“You caught me,” Nolan chuckles, climbing under the covers next to her. “Charming personality, stunning good looks, and obnoxious wealth are nothing compared to the allure of that woman’s amazing culinary skills.”
She sighs dreamily with an exaggerated flutter of her lashes. “It’s true.”
“Hey!” he grunts, grabbing his pillow and thumping her with it.
“Rude!” Callie exclaims, sticking her tongue out. “Felix, make him stop!”
Laughing as Nolan thumps her again, I reply, “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Poltergeist the TV off the wall or something!” she bellows, attempting to block another pillow strike with her hands.
I press a hand to my chest, my expression aghast, like she just asked me to drown a bag of kittens or something. “Bros do not destroy another bros’ eighty inch TV. It’s in the rulebook.”
She captures Nolan’s pillow, and they play a small game of tug-a-war, while she pleads, “I’m sorry. Just start the movie! I promise not to fall asleep this time.”
“Lies,” Nolan teases, letting go of the pillow, and causing Callie to fall backward with an audible thump. “But you’re forgiven.”
He grins, then reaches over to press play on the movie.
As the opening credits roll, Callie mutters that she will stay awake, but Nolan is right, and in about an hour, she’s asleep, clutching the pillow she won in the game of tug-of-war. Not that Nolan has a chance to gloat since he passes out about the same time, curled around her, with his face buried in her hair.
The Marvel movies are, in fact, on a playlist, and will continue to play through the night, but instead, I watch Callie sleep. This time with her—kind of—permission. She knows I’m here anyway. As is often the case when I get the opportunity to simply look at her, I’m struck by how beautiful she is. Not just physically, though holy crap, she is, but it’s more than that. Everything that makes herher, I think is beautiful. Down to the way her nose crinkles when she pouts.
Nolan sighs, his arm tightening around Callie and the pillow. At this moment, it doesn’t hurt so much seeing her with him, though I can’t really explain why. Who knew the dead could be so fickle?
My fingers trail along the pillow, following the lines of her upper body, close but not touching. Hope swells within me, and I hold on to it, using it like a life preserver to keep me above the twisting tides of my darker thoughts. Soon, I will be able to really touch her. Maybe…maybe even curl up with her, just like this, and instead of staring while the endless minutes of the night tick onward, I could fall asleep beside her.
Chapter 10
Connor
Callie fidgets in the passenger seat next to me. While I turn onto the paved road lined with the pack’s homes, she works the fabric of the sleeves of her red hoodie between her fingers. A small cloud of dirt wafts in the air behind my Tahoe, while she silently takes in the grounds. There is thick foliage bursting in an array of colors that mark the approach of fall, homes with no fences to separate them from each other or the rest of pack lands, and a community of shifters in both human and wolf forms busily preparing for the events to come.
Knowing nothing of my plans, I’m surprised that last night Callie agreed to come with me today considering her experiences with the last Alpha, as well as being fully aware that witches are not well liked among shifters. If my bastard of a father is any indication, even the shifters that feel the Call may not trust her. I can’t tell if it’s her faith in me or herself that assures her she’s safe here. Callie will be safe on pack lands. I’m making sure of it.
Looking into the rearview mirror, I notice Sam glaring at the back of my head from her spot in the backseat. Shadows from the forest dapple across her face, creating sharper angles to her already defined features, and making her discontented stare look all the more menacing. Unlike Callie, Sam does know the plan. At least parts of it. I haven’t told her about the Call, because that would mean explaining exactly what Callie is. I trust Sam with my life. But until the entire pack pledges to protect Callie, I can’t have anyone knowing a secret that could get her killed. Not to mention what the Council might do to those of my pack that feel the Call, who would be considered loose ends to something that’s not supposed to exist.
Fortunately, though extremely vocal about the many ways this could backfire on all of us, Sam acknowledges that the pack has to have a contract with a witch if we’re going to be free of Council’s oversight. It’s better to have one that favors shifters than a lackey for the Council. Granted, it’s supposed to be just that, a contract—a magically binding one—but not a blood oath like I have planned. I haven’t quite figured out how to spin it. Nolan has always been the one among us to somehow make terrible ideas sound reasonable.
Some Top 100s station is playing on the radio—put on to fill the silence—but it all just feels like noise to me. Rolling my shoulders, I attempt to loosen the tight muscles in my back brought on by the never-ending demands as Alpha, including dealing with all the wolves that would rather see my head on a pike than kneel to me as Alpha. I’ve had eight different challenges since the previous Alpha’s death despite knowing that if I die that could mean the end of the pack. Without the oath ceremony, the magic that binds the pack together through me is tenuous and only held together by my strength. I also don’t get the Alpha’s power until the ceremony.
At least I didn’t have to kill them this time. I just beat the shit out of them until they yielded, though a few of them got damn close. Hard to break instinct.
“Hey, pay attention to the road,” Sam orders, smacking the back of my seat and pulling my head out of my ass for the umpteenth time. All this Alpha bullshit has left my mind so full and analyzing so damn much that I feel like Kaleb.
Callie is startled from staring out the window, and glances back at Sam, then looks at me. Quietly, she murmurs, “Are you okay?”
No. I’m not okay. If it wasn’t for the wolves that feel the Call and the fact that as Alpha I can give Callie far more protection than I could on my own, I would’ve told everyone they could irse a la mierdadays ago.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel, the leather creaking underneath my grip.
“Reina…”I breathe, desperate to try and find a way to explain what’s going on in the fewest words possible. All this talking is exhausting. “I’ll do anything to protect you.”
Her eyes narrow and her mouth opens, clearly ready to argue, before she seems to remember Sam is in the car. She lifts her chin, squares her shoulders, and states almost regally, “And I’d do the same. We protect each other…mi lobo.”
My wolf.While my heart skips a beat that Callie claimed me, an outcast for most of my life, as her own, Sam clears her throat, unaware that this display was as much for her knowledge as it was an explanation. If she wants me as Alpha, she needs to understand that Callie and I are a package deal. No exceptions.
Out of habit, I park on the curb next to the driveway that leads up to the Alpha’s home, feeling even more trapped these days. I’m dealing with panicked wolves constantly wondering where I am, because they’re fucked without me, and my twin half-brothers, children from the Alpha’s marriage before my mother, looking at me like circling sharks. Their growing interest in Callie has me on edge, wondering if the Call will make them allies or enemies. Then there are the goddamn loyalists muttering that one of the twins should be Alpha, though no one can figure out which one since they’re both tools.
