Taken by storm(14)

In fact, next to Callum, she was probably the closest thing to an ally we had.

“Devon.” Sora met her son’s eyes, and I could practically see her wanting to reach out and touch his face. Luckily for her, she managed to restrain herself. “It’s good to see you, Dev.”

“Likewise,” Devon replied blithely, but I could tell by the way Sora’s nostrils flared that she smelled the lie.

Sora looked at me. “Bryn.”

I didn’t reply, unsure what I could say that wouldn’t just fan the flames. On some level, I knew it wasn’t logical to hold Sora responsible for something Callum had ordered her to do. It made no sense that I could ride in a car with him, but couldn’t stop the rush of emotion I felt just looking at her. Werewolves didn’t have a choice about obeying their alphas—not unless they were strong enough mentally to go alpha themselves. That was how I’d killed Lucas. I’d ordered him to die.

But Sora hadn’t even tried to fight Callum’s order. She hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t shown even a fraction of regret. Fair or not, it was her face I’d seen in my nightmares right after it had happened. No amount of conceptual understanding about the role that moment had played in setting up everything that had followed could change that. My body knew her. It knew what she had done to me, and “logic” didn’t stand a chance at overriding a thing like that.

For a few brief seconds after she said my name, I took Jed’s advice and let myself remember: the smell, the taste, the overwhelming darkness. Then I pushed it back behind lock and key, my jaw set, my mind empty.

“Hello, Sora.” It was easy to say—surprisingly so. I wasn’t that girl anymore, and I wasn’t afraid.

“You’ve seen Shay?” Callum asked. The idea that his second-in-command would have been to see Shay without him was nearly unthinkable, until I recalled the obvious: in addition to being Callum’s second, Sora was also Shay’s mother.

She’d given birth to him. She’d raised him, same as Dev.

“I have,” Sora replied. “And, no, I don’t have any idea what he’s up to, but there’s something. There always is.”

There wasn’t any particular condemnation in Sora’s voice, and it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t the only reason Devon was no longer on speaking terms with his mother. Parental expectations could be killer, and Devon’s brother had transferred into the Snake Bend Pack and challenged its former alpha when he wasn’t all that much older than Dev was now.

The last time I’d spoken to Sora, she’d talked about Devon’s potential and what he was meant to be—none of which had anything to do with who Devon was. As a purebred werewolf—a rarity in our world, since female Weres were few and far between—Devon was bigger, stronger, and more dominant than most, and Callum had groomed him almost as much as he’d shaped me.

But Devon would never be Shay, and while I thanked God for that fact, I wasn’t entirely certain that Sora wouldn’t have preferred it if he were.

“We should go,” Callum said, stepping between Sora and Devon—between Sora and me. “Shay will have felt our arrival, and I wouldn’t put it past him to send out a welcome party.”

I wouldn’t put anything past Shay.

I’ll take dysfunctional families for five thousand, Alex. Devon’s voice was bright and sardonic in my mind.

I swallowed a laugh. Seriously, Dev, are you okay?

Peachy, Dev replied. You?

Almost of their own volition, my shoulders pushed themselves backward. My chin went out, and as a sense of detached calm flooded my body, I told Devon exactly what he wanted to hear.

I was ready for this. If Shay wanted to dance, I’d dance.





CHAPTER EIGHT





SHAY OBVIOUSLY HADN’T BEEN LIVING AT THIS END of his territory for long. The smell of his pack should have been thick in the air. The trees, the grass, the very earth should have absorbed it like soot or smog, but instead, I could make out only the scents of the wolves present. Devon, whose nose was infinitely better than mine, didn’t seem to be able to smell much more than that, at least according to what I could pick up through the bond.

Consider me an open book. Dev must have caught me looking at him, because he sent the message straight from his mind to mine. Mi casa es su casa. Mi nose es su nose.

Dev was the only wolf in my pack who could choose to completely block his mind from me. We both knew that was a good indication that someday, he might leave the Cedar Ridge Pack to rule his own, but tonight he was telling me—in his own oh-so-Devon way—that there weren’t going to be any barriers. I was at a distinct disadvantage, with my human nose and my human ears, in the company of men who had senses ten times as keen.