“Crap,” I mutter, following Connor inside. “There go my best-laid plans. We probably should have gone through the back slider, huh?”
He grunts in agreement, carefully picking up people and placing them out of the way. I examine the fallen, relieved to see there’s nothing broken or bleeding. However, they will all have a few mystery bruises. We move like stones cutting through a stream, weaving through the crowd where we can and moving people to the side when we can’t. And by we, I mean Connor, who’s using his amazing shifter strength to lift guys and girls like they are nothing.
It’s slow going, but with the spell I cast, Gina’s body should keep functioning regardless of what state she’s been left in. It still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to keep her alive when the cold, dark place inside me roars to end her. I feel like I’m somewhere between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, my better nature arguing semantics with the ancient thing inside me that demands vengeance for the wronged. Both don’t want me to do this, but for completely different reasons.
Once we reach the infamous room, I knock on the door and stage-whisper, “It’s us.”
“Finally.” Donovan sighs in relief and opens the door.
The first thing that hits me is the smell—blood, bodily fluids, and vomit. It’s a coppery, sick sweetness that has me doubled over and gagging. It’s a familiar scent, one attached to the memories of too many nights strapped down to a stainless steel table or locked up in cages. Always bleeding. Always pain. Begging. Screaming. No hope. No way out. Not even death will save me.
Dropping to my knees, I throw up, vomit splattering onto the blood-soaked carpet. I don’t want to breathe in the air, each gasp of oxygen polluted by the stench of the past.
“Shit,” Donovan yells, crouching down to help me, but he’s too slow.
Sensing the horror that chokes me, Connor lifts me up off the ground. While demanding for me to breathe, he runs down the hall, shoving open doors as he goes. Donovan is fast on his heels, repeating how sorry he is, that he didn’t think. Nolan howls my name, the shout followed by the sounds of struggling and cursing.
Their voices and hands act like buoys, holding me up as the past tries to drown me.They need me. Nolan needs me. I can’t fall to pieces. I can’t let the Bastard win.Howling winds add to the pelting rain, shaking the outer walls of the house.The wolves! I have to protect the wolves!
Once Connor has found a bathroom, he hands me off to Donovan. I wrap my arms around his neck, my whole body tensing as I fight to push the memories back down and reach that cool, inner calm that, though often dangerous, at least leaves me numb enough to function.
“I’m sorry, Angel,” Donovan whispers against my rain-soaked hair. “I should have remembered. Warned you better. Please come back.”
I look into his eyes and see his desperation and guilt. He wants to take me away from what hurts me, but I have to face it to save Nolan.
In the bathroom, Connor picks up two half-naked people, each frozen in a position that makes it obvious what they were up to, and dumps them out into the carpeted hallway. It’s such an absurd thing to see that I’m distracted from my full melt down, and I laugh in weird, hysterical bursts. The wind subsides.
They both look very concerned and haul me onto the bathroom counter. Connor grabs a towel, wets it in the sink, and gently wipes the clammy sweat and vomit from my face. Donovan unzips my wet hoodie and pulls it off, letting it drop with a wet slap onto the stone floors.
“I’d ask why you two are soaked, but the sudden storm outside gives it away,” Donovan comments, grabbing another towel so he can dry me off. “This is one hell of a fucking night.”
With both of them huddled around me, their scents fill my nose, and that’s what brings me wholly back to myself. The dark memories of blood and gore are overridden with happy ones that I’ve created since coming to Twin Cedar Pass. Connor’s clean scent of the forest reminds me of times when I lay safe in his arms. Donovan’s exhilarating smell of musk and leather brings back moments of when he touched me in ways that left every nerve ending buzzing.
“Callie!” Nolan screams down the hallway, his usually smooth voice now sounding like sandpaper.
“I’m okay,” I choke out, shivering from shock or cold, I don’t know which. “It was just a lot.”
“You were never supposed to see this,” Nolan apologizes, his tone made up of mournful desperation.
The words are like a spark to my burning indignation. “And whose fault is that? You promised to tell us your plan.” Pushing against Connor’s and Donovan’s chests, I make room to hop off the counter. Stomping my muddy boots down the hall, I continue, “We could have helped you, or at the very least come up with a better plan.”
“I couldn’t let you stop me,” he admits, and it rings of a terrible emptiness.
Dread runs its cold hand down my spine, and my heart thunders in my ears. I sprint the rest of the way, all thoughts of my horrible past wiped from my mind at the frighteningly familiar hollowness of lost hope.
“Why are you tied up?” I cry when I find Nolan breathlessly leaning against the doorway, crusted with drying blood.
“Because it was the only way to save him from himself,” Donovan sneers, rage burning through his earlier guilt.
Connor stands beside him, completely still, with his head tilted slightly to the right. His expression is neutral as he listens carefully to what is and isn’t being said.
Pulling my light sweater off, I use the wet fabric to wipe the blood from Nolan’s face and quietly ask, “What does he mean by that?”
Shame fills his black-rimmed eyes. “I needed it to be over.”
“With Gina?” I supply, hoping that’s all it is but fearing it’s so much more.
“All of it,” he whispers, his tired gaze dropping to the floor.
