Wolves’ Bane (26 page)

Rachel nodded, her eyes still glazed with shock as she dug into her pocket and pulled out her house keys then headed for the door.

I turned back to the SUV. Lance had rolled down the passenger-side window and was leaning over the seat to see me. “Are you sure, Morgan?”

I nodded as I briefly closed my eyes, my mind reeling. This was my last chance. If I let Lance drive away, I was sure I’d never see any of them again—never see Cal again. I didn’t even know where the mansion was located exactly. As I opened my eyes, I released the breath I’d been holding and nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.

Lance clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek as he stared at me. “Morgan, if he’d wanted to kill you, he wouldn’t have missed.”

His words hit me like a sledgehammer, and I stared after him as he pulled himself back from the window, waited for another full minute, and then drove away, his tires skidding along the pavement as he went.

Of course, Lance was right. Cal never missed with his sai, I knew that. But it didn’t change anything. I still couldn’t trust him to put me ahead of the Order and that was what I needed. For someone to finally put me first…and I was going to start things off by doing it myself.

Chapter Forty-Two

Awakening

For the millionth time, Cal checked the messages, or lack of messages, on his cell phone. Why he continued to hope that she would call, he couldn’t understand. He’d never given her his cell number, how would she know how to reach him?

It had been three weeks. Three weeks of sleepless nights and no appetite. Three weeks of rollercoaster emotions: rage, sorrow, pain, loss. Every day waiting and wondering when she would break the bond. Cal knew now what he had put her through when he left to find another woman. He understood the hell of waiting for someone to destroy his heart. But he didn’t dare go to her. She’d made her choice, and she’d been perfectly clear. She didn’t want him. She hadn’t asked for it.

He sat in the wing-backed chair that looked out on the backyard from Kelly’s room, as he had for all the waking hours and sometimes the restless nights since his return. With Andrew gone, Cal felt obligated to sit with her, speak to her, explain how he’d fucked up, how he’d gotten her Hunter killed—or worse—transformed into a beast. He didn’t know if she could hear what he said and without Andrew there to connect with her mind, Cal had no idea what she was thinking. It was unending silence, punctuated by the machines that were keeping her alive.

The other Hunters were outside training. The wolves had been silent for weeks. There had been only one attack on a human shortly after the battle where Lazarus died. A small team of Hunters had gone to investigate, but really, without an active Huntress, all they could do was threaten and injure if they encountered one of the beasts.

The scholars were busy decoding the text as it continued to write itself. Without Kelly’s premonitions, they once again had no idea where to find the next Huntress. They had to rely on the text to show the Huntresses to them. And so far there had been nothing.

Cal’s heart hurt. There was no other way to describe it. It ached for Morgan in ways that he couldn’t understand. His body longed to touch her, to hear her voice. He felt like the walking dead, tied to a woman who still breathed, who was still connected to him, but whom he couldn’t have. For all of his precautions, all of the sacrifices he had made when he’d first met her, he’d lost her anyway, and Andrew had been right—the pain was truly unbearable. He had no desire to fight, no desire to live. The only thing that kept him from plunging a dagger into his heart was guilt and hope. Kelly had lost her Hunter because of Cal’s actions. Hitting Andrew with his
sai
had disabled him for the fight. Cal had done nothing to protect Andrew, instead he had been too focused on Morgan and the remorse was eating him alive.

And then there was the hope that had him checking his phone for the impossible. Each day that went by without Morgan breaking the bond gave Cal hope she would change her mind. She would find a way to contact him and tell him to come and get her.

But that was a pipe dream too. She wouldn’t ask him to get her. She didn’t want to come back to the mansion. And he didn’t blame her—she’d been right, after all. They had betrayed her, all of them, but Cal worst of all. Lance felt a lot of guilt—he hadn’t really said it, but Cal knew. Lance thought he should have tried harder to convince her to stay. But it wasn’t his fault, it was Cal’s. He’d made too many mistakes. Taken too many risks.

Cal took in a deep breath, blowing out the air as he stood and stretched. His body truly ached, from missing Morgan and from inaction. Sitting all day and most nights had him cramping all over, common sense said he should go for a run and give the punching bags good round of ass-kicking. But he couldn’t leave. He was tied to that bed just as surely as she was.

He turned away from the window and moved toward Kelly’s bed. She lay as she always did, peacefully sleeping as the machines worked her body to stay alive.

“I really wish I knew if you could hear me, Kelly.” He laid his hand on her arm. “I know I say this every day, but I am truly sorry for what I’ve done…trapping you in your mind because there’s no one here who can hear you.”

He lowered his head, closing his eyes as he ran his fingers down her arm and clasped her hand, squeezing as he always did.

And she squeezed back. Hard.

And then her heart monitor began to beep wildly.

Cal snapped his eyes open and shifted them to Kelly’s face only to reel back in surprise. Her eyes were open, staring at him, her brow furrowed as she seemed to fight against the tubes that filled her throat.

The hand he held fluttered as the other floated to her mouth and began to yank at the tubing, her eyes watering as she sputtered and choked.

With the initial shock ebbing, Cal jumped into action, screaming for help as he brushed Kelly’s fingers away and pulled the tape that secured the tubing to her lips. With her gagging, her chest heaving, he slowly began to pull. Inch after inch of the tubing slid from her throat until finally it was completely out.

And for one heart-wrenching moment, Kelly seemed to stop breathing altogether, her heart monitor screeching as her chest began to spasm.

He braced his hands on her shoulders, shaking her. “Kelly, oh fuck, Kelly, what have I done?”

And then she pulled in a deep breath of air on her own, released it and sucked up another. Her heart monitor calmed.

Lance came running into the room. “What the hell is going on in here… Holy shit!”

Cal turned to face Lance, the adrenaline of the past few moments pounding through him as he pointed a shaking finger in Kelly’s direction. “She fucking woke up.”

Lance stood wide-eyed, his mouth agape.

“Water,” Kelly croaked, her throat so unused to speaking that it sounded all wrong, like grating metal. Raw.

Cal jumped to snag his water bottle, opening the lid as Lance helped Kelly sit up. She smiled weakly after she took a small sip, moaning as her throat worked the liquid down.

She motioned for more and Cal helped her hold the bottle. She slowly gulped, sputtering a bit out when it became too much for her to handle.

Lance helped her to lie back, his gaze rising to meet Cal’s. “How can this be?”

Cal shook his head. He didn’t know. “You should go and get the healer.”

Lance nodded and moved to the door, pausing when Kelly, her voice cracked and strained, said, “Andrew?” She shifted her eyes from Cal to Lance.

Cal rubbed his hand across his jaw, not sure how much to tell Kelly, not knowing how fragile she might be.

“And-drew?” she stuttered, her voice sounding frantic.

Cal sighed. “Andrew might be dead.” He gulped down the lump in his throat, watching Kelly’s eyes for signs of shock. “He was taken by Lazarus’s pack during the battle at the lunar eclipse.”

To Cal’s amazement, Kelly sighed and relaxed back into her pillow. With a small smile for him, she reached out her hand, searching for Cal’s. Confused, he clasped onto her fingers and squeezed. “Thank you,” she breathed as she closed her eyes. “He kept me like this,” she whispered, then seemed to fall asleep.

Her last murmured words were so muffled that Cal almost didn’t hear them. He snapped his eyes up to Lance’s, who nodded in return. “Yes, I fucking heard that too,” he snarled.

“What do you think it means?”

Lance folded his arms, his eyes growing dark with anger. “It fucking means that Andrew kept her in the coma somehow. He fucking kept her trapped in her head. And it doesn’t fucking surprise me.”

Cal frowned as he turned his eyes back to Kelly. “She’s sleeping. We’re going to have to wait to find out more.”

“Well, I think I’ve heard enough. That bastard had a lot of fucked-up ideas about the Huntress. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that he would do this to her.”

“All the same, I’d like to know why.”

Kelly’s chest rose and fell in a steady deep rhythm, her eyelids flickering, her lips curled in a smile.

“You should go get the healer. He’ll be able to tell us what the hell is going on,” Cal said.

“Will do. But, Cal?”

Cal looked up. “Yeah?”

“You may never know why. Andrew might just be that fucked-up guy who wanted control.” With one final look at the bed, he left the room.

Cal nodded as he lowered his gaze back to Kelly, shock still resonating through him. How could she wake up now, weeks after Andrew had been gone, if there wasn’t some connection? If it was true, maybe it could explain the reason for Andrew’s bizarre behavior.

He knelt beside the bed, his hand still clasped in hers as he laid his forehead to rest on the mattress. Cal’s mind spun with his emotions, battling for purchase. Longing for Morgan, anger mingled with pity for Andrew, relief for Kelly, and duty to the Order.

Chapter Forty-Three

Mine

I sat on the porch, on the swinging bench I’d just installed, enjoying the dying summer. It would soon be fall. It would soon be time for classes to begin.

The houses around mine were filling with students again. All had been rented to eager young adults, all bouncing with excitement. All embarking on this new journey in their lives, away from home, making new friends.

I smiled as I took another sip of my coffee. I’d be starting classes soon, as well. I’d reenrolled, signed up for my courses, revisited my thesis advisor. I felt like a new person. A phoenix reborn. Renewed, invigorated, ready to conquer my studies. After all that I had been through, completing my thesis seemed like a cakewalk.

The fog of depression that had threatened to eat me alive was gone. Cal and his bond had taken care of the worst of it. I could thank him for that at least. He’d saved my life in a way. Freed me from the debilitating depression that had stopped me from living for far too long.

Now it was gone, and I felt like I could breathe again.

The only thing that dragged me down now was the longing I felt for Cal. The intense burning need to touch him, to be with him, to hear him speak. I hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to break the bond. Partly because I hadn’t really met a man who interested me like Cal did—a man who made me burn with desire like he had. The other part that stopped me from breaking the bond was this crazy hope of mine. I foolishly thought that one day I would wake up and he would be there, waiting for me to open the front door, or better yet, curled up behind me in my bed.

But that hadn’t happened. Every morning for the past seven weeks, I’d woken alone, the intensity of my longing bringing me to tears. I wasn’t worried about falling into depression again—I felt too powerful for that. But I did miss him. A lot. And I knew I couldn’t compete with his loyalty to the Order. He wouldn’t betray his vows.

I spent a lot of time alone these days. Rachel had drifted away from me. She seemed to be doing well, getting over the shock and terror of her experience with Lazarus, but she wasn’t yet back to normal, and I guessed she never would be. I struggled with my guilt over Rachel’s transformation. I missed my friend and wished I could erase the horror that she’d endured. But after I had explained everything to her, after I’d told her about Cal and the Hunters, about Lazarus and the pack, Rachel had vowed her silence and then basically had shut me out. We’d meet and have coffee every so often, but clearly she wanted her distance from me, and that was something I could understand. Needing distance was something I knew a lot about.

I hadn’t bothered to go back to my job at the bookstore. Instead, I’d arranged to pick up a few classes as a teaching assistant for my professor. It didn’t pay well, but with my scholarship I didn’t need a ton of money. Plus, the thought of mentoring some new students through their studies kind of appealed to me. I had a lot of expertise to offer and it made me feel like I was doing something important.

I sighed as I swung lazily, my bare feet pushing off the porch railing as I took another sip of my drink. Life was falling into place. It wasn’t perfect. I was desperately lonely and the tug I felt in my heart for Cal had never faded, but at least I had some direction and distractions to help me through it. And I hadn’t had any run-ins with the wolves. With Lazarus dead, they were staying in hiding. Not that I wasn’t prepared. I had a few dozen weapons hidden all over my house, all within easy reach no matter what room I was in. I also had used my spell memory to etch my house and property from top to bottom—no unwanted guests, beast or otherwise could step a toe onto my grass. I may have walked away from the Order, but I wasn’t stupid. Those wolves knew where I was and what I looked like, but if they wanted me they were going to be in for one hell of a fight.

As twilight descended, I shifted my feet to the floor and stood, stretching out to ease my muscles. The Saturday night revelers were making their way down the street, searching out the party house of the night on the next block. My street was never the one chosen for the drinkers. It was always the frat houses that got all the attention. I smiled at the sound of laughter fading away, which was not yet drunk but not completely sober either. Shouts and giggles all around me. And the sound of a motorcycle roaring somewhere close.

I moved to the door, my hand on the knob. When the parties started, I hid away in the house, as usual having grand plans to watch some old movies, read a romance, go to bed early. Boring but safe.

I frowned as the roar of the motorcycle got closer, the revving engine sounding like it was turning onto my block rather than away from it. I shifted toward the noise, squinting as I craned my neck to peer down the road.

The bike came into view seconds later, blasting its motor as it flew down the street. I dropped my hand from the knob and turned just as the motorcycle with its leather-clad rider stopped in front of my house.

My heart thudded with a wallop.

My hands began to shake as I took a step off the porch and watched the rider swing his leg over the motorcycle. He lifted his hands to his helmet as he moved around the bike.

The helmet came off, revealing lush brown hair—much longer than it had been—a strong chiseled face, and piercing blue eyes.

“Cal,” I breathed.

He held the helmet in one hand at his side while he brushed the other through his hair, all the while staring at me, a lopsided grin pulling his lips. I took another step toward him, somehow doubting what my eyes were telling me.

“Cal?” I frowned, my confusion stunting my thoughts. “What are you going here?”

He moved toward me, closing the distance between us with a few easy strides. Staring down at me, he cleared his throat, lifted his hand to rub over his mouth, wiping the smile away, seemingly lost for words himself.

“Is everything okay?” I whispered as I stared at him, my mind reeling.

Cal shook his head, his brow pulling into a frown as he moved his hand to my face, cupping my cheek and tenderly stroking his thumb over my skin. “No,” he croaked.

My heart strained against my chest, threatening to beat itself right out of my body. “What’s wrong?” I murmured, my voice sounding strange, like I was dreaming and had lost control over myself. “Is Candy all right? Lance? Have you found Andrew?”

Cal shook his head. “No, no, everyone is fine.” He sighed. “We haven’t found Andrew yet.”

I frowned with confusion. My heart leaped, grasping for the words I wanted to hear. All the while my head told me it couldn’t possibly be.

“I can’t live without you, Morgan.” Cal tilted my face up to his and brushed his lips against mine.

The touch, just that little touch, sent my body burning, desire pulsing through me. And then came the words.

“I left the Order. Broke my vows. To be with you.”

The very words I wanted to hear. I felt as if I was underwater, my mind only half comprehending what he was saying. It was too good to be true. Too much what I wanted. I gasped as I pulled away to look at him. “What?”

Cal frowned. “If you’ll have me.”

I blinked, hard. Was Cal really there, standing right in front of me, just as he had in my dreams? Telling me what I so desperately wanted to hear? “Am I dreaming?”

Cal smiled and ran his fingers along my jaw and down my neck, leaving a trail of fire as he went. “No. You’re not dreaming.”

He slanted his lips over mine, capturing my mouth with a need that matched my own. As his tongue slid past my lips, I moaned, my body melting, my heart bursting.

But before passion could totally consume me, I forced myself away, dragging my mouth from his, my hand on his massive chest.

He frowned at me.

“Cal? Are you serious? Did you truly leave the Order to be with me?”

Cal nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

I ran my hand through my hair, nervous all of a sudden, uncomfortable. “But it’s your life. You devoted your life to the Order. How could you do that? How could you leave without knowing if I would have you?”

Cal licked his lips and nodded, his eyes shadowing over, shutting me out. “So I’m too late then? You’ve met someone else?”

I flinched. “No, I haven’t, but how can I be responsible for tearing you away from the only thing you’ve known? Your loyalty. Your life.”

Cal lifted his hand to brush my cheek, his eyes burning with new intensity. “It was my choice to make. And I realized that it was a choice I
needed
to make. You are my life. You have my loyalty. It shouldn’t be any other way. You are my Huntress, my other half. So if you’ll have me, I’m yours, Morgan, for eternity. I belong to you and no other.”

I stared at him, my mind lost in his words. “Mine?”

He nodded as he bent down to nibble at my jaw, his hand running up and down my back as he crushed me closer to him. “Mine.”

And as if a puzzle piece had finally slipped into place, I moved my face to the side, capturing his lips with mine. “Then-I-think-I-will-have-you-Cal,” I said between kisses.

He growled, grasping my waist as he heaved me up, lifting me to him as he devoured my lips. Kissing me with more intensity than I’d ever known. Claiming me just as surely as I had claimed him.

Mine,
I thought as I was swept away in a world of dizzying desire and fulfillment.

Mine.