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It feels like I’m falling forever, but also not long enough, as I realize she won’t have enough time to escape.
Just before I hit the water, I’m jolted to the side and rising again. It doesn’t make sense until I realize I’m being carried. The jolt was a large talon closing around my center. Glancing up, I find myself in the hold of a giant bird.
My beast thrashes, intent on escaping to get back to Serena. But for once, I’m all too happy to leave her behind. At least without me there, she has a chance. Maybe the guys can get to her before the giant chicken drops me, and the hunt resumes because, at this point, I have no doubt it won’t stop until I have her.
Today was…
I don’t even know how to explain what today was. A mess doesn’t seem like a good enough way to describe it, but I guess it will do.
Pike lost control, something I’ve never seen happen with any of the guys. Our beasts might not be exactly the same as us, but we’re one. They’re an extension of us, the same way we are of them.
To make matters worse, he lost control with Serena, and as much as I don’t like Garrett, I can’t help but be grateful for his sudden appearance. The others were more worried about how suspicious it was that he just showed up, but I couldn’t care less. Serena was safe, and that was all that mattered to me.
It’s been all that mattered to me for a long time.
I’ve been in love with her since we were kids, much like Blair. I tried to be with other girls. At first, I thought maybe it was because she was here and that someone else would help me get my mind off her.
Absolutely not.
Dating other girls is miserable. They’re boring and timid and seem to all want the same thing—power. I didn’t even have to purposely mess up my chances, though. It seems I do that just fine without even trying. Apparently, girls don’t like it when you talk about another female for most of your dates. To be fair, I was talking about all of them. Yet somehow, it was only the mention of Serena that bothered them.
“Is she awake?” Blair’s deep voice startles me from my thoughts.
“Fuck, man,” I hiss, pressing my hand to my chest over my pounding heart. Someone his size shouldn’t be able to be so quiet. I don’t care what the fuck he shifts into.
He stares at me unapologetically, but I’m not surprised. If it weren’t for Serena, I’d swear he doesn’t even have emotions.
“Yeah, she’s showering and getting changed,” I tell him, nodding toward the closed door I’d been leaning against before he scared the shit out of me.
“Did you talk to her?” he asks, and I know he means more than just an actual conversation. Like I said, I’m pretty sure we both love her, so it’s not hard to understand what he means.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning back on the wall next to her door with a sigh. “She won’t hear it. She wants to be there for Pike and already feels bad about the last dinner. She knows his parents were pissed…” I see the shift on his face before he can say anything, and I hold up a hand to stop him. I don’t need his lecture right now.
“I didn’t tell her,” I assure him. “But you know how Rena is. She’s not stupid. We all know how his parents are.”
Blair huffs, and it’s like I can feel his irritation. Pike’s parents are real assholes. If it weren’t for the whole pack thing, he would have been done with them already. Shit, for a while, we talked about having us sign as a pack just to get him away from them. However, Rena didn’t seem to like that idea, so we dropped it.
“I don’t like this,” Blair grumbles, his eyes fixed on Rena’s door as if he might see her through it if he looks hard enough.
“None of us do, but we’re going to do it anyway. It’s what Rena wants, and regardless of whatever the fuck that was earlier, none of us are going to let Pike face his family dinner alone,” I explain, even though I don’t have to.
He knows all of this as well as I do. We all do.
But it doesn’t mean we have to like it. No, I can fucking hate it the whole time, and I will. We all will, but we will be there, regardless.
Blair nods before heading back down the hall, probably off to ensure the others are ready.
“For what it’s worth, I believe him,” I say, my voice hardly more than a breath, but I know he’ll hear me. He stops in his tracks, turning back to me, his eyes hard, but I don’t back down.
I don’t cause waves often. It’s not my thing. I’m more than happy to go with the flow, have fun, all that shit. But when Pike finally got enough control to shift back earlier, he’d done so in a panic. He was so worried something had happened to Rena, his eyes full of genuine panic that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
That didn’t seem like the type of thing he would do after if he’d just tried to kill her. He didn’t have an explanation why his beast had freaked out, didn’t know what caused it, but he was adamant that he’d never intended to hurt her, that his beast hadn’t either.
Blair looks away first, his eyes darting back to Rena’s door. A second later, I hear her, too. The water for the shower cuts off, and I listen to her moving around. She’ll be out any minute now.
“I do, too,” Blair admits, catching me off guard. We’re all protective of Rena in our own ways, but Blair is always the one waiting in the wings to fight off things before we even catch wind of them. If anyone were going to think the worst of Pike, I would have bet money on Blair.
“I just don’t know if that makes this better or worse.”
