Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology (45 page)

Devon answered, and I froze, acutely aware of the way his call
melded into mine and so damn grateful that I wasn’t alone. As the sound of howling faded, a timber-colored wolf appeared in the darkness, and for a moment, my body wasn’t my own. I saw Devon as my wolf did, and I saw myself as he must have: long limbed, graceful, deadly.

Hunt. Hunt. Hunt
.

The desire was there, and through the pack-bond, I could feel it reverberating through Devon’s body as well, but he shook his head—an oddly human gesture that reminded me that the two of us had Shifted for a reason.

Griffin
.

I hadn’t told Devon what I’d seen. I hadn’t told him why I wanted to go to Shelby. I couldn’t put any of it into words, but in this form, I didn’t need to. Devon turned toward the forest, tilting his head to the side and waiting, and I sprang forward, blurring into motion.

In human form, I didn’t have much of a sense of direction, but now I could feel our destination calling me, like a siren luring a sailor to final death.

Time to go home
.

The house didn’t look like much from the outside. The paint was chipped and faded, the steps on the front porch splintered and worn. There was a tricycle in the yard, and a hole in one of
the window screens. I wanted to go inside so badly it hurt, and I couldn’t keep a low-pitched whine from working its way up the back of my throat.

Dev nudged me with his nose.
I’m here
, he seemed to say, even though he didn’t force a word from his mind into mine.
You’re okay
.

I huffed directly into his face, and he took a step back, boyish grin dancing across lupine features.

I’m okay
, I thought, pushing down the urge to move out from the cover of the trees.
It’s just a house
.

I’d lived here the first six years of my life, give or take. There was a time, when I was a baby, when we’d lived in Colorado, but I couldn’t remember it any more than I could conjure up an image of my mother’s face. But this place—

This was home.

I closed my eyes, letting the smells—layered and rich—take me back.

“Hey, Lake?”

“Yeah-huh?”

“I won’t let anyone get ya.”

Griffin was small for his age, and I was big. When we wrestled, I won three times out of four—but for some reason, his words made my insides feel warm and gooey
.

He made me feel safe
.

I kicked off the covers and crept from my twin bed to his. He scooted over without being asked, and I climbed in upside down, settling my head next to his feet and my feet next to his head. I wiggled my toes. Griffin wiggled his
.

“I won’t let anyone get you, either,” I said. “I’ll tear their head off.”

Griffin nodded, as if he had expected nothing less. “Hey, Lake?”

“Yeah-huh?”

“Your feet smell.” Griff grinned, thoroughly delighted with himself and with me
.

“Do not.”

“Do, too.”

“Do not.” I paused. “Hey, Griff?”

“Mmm-hmm?” His voice was getting lighter. I could hear his heartbeat and my own—this was what going to sleep sounded like. This was us
.

“You’re ugly.”

The feel of hot breath on my face brought me back to the present. I blinked and remembered that I was a wolf, not a girl, that I was sixteen, not five.

Devon huffed again and nudged my side with his head. I was halfway through a retaliatory head butt when I realized what he’d been trying to show me.

The light on the porch was on. A woman I didn’t recognize opened the screen door and peered out into the darkness.

I froze. My light coat of fur was a beacon against the night air. She was going to see me. Worse, she might see Devon. A person could mistake me for a natural wolf—a big one, granted, but not impossibly so. Devon, on the other hand, was six foot five in human form and large even for a Were.

I shouldn’t have brought him here. I shouldn’t have come.

The woman’s eyes scanned her lawn and then she lifted her gaze to the edge of the forest. Devon and I should have turned around, should have run, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I couldn’t leave.

Devon stayed there, by my side, his breath and mine the only sounds in the silence, and then, just before the woman’s gaze turned toward the place where we stood partially camouflaged by the cover of the woods, something happened.

There was a flicker in the air. A crash sounded from inside the house. The woman whirled around, and the moment before my muscles unlocked and Devon and I took for higher ground, I saw him again.

Griffin.

Only this time, he looked the way he had when we were kids.

“You want to tell me what’s going on with my favorite menace to society, or should I hazard a guess?” Devon arched one eyebrow. In combination with the clothes he’d pilfered from one of my old neighbor’s clotheslines, the expression made him look utterly absurd.

“That shirt is at least three sizes too small.”

Devon struck a pose. I could not swear to it, but he might have flexed his pecs. “I know.”

The fact that I didn’t smile, didn’t smack him, didn’t make so much as one comment in retaliation told him that this was serious. That there was something wrong. With me.

There was something wrong with me.

“C’mon, birthday girl. Tell old Dev what’s ailing you, yeah?”

His British accent was spot-on. “Can’t you take anything seriously?” I grumbled.

Dev met my eyes. “Do you want me to take this seriously?” he asked, his accent and cadence entirely his own. There was power in Devon’s voice, a hint of the fact that, some day, he’d probably have a pack of his own.

Telling him was as good as telling Bryn. And telling Bryn—

“I won’t tell her.” Devon’s words brought the world to a standstill. He was loyal, loyal to a fault, and she was the center of his world, and he was saying that he’d keep this from her, for me.

This was wrong. Telling him was wrong. Keeping things from Bryn—my best friend and his—was wrong. Keeping
things from the alpha was dangerous, especially if I was a liability to the pack.

“Okay,” I said, and that broke the dam. Words came easier now, no matter how much I shouldn’t have been saying them. “I saw my dead brother. I saw him in the forest this morning and just now on the porch of our old house.”

I waited for Devon to tell me that I was crazy.

“Is he a threat?” Devon asked instead.

“No!” I hadn’t thought that far ahead, hadn’t let myself even hope that what I was seeing might be real.

“Have you seen him before?”

The word
no
was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t quite form it.

I won’t let anyone get ya
.

How many nights had I lain awake in bed, after Griff was gone, and heard those words? How many times had I imagined him standing guard in wolf form at the end of my bed?

“You really don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Oh, I know you’re crazy,” Devon replied. “You name your shotguns and hustle pool against werewolves twice your size. You, my dear, are boatloads of crazy. Entire barges, really. You always have been. It’s one of your charms.”

This from a werewolf who worshipped Armani.

“Maybe what you’re seeing is a figment of your imagination, and maybe it’s your brother, taking a peek at your lovely self from the other side. Either way, unless you think he’s going to
hurt something, or unless you’re feeling the urge to go a little crazier than usual yourself, it’s not pack business, and I’m not worried.”

“I’m fine,” I said, and this time—strangely—I meant it. Nothing had changed. I still might be seeing things. My dead brother still might have dropped by to say hello. But suddenly, I felt like the kind of girl who could deal with either option.

“You really won’t tell Bryn?”

Dev shook his head. “I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to keep her from picking up on your thoughts and feelings as much as you have, but far be it from me to stand in the way of a little mental aerobics.”

Werewolves could smell lies. The pack-bond meant we had a mental connection to one another—one Bryn could explore at will. Keeping secrets was a tricky thing, but I’d had years of practice thinking about some things and not-thinking about others.

About Griff.

“Thanks, Devon.”

“I live to serve.”

I snorted and would have said more, but I felt something: eyes on the back of my head, pinpricks crawling up my neck.

I breathed in and out. I thought of Griffin, and then I turned around. He was there, in the distance, older again, but somehow just the same: same eyes, same smile, same intensity to his face.

I won’t let anyone get ya
.