Page 72 of Crave

Lacey’s terror screamed through my blood. Gunshots rang out across the valley. One. Two.

The bond went dark.

“No.” My vision greyed out. The wolf fought to escape from my human skin, rage and grief splitting me in two. I made it twenty feet before Cal slammed me back into the nearest tree, jamming a wiry forearm into my chest. I fought like an animal, kicking and clawing, both of my brothers fighting to hold me down.

Shoving them away, I released a roar of anguish. Desperately, I searched for Lacey in the bond, for some faint phantom whisper of her presence, an echo, no matter how tiny, that would let me know she was safe. Alive.

Nothing. And I realized with a start as Ethan’s rage and grief screamed through our connection that I could no longer feel Hayden, either. My brothers had backed off, standing silently by.

Chest heaving, I lowered my head, addressing West. “You said Topher’s bonded to you.”

West gave me the same look he had the one time I’d suggested he shoehorn a dragon into this really lame, angsty break-up scene he’d been rewriting all night in one of his fics. Like he wanted to set me and my stupid ass hypothetical dragon on fire. “Come again?”

“You’re an Omega. Topher is bonded to you. He’ll come if you call him.”

“Dallas—” Cal started.

“Un-fucking-believable.” West let out a brittle laugh.

“Lacey and Hayden are in danger and we’re out here chasing a ghost. Topher’s the one they’re after. We all know it. If you get him to come to you, the vamps will follow.”

“If I slave him to my will, you mean? Twist my way into his head by force and manipulate every last shred of free agency and emotion he possesses so that he’s a fucking zombie, drooling at my every command? That’s your brilliant idea?”

“You did it before.”

“Okay, enough,” Cal cut in. “You’re not thinking straight and we both get that, but this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“One more time for everyone in back—what happened the night Topher imprinted Was. An. Accident,” West growled. “And fuck you for rubbing it in my face.”

“So you’re just going to leave Lacey and Hayden to die?”

“Or maybe I’m just not willing to harm someone else as the lazy way out. And I can’t believe you of all people would ask.”

I bared my teeth. West glared back.

Cal stepped between us. “Let’s get to high ground. We’ll make contact with August, get their last known position—”

“I know where they are.”

As one, we turned. Topher stood at the edge of the snowy clearing. He wasn’t dressed for the cold, the Metallica tee, old canvas jacket and dark skinny jeans far too thin. Heavy silver shackles from back at the compound were clamped around his left wrist. That was how he’d been eluding us. Silver was toxic to shifters. When administered in low doses, it was used to control wolves in the feral community because of the way it suppressed the link our human sides formed with our wolves. Use enough of it and supposedly the effects were like being trapped in no-mans-land, numbed out, barely able to function. It was rumored that some of the larger urban packs had hidden underground prisons with silver built into the walls, preventing communication or escape.

“You shouldn’t have those on,” West said. “The silver—"

“Did I borrow your favorite pair or something?”

I clapped my hands. “Okay. Good talk. So the part where you can find Lacey and Hayden—?”

Topher worked his jaw. “Yeah. I can track them. But we need to go now.”

“How? They’ve gone off-grid.”

“Gonna have to trust me on that one.”

West scoffed. “Oh, okay, Mr. Told me he would be fine chilling for an hour with August. Mr. Promised he wouldn’t try anything. Mr. Fucking lied and acted like we had some goddamn heart to heart last night—”

“That what you’re so upset about?”

“Don’t start. You’ve been trying to escape for months. Trying to get back to them. I get that they messed with your head, but—”