Raised by Wolves (Raised by Wolves #1)(32)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

But I hadn’t been fine.

Come out, come out, wherever you are, little one. No sense in hiding from the Big Bad Wolf. I’ll always find you in the end. …

The only way I was going to be fine—now or ever—was when I knew exactly what had happened to Chase, and knew that it wasn’t going to happen to anyone else.

Ever.

Again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WOULD PRETEND FOR A SINGLE second that you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen!”

“Alison—”

“Don’t you ‘Alison’ me, Callum. You want to talk conditions, what were my conditions?”

“Ali—”

I recognized the voices from twenty yards away: Ali, Callum, and Casey. They were yelling so loudly that they didn’t even seem to be aware of my approach, which was really something, because I wasn’t making any attempt to mask the sound of my footsteps, and Callum and Casey should have heard me coming from a mile off.

“This is between me and Callum, Casey. If you can’t back me up, keep your mouth closed.”

Ali’s voice lowered in volume, and I gulped on Casey’s behalf. If she’d been using that tone with me, I would have turned tail and run, no questions asked.

“I don’t know why I even—”

A low, unidentifiable sound, issued from Callum’s throat, stopped Casey’s words in their tracks. I wasn’t sure if Callum had growled in warning or in threat, but either way, Casey didn’t finish what was probably an entirely inadvisable sentence.

I don’t know why I even bother?

I don’t know why I even try?

I don’t know why I even act like there’s the smallest chance you might listen to me?

It didn’t matter. Even I could tell that Ali wasn’t in the mood to hear any of the above. She was challenging Callum. Casey was trying to get her to back off. Our house had somehow become Dominance Issue Central, and I had a sinking suspicion that it was my fault.

Casey was mad at Ali. Ali was furious with Callum. And Callum was talking in low, even tones, like he couldn’t have forced both of them to their knees in under a second if he’d taken it in his head to do so.

This wasn’t good.

I stopped walking. I stopped breathing. I didn’t move.

“I left my family behind. I left my friends. I never contacted any of them again. I kept the pack’s secrets, and what did you give me in return?” This wasn’t a rhetorical question. Ali was waiting for an answer, and Callum replied, his voice gentle, like he was reprimanding a child instead of facing down the rage of a mama bear. “I gave you Bryn.”

“She’s mine, Callum. Not yours. Not the pack’s. She’s my daughter, and you swore to me that when it came to her safety, my word would be law, so whatever you know, whatever you’ve seen—”

And then, there was silence, so abrupt that I wondered for a second if I’d lost consciousness or gone spontaneously deaf in both ears.

“You might as well come in,” Callum called, disabusing me of that notion. His voice was dry, like he should have known I’d be hovering at the perimeter of their argument, marking every word. “This concerns you.”

I heard Ali mutter something under her breath but couldn’t make out what. Slowly, deliberately, I made my way to the house, taking my time with each step, not sure I wanted to see the looks on any of their faces.

I was right to worry.

Ali looked like Ali, Callum like Callum, and Casey looked like he wanted to kill me.

Like any of this was my fault. For once, I hadn’t done anything. Yet.

“How were your finals?” Ali asked, breaking the silence with a question that sounded so normal that I wondered for an instant if I’d imagined their yelling a moment before.

A glance at Casey out the side of my eye told me that I hadn’t.

“Finals went well,” I said, keeping my back to the wall, an instinct that I couldn’t shake, even though we were all family here. “I’m pretty sure I aced algebra.”

I felt Callum smile beside me, but when I looked over at him, his face was neutral, calm. The face of the alpha, taking care of pack business.

My hands flitted to the waist of my jeans, needing a reminder—a physical reminder—that even when he was alpha, he was still Callum. Even when it came to pack business, I was still his.

“Is this about my seeing Chase again?” I asked. I was facing Callum, but Ali was the one who answered my words.

“You don’t have to go. You don’t have to do this.”

First Devon and now Ali. What did they know that I didn’t?

“Nothing,” Ali said, and I wondered if my thoughts were always apparent on my face. “I don’t know anything that you don’t, Bryn, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that this could get ugly.”

“Chase won’t hurt me.”

Ali glanced at Callum, and Devon’s words floated back to me—It’s not Chase I’m worried about.

Callum won’t hurt me, either, I thought, but I didn’t broadcast the words. The fact that I had to say or think them at all was mind-boggling. I’d approached Callum as a member of his pack, and his actions and mine were equally bound by our agreement. I knew better than to break faith with our entire pack, and I had more inhibition than they were giving me credit for.

Tempting fate was one thing; baiting Pack Justice was entirely another.

“Are you ready?” Callum asked me, ignoring Ali. The look in his eyes told me that he knew me better than she did. He didn’t question, even for a second, the possibility that I’d back down.

“He’s just a boy,” I said out loud. Just a boy with a Rabid in his head, who claims he loved me before we ever met. “I’m ready.”

Ali sighed, and the sound was unnatural, like her lungs were being deflated, the air sucked out of them by some external force.

“Take care of her, Casey,” Ali said, and I couldn’t tell if her words were an order or a plea. “Please.”

Casey nodded, but not for the first time, I wondered if he’d fully bargained on me when he’d married Ali.

“I’ll take care with her, Alison. You have my word.” Callum’s words should have been comforting, but as an expert at obfuscation myself, I couldn’t help but notice what he hadn’t said. He hadn’t said that he’d take care of me. He’d said he’d take care with me, and I knew better than to think that those two things were the same.