We have to go, I thought, even though, like the wolf, I didn’t want to. Chase nodded to Marcus, not bothering to conceal his dislike of a man who’d always hated me. If I’d been in my own body, I might have made a comment specifically designed to press werewolf buttons, but instead, I let Chase’s thoughts guide mine. We were about to walk willingly into the wolf’s den. Literally. We couldn’t afford a divided front at a time like this.
Chase pushed forward, and as we neared Callum’s house, his fists clenched. From the depths of his mind, I tried to prepare him for the rush of power that slammed into Our body the moment we crossed the threshold of Callum’s door. Each alpha in this room carried with him the weight of an entire pack, and it nearly brought Us low. These men played at being human, sitting around a table in Callum’s living room, but the air between them was so saturated with primal instincts that Chase almost couldn’t breathe.
Jaws should have been snapping. Bodies should have been pinned to the ground. Heads should have been bowing, blood should have been spilled, and one man should have ruled them all.
That was what the wolf inside of Chase said. That was the only conclusion supported by the pulsating, electric, lethal undertone in this room.
“I take it this is the boy?”
Chase took two steps back. Wolf wanted to come out. We had to get out of there.
No, I said softly, finding my own voice in Chase’s thoughts. Keep your head angled at forty-five degrees to the ground, but stand up straight. Don’t back down, don’t challenge. Don’t even move.
There wasn’t another wolf within a mile of Callum’s house at the moment. The power in this room would have been too much for them, and the Senate didn’t deal with packs. The alphas didn’t touch wolves that weren’t theirs. So why had they called for Chase?
“Come in,” Callum said evenly. Chase could have resisted the order. He was mine more than he was Callum’s, but I echoed the sentiment. Step forward. Keep your head tilted downward, but don’t look at the ground. Look at Callum. Keep your mouth closed. Whatever you do, don’t show your teeth.
The closer we got to Callum, the more we could feel the others, prowling just outside our thoughts. They didn’t push. They didn’t attack. But they were there.
“He isn’t Rabid.”
For a second, the voice sounded so like Devon’s that I wondered if he was pulling a ventriloquist act from somewhere in the depths of Callum’s house. And then I realized—
Shay.
“He hasn’t Shifted yet, which means he has more control than most young ones. Impressive, Callum.”
There was something irreverent in Shay’s words, a tone that told me that Shay remembered being under Callum’s rule and wanted everyone else to forget it. In his own domain, Shay was king, but here, he was young, foolish, and couldn’t hold a candle to Callum’s years, his experience, or his power.
Perfectly contained. Understated. Overwhelming. That was Callum.
Bubbling, roaring, biting at the bit. That was Shay.
“Chase.” Callum’s words brought our eyes to his, and inside of Chase, I almost flinched. If I’d been me instead of Us, I would have.
I knew those eyes. I knew Callum. And he knew me.
Bryn.
I felt the call. I wanted to respond but didn’t. I wasn’t Callum’s anymore. He couldn’t tell me what to do. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was there, or if he simply saw me every time he looked at Chase, thought about me almost as much as I thought about him.
There was no room for questions like these in a room full of the most dominant wolves in North America. We had to stay in control.
“Callum.” It was Chase’s voice and Chase’s response. I guided his body language, but I couldn’t guide his words. I couldn’t respond to the look in Callum’s eye or wonder what it meant.
“The Senate would like you to describe the Rabid, his attack, and your recovery.” Callum didn’t phrase the words as an order. He kept his voice low and soothing, but I saw the way the other alphas’ eyes lit up at the question. They had a vested interest in finding out more about this Rabid, about what had happened to Chase.
Sandstone and fish. Cedar and sour milk. Ocean salt and sulfur.
Their scents flooded Chase’s senses, making it hard for him to concentrate on anything else.
Don’t let your lip curl up. Don’t growl. Don’t show your teeth, I told him.
He didn’t, but inside him—inside Us—his wolf was awake and ready. It wanted to take control. I wouldn’t let it.
Wolves, it argued back. Not Pack. Protect girl.
If my presence here caused Chase to lose it, I would never forgive myself, so I channeled everything I had into keeping him calm. Soothing his wolf. Guarding his mind as his story spilled in monotone from his lips.
The alphas asked questions—more detailed questions than I’d ever thought to ask. What was the length of the duration of the attack? How long had Chase lain on the pavement before Callum’s wolves had found him and brought him back? Did he have any insight into how he’d managed to survive? How did he guard his mind from the Rabid? Did the Rabid ever take control of his physical body? Had it ever asked him to attack Callum? Could that happen?
No, Chase explained. Callum had brought him into the pack and trained him to use his pack-bond to guard against the Rabid’s psychic advances. Chase refrained from mentioning that I’d manipulated that bond, that I was the one who chased away the Rabid’s presence in his dreams now.
Finally, the questions stopped. One of the alphas, the one who smelled like sea salt, had the last word. “You’ve done well with him, Callum. You’re a strong boy, Chase, and you’ll been an even stronger man. Stone River is lucky to have you.”
That didn’t sound like a compliment. It sounded like a complaint, but I didn’t have time to process that fact, because the next instant, Chase and I were dismissed.
“You can go now,” Callum said. Chase wanted to argue. He wanted to stay. And for a moment, I wanted to let him, but the older, wiser part of me, the part that had learned about surviving in a werewolf pack from the very best, couldn’t let him.
Go.
I read the order on Callum’s face. I might have imagined that he knew, on some level, that I was there in Chase’s head, but I wasn’t imagining the compulsion behind his request that we leave.
I wasn’t imagining the promise of violence if we didn’t.
Go, I told Chase. Leave the house. Go as far away as you can and still hear.
After all, Callum hadn’t specified where we had to go.
As the door closed behind us, Chase’s body relaxed. He walked quickly, keeping one ear to the conversation in Callum’s house.
It was silent.
They wouldn’t talk as long as they could hear us. There wasn’t a single man in that house who had become an alpha by virtue of their stupidity. The alphas didn’t trust Us, and they weren’t taking any chances. I wanted to scream. Chase wanted to scream. His wolf wanted Out.
The incessant plea—Out, Out, Out—gave me an idea.
Are your senses better in wolf form? I asked Chase silently.
His response told me that he wasn’t sure of the answer. In wolf form, Chase always had trouble thinking. Trouble remembering.
Shift anyway? I asked him. I might be able to think for both of us.
Yes, the wolf inside of Chase said. Yes!
Chase shuddered. The muscles in his neck relaxed. His head rolled to the side, and then pain, white-hot and bone-shattering, enveloped his body.
I felt it. I welcomed it. And as Chase’s human form gave way, a rush of power washed over the pain, turning agony to ecstasy and back again.
Run. As a wolf, Chase wanted to run. It would have been so easy to lose myself to the same overwhelming need, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. In wolf form, Our senses were doubled, and as We padded away from Callum’s house on all fours, the alphas finally began talking. We could hear them, but they couldn’t hear Us.
Wolf didn’t want to listen. Wolf wanted to run.
No. Unlike Chase, whose conscious thoughts were scrambled and wordless post-Change, I was still me. I could still remember why We’d Shifted, and I could still make out the meaning in the words the Senate was saying, even if I could only decipher about one in every three.