Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 (17 page)

“Mae. Smiling. She does it sometimes. She should do it more.” Shane marked off his measurement, dropped the pencil and regarded Zack. “They should all smile more. That’s what I see in you—that you know you’re fucking up, but you don’t know what to do about it. Do you stay, do you leave? You can’t do either, or you already would’ve. Especially for Kaley.”

Zack glared at the dent he’d left in the board, and this time Colin didn’t step into the silence. He let it stretch out for seconds, minutes, hours,
days
, with Zack glaring at nothing and Dylan watching the interplay with a detached sort of sympathy in his eyes.

Colin was starting to think they’d end up standing there all night when Zack growled, clenching his fingers around the hammer. “Since you’re so fucking smart, which should I do? Stay or go?”

“That’s the wrong question.” Shane hefted the saw again.

Zack took two jerky steps toward him before hauling up short. “Then what’s the right one?”

“
Can
you go?”

Zack didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Dylan could see the truth, and understanding shrouded his gaze as he carefully laid a hand on Zack’s arm. “I know wolves who were so broken, they fought the people who tried to rescue them. They were hurt. Sometimes for years, it hurt. But they got better, and you can too.”

Zack shrugged off Dylan’s hand, but the words lingered in the air and vibrated in Colin’s bones. Whatever had happened to Dylan had come close to ending him too, but he was still here.

“I feel broken sometimes.” Colin spoke without realizing he’d decided to, and the words were raw. “Shit, when you see the stuff we see…how can you not?”

“For me,” Shane said quietly, “it isn’t what I’ve seen or done. It’s how no one knows. They go on about their lives, every day, and they never know.”

“No one but pack,” Dylan agreed. “I don’t know how you guys stayed sane as long as you have without one.”

Zack laughed roughly. “That’s the real answer, isn’t it? Shouldn’t stay, can’t go, but even if I could…I’ll never get better alone.”

Shane shook his head. “You’ll never let yourself get better
here
.”

“Where else—?” Zack’s gaze fell on Dylan, who was watching him expectantly, and his teeth clacked together.

It made a perfect sort of sense. The pack in Red Rock was strong and experienced, and most of the wolves there had been helping others heal for decades. There would be no horrible memories there, and no conflicting instincts. Zack wouldn’t have to be at war with himself every moment of every day, careening between the need to curl in on himself and lick his wounds and the need to stand strong for the people who trusted him.

No, not just trusted him. Loved him. That unpleasant thread of guilt wound itself around Colin again. How easy it was to rationalize packing Zack away, out of sight, where this hollow jealousy wouldn’t gnaw at his gut.

But he wasn’t the one who suggested it. Dylan did, his voice quiet. “There’s a place for you in Red Rock, if you want it. A little cold mountain air might be good for you, as long as you’re not afraid of snow.”

Zack glanced at Colin, who did his best to keep his face blank. Not encouraging or condemning—if he planned to face Lorelei with a clean conscience, leaving had to be Zack’s choice.

“I’ll think about it,” Zack muttered finally, turning back to his worktable. “But only if we can get all this stuff built in the next few days. I want Mae and Kaley to have everything they need.” His gaze flicked to Shane, and Colin couldn’t tell if the next word was a threat or permission. A blessing. “Everything.”

Shane thumped the stack of hand-drawn plans. “Then we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The small length of wood didn’t feel magical. It could have been an ambitious piece of kindling, or a branch blown down by a storm. It didn’t vibrate with energy or look out of place…except for the dark, bloody handprints marring the rough bark.

“It’ll heal fast,” Jay murmured.

Lorelei glanced at him and tried not to show her exasperation. “I know that. I’m not new. I just don’t like blood, that’s all.”

“I’ll go next.” Kaley reached past her, grabbed the small dagger out of Jay’s hand and sliced the blade across her palm. The wound welled red, and she frowned down at it before clamping it tight to a clean spot on the wood. “See? Nothing to it.”

Mae, looking a little pale, thrust out her hand before turning resolutely away. “Someone do me. I can’t watch.”

“Here.” Kaley sliced Mae’s palm, then reached for Lorelei’s hand. “Yours too?”

She nodded and winced through the fleeting pain. “How many more?”

Sasha rinsed her hands in a porcelain bowl on the picnic table and dried her hands with a rough white cloth. “I need everyone.” She glanced over at Tammy, who had her arms locked protectively around her son. “Everyone but the child.”

“Would he be in danger?” Jay asked.

Lorelei couldn’t swallow her protest. “Jay,
no
.”

He pulled her aside and lowered his voice. “Why not?”

She pitched her voice to match his, though it wouldn’t stop Tammy from overhearing. “She shouldn’t be here. It’s not right.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Because she’d helped Christian Peters. She’d betrayed them, they couldn’t trust her, she was weak, and the child—

Jay spoke, his words cutting firmly into her thoughts. “I know you don’t like her. Hell, everyone’s seen how you avoid her. But Tammy wants to help, and that trumps all the bullshit from Memphis. It’s in the past.”

Tammy was watching them, and Lorelei grudgingly met her gaze. She knew she was being unfair, that the woman had only done the same as the rest of them—whatever she’d had to, enough to keep herself and her son alive.

The boy stood in the circle of his mother’s arms, pale and silent, his breath hanging in the chilly air with each exhalation. He looked small for his age, so
fragile
, and Lorelei’s stomach roiled with nausea.

She didn’t like looking at him.

“The kid,” she mumbled. “It’s too dangerous.”

Jay kept staring at Lorelei. “Stella?”

The implied question seemed to take the witch aback. “The circle should keep him safe, but—”

“All of us.” His tone brooked no argument as he cast glances around at his gathered pack. “Together.”

Tammy wet her lips and nodded. She bent and whispered something to the little boy, who watched with huge eyes as Mae and Lorelei added their blood to the wood.

“Me next,” Colin whispered, giving them a little more time. He took the knife from Kaley and sliced his hand without so much as a wince before passing it to Shane. With Lorelei still holding the branch, Colin met her gaze and smiled, small and just for her. “You okay?”

His words and smile combined helped to drive away her chill. “I’ll be better when this is over.”

“We’re almost there.” He gripped the branch in his hand for a moment, layering his blood alongside hers, then reached for a cloth as soon as he’d passed it on to Shane. “Let me see your palm.”

Her flesh had already healed. She showed it to him, pale and unmarked under the smeared remnants of blood. “Are you nervous? About the spell?”

The admission came slowly, and low enough for only her to hear. “A little. Magic…it’s not something I’ve dealt with a lot.”

“Me neither. Especially not this kind.”

Colin wiped her hand clean before smoothing his thumb over her palm, a slow caress that ignited her nerve endings. “I can handle it, if it makes you safe.”

“So can I.” She closed her fingers around his. “For everyone’s sake.”

People were gathered around, some watching avidly, but Colin didn’t seem to care. He held her gaze as he lifted their hands and kissed her knuckles.

Stella hefted the piece of wood and whispered something under her breath before laying it on the grass in the center of the rough circle they’d formed. “There. We don’t have to hold hands or anything—” she arched an eyebrow at Colin and Lorelei, “—but we need to focus. It might feel a little weird at first.”

Colin’s hand tightened around Lorelei’s. Mae edged a little closer on her other side, but she reached for Kaley’s hand. Zack stood quietly on the other side of the circle, as far away from them as he could be.

An accident, maybe, but Lorelei suspected something more. And as she met Zack’s gaze in the darkness, she knew it was true—they’d already lost him. Again.

As if he could see the path of her thoughts, Colin lowered his mouth close to her ear. “It’s not all bad,” he murmured before kissing her temple. “I promise.”

He probably thought she was worried—and she was—but her sadness stemmed from a more selfish concern. Colin couldn’t understand what the others meant to her, and especially Zack. Zack, who had lured her out of her self-imposed exile, plucked her off the streets because he needed help with his ragtag little pack.

A pack that no longer existed.

Eden seized Lorelei’s free hand, her grip warm and steady. Her other hand found Mae’s, and she joined them together in a flood of power—wild strength and fierce caring and the awed wonder that was so much a part of her. She caught Lorelei’s eyes with an encouraging smile. “Nothing wrong with holding hands. If Stella wants to make fun of me, I’ll start singing ‘Kumbaya’.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Stella knelt and lit a small charcoal disc in a brass brazier, fanned it red with a spoken command and tossed a handful of small amber bits on top. The sweet but sharp scent of myrrh began to rise from the brazier, and she rose along with it. “We’re ready. I’ll light the branch and help it along, but the circle won’t be complete until it consumes everyone’s blood from the wood.”

“What do we do?” Jay asked.

It was Sasha who answered, her eyes already heavy, her voice slurred and slow. “Try not to fight it.”

Another spark, and the tiny terminus of one arm of the branch caught fire. The flame licked over the wood, traveling quickly toward the trunk as both witches began to intone the same words, rhythmic and unintelligible. Their timing was off by a fraction of a second, and the effect was disorienting, a strange echo that sent a shiver through Lorelei.

Then the
really
weird shit started.

Eden gasped first, sucking in a trembling breath as her fingers clamped tight. Lorelei felt it, a swirling tickle of magic that seeped through her skin. She was awash in emotion that wasn’t her own, bright joy and tense anticipation and tremulous fear. Curiosity, determination and sadness, all tempered by relief.

Lorelei was still spinning when a second wave of magic stretched out, drawn across the center of the circle, taut like a rubber band. Foreign but familiar, and she realized she’d always felt it at the farm, a low vibration in her bones. Stella’s incantation grew louder, taking on an edge of accusation as it rose in volume and intensity.

Lorelei opened her eyes. This strange magic hungered—quick, ravenous pulses that kicked her heart into her throat, like a prey animal startled by the shadow of a predator.

Dylan’s voice rolled across the clearing, low and powerful, his tone confident in the face of that vicious energy. “It’s weakening.”

A little more.
Sasha’s voice, reverberating through the night, though she never wavered in her melodious chant.

The panic twisted up and gripped Lorelei, shaking her control.
Dangerous,
it hissed.
Run.

Zack growled, as if facing a challenge. Fletcher’s expression turned fierce, and Colin bared his teeth in a furious snarl. Warmth surged out from him, enfolding her in protective strength. His hand cradled hers, fingers locked but gentle.

She could stand this. She didn’t have to run.

She could fight.

The moment the thought flitted through Lorelei’s mind, the tense ribbon of magic snapped, lashing back on her—on all of them—with searing force. Mae sucked in a pained breath and swayed. Kaley steadied her, her chest heaving but her hands sure.

The burning branch extinguished suddenly, leaving Lorelei stripped of the jumble of emotions the spell had wrought. She was alone again, separate.

Sasha slumped to the grass, and Dylan broke the circle to hurry to her side. Eden let go of Lorelei and turned away, but Colin held on tighter, his voice hoarse as he stared at the branch. “That was…” He cleared his throat roughly. “Intense.”

Boz had tried to explain it to her once, the music your own energy made when you combined it with others. A pack, harmonious in every way. “Yes, it was.”

Having steadied Mae, Eden moved to Stella’s side. “Did it work?”

“The thread is broken,” she confirmed.

“It’s hard to tell where or how the spell originated,” Sasha explained. “Or when. It felt old, like something that had been waiting for a long time. Not fresh.”

Zack’s entire body tensed. “How long? Could it have been here longer than thirty years?”

“Could be thirty years or three hundred.” Sasha shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

Jay frowned. “You think it has something to do with your family, Zack?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and avoided looking at Eden. Instead he stared out into the woods. “I don’t know, but it makes me wonder. Maybe my mother didn’t run away. Maybe her bastard husband found her dead and didn’t want to get blamed for it.”