Page 47 of Bound

“Pretty sure the message was that if London had wanted to kill one of us, or Brody for that matter, we’d be dead and there’d be nothing he could do about it. Ballsy of her. Brody hasn’t let Major out of his sight for two days. Lacey had to doggie-sit while he was out on patrol. I think they spent the whole day trying out new cookie recipes and watching Chopped with Fancy.”

Our phones buzzed in unison. Caldwell frowned. Then snarled, “Stop the car!”

“The hell—”

“They wouldn’t. I will seriously kill every last one of them,” he muttered under his breath, typing furiously.

“Translation, for those of us in the cheap seats?”

“Bonus category. PIMP MY RIDE.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said grimly. “How fast can you get me to Cedric?”

* * *

“Not fast enough, apparently.”

I tweaked one of the jasmine vines twisted in a graceful canopy over an intricate miniature wooden gazebo. Plastic elves were hot glued to a foam base at the center of the display. A dark gray blanket spilled in a ruffling pattern over Cedric’s hood, simulating a waterfall (also protecting the paint job—not that Caldwell was giving his vandal team any credit.)

“This was a coordinated attack. Rivendell. What’s next. The gates of Mordor? Do I need to start parking Cedric underground?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay, first? That’s some epic level pranking—”

“Not helping.”

“Second,” I continued, pointedly ignoring Caldwell in his hour of neediness. “You’re the biggest fantasy nerd I’ve ever met. You have the regular and special extended edition for the entire Lord of the Rings series. You’ve watched the special features so many times Harry and Draco know exactly when to dive into their fleece bunkers just before the creepy orc scenes.”

“Dean and Castiel. And your point?”

“Your weirdo advisory class dug up the school landscaping and reconstructed your favorite movie on the hood of your car. It’s weird, but it’s West Caldwell-brand weird. I’d think of it as an homage.”

“This is why they don’t let you teach teenagers.”

“Yeah. And I’ll bet there aren’t five teachers in that school they’d think were cool enough to prank.” I stepped into his space, so close that I could suddenly count every freckle scattered across the bridge of his nose. His pulse fluttered like the beat of hummingbird wings.

“What are we doing, Greer?” he whispered faintly as my thumb grazed his cheek.

“Hell if I know,” I said, and kissed him.

It was a kiss that tasted of sunscreen and summer, of mint chocolate chip milkshakes and freshly mown grass where fireflies were just starting to dance in the early evening light. The sort of kiss that promised a thousand more, lazy walks home from a used bookstore hand in hand, a reusable cloth sack of novels waiting for a sleepy Saturday morning together spent eating pancakes and reading in bed.

And I knew then that whatever West Caldwell and I were becoming to each other, it was quickly reaching a place we couldn’t walk back from, not without one of us getting hurt.

7

West

HALF AN HOUR LATER WE WERE WALKING the three blocks through downtown Blood Moon to the pecan-lined street in the historic district where Dallas and Lacey lived. A chorus of cicadas hummed as we passed the pink granite courthouse. The scent of freshly mowed grass made my wolf want to vault the nearest white picket fence to nip at the fireflies that were dancing in the early evening air. A green plastic sprinkler had been set up in one yard, whirring lazily as it swished over the grass and left puddles on the hot cement sidewalk.

Topher tugged at my fingers before I could step into the spray, angling his head down to press a kiss to the nape of my neck where a recent bite tingled faintly at the edge of my collar. I shivered, feeling the brush of his lips everywhere, from the water sprinkling over my flip flops, to the lazy night breeze that smelled of sunscreen and ice cream trucks and first kisses, to every inch of my skin he’d spent the last half hour devouring upstairs before we hurriedly threw our clothes back on and raced out the door.

“If you keep doing that, we’re going to be late.”

“Are we now.” Another kiss. In cut-offs and a worn white t-shirt that fit snug across his chest, he looked relaxed and happy. For one stolen second, I allowed myself to picture a future filled with days like this, one where we weren’t at war. Where my dad and his brother weren’t missing. Where we could just be us.

My phone buzzed. I checked the screen.