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Chapter Twenty-Five
Kane
Something about seeing Charlie in Levi’s arms made me roar.
Levi was making headway while I was still treating Charlie like an outsider—or, at least, not one of the pack.
And that wasn’t going to change, not until I got a sense that she was really with us. She might throw out all kinds of come-to-me vibes and coax us with her dreams, but that didn’t mean commitment.
I barged into the library, flinging the double doors back like I was full of rage, when really I was barely containing my need to scoop her up and kiss her, too. Call it primal instinct or simply competitive drive, but I wanted to taste her lips and feel her body pressed up against mine, and it irked me that he was the first to get there.
Charlie and Levi sprang away from one another, and Johnny choked on a snore as he bolted awake.
“We’re going on a run. Charlie needs to clock the perimeter.” And I needed her to feel the rush of running with the pack.
I might not be okay with her meeting the guys in a formal training space yet, but I wanted her to know what we had to offer—a hundred strong and growing. What we lacked was cohesion, and I knew she was the one to bring it.
I just needed to get her on our side and in the right mindset.
I didn’t wait for a response, but the energy in the room was palpable. They were all full of pent-up energy, so I knew they were right behind me. Better to burn that off with a run than leave them to explore other ways of getting rid of it.
I shifted as soon as I crossed the threshold of one of the sliding doors, which opened as I approached and was feet away from the bank of windows that Charlie had destroyed.
I heard her mumble, “Ohhh,” before she, too, shifted.
Ohwas right. That bank of windows had cost a small fortune to replace. Hopefully we were past the uncontrollable rage, need-for-immediate-escape part of our getting to know one another.
After the morning Charlie and Johnny had just had, the bank accounts were steaming.
Not that I wouldn’t happily hand over every penny if it meant Charlie stayed. The more I saw of her, the more I knew she was the one the prophecy talked about. It wasn’t the werebeast or the moves she had with her partial shifts, it was the way she held her head up even when she was feeling the weight of guilt, shame and expectation on her shoulders. Like Johnny had said before, she was fire.
It was early afternoon, the sun hung low and the temperature was sweltering. I lifted my muzzle and sniffed the air, noting an incoming storm. We had plenty of time to run before it hit, however. Not that a little rain would scare us off, but I wanted Charlie to get an unfettered lay of our land.
The crunch of grass behind me was indication enough that I had four-footed company. The rest of the pack was waiting in the trees, and I knew Charlie sensed them. She came up beside me, her wolf onyx, her fur glistening in the sun, green eyes narrowed and scanning the forest.
I raised my head and howled, a low, eerie sound that need not be drawn out. The response was immediate. The pack called back, each voice as distinct as its owner. I hoped for Charlie to one day recognize them all. Johnny let out a series of whoops, followed up with Levi’s short, low grumble.
Charlie gave me a wolfie grin, her tongue out and lolling to the side, and I bared my teeth in what I hoped was an equally friendly smile. She snorted, shook her head, then sprinted toward the trees. That was all I needed to start the chase.
We bolted over and through brush and fallen logs, the trees offering a natural endurance course that got my lungs pumping and my heart thundering. Charlie was agile, leaping higher than should be possible, landing on low-hanging branches like she was a wildcat instead of a wolf. She treated the forest like her own parkour course, spring-boarding from one trunk to the next and using her momentum to soar over our heads.
Every time she did it, we all stopped and watched. It was a lot of wolf gawking all at once, but I knew the pack was as intrigued as I was. Levi and Johnny wolf-called her, yipping and howling as she soared.
She was having fun, that much was obvious. I didn’t need to see the sparkle in her eyes to feel the energy pulsing from her. How often would she have been able to run and play like this in Toronto? Sure, there was greenspace, but it was so congested with humans that a wolf sighting would be noticed and likely dealt with in an unfavorable way. We didn’t fall easily to non-silver bullets, but we could be captured, tortured, laid out with sedation and medical intervention meant to investigate after we failed to meet most normal criteria they had for wolf physiology. Not to mention that being in a cage and trapped as a wolf was not the kind of attention we wanted for our kind. It was instant death for any wolf who breached the code of invisibility. If a werewolf revealed him or herself to a human who hadn’t been bitten and at least partially transformed, then, by rights, their clan should come to take care of it. Usually though, the clans hired out. As soon as word reached them that they had a breach, they sent mercenaries, ferals who worked solely at hunting and murdering their own kind to take care of the problem.
The pack was hanging back a bit, sniffing Charlie’s wake, getting a feel for the newest member of our pack—or at least, that was what I’d told them. I hadn’t even hinted to them who she really was or what she might come to mean to them.
That was how we remained myths instead of real-life monsters.
She had to do the work to get the pack on her side, but she already had their interest with her distinctly female scent.
They all knew she was out of their league, but that didn’t mean the pack wasn’t getting all hot and bothered by her antics.
Charlie veered right, picking up on the well-trodden trail toward the perimeter fence. Her instincts were good. I’d seen that already, just in the way she reacted to stimuli, but would she be able to detect the magic we had woven into the fence? I was eager to find out.
Levi and Johnny fell in behind her. The trail was only wide enough to accommodate two wolves, side-by-side. The rest of the pack whipped by me, yipping deference as they passed. There were fifty or so here, playing along with Charlie’s game, while the rest were out and about—some patrolling the outside of our perimeter, some on missions for our clan. The three I had in Toronto tracking Andrew were my best wolves, the guys I trusted the most to get the job done.
Still no word on where Andrew was, but they were closing in, I was sure, and due to report in a few hours.
