Gentry (Wolves of Winter's Edge Book 1)(31)

       

"How did you know?" Gentry asked, resting his boot on the bottom stair.

"She had a broken lifeline. When I traced it with my finger, in my head I  had a vision flicker back and forth, back and forth. In one vision, the  lifeline picked up again and continued for a long time, curved  beautifully under her thumb. In the other vision, it stopped in the  middle of her hand and didn't continue. It was always up to you which  vision would come to fruition."

"I don't understand what that means," Gentry gritted out, good and fucking tired of riddles.

"You could come to me for the wolf, or you could watch her die. I've  already been gathering supplies, but I need a few more things."

She rested her pitch-colored gaze on Asher.

"You need them alive?" he murmured, gaze averted to the snow.

"Need what alive?" Roman asked.

"I need big power to save your she-wolf," Odine said. "I need living things to draw that power from."

"Jesus," Roman muttered, pacing away, then back. "And you expect Asher to bring you these living things?"

"Yes," Odine said without hesitation. "Because I know he will."

Chills blasted up Gentry's forearms as he looked at his oldest brother.  Blaire let off a pained sound, and he cradled her closer.

Odine sighed out a frustrated sound and stood on the top step. "Bring me  sick animals that won't make it, or bring me something stuck in a  hunter's trap." She gave Roman a dirty look. "It'll take longer, so you  can help."

"No. Make Gentry help."

"Gentry is good, and I want to keep him that way," Odine snapped as she  disappeared into the dark cabin. "Besides, you heard him in the car. He  won't leave his mate. Now hurry, scurry, Strikers. A storm's a-comin'."

"A storm's always coming," Gentry muttered as he followed her into the cabin.

"I'm not talking about the weather."

Gentry turned in the entryway to see his brothers both standing in the  snow, staring up at him with haunted looks. And then the door slammed  closed.

"Fucking rude," Roman called through the barrier.

Gentry smiled despite how very un-funny this entire situation was. Leave it to Roman to talk to a witch like that.

"Lay her there," Odine said, gesturing to a table in the middle of a cluttered kitchen.

Above him, bundles of drying plants hung from the rafters. The counters  were covered in a mismatched disarray of differently sized glass jars  full of powders. The labels were printed in a language he didn't  understand.

Before he did this, he had to make sure. "Blaire," he murmured, settling  her on the wooden surface as Odine busied herself stoking the fire in  the hearth.

"Mmm," Blaire said, staring vacantly up at the ceiling above.

"Do you want to do this? Do you want Odine to try and raise your wolf? Do you want her to try and fix this?"

Blaire rolled her head to the side and locked hollow eyes on Gentry. "Will it save you?"

Gentry swallowed hard. Of course, she would think of him instead of  herself in this moment. She was walking through Hell, and her concern  was saving him. She was an angel. She was everything. Already he could  feel her sickness through their bond. It curdled his stomach and made  Wolf crazed. If she died, he wouldn't be far behind her. If she lived … he  lived. He'd always dreaded a bond, avoided women, hated the idea of his  life being so tethered to another's. But now, he didn't want to live  unless it was with her.

He nodded his answer.

"Then yes," she said on a breath. "I want Odine to save you."





Chapter Nineteen




Blaire was stuck between dream and awake. She was pinned in the  in-between. On one side, there were hallucinations of horrible things.  Pain and monsters with sharp teeth. Something was constantly snarling  right behind her. Glowing eyes in the dark. Fear.

On the other side, in lucid moments, she could see Odine working over  her. She chanted things Blaire didn't understand. It smelled bad. It had  to be the plants she was burning over and around her, but it smelled  like something more. Death? Was that her own death she could sense?  Against the wall, Gentry stood, watching over her. Always watching over  her. Who was screaming? His fists were clenched. Sometimes he looked  away, but not for long. Not her Gentry. He would never leave her alone  to lie here. When his lips would snarl back and he would growl, it would  match the sound in her head. That's always when the clarity flickered.  It was as if he was calling to the dark monster behind her, and the  shadow was calling back. And it always, always sent her spiraling into  the dark again.                       
       
           



       

Odine would switch to English just in time to whisper, "Let her have  you," before Blaire was swallowed up by the hallucinations again.

It had been infinity, or maybe a day, or maybe a week, she didn't know.  Her body was weak and needed food. There was yelling. Gentry was  yelling. Someone stop that screaming! Asher was there, stone-faced,  telling Gentry he needed to eat or sleep. Telling him to take a break  and leave for a while. She wanted to laugh. Silly Asher. Gentry couldn't  leave. They were bound, stuck together like a magnet to a paperclip. If  he left, he would drag her soul with him. Gentry wouldn't leave her. He  wouldn't. She wanted to bite Asher for suggesting it. Bite him? Yes,  that felt right.

Roman was squatted in the corner. He looked sick, but his face morphed  from his handsome, bearded, worried face, to his snarling wolf with the  gold eyes. They'd come for Gentry on that snowy road. He'd called, and  they'd come. They'd come for her. Too late. The screaming was so loud in  her ears, but it changed to something steady. Something with a tone  that held. Something beautiful.

Blaire tried to smile. One of the boys was howling. She arched her back  against the table in an effort to see which one. Which one of her boys  was singing for her? Her pack was calling her home.

Gentry stood in the middle of the room, his eyes wide and reflecting  strangely in the firelight. His fists weren't clenched anymore, and  under his beard, he was almost … smiling. When had he grown a beard? He  looked handsome in it. She wanted to touch him and kiss him and tell him  everything would be okay because she was fighting for him. She was  fighting to live so that he could keep breathing. So she could keep his  heart beating because it was the most important sound in the world.

Near the wall, Roman had his hand on Asher's shoulder, and they both  looked bewildered. Eyes too bright though, silver and gold. They weren't  howling either.

Her body buckled, and the howl rose again. Her howl.

And then there was the sound of gunfire. And then there was pain.

Blaire fell off the table, or more like … she didn't fit on the table  anymore. Not as she had. The clatter of bowls and the shattering of  glass was deafening. She could hear everything as she scrambled against  the floor, trying to ease the hurt that rippled through her body and  blazed down every nerve ending.

Odine was still chanting, louder now, words that made no sense and all ran together.

"What's happening to her?" Roman asked. Too loud, too loud. His voice bounced around her skull, splitting it.

Words were impossible now, but suddenly, the pain stopped. It just  disappeared like fog in the sunshine. She couldn't move. She was frozen,  and her body didn't make sense. Nothing felt like it was where it was  supposed to be. Something moved behind her, and she yelped a strange  noise and scrambled away from it. More movement, and she went mad,  clawing her way in a clumsy circle to defend herself. Roman had his cell  phone up taking pictures, and Gentry was trying to calm her, hands out  as he approached.

Don't! She snapped her teeth at him, and he winced away. Asher wore a  dark smile as he leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed over  his chest.

Odine wasn't chanting anymore. She sagged heavily into a chair as if she  were utterly exhausted. She looked like she'd aged a decade, and there  was more gray in her hair now. "Let her out before she finds her legs  and destroys my house." Her voice cracked with age. "And for God sakes,  boys, don't let her kill anyone."

"I thought werewolves didn't come in white," Roman said as Gentry threw the door to the cabin open.

Werewolf? White? Baffled, Blaire looked down at the floor, and to her  horror, there were two snow-white wolf legs with black claws that had  raked deep scratches into the wooden floorboards under her.

There was movement behind her again, scaring her into scrabbling forward.

"Look it," Roman crowed. "She's afraid of her own tail."

"Shut the fuck up, man," Gentry said, shoving his brother into the wall. "She doesn't know what's happening."

"I thought she would look like a zombie or something," Asher murmured. "Red eyes maybe."