“Just the two of us?” I asked, trying not to tip my hand and let her see the flicker of hope building inside me.
“Casey will be going as well,” Ali said. “Sora and Lance might be there, too.”
Three wolves.
Three babysitters.
Three bodyguards.
“I’m going to see him?”
The tone in my voice left no question as to who the “him” in question was.
“Yes, baby. You are.”
Ali hadn’t called me baby in so long. All of a sudden, I felt like the world’s most ungrateful brat for fighting with her.
“I’m going to see him.”
The words weren’t the apology I’d been aiming for, but Ali seemed to understand. “Yeah.”
It felt like I’d be working toward this for so long that somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that there was an end goal. Now that it was here and real, I couldn’t believe it. Not at all.
“You’re going to see him. You’ll ask him what you need to ask him. You’ll do what you need to do. And then, this will all be over. No more permissions. No more conditions. Just us.”
No more fights.
No more bond.
No more running with the pack when the moon was full.
I’d be me again. The me Ali wanted me to be. I thought of the ball I’d visualized before I’d let down my shields that night at the Crescent and given myself over to the pack-mentality. The things I’d wanted and been before.
Were they still there, safe where I’d left them? Could I go back? Did I want to?
“Go on,” Ali told me. “Get dressed. Make your bed. And for heaven’s sakes, Bryn, brush your hair. You’re starting to look like a cavegirl.”
“Bryn want kill dinosaur,” I said, pantomiming what I thought passed for a decent dinosaur-killing motion.
For the first time in weeks, Ali laughed. “Go on. And if you’re very good, Ali show Bryn big heaping secret. Fiiiiiirrrre. Make tasty warm dinosaur meat.”
I snorted. “Dork.”
“Right back at ya, kiddo.”
The exchange felt so normal. So human. So far from whatever it was that I was becoming, day by day. Now that I was going to see Chase, an insane part of me wanted him to see this Bryn—the one who laughed with Ali, not the one who Callum had molded into a paragon of self-defense.
“I’m going to see him,” I said, testing out the sound of the words, wondering which me Chase would meet. “Today.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“CASEY, IF THERE’S A HAIR ON HER HEAD OUT OF place when you get back, you’re sleeping on the couch for the rest of your life.” Ali kissed her husband as she said those words, but he didn’t take her any less seriously for it. She moved to turn her threats on Callum, but he shook his head at her.
“Have I ever returned her to you in worse shape than I took her?” he asked.
Ali opened her mouth to answer, and my sarcasm barometer sensed an oncoming change in pressure, but Callum just gave Ali the eyebrow arch that she’d given me.
“Alison.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who got the full-first-name treatment. “You’ve never brought her back irreparably harmed,” Ali admitted grudgingly. “This better not be a first.”
The other Weres in the room, including Casey, narrowed their eyes at her, their backs stiffening. My pack-sense told me that they didn’t like the challenge to our alpha’s authority. It was unnatural. Ungodly. Impertinent. When Ali married Casey, she should have adopted his status in the pack, but she’d lived among them for too long without a place in the hierarchy to settle into one now, and her challenge rankled. At the very least, Casey should have known what he was getting into with Ali; she’d never made even the least effort to hide her lack of respect for pack tradition.
“Ali—” Casey started to say something, but the look on her face stopped him cold, and a wave of calm—originating from Callum—went through the room.
“I’ll take care of her, Alison,” Callum said, dispelling Ali’s worries even as he calmed the wolves.
I always do.
Ali nodded, and then without another word, she walked out of the room. Callum turned his attention to me. “From the moment we leave this house, I’m invoking the second condition of your permissions. Sora, Casey, and Lance are dominant. You are not. Whatever they say, you do it. Whatever they tell you, you comply. There is no room for argument, no room for discussion, and there will be no leniency for disobedience. You’re Pack and you’ll act like it. Am I clear?”
In retrospect, it was a really good thing Ali had left when she did. And probably also not a coincidence that Callum had waited for her to leave before laying down the law, because I saw in his eyes that he wasn’t guaranteeing my safety, not in all things. Chase wouldn’t lay fang, claw, or hand on me, but I knew what happened to subordinate wolves who challenged dominance.
It wasn’t pretty.
“You’re clear, Alpha.”
Callum nodded, and we left, the five of us. I took a page from Lance’s book and didn’t say a word, and the others followed suit. Understanding passed between us, though—silent words and thoughts and feelings. The rumblings of their wolves; the butterflies in my stomach. I fingered the knives strapped to my side, seeking comfort in the familiar.
I don’t know what I expected when we got to Callum’s house, but it wasn’t to see Chase sitting on Callum’s couch, playing Grand Theft Auto, his fingers moving the controller with frightening accuracy, even when he turned away from the screen and looked directly at me.
“Hi, Bryn.”
He was a far cry from the boy I remembered, caged in the basement, shadows in his eyes. But when I looked at him, really looked at him, I could almost see them. Almost, but not quite.
He just looked so normal.
Then again, so did I.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Callum said. “You have an hour.”
I realized with a start that Callum was leaving. To give us privacy? Or as much privacy as anyone with three lupine nannies could have?
No. There must have been another reason for it. Callum didn’t do anything without a reason, but I decided that I could debate his motivations and intentions later. Right now, I had an hour.
“Ummm … can I sit down?” I wasn’t sure who I was addressing the question to—the other wolves, or Chase. The latter nodded and brought his legs down off the couch. I started to move forward, but a deep rumbling from Lance’s lips held me back.