Violet (The Silver Series Book 4) (4 page)

It took several miles of running to finally
lose them. The scent of blood, sweat, and fear wafted from Rafe by
the time we stopped. I started to shake, and Rafe found a small
cave between two slabs of stone. He mercifully phased outside, then
tossed in my shirt so I could be somewhat decent.

“
You can come in,” I said
after I had pulled on the shirt. The cold bit into my bare skin
after the warmth of a wolf's fur; I shivered and pulled the thin
shirt closer around me.

“
Are you sure?” Rafe asked
after a minute. “You could have the cave to yourself.”

I smiled at his kindness. “It’s freezing out
there and we're safer in here.” When he didn't move, I took a
steeling breath and spoke the truth. “And I'm afraid to be
alone.”

His bare feet scuffed the rocks outside the
small cave a moment longer, then he ducked through the opening, a
hand on his side. Blood ran between his fingers and his face was
pale.

“
You need help,” I said,
alarmed.

He leaned against the rock wall and gave a
wan smile. “Not too many doctors out here.” He took his hand away
and I gasped at the bullet wound through his side. He prodded it
gingerly. “Looks like it came in the back and went out the front,
otherwise I'd be dead by now.”

“
Why is that?” I asked with
a pit in my stomach.

“
It was definitely a silver
bullet the way it's taking so long to clot. If it hadn't gone out,
that much silver would probably kill me.”

“
And you just ran five
miles after being shot,” I pointed out, trying to stay calm. “That
really doesn't help.”

“
True.” He slid down the
wall to a sitting position, leaving a streak of dark red behind
him.

“
That needs to be cleaned,”
I said carefully even though I had no idea how to go about cleaning
it.

He shrugged. “It'll heal by morning, or I
wake up dead.”

“
Nice.” I tore a strip off
the bottom of my shirt and led him outside to the small stream we
had passed a short ways back. He gave me a strange look when I took
his hand without giving him a chance to argue, but he followed me
into the graying dawn. “Kneel down.”

He did as I asked, his eyes guarded. I
dipped the rag in the stream and washed the entrance and exit of
the wound the best that I could. Rafe's breath caught in his throat
at the cold water. “I'm not exactly fond of icy streams,” he said
through gritted teeth.

“
Better than nothing.” I
hoped I was right. At least the wound looked somewhat better by the
time I wrapped it in another strip of the shirt and led him back to
the cave.

He stumbled at the entrance and I had to
catch him before he fell to his knees. He gave me an apologetic
smile. “Just tired. I'll be better after I rest a bit.”

I eased him down against the wall and he
tipped his head back and closed his eyes. I sat down across from
him, resigned to another few sleepless days.

His breath lengthened and I thought he had
fallen asleep when he said without opening his eyes, “Why did you
save me?”

I stared at him, but he kept his eyes
closed. Hundreds of answers raced through my head, generic answers
about how anyone would have done it, how everyone deserved a chance
to live, and how I was heading that way anyway, but they were all
lies. Roger and the others had left him there to die in the fire,
though by accident or on purpose I had yet to tell; I could name
several men that had shot at us that I didn't feel deserved to
live; and the analysis center was exactly opposite from the exit I
needed to take to escape the fire. I took a breath, let it out
slowly, then told him the truth. “It was your eyes.”

He tipped his head toward me and opened his
eyes slightly. “My eyes?”

His tone was even, but I felt myself
blushing anyway. I looked away. “You have honest eyes. I know it's
silly, but I felt like I could trust you.”

He fell silent for a minute and when I
looked back, his eyes were closed again but there was a small smile
on his lips. After several minutes, he said, “You can trust
me.”

“
I know.”

He fell silent, then opened an eye and
looked at me. “You're not tired?”

“
Exhausted,” I admitted.
“But being changed into a werewolf also gave me insomnia. I don't
sleep much.”

He thought about it for a second, then
opened both eyes and sat up gingerly.

“
But you should sleep,” I
said quickly, worried about how weak and worn he looked.

He ignored my comment. “What do you do when
you can't sleep?”

“
Come talk to you,” I said
with a small laugh.

He nodded and motioned for me to sit by him.
I gave him a calculating look and he laughed, then grabbed his
side. “Ouch. It's not like I'm going to take advantage of you. You
said you trust me, remember?”

“
I trust your eyes. I don't
know about the rest of you,” I shot back, but I moved to sit next
to him. The close proximity was both comforting and
unnerving.

“
You can trust the rest of
me,” he said softly into my ear.

A shiver ran through my skin at the warmth
of his breath on my ear and I had to force my heart to beat normal
so that he didn't hear it. He waited a moment, then lifted his arm
so that I rested against his uninjured side. He leaned his head
back against the wall and I listened to his heart beat and the
steady rise and fall of his breath.

A slight rain began to patter softly
outside. We sat in silence for a minute, then Rafe began to hum a
soft tune I didn't recognize. After several minutes, he started to
sing. His voice surprised me. It was warm and full, reminding me of
the rolling thunder before a spring storm. He sang a soft song
about a fox lost in its own forest. The song lulled me into a
thoughtless calm that chased away my fears of the men who were
after us.

It took me a while to realize that he had
stopped singing. I glanced up to see his chin on his chest and his
breath steady and slowly. I moved slowly from under his arm and
eased him carefully to the ground on his good side. He shivered and
I wished I had a blanket to put over him the way my mom always did
for me when I was sick. The thought sent a pang through my heart
and I rubbed my shoulders against the cold.

An irrational urge to curl up next to him
ran through my mind, but I pushed it away with a quiet laugh at
myself. Apparently after being turned into a werewolf and chased
with a stranger through the forest after said stranger rescued me
from a burning inferno, I was ready to forget all boundaries for
him.

The rational side of me argued that he had
indeed saved my life, possibly taken a bullet for me, and sang to
me to help me sleep. Rafe shivered again and my werewolf eyesight
made out a sheen of sweat on his skin. I sighed and laid down
behind him with my back to his. It was the closest I could force
myself to bend. The feeling of his hot skin against my back drove
all thoughts of sleep from my mind. I stayed awake through the
early hours of the morning listening to his fevered muttering and
shuddering breath with the fear that he would need more medical
help than I could give.

The thought reminded me of Kaynan, and I
wondered how my brother was taking the fire. I hoped everyone had
made it out. I hadn't seen anyone on my dash from my room to the
analysis center, so I rationalized that meant the others had
escaped before me. My deep sleeps after days of insomnia made me
practically dead to the world. I could only hope we were in a safe
place the next time my body gave in to exhaustion.

Chapter 4

Rafe stirred when the sunlight reached a few
feet into the cave. He had stopped shivering about an hour before
and the sweating had finally ceased. I sat up quickly before he
awoke and moved to the other side of the cave.

Rafe pushed himself upright and gave me a
knowing smile. “I didn't die. I suppose I have you to thank for
that.”

I couldn't bring myself to meet his gaze. “I
don't know what you're talking about.”

He rose to his knees and unwrapped the
bandage from his side. The red, gaping holes had been replaced by
pink, healing skin with no sign of infection. “I guess you're
pretty good at doctoring.”

A small laugh escaped me. “I couldn't even
handle dissecting frogs in Biology.”

He gave me a confused look. “Why would you
want to dissect frogs?”

I laughed again. “I didn't want to. It was
the only way to pass the class.”

His expression lightened. “Oh, at
school.”

“
Yeah, high school.” I
suddenly missed my friends, family, and old life so much I could
barely breathe. I focused on him instead. “You never went to
school?”

He pushed to his feet. “We'd better get
going.”

I stood up, surprised at his change of
demeanor. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. I was just curious
after seeing your file.”

He glanced back at me, his expression
unreadable; then he ran a hand through his tangled brown hair to
push it back off his face and sighed. “Sorry; it's not you. It's
just not a pleasant story. We'd better get going so they don't
track us here.”

I followed him back out into the forest. It
was midafternoon and birds talked around us with the carefree
abandon of undisturbed creatures. We walked slowly through the
trees. The sweet, earthy scent of decaying leaves and forest loam
rose with each step. A soft breeze tangled through the underbrush
and brought with it the smells of wild berries, burrowing mice, and
the faint scent of a deer that sent a shudder through my skin.

It was strange to want to trail the deer, to
chase it and kill it. I had never killed an animal in my life. I
even carried the insects that made their way to my bedroom outside
in a cup I kept especially for that reason. The want to sink my
fangs into flesh and tear it, to taste blood flowing past my
muzzle, to hear the last beats of a heart and know that I ended a
life that would soon fill my belly, confused me.

I pushed away the urge to phase, then walked
a few minutes more until the realization hit me that I had been
able to control my body.

Rafe took a few more steps, then glanced
back at me. “Everything okay?”

I stared at him and felt the first rush of
hope that I would eventually be able to live a normal life despite
being a werewolf. A slow smile spread across my face. “Better than
it's been in a long time!”

He gave me a perplexed look and waited for
me to catch up, then fell into pace beside me.

“
Where are we going?” I
asked a while later when I realized I didn't even know which
direction we traveled.

“
To my pack.”

My heart skipped a beat and I gave him a
sideways glance. He studied the trees ahead of us. “A werewolf
pack?” I pressed.

He shook his head. “A wolf pack.”

I couldn't help staring. “A wild wolf
pack?”

He glanced at me, his lips fighting back a
smile. “Is there another kind?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I
mean.”

He fell silent, his strange golden eyes
light and a slight smile on his face. I walked beside him and began
to enjoy the simplicity of forest life and the fresh air that felt
alive around us. It was easy to forget that we were being chased by
men intent on killing us, or that the rehab center had been blown
up.

But as the sun began to set, I couldn't stop
thinking of Kaynan. He had no way of knowing that I had made it out
of the center. He had always taken care of me; I owed it to him to
at least let him know I was still alive.

I put a hand on Rafe's arm. “I need to call
Kaynan.”

His brow furrowed. “We're a long ways from
civilization. It'll take a few hours to get to a phone.”

“
I need to. They don't even
know I'm alive.”

He fell silent, then changed our direction
until we walked down a gradual decline. It was well after nightfall
when we saw the lights of a one-gas-station town nestled in a small
valley between two mountain ranges. Every time moonlight broke
through the clouds and touched my skin, the urge to phase surged
through me so strong I had to stop to hold onto the sliver of
control I had found.

Rafe waited patiently beside me while I
fought another battle inside myself. I leaned against a tree,
hidden from the moon in its shadow, and put my face against the
trunk. The cool bark helped me center myself and drive away the
chaos that warred beneath my skin. I took a deep breath of the
tangy, crisp scent of the aspen and stepped back to find Rafe
watching me.

“
What?” I asked
self-consciously.

He gave a half-smile. “You fit in here.”

“
A wild animal too
dangerous for civilization?” I asked, then kicked myself mentally
when I remembered that was how he had been classified at the rehab
center.

He shook his head and said seriously, “No. A
graceful creature so beautiful she hides in the shadows so others
can only guess at the contours of her face and the shade of her
skin.”

I stared at him, speechless.

He tipped his head toward the town.
“Ready?”

I nodded, but could barely remember why we
were going there. He gave another half smile and led the way down
the mountainside.

***

I watched from the shadows until a lone
woman in her late fifties pulled up to the gas station. My heart
jumped in my throat and I had to push down the urge to run away.
Rafe stayed in the shadows, a wild, wary look about him as though
he would melt into the trees and I would never see him again. I
forced my feet to move and approached her car from the side
farthest away from the gas station.