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My oath. “I...” I cleared my throat, blinking furiously as I struggled to find a way out of the trap that had closed around me while my attention was focused inward. Somehow, when I’d told Gunner I was willing to swear myself to his brother, I’d assumed I’d think of some clever compromise during the intervening hours before I was forced to actually live up to my boast.
But Ransom’s eyebrows rose as he eyed me impatiently. And any ingenuity I might have once possessed refused to show itself upon command.
So, thinking of Mama’s recent bombshell and the precariousness of Kira’s hold on reality, I accepted the inevitable and took the only path I could see toward my destination. “I, Mai Fairchild, swear to protect and uphold the Atwood pack to the best of my ability....”
The words gushed forth as if they’d been waiting for an outlet for weeks on end rather than being forced awkwardly from my lips by a force greater than myself. I was willing to protect the Atwood pack, I realized...at least the portion of it I’d spent the last few months living amidst.
Because Gunner and Tank and Crow and Allen and Elle and Liam had been more than mere companions. They’d hunted with me and trained me and protected my sister with their lives.
Pack mates. They were pack mates and I was glad to acknowledge that connection with an oath.
And as I spoke, the debt-bound tie that had clenched my gut for months gradually loosened. As if promising to be part of Gunner’s pack was all that had been required to allow my first full breath in several days.
For half a second, in fact, I could almost see the younger brother there beside me. Could sense Gunner’s delight as he accepted the binding I’d created and offered a similar oath of his own in return.
“I swear to protect you and yours also,” the alpha murmured, the warmth of his promise soothing skin pebbled by the morning chilliness. “I welcome you into our pack.”
Then I was back in the forest, one very unimpressed pack leader glowering down at me from the crest of the hill. While Gunner had taken my oath as a heart-felt promise aimed at a group he cared for, Ransom understood my verbal slipperiness to be a personal affront.
And that was the difference between the brothers, wasn’t it? Gunner had no need to make others feel smaller to increase his own stature...while Ransom had literally perched himself on the highest point in the forest in an effort to dominate his clan.
Means, motive, and opportunity. I shivered as the likelihood that Ransom really was the Master punched me in the gut.
But before I could follow that thought path any further, Ransom dismissed my evasion with a curt: “Enough of this.” His eyes flashed but his tone remained full and firm as if he’d gotten exactly what he desired when he continued. “We’ll meet back here to compare our kills at sunset. Ladies, I assume you want to hunt together. As the weaker sex, you deserve a fifteen-minute head start.”
***
I WOULD HAVE CHAFFED at the chauvinistic send-off if the aroma of jasmine hadn’t begun dissipating at that exact same moment. The owner of the scent appeared to be moving away from me rather than standing before me. Which meant...maybe Ransom wasn’t the Master after all?
Gladly, I leapt upon any thread leading me away from tying guilt to Gunner’s brother. The speed with which the pack princesses fled, however, left me little energy to quibble over who might have spilled Mama’s jasmine perfume all over herself. Instead, we were deep in the forest before I caught up to the slowest female, fox agility barely making up for my shorter stride as we pressed through tangles of weeds and bushes as a pack.
Then, finally, wolf tails were slapping at my muzzle, which meant I was close enough to search for the floral odor’s source. Not that my fellow runners let me. First a clawed foot struck my eye as I veered away from a thicket of brambles. Then, blinking furiously to regain full vision, I changed my trajectory, was pushed sideways a second time, and realized the females were actively attempting to exclude me from their midst.
Which suggested...they were all in cahoots with the Master? The idea didn’t sit right, not when I knew that these females had left several different clans quite recently in hopes of becoming Ransom’s designated mate. One might be my shadowy nemesis, but the chance that all twenty-odd females were working together to wreak havoc using my mother’s star ball seemed so slender as to be nonexistent.
All of these thoughts flitted through my head in the time it took for us to descend a steep hill and start back up the other side. I still smelled jasmine quite strongly—the only reason I hadn’t turned around to hunt more likely prey. So, pushing a hair more speed out of my dragging muscles, I leapt onto a tumble of massive boulders that allowed me to cut across the path of the earth-bound pack princesses, knowing even as I did so that I’d have no better luck invading the cluster from the front.
Only, the pack princesses were no longer pressing forward. Instead, as if reacting to an unspoken signal, the triangle of werewolves opened up into a circle at the base of the boulders, the lead wolf trotting backwards to sniff at a newly shifted female lying naked on the earth. The girl—because she probably hadn’t yet reached her twentieth birthday—was sobbing furiously. And for a moment, I lost the thread of my thoughts and decided the Master could wait until we discovered whatever had set the poor teenager off.
I was too far away to soothe anyone, but the lead wolf was shifting and pulling the younger woman into her arms already. “Shh, it’s alright,” Lucinda murmured. Because, of course, the female who had glared daggers at me the previous evening would turn out to be the unofficial leader of this temporary pack.
“But it happened again.” The girl’s voice quavered, her tone nasal and rough due to stopped-up nostrils. Meanwhile, my own nostrils flared as I noted the strong presence of Mama’s jasmine aroma emanating from the center of the circle of werewolves.
“Are you sure?” one of the other females asked dubiously. But I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I’d leapt down from my perch and padded past the milling wolves who were too intent upon the teenager’s story to hinder my approach.
Because I had a sinking suspicion I knew what the girl was so upset about. Especially given the evidence of Mama’s blood-gathering tactics from my dream....
Sure enough, the child answered with a gesture, lifting up both hands in front of her face palm-sides outward. “There’s no mistaking this,” she whispered.
And she was right. Because I’d seen those same blood-rimmed fingernails on my own hands when joining Mama’s hunt in my dream.