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I pressed my lips to his bicep. “We don’t know. No one knows when it’s their time to be called to the Gods. But I don’t want you to be blindsided.”
“I won’t be. If our days are limited, this is still worth it to me,” he whispered.
“Me, too.”
He pointed in the direction the cabin. “I hear your brother.”
I frowned but doubled my pace.
“What is it?” I asked when we were in hearing range of the cabin.
“I don’t think you want me to say this in front of the half-breed.”
“He knows what’s going on. Speak.”
“We have a body, and it’s gruesome.”
FOURTEEN
DOMINIC
“Gruesome how?” But I knew what the answer would be.
The wolves we found were more and more mangled. The last few were barely recognizable, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the state of this one.
“Pieces.”
I closed my eyes, the pain of any member of my pack hurting my soul. It was my duty to take care of them. My responsibility was to keep them all safe, and I was failing. Over and over. My hands squeezed into a fist, and my teeth clashed as my eyes turned black.
My wolf wanted out.
It took everything in me to hold him back. I added chains to the cage in my mind, trying to keep him under control. He snapped them, fighting for control of the body we shared. A snarl ripped from my throat, and my body shuddered, but I clawed my way back into control. He couldn’t have me yet. There would be a time and place for him to lose it, but our house wasn’t it.
“Dominic?” my brother asked, checking to make sure it was still me he was dealing with.
“Give me a minute.” The words were painful to get out, but I managed. It was too close to the full moon for this. All of us were on edge. After a few deep breaths, I felt my eyes focus returning, which meant their color returned to my blue instead of the black of my wolf. My body held its human shape.
“You can’t keep doing that to him,” Az said when I looked into his green eyes.
“What?” I held open the door to the cabin for them to enter.
I made a fresh pot of coffee. It would be a long night. I’d try to find the thing that was killing the wolves, and I was sure I’d turn up empty-handed like every other time, but I’d need my energy for it. I’d chase it to the ends of the earth if I had to. I would not let it tear down my pack without a fight.
“Fighting your wolf. He’s part of you. You both will settle if you allow him to have his space.” Az had a different relationship with his wolf than I did with mine. He was his wolf while I shared a form with mine. I didn’t know which of us was right or if others of our kind felt the difference as intensely as I did, but we would never understand one another because of it. He and his wolf had the same goals, while mine had a mind of his own, and there was no controlling him when he took over and had his mind set.
“He’s not in charge. I am.”
“You would be if you gave him and yourself permission to be the animal you are. You restrict him, and it will weaken you both.” Az was trying to be helpful, but I couldn’t get through to him. He didn’t understand why that didn’t work for me.
I stepped into his space, staring down my nose at him with a snarl. “I am not an animal. I will never be an animal. All I have is my humanity. It’s the only thing that makes me better than the vampires.”
Because if I was no better or worse than the ones who tortured us, what was the point of it?
“You are your wolf. It doesn’t take away from either of you. We are animals. All of us, humans and our kind alike. None of us can escape so many years of evolution unscathed by our instincts.” He didn’t back down, and it was a part of him I respected, even if it pissed me off.
“We’ll never see eye to eye there.”
“So what, you’ll let it destroy you? Weaken you and our people? Make you unfit to lead? Get out of your head. We have work to do.”
