Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
“Callum’s hurt,” I said, thinking of how much I was hurting and how Callum loved Ali the way I did. “He’s really hurt, Marcus.”
“Where?”
“Our house,” I said. And just like that, Marcus was gone, a blur of greasy hair and short, compact ferociousness tearing through the woods, convinced that he was on his way to save Callum.
I should have felt bad, but I didn’t. I felt nothing—not even a hint of trepidation that Callum wasn’t the only one who was going to kill me when what I’d been up to today became common knowledge.
One down, I mused silently, afraid that the wolf inside would hear me if I spoke out loud, one to go.
Since my cover had been truly blown already, I walked up to Callum’s front door and let myself into the house. I made it exactly three steps into the foyer before a voice stopped me.
“How is Callum hurt, Bryn?”
Of course the werewolf inside had heard my conversation with Marcus, and of course it was someone smart enough to ask the right questions.
“What do you mean how?” I returned.
Sora’s wide-set eyes narrowed, emphasizing the angles of her face. Clearly, she was not amused. “You know exactly what I mean, and you have three seconds to provide me with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before you really, really regret it.”
As a threat, it was less than precise, but the step she took toward me as she issued those words sold it completely. Female werewolves were incredibly rare. Our pack had two, and most didn’t even have that, but somehow, over the past two hundred years, Sora had managed to rise above the males’ instincts to protect their females at all costs. In the years I’d been with the pack, she’d been one of Callum’s strongest, smartest, and most trusted soldiers.
She was also Devon’s mother, which meant that she knew me all too well.
“Two seconds.”
Well, shoot. “Callum isn’t physically hurt,” I said. “He’s hurting because Ali’s hurting. And if Marcus assumed otherwise, it’s totally not my—”
Sora cursed, her dainty lips twisting sideways into a full-on snarl. She grabbed my arm and none-too-gently dragged me to the kitchen, where she quickly and methodically bound my wrists and my ankles and then tied me to the handles on the refrigerator and freezer doors. If I hadn’t spent enough time at her house growing up to personally acquaint her with my affinity for picking locks, she probably would have just locked me in one of the spare bedrooms, but Sora had learned the hard way not to underestimate my resourcefulness.
I tested the resistance of her knots, and she snarled again, causing me to go very, very still.
“You are nearly too stupid to live, you foolish, reckless child.” She didn’t sound like Devon’s mother. She sounded like Callum’s right-hand man. “And you don’t even realize what you’ve done.”
“Marcus will be angry with me,” I said, trying to prove that I wasn’t completely ignorant of the inevitable consequences of my actions.
“He’ll be furious—and not just with you,” Sora said, checking her knots and making sure that I wasn’t going anywhere. “He’ll be angry with himself, and with you, and with Ali, because you’re her responsibility.”
Callum had Marked me, but as far as the pack was concerned, I was Ali’s daughter. If Marcus hadn’t hated Ali for her own sake, he would have hated her for mine.
“He’ll be furious with Ali, and he’ll be in her house. While she’s giving birth. She’s in enough danger as it is. She doesn’t need Marcus adding to it.”
My mouth went instantly dry. “Callum would … Callum would never let Marcus hurt her.”
“The odds are against her, Bryn. Do you really think having a homicidal werewolf in her house is going to help? He may not strike out at Ali directly, but his being there will hurt her, I promise you that.”
What had I done?
“I didn’t—” I cut off, swallowed, and tried again. “I swear I didn’t …”
I wasn’t sure how to fill in the blank. I didn’t know? I didn’t think? I didn’t mean to?
“I know,” Sora said, sounding more like the woman I knew. “I’ll go after him. I’m faster, but he has a head start. You’ll be here when I get back.” And then, like Marcus, she was gone, and I was alone, tied to a kitchen appliance in Callum’s house, dully agonizing over the fact that I’d just sent a raging werewolf Ali’s way. What if Marcus distracted the doctor? What if the stress was more than Ali’s broken body could take?
I’d promised to be good. I’d lied. I’d broken my end of the bargain, and Fate was angry. I didn’t want anybody else to die because of me.
Homicidal werewolf. Sora’s words rang in my ears, and my brain provided the accompanying visual.
Homicidal werewolf. Mommy. Blood-blood-blood-blood-blood.
Logically, I knew that I’d had nothing to do with my parents’ death—that it wasn’t my fault that I’d survived the attack and they hadn’t—but the thoughts in my head had stopped making sense, the words dissolving into nonsense, images crumbling into nothing. As time ticked on, I forced myself to stand ramrod straight, because I desperately wanted to slump and refused to allow myself even that small relief.
I don’t know how long I stood there. My muscles started aching, and words returned to me, and I just kept telling myself, over and over again, that if everything was okay, I’d never do something stupid again.
And then I heard the noise.
Screaming.
Words.
“Is somebody up there? Please! Please, help me. Can you hear me? Can anybody hear me?”
Somebody was in Callum’s basement, and that somebody needed help. I knew I shouldn’t respond, knew that anyone in Callum’s basement was there for a reason. The yelling degenerated from words into sounds, and that was what made up my mind, because the wordless howling struck a chord with me. Whoever was down there sounded like I felt. It didn’t matter who it was or what he’d done. I had to help him, because it wasn’t like I could do a thing for myself. Or for Ali.
I swung my bound ankles upward and twisted to angle my feet toward Callum’s kitchen drawers—and in particular, his knife drawer. I pressed my heel against the drawer knob and pulled. A well-placed kick sent the contents of the drawer flying, and I eyed the largest of the knives. Straining against the ties that held me in place, I managed to slide the knife closer. I caught the handle between my heels, and stretched my hands down to meet them.
Success.
As I began cutting through the restraints, the sound of inhuman screams echoing in my mind, I tried not to think about the fact that my vow to abstain from stupidity had lasted for all of forty-five seconds.
CHAPTER FIVE
I HALF-EXPECTED SORA AND MARCUS TO RETURN before I managed to get myself untied, but either she hadn’t caught up to him in time and there was major damage control to do, or she’d successfully intercepted him on the way to Ali’s but had been forced to throw down in order to keep him from coming back here and tearing out my jugular. Either way, it didn’t look like the cavalry was going to be stopping me from my endless pursuit of stupidity anytime soon.
Rubbing my wrists, which had gone numb under the duct tape, I took a baby step away from the refrigerator and the remains of my common sense. Callum’s basement had always been off-limits to me, and I wasn’t dumb enough to believe the restriction was in place because that was where he hid my Christmas presents.
Whoever, or whatever, was in the basement was probably dangerous. And based on the fact that Sora had felt it necessary to tie me up before she left, there was a very good chance that the danger in question was the very thing that had Callum assigning wolves to shadow my every move.
I paused when I reached the door.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
I tested the doorknob, fully expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t.
I really shouldn’t be doing this.
I listened for a sound, anything to spur me onward or sen
I have to do this.
Even if I ran as fast as I could, there was no way that I could get to Ali in time to offset any damage I might have done. My presence there would just make things worse for everyone, but twenty feet below me, there was someone in the basement. Someone who’d asked for my help.
Someone just like me.
I cracked open the door. Halfway through the job, I got tired of even pretending caution and threw it open the rest of the way. The basement was dimly lit, but my eyes adjusted quickly and I realized before the door even hit the wall and bounced back toward me what exactly it was that Callum kept in his basement.
Cages. Lots and lots of cages. I recognized steel when I saw it, and reinforced titanium—metals that wouldn’t hurt a Were but couldn’t be easily snapped, either. The doors on Ali’s house were made of similar materials—added protection in case a wolf chanced to violate the mandate that made all humans off-limits as prey.
I walked down the basement stairs without even realizing I was moving, and my hand reached out completely of its own volition to touch the thick, tubular bars. The cages themselves were big—easily big enough to hold a hefty Were in either wolf or human form, with room for him to move and pace. The metal was cold under my hand, and something about it horrified me. I hated that Callum had given me a curfew. I couldn’t imagine a larger loss of freedom—not like this.
“You came.”
The voice took me by surprise, which just goes to show how out of it I was, since the whole reason I’d ventured into the forbidden basement was because I’d heard someone yelling.
I forced myself not to show that I’d been caught off guard, and responded without turning around. “I came.”
Twin instincts battled inside of me—one told me that I had to act as if I wasn’t concerned about my safety, because nothing whetted a Were’s appetite like human fear, but the other told me that turning your back on a wolf was never a good idea. After a few seconds had passed, I casually twisted, leaning my back against the cage I’d been touching, my eyes searching out the person I’d come down here to see.
A boy, about my age. Dark hair, light eyes, a few inches taller than me and built along lean, muscular lines. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and something about the way he lay in his cage looked completely natural—and feral beyond anything I’d seen in a very long time. The expression on his face, in contrast, was entirely human.
“I wasn’t even sure there was anyone up there,” he said, his eyes on mine. “I felt Marcus and Sora leave, but then I smelled you, and I heard … I heard things.”
I took a step forward, drawn toward him, this boy in the cage.
“You smell good,” he said. “Like meat.”
I immediately stopped moving forward. He sniffed the air again.
“Like Pack,” he said, tilting his head to the side, trying to understand how I could be human but smell more predator than prey.
“I am Pack,” I said. And you’re not, I added silently. “I’m Bryn.”
I expected him to recognize my name. Most Weres did—even those visiting from other territories. Even those in the grips of madness. It wasn’t often that a human child was adopted into a pack, let alone by the alpha himself, and the circumstances around my adoption made me even more of a minor celebrity among this boy’s kind.
“I’m Chase,” he said.
“Kind of an ironic name for a werewolf.” The observation slipped easily off my tongue. The boy didn’t blink. In fact, I was beginning to doubt that he’d blinked once since I’d come into the room. “Werewolves do a lot of chasing,” I explained. “And your name is Chase. Hee.”
Some people laugh in the face of danger. Some people run. In my lifetime, I’d done both, but this time, with Chase’s eyes on me, his posture more wolf than man, the best I could manage was a good old-fashioned babble.
“You’re not a Were.” There was a humming quality to Chase’s voice, a slight vibration that could have been a growl, but wasn’t. “You’re not a Were, but you’re Pack.”
“I’m human,” I said, “but I’m Callum’s.” I didn’t lay things out for him further. In most situations, Callum’s name alone was enough to protect me. Even though there were steel bars in between Chase and me, I couldn’t dismiss the sense that his wolf was close enough to the surface that I might need to be protected. It was odd, really, because despite the fact that it was his pain that had brought me down here, Chase seemed calm now—not agitated in a way that would have his wolf taking control of the human.
“Do you know where Callum is?” Chase asked, latching on to the fact that I’d spoken a familiar name. “He was supposed to let me out. He was supposed to be back by nightfall.”
“The sun hasn’t set yet,” I said. “It’s still early. And Callum’s not here, because he’s taking care of pack business.” No need to specify what that business was.
“It always feels like night to me,” Chase said, his voice oddly reflective considering the fact that his eyes were beginning to change, the pupils dilating and changing color. “Callum says that will pass. He says I’ve come a long way in just a month, that it takes most people in my situation years to shut out the night, to resist the call to run and hunt during the day.”
“And what exactly is your ‘situation’?” I asked Chase, drawn to him even though I could feel his Change coming on, and everything I’d ever been taught told me that now was the time to get out of Dodge.
“My situation?” Chase asked, arching his back in a spasmodic motion that didn’t match his casual tone at all. “I got bit.”
Those three words turned my feet to lead. I couldn’t move, couldn’t walk back up the basement stairs. All I could do was watch as his muscles leapt to life, the tension running up his body like a stadium full of fans doing the wave, each contraction triggering another, until I wasn’t staring at a boy.
I was staring at midnight-black wolf that easily weighed two hundred pounds. He had a few markings on his chest and paws, and his eyes flashed back and forth between pale blue and a dangerous yellow.
I shouldn’t be here.
Chase didn’t seem like a monster, but in this form, he could easily kill me without even meaning to. He’d said it himself: I smelled like Pack, but I also smelled like meat. Now that he’d Shifted, it was anyone’s guess as to which would matter more.
He’s in a cage, I reminded myself, but the words meant nothing to me, because I just couldn’t stop staring into his wild eyes and playing the last words he’d said before he Shifted, over and over again.
I got bit.
I got bit.
I got bit.
It was impossible. Werewolves were born that way. The condition was passed down from father to son, and very, very occasionally, daughter. Books and movies would have had me believe that any little scratch or bite could turn someone into a werewolf, but thousands of years of werewolf history said they were wrong. Unless it took place in the presence of the pack alpha and he forged a bond between biter and bitee, a nibble from a werewolf didn’t do jack. And even with Marks like mine and the wives’, the Mark didn’t turn the recipient into a werewolf. I was living proof of that.
I got bit.
It would take much more than a “bite” to turn someone from a human into a Were. It would take an all-out slaughter, and no one could survive an attack like that. No one. For that matter, there were very few werewolves far enough gone to provoke their alpha’s wrath by attacking a human and risking exposure in the first place. And yet …
I got bit.
In his cage, Chase stared at me, his eyes pulsing. A growl burst out of his throat, and he threw himself at me, slamming his wolf body into the side of the cage. I backpedaled toward the stairs and clambered up them.
I shouldn’t have gone down there.
Still, I couldn’t deny that I’d gotten what I’d been wanting: knowledge. I stepped over the threshold and shut the basement door behind me. My heart p
I got bit.
It was a miracle he hadn’t died. He should have died.
Teeth tearing into flesh and back out of it. Blood splattering. Again and again, vicious, relentless, thorough. Blood-blood-blood-blood-blood—
“Oh, Bryn.”
And then Callum was there with me in the present, his arms held wide, and I fell into them, caught up in bits and pieces of memories that wouldn’t leave me alone now that Chase’s words had opened the floodgates.
“You just couldn’t stay away.” There was no reproach in Callum’s voice. That would come later, I was sure. For now, he just held me, whispering to me in the old language, little comforts that I understood without knowing the meanings of the words.
“How’d you know?” I asked. How did he know that I was here? That I needed him? How had he always known? How had he known that day, when he’d been the one to pull me out from my hiding place as Sora and the rest of Callum’s men took down the rabid wolf who’d killed my family?
“Lance told me you’d gone, and I had a hunch.”
Hearing Lance’s name reminded me why I’d come here in search of answers in the first place. I’d needed to get away. “Ali?” I asked, the question coming out as a croak.
Blood-blood-blood-blood-blood …
I couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t lose Ali, too.
“She’s sleeping, but doing well. And I imagine she’ll be wanting to have a word or two with you when she wakes up, Bronwyn Alessia.”
Jaws closing around Daddy’s throat …
Callum forced me to look at his steady eyes and hear his words. “Ali’s fine, Bryn. I swore to you that she was going to be fine, and she is.”
“And the baby?” I asked, my stomach clenching with relief and with a deeper fear that wouldn’t let go until I saw Ali for myself.