Page 19 of Escaping Monsters

Acid surged up my throat, and I swallowed it down. I wouldn’t think about that. Not ever.

Lucas’ hand closed over mine. “Teagan, are you okay?”

“Fine.” I pushed the memories down into the darkest parts of my mind and stepped away from Lucas. “Sorry about the shirt. I can be a little anal sometimes.”

“No. I’m grateful.” He grinned, showing that glimpse of his dimple again. “I’m sure I look like a rumpled mess.”

“Not at all,” I lied, and from the smile he gave me, he knew it. “You’ve got an absent-minded professor thing going for you, and I mean that in the best way.”

“We’re not safe here. Let’s go.” Jasper headed through the woods without looking back.

I began to follow when a big muscular arm slung over my shoulders, and Declan leaned in and said, “You don’t even know how excited I am to show you our house—and by our, I mean yours too.”

“Wow. That’s really generous of you to say, Declan,” I said as we trampled over the underbrush. I reached up and patted the big guy’s hand. “Will you tell me about your pack, so I’m prepared? Are there any women in your pack?”

“You’re the only female werewolf in Grayhaven so far,” Declan said with a wince, though it wasn’t surprising. There were fewer female werewolves in the wolf world, and unmated women tended to choose packs with female alphas. Declan was still grimacing when he added, “There are usually women in our packhouse, though.”

“Which is ninety percent because of our last pack member, Chad,” Lucas said from my other side as he picked his way through the underbrush.

My stomach flipped at the name.

“Yeah, Chad. I don’t think you’ve met him yet,” Declan said. “He was on stage when we saw you at the bar. He’s a singer.”

“Yeah, we met,” I felt my face flushing, and I was suddenly very glad that it was still dark outside. “Did you say his name is Chad?”

“Yeah. He was in a band a while back. Rockknot or something,” Declan said. “They got famous for a time before Chad was bitten. That’s what he’s always telling us, anyway.”

“Chad Jameson from Rockknot was very famous. There wasn’t a dry eye in my high school when he died—or, didn’t die, I guess.”

Declan slowed to a stop and rubbed the back of his head. “Damn it. Are you a fan?”

The big guy actually seemed distressed over it.

“Of the band. I met Chad in the farmer’s market and, let’s just say that things didn’t go well. But Chad Jameson is a great musician. Why? Is that a bad thing?”

Declan made a disgusted sound. “Chad’s like a brother, but he’s a sex-crazed egomaniac who burns hearts like they’re made of paper. Can you do me a favor and pretend like you’ve never heard of him before?”

“That honestly might be best,” Lucas said with a smile.

“Sorry…” I gritted my teeth, “I’m not that good of an actor to pretend I don’t like his music, but I’m sure he already knows that I’m not a huge fan of his ego.”

“Fuck. He’s going to be strutting around for you like a fucking rooster,” Declan said under his breath. “Well, you know us three, and you’ve met Ace. So, that’s all five of us.”

“Five wolves?” It wasn’t even half the size of my old pack, and we were smaller than most. Kane just had aggressive, dominant enforcers and me. The more wolves, the more chance that someone would get it in their mind to dominate me, so as far as I was concerned, the less I had to contend with, the safer I was.

We stepped out of the woods and onto a cul-de-sac we didn’t come in from. It was a sleepy residential street with a half dozen Victorians lining the road. When I thought back, most of what I’d seen of the town looked to have been constructed around the turn of the last century, if not before that.

Declan held me to his side, and I found myself webbing my fingers with his at my shoulder. Somehow, it was completely natural for us to walk this way. Nothing I was feeling made sense. Nothing I was doing made sense either. All of my hard-learned lessons were left behind with the fae queen’s floating ball of light. Fuck. I hoped I wasn’t walking into another circle of hell.

The streets wound around, and I stuttered a step. “How could I have not noticed that there are no cars in Grayhaven?”

There were motorcycles and bikes, but I’d yet to see an actual car driving around the street.

“It’s Grayhaven,” Lucas said, and he opened his mouth to say more, but Declan spoke up.

“It’s the way Grayhaven is.” Declan squeezed my shoulders. “The magic has you convinced everything is normal about the town, and then you keep noticing things like that the post office has no door into the building and no door out, and no one has ever seen a postman—post-person, but somehow, mail goes out and junk mail arrives at our house every day—letters only, though. No packages. Well, once in a while they arrive, but I wouldn’t try to order anything expecting that it will come. It took me years to notice some things.”

“Anything to add, doc?” I directed the question at Lucas, because I couldn’t help but notice that Declan talked right over the soft-spoken veterinarian.