“I told you not to look.” The alpha’s voice cracked like a whip with barely suppressed fury.
“I didn’t mean… but Jillian. She was right there, and I couldn’t…” My voice cracked.
Mack’s arms tightened around me. “It’s not real, Zee. Whatever you saw. It’s not real.”
But it was real. It had happened. I’d shifted, and my demon wolf had ripped apart the most loving, wonderful pack grandma ever. She was dead because of the monster inside me. Age-old guilt clawed at my throat and burned my eyes, but I refused to shed a single tear.
The alpha watched me with narrowed eyes. “What all did you see?” he asked.
I shook myself, not fully understanding the question because he couldn’t tell? “Just… what happened? What I did to Jillian when I shifted.”
Finally, he nodded, appeased. “Move out. And keep your goddamn eyes forward.”
Mack released me but stayed close. As soon as we started walking, he got my attention. His hands moved, and it took me far longer than it should have to realize he was signing.
“Are you okay?” he asked with his hands.
We’d learned sign language as kids from a book we found in the library as a way to communicate without nosy, all-hearing adults hearing what we were up to. It had been years since we’d communicated like this, but it was like riding a bike. Thank God, because I needed to get at least one thing off my chest. And I could use a distraction from my memories.
I signed back, “I’ve been thinking.”
Both of his eyebrows shot up in an expression that was equal partstell me everything, and please don’t be planning anything else to piss off the alpha.
Fair. I considered dropping my concerns, but I realized something that might harm the pack and was determined to do my duty and report it. Mack’s rank was higher than mine, so telling him would do.
“I think the dragon is tracking the bloodstone.”
Mack blinked, then signed, “What do you mean?”
I shrugged because I wasn’t entirely sure. “Maybe there’s something on it, like a spell, that he’s following.”
“Was he in your dreams last night?”
I frowned at the question because I would have reported it if he had been. Now that everything was out in the open and the danger had been verified, there was no reason to keep any new information from the pack. Also, the dreams had nothing to do with what was on my mind. I’d been calculating the odds, and the math wasn’t mathing.
“No. I didn’t dream last night.”
When I hesitated before continuing, he signed,“So, how do you know?”
“Between teleportation fatigue and us not seeing a giant black dragon closing in on us, he shouldn’t have found us before we set sail.”
Mack considered my words for a moment. “Could have tracked us by scent. We got a ride from the portal station in the back of a truck. Our scent trail wouldn’t have been impossible to pick up.”
“Tracking takes time. He would have had to come directly to the pier.”
“Not…” Mack fisted his hands, as if he couldn’t remember the signs to make.“You told him where we were in the middle of the night. If he flew to the portal station right after your conversation.” He shrugged.
Mack had a point, and he clearly didn’t think it was worth mentioning to the alpha. And after that conversation, neither did I, so I let the matter drop.
The canyon bent to the right, and we followed it in silence until the walls fell away and the gorge opened into a wide, circular clearing.
I forgot about Jillian.
I forgot about the dragon, the bloodstone, the betrayal I was plotting, and the monster caged inside me. For one stupid, glorious moment, I forgot everything but the sight before me.
The most magnificent tree I had ever laid eyes on rose from the center of the clearing like a queen upon her throne, far above her lowly subjects. The base of the trunk alone had to be at least thirty feet off the ground, elevated by dozens of enormous, exposed roots that fanned out like the buttresses of a cathedral before plunging into the earth at the clearing’s edges.
I instinctively knew that this was why we’d crossed an ocean. Why I’d bled for a trickster, stolen from a dragon, and lied to every person I loved. This was the reason. Not the bloodstone, not the war, not the alpha’s mission.
