Taken by Storm

“What is it?” Lake didn’t give her brother a chance to reply, before fixing him with a look. “I recommend you open that mouth of yours and start talking, Griffin.”

Caroline might have wanted to know a ghost’s weaknesses so she could hunt one, but I was fairly certain Lake wanted to know what could hurt Griffin so that she could make 100 percent certain that nothing did.

“There’s only one thing that hurts me,” Griffin repeated.

Lake didn’t seem to appreciate his stalling. “What?”

He gave her a weak smile. “When something hurts you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

HOURS LATER, WITH THE STORM RAGING OUT ON THE mountain, the seven of us were still crowded into the tiny cave. We’d settled into a loaded silence, the heat of our bodies fighting back the wind and brutal rain, neither of which showed any signs of stopping.

Our cell phones—not shockingly—had no reception, which meant that I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Callum. I was hoping that once I did, he’d be able to call off the Senate and keep Shay and the others from coming after Maddy. That was the one good thing to come from this.

One way or another, our killer wasn’t a female werewolf.

The killer wasn’t even alive.

If that wasn’t enough to stay the Senate vote, I wasn’t sure what would be. Glancing at Maddy out of the corner of my eye, I wondered what her response would be if Shay and the others really did start making their way here.

The only way to prevent them from trying to claim her by force would be for me to reinstate our pack-bond, but I wasn’t sure she’d want that, either. The reasons she’d had for leaving were still reasons. Lucas was the elephant in the room, even now, one that made the already crowded quarters that much more claustrophobic.

If Callum could call off the rest of the Senate, I wouldn’t have to press the issue. But if he couldn’t—

I tried not to think about it, tried not to ask myself what the right thing to do would be, if she didn’t want me in her mind, but giving her what she wanted put her—and her baby—at the mercy of men none of us could trust.

And if the baby really was female …

That wasn’t supposed to be possible. It wasn’t possible for human mothers carrying a werewolf child, and it wasn’t possible for female Weres. Girl pups never made it to term. Not on their own.

But Maddy was different. The same way that I was different, the same way that Lily and Phoebe and Sage were different. They were werewolves, but they’d been born human. They were Resilient. Maybe Maddy’s baby wasn’t a girl. Maybe

she was wrong. But if she wasn’t, and the other alphas found out about it, my pack would be even more in their sights than it was now. Having a surplus of female werewolves was bad enough. Having girls in my pack who might be able to give birth to female pups—whatever alliances were brewing in the Senate, whatever plans Shay was cultivating, the second they got wind of it, the onslaught and machinations would increase tenfold.

For most of the Senate, there probably weren’t many things that would be worth risking Callum’s wrath—but that might be one.

Borrowing trouble? Chase’s voice was calm in my mind, and I wondered how he could just look at me and know.

Am I that obvious? I asked.

There was a sound halfway between a snuff and a snort, more animal in my mind than it would have sounded out loud. You are trouble, he said. It’s part of your charm.

Maybe, but I had to admit that he was right: at the moment, we had enough on our plates already. The future—as tenuous and terrifying as it might be—would have to wait.

Okay, I thought, as much to myself as to Chase. Griffin says his weakness is Lake.

If Griffin was telling the truth—about everything—what did that mean for our killer? What was his weakness? Or, more to the point, who?

Assuming the killer was a werewolf—and based on Maddy’s descriptions and the crime scenes we’d seen, I was betting he was—did that mean that this monster had a twin, too? Or was Griffin a special case? Maybe this ghost wasn’t tethered to a person. It could be a place, or an object.

It could be anything.

Or anyone.

I didn’t want to look at Maddy, and I didn’t want to look at her stomach. I didn’t want to think about the child inside—the one who’d somehow brought these specters to life.

I’d done things that dogged my dreams and chipped away at whatever humanity I had left. I made the hard choices so that other people didn’t have to, but I had a line, and this was it.

Nothing was going to happen to that baby. Not if Griffin was telling the truth and not if he wasn’t. Not by my hand, and not by anyone else’s.

“Rain’s clearing up.” Jed’s tone was mild, but all of us snapped to attention like he’d barked out some kind of command.

First order of business was getting off this mountain and back to the real world. With cell phone service, I could call Callum. If we were lucky, maybe in addition to putting out political fires, he’d be able to tell us something about ghosts.

Something that gave me more than Lake’s assurances and Maddy’s blind faith in Griffin to know that he was on our side.

“We should go,” I said.

“No.” Maddy’s voice was loud, borderline hysterical. It cut through me, like a knife to the gut. The Maddy I’d known was quiet, self-contained, controlled. This Maddy was just as strong, but on edge.

So on edge that if we weren’t careful, she might fall.

“I can’t leave. I can’t go anywhere.” She ran a hand through her hair, and her voice settled down into a steadier pitch, low and even, sure. “If I go somewhere, that thing is going to follow me. I have to stay here.”

“No.” I was surprised by how calm I felt, how naturally I could just step back into the role of giving orders, without questioning for one second that they would be obeyed.

“You don’t get to decide,” Maddy told me, the tone in her voice closer to heartbreak than defiance, like there was a part of her that wished I could.

“Maddy, if you don’t leave, I can’t.” In my mind, it was as simple as that. Until I got word from Callum that the others weren’t coming for her, I couldn’t take the chance of leaving Maddy here alone. “If I can’t leave, I can’t call Callum. If he can’t tell the rest of the Senate that he’s heard from me personally, he might not be able to stop them.”

Maddy’s eyes narrowed in a way that reminded me that I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten through the dark parts of life by sheer force of will. I could outstubborn most people, but not her, not once she made her mind up about something.

“I think it might be okay.” Griffin inserted himself into the conversation, walking through me to stand by her side. “Lake’s here now, Maddy, and I feel …” He searched for the right word and seemed to find it in the expression on Lake’s face. “Solid. I feel solid.”

Griffin had a way about him that made it easy to believe what he was saying. I could see his words weakening Maddy’s resolve. Was he comforting her—or trying to lull her into a false sense of security, so she’d go closer to town?

Stop it, I told myself. Like Chase had implied, there was a fine line between planning for all eventualities and borrowing trouble. I’d told Lake I believed her. I’d decided to trust Griffin—for now. And that meant assuming that everything he’d told us was true: the killer only came around to torture Maddy when Griffin was gone, and if Lake could keep him grounded in the here and now, at least until we figured out a plan, Maddy could go back to civilization.

Or at least to a crappy motel.

“You don’t know that it will work,” Maddy said, turning her stubbornness on Griff.

“Mads, if you think I’m going to let Ugly here go anywhere”—Lake’s lips pulled back into a terrifying smile—“you’ve got another think coming.”

Ugly wasn’t a word I would have used to describe Griffin, but I knew better than to argue with Lake in sister mode.

“It’s settled, then.” Caroline—who hadn’t said a word since Griffin had told us the only time he felt pain was when Lake did—was all business. “We all go. Bryn calls Callum. And if this thing does show up …”