Raised by Wolves(67)

Burnt hair and men’s cologne.

The Rabid. I pulled Chase up, forced him into a kneeling position, and put my hands on his shoulders the way that Lance had when the Rabid had flooded Chase’s waking mind.

“Look at me, Chase. Look only at me.”

For a moment, it wasn’t Chase looking back from those eyes. His lips curled into an ugly smile, serpentine and sharp.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.…

No.

“Look at me, Chase. Look at me!” I forced myself into his mind, brought his eyes to mine with my strength of will. I let my mind flood every corner of his. And I saw the Rabid.

He couldn’t get to me.

Couldn’t get to Chase when he was awake.

Callum had put up walls. And it was even harder now. Now that the boy had changed.

Looking at Chase, I got a sense of the Rabid. I could almost see the floss-thin line that connected the two of them. Nothing like the wall of light shining out of my body, connecting every part of Chase to every part of me.

Chase was mine. And the Rabid didn’t even know it. Didn’t know that anyone who hurt Chase was dead.

Warmth. Safety. Home.

The smell of burnt hair receded as Chase buried his hands in my hair and mine found their way to his. I stared into his eyes as they faded back to blue, and in them, I saw a reflection of an image Chase had seen when the Rabid had taken over.

“Girl.” Chase said the word out loud.

A girl. My mental image of her was complete, the bond between Chase and me pulsing full force. Like we weren’t hundreds of miles apart. Like he was standing right there beside me. Like this was real.

“Girl,” I repeated. “Four years old, maybe five. Light hair. Gray eyes. Blood.”

Only this time, the girl wasn’t me, and she wasn’t covered in someone else’s blood. It was hers.

Girl.

There was a name on the tip of Chase’s tongue, on the tip of mine, but before I could say it, I felt a sharp pinch in my ear. And another in my toe. And then—

“Ow!” I sat up in bed. My heart was pounding. My throat was dry. Chase was nowhere to be seen.

“Pleasant dreams?” Ali asked.

Not exactly, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. I brought my hand up to my ear. It wasn’t bleeding. Neither was my toe. But Alex, who was in his wolf form for the first time in I wasn’t sure how long, looked quite pleased with himself, and Katie licked the side of my face.

“What time is it?” I asked Ali.

“Morning.” For a moment, that was all she said, and then she looked back at me from the foot of the bed, where she was unpacking the twins’ onesies. “You slept through the night. We all did, even Nibbler One and Nibbler Two over there.”

Ali had slept. The twins had slept. What I’d done—at least the latter half of the night—wasn’t sleeping.

It wasn’t human, either.

“How are you feeling?” I could tell by Ali’s tone—forced casualness—that she expected me to jump down her throat for asking the question.

Scared. Angry. Sad, I thought. But all I said out loud was, “A little better, maybe.”

Ali wrinkled her forehead and cocked her head to the side. Clearly, she hadn’t prepared herself for me to be pleasant. After a moment, her eyes narrowed. “What exactly did you and Lake do yesterday?” she asked, like we might have held up a gas station and gone on a crime spree across the country, all in the span of just a few hours.

“We went to Mexico, had some tequila, eloped with a pair of drug smugglers, and took part-time jobs as exotic dancers. You know, same old, same old.”

Ali snorted.

“I’m torn on stripper names. It’s either going to be Lady Love or Wolfsbane Lane. Thoughts?”

Ali threw a onesie at me. “Brat.”

Considering I’d cost her a husband and her home, that was probably putting things lightly.

“Talking about it might help,” Ali said, seeing a tell on my face to the guilt sloshing around in my stomach. “You’re going to have to talk to someone eventually, Bryn.”

I thought back to the dream. Back to Chase. Back to the screaming girl and the name buried in my mind.

“I am talking to someone,” I said, making the executive decision that Ali didn’t need to know that the person I was talking to was a teenage werewolf haunted by the psychopath who’d murdered my birth parents. “And you’re right, it helps.”

Ali was dumbfounded. Obviously, this wasn’t the response she’d been expecting. Before she could formulate a reply or press me for answers, I bounded off the bed and went in search of clean clothes.

“Where are you going?” she called after me.

“First, I’m getting dressed,” I called back. “And then I’m going to see what Lake is up to. I have a project for her.”