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Brody nodded. “Yes, I am. I know you’re capable of more than this. It isn’t your fault that the bears are capitalizing on this.”
“What would you suggest I do, then?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Call off the search for the witch. Let me educate you the way you need to be educated. Let’s get you up to snuff and see what you can do with knowledge at your disposal, because this pack can only expect so much of you with ignorance at the wheel.”
But I shook my head. “The pack doesn’t have that kind of time, and I can’t carry that kind of burden. The pack is yours.”
“Damn it, Raven!” Levi bellowed.
I whipped around and stared him down. “I’m going back to to Portland in the morning whether you want me to or not. So, either get on board, or get the hell out of my sight.”
“If you think that by running away from this, it will just solve everything, then you aren’t the woman I thought you were,” Levi growled and stormed off into the woods.
Watching Levi take off into the woods was painful, but it didn’t shock me. I wasn’t my father, though, and they all needed to accept that. My life was in Los Angeles. My place was among humans, not shifters. I was raised with them. I understood them. And just because I had a wolf inside of me didn’t mean I belonged with wolves.
“You know you can’t survive with your wolf in Los Angeles,” Hudson said. “You could barely control her earlier.”
“I pushed her down before,” I spat. “I can push her back down again.”
“THE FUCK YOU WILL,” she growled underneath my skin. I shook my head slightly trying to ignore her voice.
Hudson let out a heartless laugh. “Good fucking luck with that Raven. I hope she doesn’t take over you for good.”
And with that, he stormed off into the woods in the same direction Levi had went.
Good. I thought. Maybe them hating me like they did before would make it easier for me to leave.
“Raven, please,” Dean said softly, pulling me from my thoughts.
I slowly shifted back into my human form and stood there, completely naked as my stomach rumbled with a need for more of Levi’s breakfast soup. “No, Dean. Let me go.”
His gaze slithered down my body. “How can I possibly do that after what we shared?”
“Come on,” Brody said as he slid in between me and Dean, “I’ll escort you home.”
“You mean, back to my father’s place.”
He paused before he nodded. “Yes, that.”
“Thank you.”
I readied myself for an internal fight that never came. Wolfy surprisingly stayed quiet as Brody led me back through the woods. As we reached the edge of the tree line, I turned my head back towards Dean, and I sucked in a small breath as our eyes connected. He looked like I had punched him deep in the gut, but was trying his best to remain standing. He didn’t move, he just stood there staring after me.
Pain and sadness enveloped him, and I couldn’t fully understand why. Yes I was walking away from this life, but the look in his eyes made me believe he was not just upset about me leaving. It was something deeper. He looked like I had just broke his heart.
We had just slept together once. It wasn’t like we had professed our love for one another, and there really hadn’t been much between us since. But if I was being honest, I couldn’t deny the pain that had started to form in my own heart as I walked further away from him.
I refused to be that girl though. I wasn’t going to stay just so I could see where this thing with Dean would go. I had a life already. So, I forced myself to turn around. And I made plans in my head to try and help me get back to business as usual.
“Are you sure about this?” my cousin asked.
We stood at the edge of the woods as I looked on at the chaos still surrounding my childhood home. The healers had taken to stacking bodies in the backyard, and as my head bobbed with my counts, I settled on the number fifteen.
Before I watched them lay another body out.
“Sixteen,” I whispered.
Brody stepped in front of me. “Raven.”
