AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dylanand I found a motel and settled in for the night. Once he was asleep, I checked for the fifth time that the door was soundly locked, then stepped back into the alcove by the bathroom.
I’d stopped at Walmart and bought a prepaid phone. Any phone felt like it might pose a risk, but I couldn’t stand the thought of losing contact with my siblings entirely.
I called the hospital. “I’m trying to check in on Rose Wilder? She’s in the ICU.”
“One moment, please.” There was the sound of keyboard tapping in the background. Then, “I’m sorry, we don’t have anyone in the hospital under that name.”
Panic squeezed my chest. I wracked my brain, trying to think if Aiden had given a false name for her. The EMTs had taken her purse; surely they had her ID and her real name?
Did that mean they’d already called Mom?
Rose must still be there. She’d been in the ICU; she wasn’t going to have left already.
The nurse was saying something to me, but I’d missed it. My heart was pounding. “Thanks so much,” I managed, then hung up.
The hotel room felt too small, like a trap. I’d drawn the shades tight to prevent anyone from seeing Dylan and me, blocking out the moon, but I could sense it beyond the curtains, full of magic.
I wished I could shift.
But we would spend the rest of our lives in cities. I wasn’t sure how much I’d ever run again, or how much Dylan would run when he began to shift.
I couldn’t worry about the future. I couldn’t even handle the present. I turned the phone over and over in my hand absently, trying to figure out a way to contact my brother without driving back to the hospital.
I couldn’t come up with another way.
I paced the room, trying to settle myself down enough to sleep.
And then I scented the wolf.
I went totally still, but if I knew he was here, he knewIwas here.
The smell was distant, but I still knew it.
The muskiness of wolves.
Woodsmoke.
The faint scent of apple.
Someone from the King pack had found me.
CHAPTER11
Wolf
“Wolf.”Caroline slunk out of seeming nothingness to come to my side. As always, she touched my shoulder, as if she were drawn to me. The vampires never seemed to be able to resist touching me.
It was amazing she managed to hide in the shadows. She drew constant attention when we appeared in public. That was something I tried to avoid. She had the unearthly beauty of the vampires, or at least, so it seemed from the effect she had on men.
“She's afraid. What did you do, Caroline?” I’d tried to keep the vampires from knowing where I went when I followed her. But they had their own magic–and magic they had borrowed from their Fae cousins, too.
I had been following at a distance when they almost wrecked. When I saw the look on her face as she stumbled out of the car, desperate to save her sister, I'd been tempted to go to her. But that wouldn't exactly have alleviated any of her fear.
“Why do you think I did anything?” Caroline purred.
“Because you're always doing something.”
Vampires couldn't bear children. They could only turn people. Every attempt to carry a bloodthirsty child in the womb ended… badly. For all involved.
