Taken by Storm

And then I woke up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I HAD NO IDEA IF ARCHER HAD SEEN WHAT I’D SEEN, but as soon as he opened his eyes, I was right there in his face.

“Tell me that was just a dream,” I said.

You don’t know. Maddy’s voice echoed in my head. You just don’t know.

The only person who can help me is dead.

“The life-size mouse was a dream,” Archer said, his tone almost comically serious. “The forest, the cabin, the way she looked when you first saw her—that was all a dream.”

But her stomach …

“It wasn’t a dream, Bryn.” Archer’s voice was very soft, very gentle. “I knew there was something when I went into her dreams on my own. I couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but—”

“Maddy’s pregnant.” My voice was even softer than Archer’s. He didn’t reply, and I didn’t wait for him to. I just walked away—away from Archer, away from our camp, away from everyone and everything.

Maddy had left the Wayfarer in December, two weeks after Lucas had died. She’d been holding it together by a string, and she’d said she was leaving because she couldn’t get better with me in her head.

She’d said that she needed to be somewhere that I wasn’t.

Now, seven months later, she was pregnant—and judging by the size of her stomach, pretty far along.

The only person who can help me is dead.

I’d known objectively that Maddy had loved Lucas. I’d known that the time I’d spent fighting Valerie’s coven, she’d spent with him. But I hadn’t realized—

I’d never even thought—

She was pregnant when she left. I couldn’t hide from that realization, couldn’t deny it. And that means Lucas is the father.

Just like that, I was right there again, in the woods outside the Wayfarer, kneeling next to him, running my hand over the fur on his neck, telling him to go to sleep.

To die.

And now Maddy was out there broken and alone and pregnant. A wave of nausea crashed into my body, and I bent over at the waist, afraid that I might actually throw up.

The Senate didn’t know. Shay didn’t know. Because if they had, if they’d known that not only was there a female up for grabs, but also a baby, not even Callum could have kept them away.

There was nothing more important to Weres than children. Nothing. The idea that I’d let a pregnant teenager carrying a werewolf pup go off into the big, bad world alone would have seemed more monstrous to the other alphas than the Wyoming murder.

Was that why Maddy went Rabid? I wondered. Werewolves were wired for pack living. Lone wolves were under enough strain going it alone in normal circumstances, but werewolf pregnancies were notoriously difficult, notoriously painful. Most human women didn’t survive, but even for female Weres, it was far from a walk in the park.

It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone should have to go through alone.

With sudden clarity, I saw Maddy’s life stretched out before me, from the day she’d been Changed until now.

Viciously attacked by a Rabid, her human life torn away.

Forced to live under the thumb of the monster who’d done that to her—a sadist just as psychopathic in human form as he was as a wolf.

Then, finally, she’d gotten a break. Finally, things had gotten better. She’d had friends, a family. She’d been safe. She’d met a boy and fallen in love.

She’d gotten pregnant.

And then the one person she’d trusted—more than anyone—that person had killed the boy she loved, the father of her baby.

Pregnant, alone, heartbroken, in pain of every conceivable kind—was it any wonder she might have broken? Was it that unthinkable that a splintered part of her might have started craving other people’s pain?

Everything I touch dies, she’d told me. I didn’t mean to.

“Bryn.”

I was still bent over at the waist, but now I was actually on the ground, rocks and dirt digging into my kneecaps. Chase wrapped his arms around me, pulled my body back against his.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. How could anything be okay? How could it ever be okay again?

I pulled back from Chase’s grip, but he held tight, and I didn’t fight him. “Maddy,” I said, croaking her name. I didn’t have to finish.

“I know,” he said. “Archer told us.”

Now all of them knew—what had happened to Maddy. What I’d been a part of. What I’d done.

“Stop it.” This time, Chase’s voice wasn’t soft, and it wasn’t gentle. “Just stop it.”

“Stop what?” I said, jerking backward and out of his arms for real. I stumbled to my feet, my hair falling into my face and covering my eyes, my cheeks hot with tears I could no longer hold back.

“Stop doing this to yourself,” Chase said, his voice throaty and low. “Stop telling yourself that this is your fault.”

“This is my fault.”

He was on his feet now, coming toward me, but I took a step back. I didn’t want him to touch me, not when Maddy would never touch Lucas again.

“He’s the one who challenged you.” The fury in Chase’s voice was undeniable. “Lucas did this, Bryn. He challenged you, and you did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” That was the question, the one I hadn’t let myself think for seven long months. “What if there was another way, and I just couldn’t find it? And even if I didn’t have any other choice, I should have known. I should have seen what was happening. I shouldn’t have accepted him into the pack. I shouldn’t have given him the opportunity to challenge me. I should have found a way—”

“A way to what?” Chase didn’t move any closer to me physically, but he kept pushing. He didn’t back down, not even when I stood straighter and met his gaze, head-on, everything I was and everything I was feeling palpable in my stare.

“You should have found a way to what?” he asked again.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Bryn. I’ve sat back and watched for months. I’ve given you space, but this is tearing you apart, and I can’t just keep sitting here, watching you, doing nothing—”

I hadn’t known—that he’d seen what I’d kept hidden, that not being able to make it better hurt him the same way that it would have hurt me if our positions were reversed.

“You don’t understand, Chase.” The words burst out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop them, even though I wanted to. “You won’t ever understand. You can’t.”

“You think you’re the only one who’s ever made a mistake?” This time, he did take a step toward me. Just one. “Do you think you’re the only person who’s had to make horrible decisions, or who’s felt like everything they do lets someone down?”

He took another step forward.

“Do you think you’re the only person who can’t let themselves feel things, because you feel them too damn much?”

There was something dark in his eyes, something powerful and raw. The edges of his mind blurred against the edges of mine, and I knew that, somehow, in his human life, he’d been where I was now.

“You’re not perfect.” Those were the last words I’d ever expected to hear him say—because from the first moment we’d met, I’d been his everything. “You don’t have to be. You can’t be—no one can—and you need to let it go.”

Maddy, Lucas, the murder in Wyoming—how could I let any of that go?

“You did what you had to do, Bryn, and even if there was another way, if there was something that none of us thought of then and none of us have been able to think of since, if there was some mythical answer that would have made things turn out differently, made them better—you’d still have to let it go.”

We were right next to each other now, his cheek very nearly touching mine.

“People make mistakes, Bryn. It’s what we do.”