Trial by fire(77)

“I could die,” I repeated. “If I do, Devon will go alpha.”

There was no doubt of that in my mind; with Dev, it was only a matter of time.

“Devon could die,” Callum said softly.

“And if Devon died …” I forced myself to imagine it. I was the alpha; Dev was my second-in-command. If we were both dead—

“There’s not an obvious third,” I said.

There were two ways to become alpha: as a member of a given pack, you could challenge and kill the current alpha and take their rank, or, if the alpha was killed by an outsider, you could be strong enough that there was never any question that you would be next in line. Mitch was too peripheral to lead. Lake, Chase, and Maddy—they all had their natural strengths, but the hierarchy between them was far from clear, and unlike most Weres, my pack wouldn’t jump straight to fighting it out for supremacy.

In the time it took for them to reach a consensus, they’d be easy targets.

Sitting ducks.

Open.

“Senate Law forbids taking another alpha’s wolf,” I said slowly. “But if there’s no alpha, then technically, there isn’t a pack.”

If the psychics killed me, if they killed Devon, there would be an opening, however brief, for someone else to come rushing in.

I thought of Shay’s wolves, lined up and down the edge of our border. Waiting.

“Dev can’t fight,” I said, coming to a conclusion that crept under my skin and hung in the air all around me. “If I fight, Devon can’t, and I have to fight.”

Callum didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to. I was the alpha, and an alpha couldn’t run and hide, couldn’t send the pack off to fight, die on their own. The pack needed me there, the same way the peripherals had needed to see me when they’d arrived at the Wayfarer, the same way the others looked to me for the signal to run on the full moon.

“In the end,” Callum said, his voice soft, gentle, “it all comes back to you. You protect them, you love them, you live for them, and someday, you die. That’s what it means, Bryn-girl, to be what we are. It’s lonely. It’s impossible. It’s all-consuming.”

It is what it is.

Callum didn’t say it. Neither did I. But it was there, between us. And it was true.

“Okay,” I said, fighting for acceptance the way a drowning man tries for air. “Devon can’t fight. I can’t risk sending the kids away, because someone could intercept them before they get to you. During the actual confrontation, the coven will be gunning for me, and they’ll be under orders from Shay not to kill any of the female Weres.”

Granted, Callum hadn’t said any of that. He’d just sat there, on the other end of the line, asking questions and letting me come to it on my own.

“Now I just need a plan for neutralizing the coven as quickly as possible,” I said. “Any idea if taking out their leader will free up the others’ minds?”

Callum didn’t respond.

“Callum? Words of wisdom? Cryptic hints? Anything?”

Nothing. No answer. Silence.

And that was when I realized he’d already hung up.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR





AS I STALKED OUT OF THE HOUSE AND BACK TOWARD the restaurant, my mind jumped from one thought to another, a never-ending medley of the things Callum had said, the promised confrontation with the psychics, and Jed’s suggestion that the only way to stop Valerie was to kill her. I thought of the carving Callum had sent me, and remembered all the times growing up that I’d seen him with a piece of wood in his hands. I remembered “borrowing” his knife when I was eight, trying to carve something myself. If Ali had been the one to catch me unsupervised with the sharp object, she would have freaked, but Callum had just sat down behind me and pulled me onto his lap. He’d put his hands over mine, guiding them, ready to catch the blade if it slipped.

Was that why he’d sent it to me? To let me know that even now, he was doing the same thing? Or was the message really that he couldn’t do that anymore, that this time, if the knife slipped, I’d bleed?

Hurt.

Die.

“You okay?” Chase fell into step with me, and I felt his presence the way I always did, in my flesh and bones: a flash of similarity, a desire for the space between us to disappear.

This time, I kept my distance.

“Lucas is healing. He seems a little more … present now. Maddy’s with him.” Chase paused, and I could feel him debating whether to continue. “He’s asking for you.”

Getting out of Snake Bend had been only half of Lucas’s goal; he’d said from the beginning that he wanted to be a part of our pack, and now, with Shay out of the way, there was nothing to keep me from giving Lucas his wish.