You wouldn’t hurt me, I told him. You’d die before you’d hurt me.
Asking him to do this was killing me. It wasn’t fair. I felt like Callum, treating Chase like a detail that didn’t matter as much as the big picture. But as much as I wished I could do this myself, I wasn’t the one with the connection to the Rabid. I wasn’t the one who could track him.
Chase was.
You have to promise to get out of my head, Chase said. If Prancer takes over, if I can’t fight him off…you have to leave. I won’t let him get to you, too.
I didn’t promise, because I had no intention of abandoning ship the moment things turned sour, not when I was the one asking Chase to put himself at risk.
I won’t let him take you, I said, pushing the words into Chase’s head with a ferocity that he must have been able to feel from head to toe. You’re mine.
For a moment, there was a pause, and then Chase’s voice went very dry in my mind. In a non-freaky, non-ownership, we-both-retain-our-independence kind of way? I could practically see his lips curving upward into a subtle grin.
Yes, I replied hastily. Exactly.
Okay.
Okay? I asked him.
Okay, he repeated. I’ll do this.—Don’t leave me.—
He didn’t mean for me to hear that last part, but the second I did, I let down some of my own guards, brought myself further into his mind, telling him over and over again, in every way I knew, that he wasn’t alone.
He breathed in.
I breathed in.
He breathed out.
I breathed out.
And then, Chase let in the flood. I should have been prepared. I knew more about closing off and opening up bonds than just about anyone, but still, the rush of scent and the oily feel of a snake slithering down the back of Chase’s neck took me by surprise. His scars, each and every one, began to burn, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Well, well, well… if it isn’t the prodigal son.
The voice sounded so normal, so human, but the sound of it hurt Chase’s ears. I pictured him bleeding, torn to pieces, the way the Rabid had left him that day.
Not your son, Chase thought. Not your anything.
That’s right, I echoed, my words for Chase’s ears only. He was his own person, and he was mine, the same way that I’d been his from the moment we’d touched. The Rabid thought he knew so much, but he didn’t know that I was there.
Change.
The word was a whisper, but also a command. This wasn’t Callum telling Katie to change back to human form. This wasn’t me asking Chase to become a wolf.
This was domination. And punishment. It was cruel.
You don’t have to, I told Chase, even as I felt the pressure the Rabid was applying.
He’ll know something is wrong if I don’t.
I heard Chase’s bones breaking, felt his skin give way as he lost his human form. The Rabid laughed.
Change back.
Shifting took energy. It was painful. Chase needed to recover.
Change.
Change back.
The Rabid didn’t let Chase settle fully into one form before forcing him into another.
Stop, I wanted to scream. Stop!
But I didn’t. Tears streaming down my cheeks, my own body shaking with Chase’s burning white pain, I pushed. Pushed my way from Chase’s mind into the Rabid’s.
Burnt hair and men’s cologne.
The smell was overwhelming. Suffocating. I needed to throw up, but I couldn’t. I had to do this, because Chase couldn’t.
Because his body was being forced to break itself and reassemble, over and over again.
Sweat mixed with the tears on my cheek. A white-hot poker pressed into my stomach, my legs, my jaw.
Change. Change back.
I had to concentrate. I had to find out what we needed to know so Chase could throw his walls back up.
Protect, my pack-sense demanded. Chase was mine. I had to protect him. I had to push the Rabid away—
But first, I had to track him.
I closed my eyes. I pictured the wiry bond that connected Chase to this madman. I followed it to its roots. I let damp, overwhelming darkness wash over me, until I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be warm.
Blood. The Rabid liked blood. He liked power. His name was Wilson.
The information came all at once, but it wasn’t enough. I pushed further.
Where are you? I thought, knowing he couldn’t hear my words. Tell me where you are.
I saw a cabin. And blood. A forest. And blood. A town—one stoplight. A store called Macon’s Hardware.
A path into the woods.
Trapped. The word was a whisper in my mind, and the second I heard it, Chase’s own instincts flared to life. Trapped, he echoed. He struggled not to fight the Rabid. Not to push him back.
We needed to fight. We needed to get out of there. We needed to take care of each other.
But first, I needed more. A cabin. One stoplight. Macon’s Hardware. A path into the woods.