Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 (11 page)

His unease made her think of Colin, of the way he’d looked at her in the alley during the festival. He’d said all the right things, made every assurance that broken didn’t mean forever, but he hadn’t meant a damn word of it. He couldn’t, and now, after their altercation in the warehouse, she understood why.

Colin wasn’t far from being broken himself. And neither was she.

Colin was pretty sure his new bedroom had started life as a parlor, though it likely hadn’t been used as one in more years than anyone cared to count. The furniture, shuffled aside to make room for his bed, was delicate and antique, rich woods and faded fabrics that looked more suited to gentle ladies sipping tea than life in a farmhouse overrun by werewolves.

Eden had offered to move the furniture and throw paint over the wallpaper, but it hadn’t seemed like a priority in those first days when so many other things needed fixing. Now, Colin almost wished he’d taken her up on the offer. He felt awkward and brutish enough as it was. Lowering himself to the spindly legged couch facing the fire made him feel downright uncivilized, a violent man intruding upon a delicate world.

It might have been easier if Jay had smacked him down. Colin had delivered his report as honestly as he could, sparing himself nothing. Well, almost nothing. He’d cowardly sidestepped the issue of kissing Lorelei by telling himself she had the right to decide who knew about her moment of weakness, but had made up for it by eviscerating himself over his lack of control in the warehouse.

“No one ended up bleeding,” Jay had said. “I consider that a win.”

Maybe he wouldn’t have if he’d endured Lorelei’s fear, her tears. The long ride to Clover had been agonizing enough, but Colin thought his heart would shatter when she quietly asked him to pull over at the diner. Escaping his presence as soon as physically possible, and even with the rational part of his human mind well aware of how important the information she had would be to Zack, his gut only felt her walking away.

“Colin.” The whispered word preceded the knock on his door. “Are you in?”

Lorelei’s voice. There was no use pretending he wasn’t here, not when he owed her whatever apologies she’d take. His boots, socks and shirt lay scattered across the room, but he found a clean T-shirt thrown over a chair every bit as fragile and feminine as the couch and hauled it on before opening the door. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She glanced past him at the darkened room, illuminated only by the low fire burning in the hearth. “Is this a bad time?”

He realized he was blocking the doorway and pivoted, opening a path for her. “No, I was just unwinding.”

“I don’t blame you.” She slipped past him and kicked off her shoes. Then she dropped to the sofa and curled up, tucking her feet under her. “This damn day won’t end.”

Still unsettled—and confused, if he admitted it to himself, though he wasn’t anxious to—Colin closed the door and studied her. She sank onto the couch like she belonged there, and if the moonlight silvered her features, the soft play of firelight turned them golden. For a moment he could only stare, struck dumb on all fronts. His body stirred as he let his gaze trace her features, but the wolf was already sinking into hot, feral satisfaction at her presence in the heart of their personal territory.

He had to clear his throat to speak, but nothing could keep his steps from falling into the slow prowl of a predator approaching prey. “It’s been long, all right.”

“I talked to Zack. I thought it would help for him to hear that Jonas isn’t a danger to Kaley anymore, but…I don’t know. I just don’t.” She turned her head and met his gaze. “What if this is all we’ll ever be now, all of us? Always this shaky and worn down?”

Her eyes seemed huge, dark pools that devoured the firelight. Colin slid onto the couch beside her and lifted an arm. An invitation, and it
had
to be an invitation, because left to his own devices he’d drag her into his lap. “It isn’t like that. I promise.”

She slid into the circle of his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m not even scared anymore, how fucked up is that? Someone died and we don’t know why, and all I can think is,
okay, it’s just one more thing
.”

Breathing brought her scent deeper into his lungs. She smelled of flowers, some exotic one he couldn’t remember the name of, though he was sure Mae had pointed it out to him when he’d helped her unpack the dozens of glass bottles that held various oils and fragrances.

He settled his chin on the top of Lorelei’s head and closed his eyes, fighting past how good it felt to hold her so he could focus on her words. “It’s one more thing, but you don’t have to handle it alone. There’s a lot of power gathered here. Jay and Eden, Fletcher and Shane. And they have ties to people with more power. We’ll figure this out.”

“But will it matter by then?”

It had to. “I know it seems dark now, but werewolves are tough. We get longer lives, we get more time to heal. You don’t even have to fight, if you’re too tired for that. Just don’t give up.”

“I can’t.” Her soft, mirthless laugh soughed over his collar. “If I knew how, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Colin smoothed a hand over her hair and hated himself for the low hum of arousal thrumming in his veins. He had to find a way to reach past it, to soothe without pressing, but he couldn’t stop stroking her hair or holding her. Having her, soft and trusting, in his arms soothed
him
.

He closed his eyes and tucked her face more firmly against his neck. “Tell me about Memphis.”

It took her a while to answer. “We had more people. A pack. I miss them.”

“You must.” To go from a pack to just four…three, really, with Zack drifting away. “How many were there?”

“A couple dozen that wandered in and out. Most of them left when Christian started squeezing us, but a handful—” Her voice broke. “Noah’s the one that mattered. The real beta. He tried to step up when Zack was—when we thought he was dead.”

He’d brushed a wound that still bled, and there was nothing to do but pull her closer and wrap her in enough strength to let her know she was safe. So much harder without the link of a Guide bond, but he was dominant enough to have the power to spare. “They killed Noah?”

Her fingers clenched in the front of his shirt. “They set it up like a fair challenge. A clean fight. Christian would have won anyway. But at the end, he just…set his men loose on Noah.”

A dog pile, in an almost literal sense. Cruel, dishonorable. Twisted. “Were all of you there when it happened?”

“Yeah. Mae…” Lorelei swallowed hard. “She and Noah had a thing.”

“Shit.” Not that he’d needed another explanation for the girl’s skittishness—there wasn’t much to choose between being the object of an obsessed wolf’s fascination and being a submissive female in a corrupt pack. Both were brutal, terrifying ways to live, but both gave you a chance at life.

Stronger females always seemed to end up broken—or dead. “That left you in charge?” he asked.

“If you could call it that.” She turned her face to his shoulder. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Too far. Always too far.
He cradled her head and tightened his other arm around her waist. “I can talk, if you want. About something else, anything. Or we can just sit.”

“Can we?” she asked. “I like the quiet.”

That feeling returned, the warmth that had flooded him in the condo’s sad little kitchen when he’d turned his face to her unprotected belly and she’d all but trembled with trusting submission. The feeling of being needed, of being a part of something bigger than the two of them. The reminder that
pack
was always grander than the sum of its parts.

The only problem was that the damn spindly legged parlor couch hadn’t exactly been made for cuddling.

Moving slowly, he edged his arms around her and rose. A plush, overstuffed recliner sat opposite the proper little couch, the one thing he’d claimed from the furniture Eden’s father had offered. Not wide enough for two, but Colin sank into it with Lorelei tucked against his chest.

It was such heaven to rock with her in his arms that he could ignore the havoc she wreaked on his body. If enduring the discomfort of arousal was the price for her peace of mind, he’d pay it a thousand times over and count himself lucky.

They sat in silence, the crackling of the fire the only noise aside from their breathing. Then, finally, Lorelei shifted in his arms. “I should go.”

“It’s okay,” he murmured in return, careful not to tighten his arms but not loosening them, either. “You can stay a while longer. If you want.”

She didn’t say anything else, only settled her head on his shoulder again. Her heartbeat deepened, slowed, and her body molded to his, sweet and pliable. The first even breaths of sleep tickled his skin, and it seemed unlikely he’d be able to do anything but sit awake, torn between the ache in his body, the ache in his heart and his wolf’s smug satisfaction.

It would be worth it.

Chapter Eight

Lorelei jerked awake, familiar terror jolting through every cell. Something had woken her, something horrible and heartrending—

“She’s not breathing! Kaley’s not breathing!”

Mae.
The hoarse desperation in her voice was just as ominous as her words, a shriek that shuddered Lorelei’s heart to a halt for one painful second.

Colin grunted in her ear, his arms tightening around her before she shoved free and dove for the door. By the time her foot hit the third stair, he was behind her, and Eden and Jay’s bedroom door slammed open.

Mae and Kaley shared a room in the front corner of the house. Through the doorway, Lorelei saw Mae on the bed next to her roommate, her eyes wild as she pressed down on Kaley’s chest, counting under her breath.

Lorelei stumbled to a halt, and Shane shoved past her with a curse. “Mae? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t look up, but her voice shook and tears glistened on her face. “I felt something—
something
, I don’t know. But I woke up, and she just wasn’t breathing, and I can’t—” She choked on a half sob. “God damn it, Kaley,
breathe
. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to go—”

“Something’s not right,” Jay muttered. “Colin, go get Stella. She said she’d be outside tonight, working. Find her—fast.”

Lorelei took a step into the room, and Jay’s words made sudden, dizzying sense. The room was alive with magic, a throb that tugged sickeningly at her gut with every pulse. A spell.

A hungry one.

She swallowed her nausea and reached for Mae. “Let us help too.”

“No!” Mae lashed out blindly, the back of her hand cracking across Lorelei’s cheek hard enough to bruise. Her eyes held a feverish sort of concentration as she tilted Kaley’s head back and breathed into her mouth twice, but when she resumed chest compressions, her arms were shaking. Her voice was too, growing weaker with each thin plea. “Breathe, Kaley. Breathe.”

Shane stared at Mae for a moment, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flaring. “You have to get out of here,” he said, then snatched her off the bed. She screeched in protest and jammed an elbow hard into his ribs, but he lifted her high against his chest, ignoring the blows and scratches, and carried her out of the room.

Jay slid Kaley off the bed and stretched her out on the floor. While he started CPR again, Eden positioned herself for rescue breathing. They moved in concert, without speaking, entirely focused on Kaley.

The sick feeling in the room pressed in on Lorelei, a pressure shot through with tiny shocks, like an invisible hand plucking at the part of her that was wolf. And all she could do was watch the scene unfold before her, shivering and yet oddly numb.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and Stella ground out a curse as she crossed the threshold. “Holy shit.” She dropped to her knees, already reaching blindly for the bag hanging from her waist. “Out of the way!” she snapped.

Jay’s jaw clenched, but he lifted both hands. “Stella—”

“Shh.” She pulled a polished green stone and a purple crystal from her bag and cupped them in her hands. A few whispered words, and she blew on them. “There’s a link. It’s drawing on the energy in the room, on
Kaley
. I have to break it.”

Lorelei’s throat ached from swallowing sobs, but she managed to keep quiet as Stella lowered her cupped hands to hover over Kaley’s unmoving chest. Nothing, even when the witch’s words began to rise in a rhythmic chant that filled the room. Nothing, and every passing second thrust home the reality of the situation.

Kaley wasn’t breathing. Her heart wasn’t beating, and her lips were already turning blue.

That was what unraveled the last of Lorelei’s self-control, the still, parted lips fading from pink to purple to blue.

Colin’s arms went around her waist, grounding her in his physical strength as a rush of magic washed over her. “If you need power, take it from us,” he ground out.

“Just—” Stella froze, her hands trembling. “Fuck.
Fuck.
That’s what this is.”

“What?” Jay growled.

“I
have
been taking it from you.” She crawled half over Kaley and pressed her hand to the spot over Eden’s heart. “This could sting.”

Eden squared her shoulders. “I don’t care. Do what you have to.”