Haunted Sanctuary (Green Pines Sanctuary) (22 page)

“Zack,
stop
.” Jay infused the word with as much alpha power as he could muster.

Zack drove his boot into a piece of the broken table. It skittered across the floor and slammed into the wall, rattling the window in its frame. A sick growl wrenched free of his throat, one of rage and betrayal. “You were supposed to keep her safe.”

“I’m okay—” Eden’s voice cracked, and he flinched like she’d struck him. His gaze dropped to the shattered table and the broken glass, and he shuddered before spinning out of the room.

Eden started after him, but Jay caught her arm. “Don’t. It’ll just make it worse, seeing you hurting.”

She winced as her shoe crunched on a piece of glass. “I didn’t think it would upset him this much. But he blames himself…”

Christ, he didn’t want to have this conversation with her. Not ever, but especially not now. “He might not ever stop blaming himself, Eden. I’ve seen it before. The trauma, the outbursts—it’s bad for anyone, but worse for wolves.”

Every muscle in her body turned to steel. She knew the truth—on some level she knew it, the instinctive level that had embraced her wolf so completely—but she wouldn’t admit it. “Maybe after the situation with Memphis is settled for good. We’re all stressed about it.”

Jay had to look away. “Ignoring this won’t make it go away. We have to
talk
about it, figure it out.”

“If it doesn’t get better, then we get him help. He’s my family. He could be my
brother
.”

He grasped her arms. “I’m not talking about Zack being depressed or punching a table, Eden. I’m talking about him breaking down, losing control of everything, including the wolf.”

She blinked at him, those big eyes impossible to read now. “How do we fix it? Is there magic, or a spell?”

“No, honey. There’s nothing like that.”

Denial bled into anger. “And what does that mean? You just give up on him?”

“It’s not about giving up. It’s about protecting the rest of the pack, and protecting him from shit I know he wouldn’t want to do if he had any will or sense left.”

She didn’t look away from him. “Say it, Jay. Say the words.”

Her fury burned in his gut, and Jay had to fight not to let it spark his own. “I don’t want to. I don’t
want
to consider this at all, but I don’t have a choice. Zack asked me to take over this pack, and this is part of it. The hard part.”

Eden jerked her arms free of his grip, but she didn’t back off. “Say the words. If we’re going to fight, let’s fight for the right reason.”

Damn it all.
“If he has to be put down,” he said quietly, “then I’ll do it myself. Quick and painless, I swear.”

“Put. Down.” She wreathed every word in ice. “You want me to get a DNA test to find out if he’s my brother before you kill him.”

“I don’t want to do anything,” he shot back. “Eden, you quit your job and he broke a fucking table. How far from the edge do you think he is?”

“I don’t know where the edge
is
! Is it that quick a jump from breaking a table by mistake to having to die?”

Zack had been born a wolf, lived with that superhuman strength all his life. Nothing he broke could be by
mistake
. But in her position, Jay would probably have to turn it around too, if only because the knowledge was terrifying, and accepting it unthinkable.

He took a deep breath. “I didn’t say that, and it’s not about the table. You know it isn’t.”

“I know. It’s about what we have to do, and what we can live with.” Pain twisted her features, a sad echo of the agony trembling across their bond. But even now he could feel her pulling away. Fighting to put up walls, to block him from her heart. “I can’t stand by and let you kill him. I can’t live with that.”

The new distance between them hurt, but Jay hid it behind the blankest mask he could manage. “It isn’t a subjective matter, Eden. Zack has been putting as much space between him and the rest of us as possible, but it’s not enough. If he keeps on the way he has been, at some point, he’ll become too dangerous.”

“Then I’ll find a way to stop it.” She turned her back on him and tipped the box upright, as if the conversation was over. “I’ll have the dining table from my house brought over tomorrow.”

“Eden, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Make plans to fix the things that are broken?”

“No, you—”
Don’t push so hard you push him away. Don’t blame yourself if you can’t change things. Don’t get hurt.
“Nothing. You do what you have to do.”

She picked up a framed photograph of her and her father standing with Zack at his graduation and shook the broken glass free. It bounced on the floor with a sad clink. “I’m not a helpless little girl anymore. I’m not going to let him get hurt this time.”

And the demons plaguing Zack were the same plus some, death and destruction and the kind of failure Eden could only now begin to suspect existed. “Let me help you.”

“You can get the broom,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. Flat and careful, as smooth a mask as her face. She was good at pretending.

“Damn it, I’m not talking about the glass.” But she’d already placed the broken frame in the box and started for the door. Jay raised his voice. “Just stop for a second and listen.”

She hesitated in the doorway. “I don’t know if I can take many more words right now. I’ve made a lot of hasty decisions today already.”

Take your own advice, dumbass. Don’t push.
“All right. Okay.”

Tears brightened her eyes, but she didn’t ask for comfort. She turned her back on him and walked away.

Her sadness lingered longer than her anger, and it wrapped around him as he grabbed the broom and began to sweep the glass from the floor. He could have waited, hidden the truth from her. Pretended Zack was fine, that Jay had never seen the flashes of desperation in his eyes, never listened to his pleas for mercy and offered his promise to handle things.

In the end, Jay didn’t have to pull the trigger. It was the sort of work Colin had taken upon himself so many times before, eliminating threats with brutal efficiency. Except it was killing him, bit by bit, and having him take on what was rightly
Jay’s
responsibility could only push him farther down the path to losing his soul, and maybe even his mind.

No. Eventually, Jay would have had to stand before Eden and have this same conversation. Better now than later. Now, when the cut could be quick and clean.

Mostly.

Chapter Fourteen

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

The word pulsed with every step she took, a self-loathing refrain pounding in her head. Unshed tears stung her eyes and formed a lump in her throat. She took the long way around the house because she didn’t know what to do when she reached the barn. She’d left half of the contents of her box strewn across the dining room floor for Jay to sweep up, and if that didn’t feel like a metaphor for her life right now…

One morning. That was all she’d gotten. One morning of bliss, one morning of freedom, feeling comfortable in her skin and so confident of her place. She’d wanted to believe she’d turned a corner in her life. That this new Eden was the
real
Eden, awake and unfettered after so many years of making herself small and numb.

Maybe it had all been a haze of adrenaline and good sex, and she’d thrown over her life in the reckless pursuit of something that could only exist a few hours at a time. And that was the
good
possibility.

The truth burned in her gut like she’d swallowed a hot coal. Zack wasn’t right. At some point during the full moon, she’d slid into the wolf and the wolf had slid into her. She knew things now. She
felt
them, knowledge that lived in her cells as if she’d been born with it.

Zack wasn’t right. Wasn’t just wounded. He was sick, darkness eating him up from the inside out, and Eden hated Jay for saying the words and hated herself more for knowing they were true.

Not that agreeing with him could change anything. If he put down her cousin—her
brother
—how could the human parts of her live with him? How could she live with herself, and the parts of her that would undoubtedly approve? She’d be torn down the middle, mired in self-loathing and addicted to the man who’d ripped her in two.

She stopped at the corner of the house and stared at the barn. She’d pushed Jay last night. Scratched at him, challenged him, skated along the line between violence and sex because there had been something thrilling in the game. Something necessary to satisfy her baser needs.

Such a delicate balance, and it could go so horrifyingly wrong. What would it take to push them off that edge, to stumble over the line from sweet games of power to the sort of nightmare Kathy and Albus had lived out on this farm? Violence and passion, rage and lust.

Maybe it could never happen. Maybe it would only take one step.

Shivering, Eden hurried past the porch and strode toward the barn. Neither of them would take that step. She’d give him up before she became her uncle. Cut out her own heart if she had to. Cut out his too. Better numb and alone than destroying each other and everyone around—

“I don’t
want
you to fight. I want you safe. I fucking need you safe. When you say this shit, you’re not making it better. You’re giving me one more reason to get the hell away from you.”

It was Zack’s voice, drifting from around the edge of the barn, and Eden froze as Kaley answered.

“Is that what I’m supposed to do? Go away, just not too far?”

Eden could hear the tears in the girl’s voice. Her already battered heart broke in half as Zack whispered Kaley’s name, full of pain and regret, and Eden
had
to move, because she couldn’t listen to any more of this and couldn’t let Zack say the words he wouldn’t be able to take back.

“No,” Kaley continued. “At some point, I’ll have to leave. I won’t be able to—”

Eden reached the edge of the barn, and Kaley’s words cut off in a gasp. When she stepped around in sight of them, Kaley drew away and turned, folding her arms around her body, and Zack jerked around, his eyes going wide. “Eden.”

“Sorry,” she said, forcing her voice to sound casual. “I was bringing this stuff out to the barn to sort through later and I heard voices.”

“I was going for a run anyway.” Kaley kicked off her shoes and picked them up. “I’ll be back late.”

“Don’t go too far,” Eden warned her. “Jay doesn’t want any of us running on our own after dark right now. If you want a long run, you could see if Colin or Shane wants to go.”

“Fine,” she muttered, already brushing past Eden. “Whatever.”

Eden fought a flinch and turned back to Zack. “I’m sorry.”

He laughed, strangled and hoarse. “Christ.”

“I didn’t hear very much.” Enough to know he’d probably hope she hadn’t heard more. “Are you all right?”

“I screwed everything up,” he said calmly. “For them, and now for you too.”

The calm was almost as chilling as the outburst in the dining room. “You haven’t screwed anything up, Zack. Even if you could take it all back… God, I hate everything that brought you here, but I
like
being a wolf. I like how I feel now.”

He nodded, his gaze fixed on a point past her shoulder.

“Zack. Look at me.”

He did, but his eyes didn’t focus. He was looking at her, but he didn’t
see
her. “If I hit a skid, Jay knows what to do. I took care of that already.”

Her heart froze. “Don’t say that. Jay is the only thing—” The lump was back. She had to squeeze the words out past it. “I think I love him, Zack. If you hadn’t come back, I never would have known. And if he has to—it won’t matter.”

He snapped into focus then. “Yes, it will. Damn it, Eden, don’t toss him over stupid shit like that.”

“
Stupid shit?
” Her temper slipped as she slammed the box to the ground. “You don’t get to tell me your life is stupid shit. You may not value it, but you have to deal with the fact that the rest of us do.”

Zack swallowed a growl. “Why would—”

The earth shook. Eden’s stomach dropped out, through her feet and into the earth, taking her equilibrium with it. For a moment, she felt like the ground was sucking everything out of her—oxygen, balance, the ability to think. She blinked at Zack, but all she could make out was a blur of him pressing a hand to his head.

It hit her a moment later. Screaming, a warning that rang not across the still night but inside her head.

“Magic,” Zack muttered. “Fuck. Did Stella set up something, an early-warning spell in case someone shows up?”

“I don’t know.” Eden’s human mind was still rattled, but the wolf rose to steady her as she turned and started for the house. “We need to find out.”

By the time she made it to the front of the house, Jay and Stella were out in the yard. Fletcher stood on the porch at the little house, ushering the latest refugees from Memphis out the door.

“Eden!” Jay’s hands fell on her shoulders, heavy and reassuring. “I think it’s time. Someone’s coming.”

“Lots of someones.” Stella closed her eyes, swayed, then dropped to her knees and reached for a twig. “Clear some space.” She began to sketch something into the dirt.