Trial by fire(60)

They pulled me back from the edge. I brought one hand to my hip, laying my fingers over the scars underneath my clothes and feeling the light scratches on the surface of my hands.

“You’ve known other Resilients?” I asked calmly.

After a long, considering moment, Valerie let go of my chin. “Resilients?”

“People like me.”

“You sound surprised.” She tilted her head to the side, and her voice went from honey sweet to ice sharp in a moment. “Surely you didn’t think you were one of a kind?”

I couldn’t keep myself from snorting out loud. One of a kind? Me? Any human who’d ever survived a werewolf attack major enough to trigger the Change was, by definition, Resilient. As it happened, I had an entire pack of them back at the Wayfarer. I had no illusions whatsoever about being unique.

Of course, no one outside our pack knew that the secret to making new werewolves was to choose your victims very carefully. Shay didn’t know what separated the Changed Weres in my pack from the ones who’d been born that way, and he couldn’t tell Valerie what he didn’t know.

Advantage: us.

“As it so happens, there’s a man in our coven who shares your gift,” Valerie said.

I ingested that information, absorbed it, and kept my surprise from showing on my face. I’d met other Resilients, but by the time I’d met them, they’d already been Changed. I’d never met a human like me. I’d never even considered that there had to be others.

“His name is Jed,” Valerie continued. “He might be able to teach you a thing or two about control—that is, if you plan to stay?”

Of course I planned to stay. Just like I planned to learn everything I could about the coven, to choose my moment, and to use the tranq gun hiding in my boot to knock Valerie out long enough to put the rest of them through emotion detox.

“Will I be safe if I stay here?” I asked, knowing I might get more information out of what she didn’t say than what she did.

“I don’t make a practice of attacking my own kind, Bryn. We generally consider that type of thing to be a last resort.”

Her eyes flickered to my right, and I followed her gaze and realized that Caroline was standing there, a shape in the shadows, her arms at her sides. This time, I felt more than a chill as Valerie pushed at my emotions.

Threat.

I’d always felt it in Caroline’s presence. Valerie wanted me to feel it more. She wanted me to look at Caroline and think last resort. She wanted me to wonder who else Caroline had attacked at her mother’s request.

Even as I fought back against Valerie’s interference, I couldn’t help noticing the icy calm on Caroline’s face, the absolute readiness, the blackness that bled outward from her pupils as she stared at me, set her sights on me.

Lake and Chase and Dev. Pack.

Whatever entry Valerie had found into my subconscious, the others pushed her out, prowling the halls of my mind like creatures on the hunt.

“I’m staying,” I said.

Valerie smiled. “I was hoping you would.” She glanced toward the shadows and lifted one eyebrow. “Caroline will show you to your room.”

Caroline moved silently, each step measured, not a single hair falling out of place. She walked past me, and I saw a glint of metal as the lamplight caught the blade concealed in her left hand just so.

Lake.

Devon.

Chase.

I could do this. I would do this.

As Caroline and I began to climb up the battered staircase, Valerie’s voice drowned out the sound of creaking wood. “Sleep well, Bryn.”

I think everyone in the room—and those guarding my mind—knew that Valerie meant the words as a threat.





CHAPTER NINETEEN





THE SUN DIDN’T RISE UNTIL SEVEN THIRTY, SO I had hours to kill, ensconced in a faded denim comforter and all too aware that the moment I went to sleep, my Keep the Psychics Out of My Head plan would be tested to the limit. There was a part of me—a sizable one—that wanted nothing more than to keep my eyes and ears open and my back to a wall, which was probably Valerie’s intention all along. She wanted me tired, off my game, and out of it enough that I’d stop resisting her assaults on my emotions.

She wanted me scared.

I closed my eyes and allowed my breathing to slow. Sleeping in their house—if I could manage it—would be like staring another alpha straight in the eyes.

I’m not scared of you, I thought as the rest of my mind went blank. You have no power over me.

For the longest time, I didn’t dream. I just lay there, my body relaxed, my senses perfectly attuned to the world around me, and then a dam broke somewhere in my mind, and in a rush of color and sound, I was gone.