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Chapter Twenty-Six
Charlie
I didn’t give two fucks about a magically reinforced fence. What I cared about was this forest and mapping out all its nooks and crannies. It was a wonderland of possibilities, and yeah, I was totally pumped to be able to run and play like I hadn’t been able to in Toronto. This forest was a gem, nestled into the side of a mountain, and it offered a lot of home turf advantage.
The perimeter was the perimeter, but a war could be fought and won in this forest, and we’d have home field advantage if we brought a fight here. I wanted to see what this place had to offer, which I already knew was a lot.
I dug through the thickest parts of the underbrush, knowing it slowed me down but wanting to get my muzzle into the dirt.
My muzzle… I froze.
The hazy edges of awareness I usually felt when my wolf was in control weren’t there anymore. I was strategizing and working on instinct. I stretched my senses out, feeling for the border that usually marked one consciousness from the other. It was gone.
What. The. Fuck?
What had changed?
My mind immediately went to Levi’s toe-curling, breath-destroying kiss. I could practically feel the ghost of his lips on mine still, and that was weird because I was a wolf.
A wolf with full human awareness.
Could a kiss from Levi have unlocked something in my brain that had been holding me back?
Ha! No! Absolutely not. That’s nonsense.
And yet… I hunted more, giving up precious lead time to investigate my conscious mind. Wolf instinct turned my ears, noting the approach of several males, their testosterone and werewolf manliness like a beacon. They were sniffing at the brush like they wanted to come in and join me, but they weren’t totally sure I was where they thought I was or that they trusted me not to attack like I had with Kane. I’d taken great pleasure in showing him up in front of the others. He’d been cocky enough to think I didn’t know where he was the entire time he was tracking me, and I’d known that he was testing me with that fence.
As if I couldn’t detect magic… As if I didn’t have his scent so deeply embedded in my brain that it was practically a part of me… He knew so little about how females worked.
Not his fault. Not completely, anyway. The werewolf history books didn’t teach about female existence beyond them being breeding machines. He needed to stop underestimating me, though. I may have had my limitations, but tracking wasn’t one of them.
I snickered to myself as I continued to wedge in slowly, hunkering down low so my belly scraped along the dirt. I tunneled soundlessly through the thicket, picking up on gamey bunny trails and larger prey, like deer. From my vantage point, which overlooked part of a clearing, I could sense more than see the wolves milling about—huffing and puffing where they thought I should be.
I’d counted at least fifty wolves in all shapes, forms and degrees of beastliness come by my spot. I was kind of watching them parade through, mostly in my peripheral vision while I kept a sharp lookout for Kane. He was the one they followed, and if he couldn’t find me here, he’d move them on, and that would crack me up. It would be something else to rub in his face later when he was trying to kill me with another one of his torture sparring sessions.
The wolves all paused, sensing someone close, but couldn’t quite pinpoint where I was. Like all males, they were eager for the chase. Playing at hunting with a willing female was a non-existent opportunity most of the time, and I was sure these wolves had never had the pleasure. They were desperate to find me, and that was clouding their senses enough to keep me hidden.
I was compelled to test the meditation technique that Levi and I had used earlier. Could I connect with this pack? Signal to them, via a mind link, that I was close? Could I tag their instincts? Curiosity piqued. I wanted to see what happened.
I wasn’t planning on going as deep as Levi and I had done earlier, but I wanted to see if I could make the pack’s hackles rise, even a little bit. It was a game that my wolf grinned about.
I recalled Levi’s instructions, breathing in and out in a measured way, my body on alert, only so much as knowing when a wolf got too close. I envisioned a web this time instead of individual threads, favoring the idea of something sticky and wide reaching. I spun it slowly, letting it build from my newly acquired connection with my wolf. I didn’t want to link with each pack wolf separately, and I didn’t want inside their heads, but I thought I could give them a wisp of awareness of me—a little taste of Charlie. I spun the web one more time then tossed it out, imagining it flowing from me to the fifty wolves I’d sensed pass by me.
I had no idea if it would work until there was a whoosh, like a breeze fluttering past me. It felt liberating, like I was casting a part of myself that I’d never let free before. I wished I understood my ability more, but I was going on gut instinct right now, and it seemed right—not too much, not too little, just a bit of my presence to give them an idea that I was close.
When my web landed, it fell heavily, weighted more than I had intended, and coated every single one of them.
Uh-oh.
The jolt of fifty wolves reacting all at once knocked me back. They bucked and growled, tearing at the web I’d created, frantic to get free from the invisible binding.
I’d made a mistake…a big one.
I was not prepared for the backlash or the insta-connection I felt. All their anger, fear and confusion? It was too much. I tried to dissolve the web, but it was tugging me forward, yanking me from my hiding place like the wolves were reeling me in. We were linked in a way that I couldn’t control—a connection that I’d never intended.
Just before I broke through the brush, my conscious control was yanked back and my werebeast punched through, exploding from me like a banshee, wailing through the pain of so many wolves tearing at a connection they’d never asked for.
She landed with a thundering roar, her claws and fangs ready to destroy the web and anything else that stood in the way of her freedom. She didn’t know what I’d done, and she didn’t care. Her goal was to annihilate the result, even if it meant taking out innocent wolves.
