pulsed, and an instant later, he was behind me, his arm wrapped around my throat, crushing my windpipe and cutting off the flow of air.
“When you need to,” Jed repeated, “you let the dark things out.”
He dropped his hold on me before my own power could flare up, and then he took a step backward, his palms upturned, unthreatening. I took that to mean that the lesson was over. He’d made his point. I’d felt the power come over him, an instant before he’d rushed me—stronger, faster, and more sure of his movements than he would have been without it.
For a second, I let myself think of the way fear tasted—like sweat, like metal, like blood.
“It might take some practice, and it might take some time, but you’ll get there, sooner or later.” Jed ran one hand over the stubble on his chin. “Then again, what do I know? I’m just an old man.”
Yeah. And a saber-toothed tiger was just a kitty.
“Caroline!” Jed’s scarred face lit up as he said her name. Warily, I followed his gaze over my left shoulder. Sure enough, the Wayfarer’s resident assassin was standing there, her blue eyes narrowed at Jed, like she hadn’t expected him to clue me in to the fact that she was there.
“Going running?” Jed asked her.
Caroline nodded, her gaze—sharp and guarded—shifting over to me.
Jed cleared his throat. “What do you say, Bryn?” he said, suddenly sounding inept and awkward and old. “You feel like a run?”
I stared at him, trying to decide whether or not he was seriously suggesting that the two of us play running buddies, like we’d never wished each other dead.
“I can run by myself,” Caroline interjected. “In fact, I prefer it.” She sent Jed a mutinous look that told me he’d be hearing about this later.
Jed, however, was not easily deterred. “It will make Ali happy,” he said, playing his trump card. “Won’t it?”
I didn’t answer his facetious question. Instead, disgruntled, I turned to Caroline. “You’d better be able to keep up,” I told her.
She arched one blonde eyebrow at me. “Big words, wolf girl.”
She took off running. I took off after her, pushing down all of the memories my session with Jed had called up and banishing my gut reaction to them—the one that said if and when I let the dark things out, there was no guarantee I’d ever be able to put them back.
CHAPTER SIX
CAROLINE AND I DIDN’T SAY TWO WORDS TO EACH other on our run, but at least she kept up. By the time we’d finished and I’d made my way home, I wanted nothing more than to fall back into bed.
You! You! You! Not Pack, you. Want play? Want play?
The voice in my mind didn’t belong to someone who was deliberately trying to talk to me, and I certainly hadn’t gone looking for anyone else’s thoughts, but the littlest members of my pack could never quite contain themselves. Their thoughts—such as they were—were always at the surface of their minds, spilling through the pack-bond whenever I was in range.
Down. Up, down! You!
The content of Kaitlin’s thoughts told me that she was in wolf form, playing. Or, more specifically, play fighting. I didn’t realize until I opened the front door and walked into the living that the person she was playing with was Callum. He was sitting cross-legged on the carpet. Even that low to the ground, there was still a weight to his presence, a power I never would have noticed before I was an alpha myself.
A power that my baby sister—not quite a baby any longer—gave very little heed as she bobbed up and down on her front paws, lowering her head with a loopy, lupine grin. A second after I came into the room, she pounced on Callum’s feet.
He bobbed his own head and reached out to gently tussle her from one side to another.
You! You play! Katie was ecstatic. Out loud, she made a sound that could only be described as a baby growl, and I felt a sudden stab of loneliness—because I was Katie’s alpha, and she was playing with Callum, because he was Callum, and there was nothing playful between the two of us now.
Bryn? Katie whirled around, feeling my presence as safety and warmth. She came bounding over to my feet and immediately bit my sock, pulling me toward Callum.
No, Katie, I said softly. You go. You play.
She cocked her head to the side. Bryn play?
Later, I told her. Bryn play later.
Satisfied, Katie turned her attention back to Callum. In blatantly unstealthy fashion, she leapt toward him.
Out of habit, I scanned the room for Alex. Where one of Ali’s twins went, the other followed. I found him standing in the shadows, intently watching Katie, like a bodyguard keeping an eye on a particularly troublesome client. On the other side of the pack-bond, his mind was steeped in the sensation of togetherness and love and warmth, the way I felt when the pack went for a midnight run.
Alex was here, and Katie was here, and that was all either one of them needed to know that things were right in the world.
Crossing the room, I picked Alex up and settled him on my hip. He snuggled into me, but never stopped watching his twin doing her very best to coax Callum into a full-on wrestling match.
“Rrrrrrrrr.” Katie issued a particularly fierce baby growl. A few seconds later, my foster mother appeared in the doorway, and I crossed the room to stand beside her. Out of habit, I handed Alex off. Ali took him from me and slipped her free arm around my waist. It was an affectionate gesture, but it also sent a message. Callum might have been the one who’d asked Ali to raise me, but Ali was reminding him that I was her daughter and that she would never fully trust him again—not with me, not with Katie, not with Alex.
Not after what Callum had ordered Sora to do to me.
On Ali’s other side, her four-year-old shadow—who’d followed her into the room—got tired of waiting for the rest of us to acknowledge her presence.
“Katie,” Lily said loudly, “you come over here.” She narrowed her little green eyes. “You play with us.”
When Katie did not heed Lily’s “suggestion,” Lily walked right up to Callum and kicked him in the shin.
“Lily!” Ali sounded horrified—and horribly, horribly amused. For my part, I was stunned. Lily was all of four years old, and Callum was the most powerful werewolf on the continent. Play fighting with him was one thing, but an actual assault?