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As I walked, I replayed her words. I couldn’t fucking help it. Every look she’d given me, the frustration and pain, the way she’d tried so bravely to get me to listen even though revealing those emotions must have hurt… my heart ached thinking about it.
She was my pack too.
I’d needed time to think. I couldn’t just give in based on a moment’s feelings, an impulse of lust. But the truth settled into my soul.
I couldn’t hurt her like that again. I couldn’t go back into her memories.
After my talk with Amelia, I walked to Louisa's cottage. As I walked, I couldn’t stop replaying the horrible scene–and the love written on Brennan and Amelia’s faces in the minutes before that door burst open. He had looked down at her with such open adoration, and her eyes had been warm and alive and tender as she gazed up at him. Something raw and aching opened in my chest.
I'd never ask her to relive Brennan's death again.
I knocked on Louisa's door, but she didn't answer.
"Louisa?" I called. My nostrils flared.
The earthy scent of herbs and magic hung in the air, as if she was in the midst of making something. I walked around the house; golden light from inside glowed through the windows from her lamps. Her house was small and cozy and...
Destroyed.
It looked as if there had been a struggle inside. One of her bookcases had been knocked over.
I ran back to the front door and slammed into it. It burst open in front of me.
There was no sign of Louisa. But the house had been ransacked, and her magical ingredients were spread across the counter or ground into the floor as if someone had raged against the witch's use of magic.
Hard, bitter fear spread through my body. What if this had been one of my siblings, trying to protect Amelia? What if it had been Amelia herself, guilty, knowing that the truth revealed would knock her from her tentative place?
I already had the feeling that when I tracked down Louisa's scent, she'd be dead. But I dared to hope that for once, I wouldn’t arrive in time to find someone I cared for turned into a corpse.
My heart thundered in my chest as I raced into the woods, searching for Louisa. I ran through the trees and branches, dodging obstacles as I followed her scent. It was weak, faded, as if she hadn't been alive when she was taken into the woods. And the rain that fell steadily, trickling through the trees, wasn’t helping.
It made Amelia’s scent rise around me, since Amelia smelled like the rain.
I almost stepped on Louisa. She was lying in the bushes, her body sprawled as if she had stumbled and fallen.
Or as if someone had dropped her there, disrespecting her corpse. I could imagine the shoes paused by her body, but whose? Amelia’s sneakers? Shaw’s boots? Liam’s bare feet?
“Louisa.” I shook her arm, hoping she would wake up before realizing she never would. I frowned at her maimed body. Someone had known to bind her hands and mouth so she couldn’t do any spells; her eyes were wide with terror. Would Amelia have known to do that?
I rose heavily to my feet and looked around, peering through the rain, but there was no one there.
Was this Liam? He was crazy enough to kill, but he was also crazy enough to make his vow of non-violence. But he’d admitted he would break that vow to protect Amelia. Shaw? Shaw had been pissed off at me—and probably at Louisa—for interrogating Amelia. But Shaw knew how much we needed the witch.
Louisa had been under my protection. Not many witches would’ve worked with a wolf pack. She had trusted me, and I’d let someone hurt her.
I ran back to the house, my heartbeat wilder than the driving rain. Anger and regret spurred me on.
Cole walked out of the garage, where some of the shifters were still sparring with each other. He frowned, the rain sliding down his torso as he raked his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “What’s going on?”
“Go get Teresa,” I said, before going into the house.
To my surprise, when Amelia’s door flew open, it was Shaw who stood there.
Apparently her heat was endless.
Fury—and desire and jealousy—raged through my body.
“What do you want?” Shaw demanded.
