Page 33 of Hunted

Cal nodded silently, waiting for me to go on.

“Things between us are getting more intense. I don’t know that there’s even a possibility of something happening there, or that I even want it to.” I blew out a breath. “What I just said isn’t true. There’s a part of me that desperately wants to explore the possibility of us. I’m just scared. Sometimes it seems like I can barely focus when we’re apart because I keep going over it in my head, the thought of what it would mean if we were together, everything I’d have to give up. But then when I think about ending things, it hurts so much I can barely breathe.”

“This isn’t so much about you being with River, if I’m understanding correctly, but the question of becoming a werewolf or remaining human?”

I bit my lip. “Hayden has talked to me a lot about the experience Bittens have in your world versus Borns. There’s no going back if I decide to become a wolf. My anxiety might get worse. New wolves who can’t control their shift sometimes go mad despite their best efforts to manage feral impulses. I already have anxiety and PTSD because of the rewrite. My wolf might be at higher risk of going feral than most Bittens.”

“Perhaps slightly,” Cal conceded, “but if you made the decision to be changed, you would have a large support system looking out for you. In most cases when people get into trouble, it’s not necessarily because of a list of preexisting factors, per se, but because we as a pack allow them to fall through the cracks.”

“Hayden hates River.” I picked at the edge of my thumbnail. “She’s never forgiven him for what happened when we went before the Council. I feel like no matter what I choose, I’ll wind up losing one of them.”

“You really believe that if you chose River, your sister wouldn’t find a way to come to terms with it? You truly think she would hold a grudge if it meant making it harder to see you? What do you think that would look like?”

“I think we’d have to hide the knives at Thanksgiving.”

“Clearly you’ve never looked closely at a Caldwell family barbecue,” Cal said dryly. “But I think there is perhaps a bigger question here than Hayden’s feelings or whether you would be able to control your wolf. Knowing you only for a short time, I feel confident you would have little trouble overcoming those challenges.”

“Which is?”

“I think the part of you that questions whether Hayden will ever be able to trust River is the same part that is still hurt by what happened to you that day in front of the werewolf council. River could have refused Guillermo’s order to erase your memories and didn’t. That part of you questions not whether Hayden will ever truly be able to trust him, but whether you will.”

* * *

THE FOLLOWING WEEK, I MET HAYDEN on a pleasant sunny fall day at a popular food truck for ice cream and girl talk. Two werewolves from my protection detail came with me. Quinn and Xander swept the shady cluster of picnic tables set back from the road under a grove of live oaks before fading into the background.

“They’re hard core. I’m glad they’re on your team,” Hayden said quietly. Her long black hair had berry purple streaks in it this month that matched her nails. She had on a Joan Jett t-shirt Piper had found for her at a vintage shop on South Congress, ripped skinny jeans and her favorite platform Doc Martens. She nodded to the fresh bandage on my wrist. “How often are the vampires on the detail feeding from you?”

“Rowan is the only one taking blood from me. And only every other week.”

“Is it safe for her to feed from you that often?”

“We’ve been monitoring to make sure my iron levels are staying high enough.” I glanced over to the line of food trucks where Quinn and Xander seemed to be having an argument with an unfamiliar male vampire. Shivering, I wrapped my thin white cardigan a little tighter around my shoulders, wishing I’d worn something warmer, but it paired perfectly with the striped black and white retro dress Piper and I had found at one of the vintage shops on South Congress. I’d chosen my favorite red cat eye glasses and red ballet flats, and braided my hair over one shoulder. “It’s Rowan I’m worried about. No one else can feed the vampires who guard me during daylight hours, so she has a dozen people she’s been giving varewolf blood to. I’m not sure how she isn’t constantly lightheaded.”

“How often do they have to feed?”

“Once a month roughly. But it can vary. Vampires burn more blood off in high stress situations like if they have to make a lot of jumps. We have a team that’s been making sure Rowan and the other vampires have a safe human blood supply on standby. Lacey’s mom Juliet has organized some of her friends. So has Kristin Chen, who interviewed Brody and London for that paranormal podcast that went viral.”

“Oh yeah, I love her podcast. Ethan and I listen in every week.” Hayden stabbed her spoon into her cup of dark chocolate ice cream with crushed in Oreos and Junior Mints. My sister? Total chocolate addict. “Have they been able to resolve the security issues you were having at the lab? Ethan said you have more people on your personal detail, and that the Vampire Nation has set up wide perimeter protection as well.” She shuddered. “Although I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.”

I licked a spoonful of my mint chip with waffle cone pieces and strawberries crushed in. “The biggest challenge so far has been keeping the two halves of my security detail from killing each other. Vlad and Cristof were shouting so loudly on the roof of the building one night that Meera went up there to yell at them. I believe her exact words were that they were way too old to be acting that way and to stop being such entitled brats.”

“Meera rocks.”

“She really does. They were downstairs five minutes later with an apology for the group. Things have been better since. Not perfect, but civil.” I stabbed at my ice cream. “Now we’re worried about the wards. Rossi’s people figured out how to break the blood wards Jori set to only admit the lab researchers. Wards can be set up to only allow in specific people, but they can also be designed to repel a certain target. It’s a rarer form of magic. It’s harder to do because in order to do it—”

“You’d need their blood.” Hayden shook her head. “How are you going to get Rossi’s blood?”

“We’re not. Rossi is deep underground. River is hunting for him tirelessly, but even the drones he sends out have had their memories wiped. It’s very frustrating. We believe he has a brother and that his mother is still alive, but so far August hasn’t been able to track them down. They’ve gone deep into hiding.”

Hayden snorted. “With that guy as family? Hard to blame them.”

“Instead, the vampires were able to obtain a blood sample from two of his distant cousins in Italy.”

“Yeah. Not even going to ask what that looked like, but let’s just assume with Cris in charge, it wasn’t pretty.” She stared out at the busy street, pale violet eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Will that be enough for the ward to hold?”

“We’ll find out. River’s theory is that anyone who Rossi has rewritten will have enough of a connection to him that a ward written to expel his blood should keep them out, or at least slow them down long enough for the teams guarding the building to evacuate the researchers.”

Hayden’s expression darkened. She stabbed at her death-by-chocolate ice cream with far too much force. “Are you sleeping with River?”