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“Oh, Lina, you’re an angel,” I squealed, grabbing a bottle of my favorite beer. I kissed her again and made a dash for the kitchen door with a bottle in hand before she could shoo me out.
Chapter Eight
I leaned my face against the wet tile in the shower, letting the hot water beat down my back. The still-cold bottle of Abita was clutched in one hand, the bottle’s surface now beaded with sweat from the steamy bathroom. The cool beer was a perfect complement to the shower, but it did make my head a bit swimmy.
Now that I was home, I felt safe enough to let my guard down.
How sad was it, though, that my guard had to be up at all? I was supposed to be living a nice, normal life, going to school, hanging out with friends. Yet none of those aspirations seemed to be panning out for me. If I couldn’t even drive home without fear because some psychos wanted to kill me, I couldn’t qualify my life as normal.
After what had happened in New York, with the dead coming to life and the world on the edge of complete destruction, I thought I had made it through the worst the universe could throw at me. I thought I was done with the monsters and the madness.
As much as I could be done when I was a werewolf myself.
The last thing I expected was to be confronted by monsters of the human variety. No matter how much I thought I understood the depths people could sink to, there would always be another psycho crawling out of the woodwork to remind me how terrible things could get.
I took another sip of the strawberry-flavored beer, smiling at the taste of summer on my tongue. This little reprieve couldn’t last long. The shower was one of the only places on the grounds I could get any real privacy, so I did most of my best thinking there. With all the male pack members in and out of the house at any given time, using the other bathrooms to clean up after runs, Callum had insisted I get my own private bathroom.
It wasn’t huge by any standard, an en suite with a tub-shower combo, but to me it was heaven. The one place I was guaranteed to have me-time, for however long the hot water lasted.
Tipping my head back, I let the water course through my hair.
What would a queen do?
While I wasn’t gunning to take over the throne the way Ben was, I still tried to imagine what Callum or Secret would do in my shoes. Okay…maybe not Secret. My sister wasn’t much for subtlety or politics, and her solution would probably be to meet the Church of Morning head-on, guns blazing.
As tempting as that might be, it wasn’t going to solve our problem. Killing a bunch of humans, however awful they were, would only succeed in making us look like homicidal lunatics.
But all the same, we couldn’t leave Hank to get killed. It didn’t matter how I felt about his opinions or his personality. It didn’t matter whether or not he was good person. He was pack and that was it, end of story. And he was Wilder’s brother.
Back to Wilder again.
I’d made it through most of the shower not thinking about him, but with a teeny beer buzz going, my internal musings circled back in his direction. I wanted to know more about him. Where he’d been for the last several years, why Ben hated him and what he was really like.
Yet every internal alarm bell I had was ringing with warning, telling me it was a bad idea to spend any more time with him than I absolutely had to.
And if common sense told me to do something, I naturally wanted to do the exact opposite. Go figure.
Of course, following our earlier meeting with Callum, I didn’t believe for a second Wilder was going to hold back and wait for the pack to act. I might not know the guy well, but I had a nagging suspicion he was already back at the garage packing a bag to chase Church members down on his own.
Or with you.
On a scale of one to “let’s do tequila shots!” it was the worst idea I could have had in the given circumstances. Run off with a complete stranger to save his racist brother from crazy people?
Where do I sign up?
I shut off the water and the air from outside seeped past the shower curtains and dimpled my skin with goose bumps. I wrapped myself in a soft towel and took another sip of beer.
Maybe the idea wasn’t as hopeless as I was thinking. During my time in the city I’d made connections with the type of individuals whose special skills would put Liam Neeson to shame. I knew Callum didn’t want anyone going after the Church for taking Hank, but he probably also thought there was nothing I could do.
I felt duty bound in two different directions. On the one hand I wanted to obey Callum, but on the other I knew a member of my pack was in mortal peril. If it was in my power to help Hank, wasn’t it my job as a leader of the pack to do that? Callum had said he would try to help Hank, but I knew his greater fear was protecting our public image. Hank might be dead before Callum had a chance to do anything diplomatic to save him.
Wilder would go, with or without me, in spite of what he’d told Callum. Ben, given the chance, would have no problem letting Wilder run off to certain death, but it wasn’t Ben’s example I was trying to live up to. What would Callum do? He would consider the risks and benefits to the pack. He’d find a way to stop Wilder from going, and he would sacrifice Hank if it became necessary.
But he’d also been willing to give Hank a home even after he’d strayed. My uncle might play the hard and mean dictator, but I knew he cared about everyone under him. If he’d taught me anything, it wasn’t to yield to his command but rather to think for myself. That might have led to us butting heads from time to time, but I
liked to believe he respected me for standing up for myself.
He’d brought me home to keep me safe. Now I was thinking of leaving again if it meant bringing another wolf back alive. Callum probably wouldn’t not understand my logic right away, but in the long run, if I succeeded, there was a chance he’d come to respect it.
