Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology (67 page)

“Not always,” I countered, “and it’s a moot point, because Lucas isn’t a loner. Right after he showed up on our land, I got an email from his alpha, demanding him back.”

“This is the first we’ve heard about it,” Caroline said tersely.

“It’s the first
you’ve
heard about it,” I corrected. “But Lucas said Shay made some kind of deal with your mother, and whether or not the rest of the coven knows a thing about Shay, I can promise that he knows about you.”

Caroline didn’t reply. She just turned on her heel and left—but not before I caught sight of the darkness that spread across her eyes the moment I mentioned her mother.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
CONCLUDED THREE THINGS BASED ON OUR INTERACTION
with Caroline.

One: she hadn’t exaggerated her skill with weapons. She’d taken a chunk out of Devon’s voluminous hair—from a hundred yards away. That wasn’t the kind of shot a normal person could make. That was military-sniper-level good—with a
crossbow
.

Two: whatever deal her mother had made with Shay, Caroline—and quite possibly the rest of the coven—had been left completely in the dark. She genuinely believed that they’d captured Lucas, and just talking about werewolves sent enmity surging through her veins, deadly and cool.

The third thing, I said out loud, since it was the one that might have passed Devon’s and Lake’s attention. “Caroline’s mother is the coven’s empath. She’s good with emotions, she’s the leader, and she’s the one who programmed them to go full throttle on the hatred scale anytime werewolves come up.”

It was probably also safe to conclude that the empath was
the one who’d given Bridget a psychic push to feel a rush of fear when she thought about Caroline, and that made me wonder. What kind of mother wanted people to be afraid of her own kid?

“So what now, oh fearless leader?” Devon ran a hand through what was left of his hair.

“Now we figure out a way to get close to the person pulling the strings.” I exhaled slowly and worked out the logic of our situation as I spoke. “If the rest of the coven
wanted
to take on an entire werewolf pack, their leader wouldn’t have to amp up their desire to fight. And that means that if we can get close enough to said leader to knock her out of commission, we might be able to reason with the rest of them—especially if we can convince them that Caroline’s mother made some kind of deal with Shay.”

I hadn’t been around any of the other psychics enough to judge, but I was positive that Caroline would take that news—once she believed it—about as well as I’d taken finding out that Callum had spent most of my life lying to me about what had happened to the werewolf who killed my parents.

I knew what that kind of betrayal felt like. For that matter, I knew what it was like to remember, every single day, the look and sound and
feel
of a monster tearing everything you loved to shreds.

Next time Caroline mentioned that a werewolf had killed her father, I was going to have to tell her to join the club.

“How, pray tell, are we going to get anywhere near Caroline’s mother?” Devon cocked one eyebrow heavenward, and Lake mimicked his quizzical expression.

“I doubt she’s going to throw out the welcome mat, Bryn. The whole coven hates werewolves, and if Caroline’s any indication, they don’t play all that well with other humans, either.”

I thought back to what Ali had said about the coven she’d grown up in: that they’d moved from town to town, never staying in one place long enough for the ordinary humans to grow suspicious. Ali had been the odd one out, and when she’d gotten old enough, they’d left her like trash on the side of the road.

The only way to get into a coven was to be psychic yourself, and I said as much out loud.

“Keely could do it,” Lake said, chewing on her bottom lip before continuing. “Assuming my dad would let her.”

I wasn’t a fan of that idea. Keely had already put herself on the line for us once, getting answers from Lucas. If Shay came to call, she might have to do it again. I couldn’t ask her to waltz right into the lion’s den, too—especially when there was another option.

“Keely’s not the only one with a knack.” I waited for my meaning to register with the two of them, sure that they wouldn’t like where this was headed. “I’m Resilient. Some of the psychics have even seen me go into Survival at All Costs mode. If all it takes to join a coven is to be human and have
some kind of supernatural ability, then technically, I meet the qualifications.”

My words were met with deafening silence, followed by the unmistakable sound of growling inside my head.

I knew they wouldn’t like where this was headed.

“If the coven wanted me dead, they would have already made their move.” I tried to keep my voice calm and even, willing my friends to push down their instincts and hear the very human logic of what I was saying. “Instead, they’ve been playing with me: stalking my dreams, letting me feel the heat. Literally.”

Most alphas wanted two things: territory and the power to protect it. I had to wonder if it was that different for psychics. Something had compelled Caroline’s mother to make a deal with Shay, and whatever that something was, she’d chosen to keep it a secret.

Just like she’d chosen to let Caroline do her dirty work.

Just like she’d chosen to make the others fear what Caroline could do.

When I’d asked Sora what I could do to save Lucas, she’d told me that the only way to get a wolf away from an alpha who didn’t want to let go was to give the alpha something he wanted more. Maybe the same logic applied to the coven, only instead of wanting females or territory or the kinds of things that mattered to Weres, their leader might be after something different.

Me.

The larger the pack and the more powerful its members, the stronger that pack’s alpha became. Given that Caroline’s mother seemed to have a way of manipulating people into doing what she wanted them to do, I had to assume that she’d welcome the chance to bring a powerful Resilient into the fold, especially if the Resilient in question had an entire werewolf pack at her beck and call.

If the coven could control me, they’d get my entire pack as a bonus. I doubted Caroline’s mother would be able to ignore the potential for that kind of payoff. At the same time, though, I wasn’t sure if I could take that kind of chance. Putting myself in the line of fire was one thing, but betting the entire pack’s safety on my ability to shake off psychic holds was risky.

Unfortunately, the only option that wasn’t risky involved sentencing a boy who’d come to me for protection to death.

There has to be a way to go in myself but minimize the risk to the pack
, I thought fiercely, willing it to be true.

“Lake, should we perhaps lock Bryn in a closet?” Devon kept his tone light, but his eyes were deadly serious. “I’m thinking we should perhaps lock her in a closet.”

Lake tilted her head to one side, clearly considering the option. “You really think you can do this?” she asked me.

I didn’t bother tiptoeing around the truth. “I don’t know.”

Lake nodded, and for a second, she was the spitting image
of her dad. “When you figure it out, I suspect you’ll let us know?”

That was Lake-ese for “deal me in or die a slow and painful death.” She wanted a promise that I wouldn’t run off behind their backs, that I wouldn’t do anything until I had a plan, and that once I had a plan, she and Dev would be the first to know.

“Bryn?” Dev parked the car, and his voice broke into my thoughts. The part of me that was alpha wanted to respond, to tell them both to back off, to take a lifetime of friendship and turn it into something else.

I ground my teeth and shook my head.

The three of us had always watched out for each other.
Always
. I wasn’t going to let what I was change that, change me. Our pack wasn’t like other packs. I wasn’t like other alphas.

That was it.

The idea came to me fully formed, like it had been in my head all along, and I just hadn’t unearthed it until now.

“Hey, Lake?”

She grinned. “Would I be right in thinking that you’ve got everything figured out?”

“Yup.”

“And you really think you can do this?”

“Yup.”

“By Jove,” Devon said, reading between the lines of my one-word answers, “I believe the lady has a plan.”

For the first time since Lucas had shown up at the Wayfarer, I really felt like I did.

This time, I was the last one to the clearing. The moon wasn’t full. The pack was sleeping, and those of us who weren’t hadn’t come here to run.

“Our pack isn’t like other packs.” My words appeared as wisps of white in the night air and echoed through the forest. The moon provided scant light, but even in the darkness, I could make out every detail of each of their faces.

Waiting.

Ready.

“We chose each other. When it counted, when the stakes were high, when no one else was there, you three had my back. You all gave up another life, another future, a hundred thousand things that might have been, and you did that for me, without even thinking, without questioning, without batting an eye.”

For a time, after I’d broken off my connection with Callum’s pack, but before we’d had our standoff with the Rabid, it had been just the four of us: Lake, Chase, Devon, and me. Later, there were others, and no matter where I went or what I did, the others’ names would always be etched into my soul, their well-being my first priority—but in the beginning, before we
knew what it meant or what any of us were on the cusp of doing, there were four of us.

And there was no alpha.

“If something happens to me—tonight, tomorrow, five years from now, I know that you guys will take care of the others.” I met Dev’s eyes for a second and then closed mine. “You’d take care of each other.”

“
Nothing
is going to happen to you.” Devon was the one who said the words, but I felt the intensity with which he’d issued them emanating from all three. It should have been suffocating, but instead, it warmed me, held me, sent a charge racing along the surface of my skin.

The whites of Chase’s eyes caught the moonlight just so, and for a moment, I felt something animal and raw staring back at me.

I met his gaze head-on. I felt it down to the tips of my toes.

“Nothing is going to happen to me.” I repeated Devon’s words. “Because no matter what, the three of you would never let anything happen to me. It’s not supposed to work that way, because I’m the alpha, and that means that I’m supposed to be the one protecting you.”

My chest tightened, and the cold air cut into my lungs with each breath. I could sense their wolves, just below the surface. I could see the tension in their neck muscles and feel the adrenaline snaking its way from vein to vein.

“I’m not like other alphas.” The words slipped off my
tongue almost as a confession, rather than a statement of pride, but I wasn’t here looking for absolution. I was here to make what I was—and what
they
were to me—work for us, instead of against us.

They wanted to protect me. They would always want to protect me, and admitting that I might need their help, that I might need to be protected, didn’t have to mean giving up the idea that I could keep the rest of the pack safe.

It just gave me another way to do it.

In the past six months, I’d learned that being alpha meant knowing everything about everyone. It meant that at any second on any day, I could tell you where every last member of my pack was, what they were doing, what they were feeling. I didn’t push them. I didn’t pry. But I was always there: in the things Chase would never tell another living person, in the way Maddy felt the first time she saw Lucas, in the quiet moments when Lake did nothing but run.

They could speak to me silently. I could make myself heard in their minds, but our pack-bond wasn’t exactly a two-way street. I was the alpha and they were my pack, and nature hadn’t designed werewolves to know their alpha the way he knew them.

She
, I corrected myself silently. I wasn’t male. I wasn’t a werewolf, and there was nothing in the rule book to say that I couldn’t make it a two-way street.