That was reality. That was the truth. Maddy was gone. Chase was dead. The rules said the only way I could attack Shay with impunity was if he offered up his own life or attacked me first. Personally. Directly.
Rules had let him kill Chase.
Rules had let him send Lucas into my pack to kill me.
I hated the rules. I hated them, hated that I was a part of this world, that Callum had ever saved my life, that I had grown up thinking this was normal, and that the only slice of normal I’d ever had was gone—without warning, forever. I would never, even for a second, get to be just a girl again, and Chase would never get to be.
Because of the rules.
“You never stood a chance,” Shay told me, in a voice best reserved to lovers whispering in bed. “Look around, Bryn. Everything you see is mine—and what isn’t now”—his eyes lingered on Lake—“will be soon.”
I looked around. I saw his pack, his numbers. I felt their power, the way he’d meant for me to. I thought about what we had lost, and I thought about the rules.
That’s when I realized—what Shay had done. What I could do. The possibility took root in my mind and filled the emptiness inside me with one purpose.
One plan.
“Until next time,” Shay said, directing the words at me
before turning to Maddy. “Time to go, Madison. We’ll have plenty of time later to discuss your reluctance to give me my due.”
Shay was still putting on a show for me, letting me know that while he wouldn’t kill her, he would hurt her—because she’d chosen me, twice. Because the rules said he could.
One purpose. My heart beat with it. Each breath in and out of my lungs fueled it. One plan.
I hadn’t found a way to save Chase. I was too human. I’d stood there and let him die because he asked me to. Because I hadn’t seen another way. Because Shay had come here with a plan, and I hadn’t.
One purpose. One plan.
Shay turned to go, jerking Maddy alongside him. The rest of the Snake Bend Pack pulled in to follow. I felt the brush of fur against my ankles and legs as they passed. I heard the snapping of teeth, and I let myself think the words that had knocked over a long line of dominoes in my mind.
He brought his entire pack.
I waited until they were out of sight, all of them—Shay, Maddy, the Weres in wolf form and the ones who’d chosen to run as humans. They disappeared to the west,
through Shadow Bluff territory, and I absentmindedly added the Shadow Bluff alpha to my list.
The list of people responsible for the bodies on the ground.
The list of people I would never forgive, never forget.
Wordlessly, I knelt next to Chase’s body. In death, he’d Shifted back to human form. His face was frozen in an expressionless mask. His eyes were open, his body a bloody mess.
I brought my hand to his cheeks. I closed his eyes. I expected to feel something, to feel him, but I didn’t.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Gone.
I straightened and stood. No crying, no tears, no asking God why. All that mattered was taking from Shay what he’d taken from me.
The thing that mattered most.
Lake opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Caroline was equally silent, her eyes bloodshot, dead. Maybe I should have blamed her for this, added her name to the list. She was the one who had fired the shots, she was the one who’d gotten under my skin enough that I’d put my pack on the line to protect her.
But there were only three of us now—three teenagers, alone on a mountain, our dead scattered like petals at our feet.
“We should put the bodies in the cave,” I said. “We won’t have time to bury them.”
“What?” Caroline sounded like I felt. I was half-surprised she didn’t take a swing at me.
“We’ll come back,” I told her. “But right now, you and Lake need to move the bodies, and I need to call Devon.”
Lake reached out and touched Caroline’s arm. Caroline continued glaring at me, but she didn’t voice an objection. She must have seen that I had a purpose.
A plan.
“And after you do that, and we do this?” Lake asked.
I didn’t smile. Not yet. Maybe not ever again. I just ground my teeth together, got out my phone, and answered Lake’s question.
“Then,” I said as I dialed, “we’re going to catch a plane.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
IT TOOK US AN HOUR TO GET TO THE CLOSEST AIRPORT, a tiny little strip of a thing that didn’t fly commercial. I’d been willing to commandeer a plane by force if necessary, but there was no need: pilot, plane, and a small white envelope bearing my name were waiting for us when we got there—courtesy of Callum.
He’d known we’d come here, and he’d known where we’d be headed—and why. Any doubt I might have clung to that he hadn’t foreseen Chase’s death—hadn’t already apologized for it—evaporated.
There wasn’t an apology in the world—before, during, or after—that could make this right. A plane and a pilot and the Stone River alpha’s reassurance—via note card—that he would be glad to send Devon’s father to stay at the Wayfarer in his son’s stead did nothing to change what had happened.
What Callum had let happen.
I didn’t bother calling him. I sent permission for Lance to enter our territory via text. Then I closed my eyes and waited—for the plane to land, for Shay to realize that he’d pushed the wrong girl too far.
Devon met us near the northern border of Shay’s territory. I was betting that to get to Maddy’s hideout, Shay would have had to take his pack north, up and around Cedar Ridge, and then down into Shadow Bluff territory and over. Even at werewolf speed, the return journey would take time—more time than it took Devon to get here from the Wayfarer, and more time than it took Lake, Caroline, and me to fly.
In a fair race, I wouldn’t have been able to outrun Shay, but werewolves had a tendency to forget about things like planes, and I was done with fair.
Now was the time for playing dirty.
“This is what you want?” I asked Caroline.
“It is.”
I didn’t ask her if she was sure—didn’t need to be told that the answer was yes. Digging my fingernails into her flesh, I made good on the assurance I’d given Shay in the mountains: Caroline wasn’t just any human.
She was ours.
With little ceremony and only Devon and Lake as an audience, I made Caroline a member of the Cedar Ridge Pack. I tied her mind to mine, to the others. I Marked her, the way that Callum had once Marked me.