Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology (40 page)

It was the reason Chase had been able to break his bond to Wilson for good.

“If you don’t want to obey him, you don’t have to. You don’t have to obey me, either. But you can connect to me, or to the others, or to anyone you want. You can choose your family. You can choose freedom. You can choose
this—
”

I showed them what it was like to be part of a pack like the one my friends and I had created. All of us together, our bodies folding into one, our minds connected.

Madison pushed herself to her feet and walked toward us—dirty, bleeding, and bare. “I was six. On a vacation with my family, and he took me. He took me and he hurt me and he Changed me.” She looked at Wilson. “You told me that I was yours. You told me how to dress and how to act. You changed my last name. You took away everything, and I. Want. It. Back.”

She threw her head backward, and I could actually see the power coming off her body, could see tiny bits of light and power that connected the Changed Weres by their souls. And I could see the girl Madison had been, before he’d taken her, rewiring her connections, writing her own destiny.

One by one by one, the others stood.

I felt them, reaching out to one another and to me, and in that moment, I made a decision of my own.

We were the same.

All of us.

The same.

And for whatever reason, I’d been the lucky one. I’d escaped, and they hadn’t. But for the rest of my life, for as long as I lived—whether it was seconds or years—I would be there for them. I would make it up to them. I would help them make it up to themselves.

Mine
.

Mine
.

Mine
.

The whisper came from all corners of the yard as we claimed one another. From Madison and her pack-mates, from Chase and mine, and then, like the birth of a star, there was an incredible surge of light and heat that threw all of us to the ground.

Prancer was the only one left standing.

And as the rest of us got our bearings, only one directive remained in the air and in our bodies.

Kill the Rabid
.

I stood and walked away from my nightmares until I reached Chase. I pressed myself into his side, and he buried his head in my hair. He was mine, and I was his. We were the same, and we were more.

I averted my eyes, turning my body into his, and I breathed in his scent, which smelled to me like safety and home. All around us, the others were Shifting into wolf form, and I could feel the power rising in the air. Not just the power of the Shift, not just the power of a pack on the run, but something older.

Deeper.

Primal.

Fight
.

For years, Madison and the others had forgotten that they could. Wilson’s domination had held their instincts at bay, but now …

Fight
.

Fight
.

Fight
.

An eerie silence descended on the lawn, only to be broken a moment later by a horrible wail, an inhuman sound drowned out by howls and snapping teeth and the sound of flesh tearing like Velcro.

They leapt at him from all sides. Knocked him to the ground. Mobbed his body, a sea of fur and claw and
red-red-red
.

I felt the fury. Felt it like a siren’s call, but I breathed through
it, holding tight to Chase, the smell of blood so thick in the air that the other smell—
burnt hair and men’s cologne
—disappeared into coppery, wet, warm …

Nothing.

It was over.

The feeding frenzy stopped, the haze receding as quick as it had come, and when I lifted my head off Chase’s chest to look at the carnage, there wasn’t enough left of Wilson the Rabid to bury, let alone heal.

The cries of the pack—our pack—echoed in my head and out of it, as human words and as one united, animalistic howl.

Chase and I let it roll over us, washing away everything we’d been before this moment. Our bodies intertwined.

He was mine.

I was his.

But we weren’t alone. Not by a long shot. I melted into Chase’s mind, and he came into mine, and as Chase-Wolf-Bryn, for a split second, we saw the world around us with omniscient eyes. Saw our connections to the others—to Lake and Devon and each of the children Wilson had turned. Saw the power we held, saw it well up as the others changed back to human form and turned toward us.

Pack
.

Pack
.

Pack
.

The exhilaration of being Chase-Wolf-Bryn faded in
comparison to the overwhelming sensation of being Us. All of Us. The urge to run, to be free, to be together, was overwhelming, and for the second time in my life, I felt that kind of adrenaline turn toward focusing on a single person. A leader.

They wanted to run. But they couldn’t. Not yet. All around me, the whisper of the pack took on a single word.
Alpha, alpha, alpha
.

And that was when we realized—Chase and his wolf and I—that all of the other wolves seemed to be staring directly at me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

M
E?
H
OW COULD THEY POSSIBLY BE LOOKING AT ME
and thinking a word that conveyed that kind of power? Absolute, unerring, eternal. Protection. Punishment. Justice.

A pack alpha was many things, but human definitely wasn’t one of them. And yet, there the others were, staring at me with a kind of palpable expectation, their bodies humming with the energy of the kill. They wanted to run, and they wanted me to tell them they could.

Yours
, Chase told me silently, and then, he rested his head on top of mine. His breath was hot on my scalp, and I shivered.

Mine
. That assertion came from the wolf inside Chase—battered and bruised from the fight and angry that he hadn’t been allowed to take down his prey: the man who had dared to touch The Girl. Chase’s wolf wasn’t making a claim over any of the other Resilients, he wasn’t answering their silent plea to run. He was stating what was, to him, quite obvious.

I was his.

I wanted to burrow inside of Chase, to hide in his mind, to take refuge in his wolf’s possessiveness and look away from the dozens of eyes—human and wolf—boring into my own, but I couldn’t.

Alpha. Alpha. Alpha
.

The words became a high-pitched whine in my mind.

Do what you want
, I told them
. If you want to run, then run
.

That wasn’t enough for them. It wasn’t what they needed. They needed me. They needed the assurance, the answers. They needed what I’d sworn to give them a moment before—anything and everything to help them overcome years of Wilson’s abuse.

Run
. The word left my mind an instant before it left my mouth, and on both counts, it came from the deepest part of me—from something ancient and pure and utterly confusing. I wasn’t a werewolf, but there was something inside of me. Something as raw and primal as the wolf inside of Chase. A survival instinct—and a protective one—and as I told the others to run, gave them my permission, I shuddered, and then I let their joy overwhelm me as I had that day with Callum’s pack. I let all of them in, felt each and every one of them through our newly formed bond.

The pack was brutal and beautiful and alive, and overcome with their energy, I threw my head skyward and howled.

I felt, rather than saw, the effect the sound had on Chase.
He arched his back, and the wolf clawed its way to the surface, forcing him to Shift. Instinctively, I dropped down on my knees next to the midnight-black body beside me, and stared into the wolf’s eyes. Chase’s eyes. I buried my hands in his fur—silky, not coarse—and I felt his heart beat under my palms.

Run. Run. Run
, I told the others. This time, my mind-words carried with them joy, as well as power. Lost to the connection and the drive and the urge to move as one, I scrambled to my feet and took off running, an entire pack at my heels, mobbing me. Wanting to be close to me.

The warmth of their bodies kept my skin from chilling, and the adrenaline passed from one member of the pack to another to another, like a stone skipping on the surface of a pond. Lake, tall and blonde even in wolf form, butted my heels with her head, pushing me to run faster, to let go of myself more.

And when I did, when the last of my walls crumbled away, that was when I knew.

The pack was together.

The pack was safe.

The pack was
mine
.

And this time, I’d die before I let anyone take that away.

An hour later, the Weres had settled reluctantly back into their human forms, and I’d managed to remember that I
was
human. Madison and one of the other older Resilients began helping the little ones into new clothes, and for the first time, I realized that some of the children weren’t that much older than the twins. The youngest was two, maybe three. Red-haired and solemn, she toddled toward me the second Madison got her into a faded hand-me-down dress. I knelt and let the little one come into my arms, and I settled her on my hip with an ease that I never could have managed before Alex and Katie.

An ease that felt too natural even now, given that this girl should have been a stranger to me.

Lily
.

Her name came to me, in the recesses of my mind, like I’d always known it. Her small head leaned contentedly against my chest, and what she knew of life passed into my consciousness.
Wilson—sweet and scary and oh, he’d hurt her once. Red. The bad color. Bad things. Blood. A ratty stuffed bunny whose neck had been ripped out. Cotton in her mouth. Not allowed to cry
.

And then, there was me.

In her eyes, I was beautiful. Tall. Powerful.

I was safe.

Craning my head so that our eyes could meet, I breathed out slightly, and she sniffed like crazy, trying to absorb the smell of my breath.

“Hello, Lily,” I said softly. “I’m Bryn.”

Lily nodded, and then, with a tentative smile, she turned and pointed, a quizzical look on her face. I followed her finger directly to Chase.

He crossed the room in three broad steps, his motions flowing, as they always did, like water. He brought his face next to mine and rubbed my cheek with his. And then, silently, he turned to Lily, and with a small smile, he huffed out a breath, allowing her to catch his scent.

Through the pack-bond, I sensed that to Lily, Chase smelled like me.
Pine needles and cinnamon
.

I closed the space between my body and Chase’s, or maybe he did, and Lily laid her head back down on my chest, content to be nestled between us as my face and Chase’s found their way back together. Cheek to cheek. Forehead to forehead. Nose to nose. Then, lip to lip. As the kiss stretched out over a delicious, unbearable eternity, I felt myself folding into his mind and welcoming him into mine. For a single second, the world stopped rotating on its axis and the hum of the rest of our pack went very, very still.

And then, the silence and stillness were broken as I felt the Weres in the room stiffen and heard the beginning of a growl in the back of Chase’s throat.

Something’s coming
.

We didn’t get more than a moment’s warning, or two, before the front door to Wilson’s cabin exploded inward, and Weres began pouring in. I broke away from Chase, and instantly, the
sounds of the rest of my pack—
Mine
—were back, louder than ever before.

Ours. Ours. Ours
.

This was
our
territory. These men were trespassing. And the wolves inside of each of my pack-mates knew beyond knowing that the pack was to be
protected
, the alpha was to be
obeyed
, and trespassers were to be
killed
.

What started as a low rumble in our bond became audible snarling, and even though I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of controlling anyone else—even if they’d chosen, and were still choosing, to let me—I pulled back tightly on my end of the bond, restraining them all with a single word. “Hold!”