Raised by Wolves (Raised by Wolves #1)(37)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

But at the same time, he was right. There wasn’t an in-between for me. I lived at extremes. And maybe I’d die at them, too.

Right. Now.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I was stupid, and I’d been betrayed, and I wasn’t at all sure which one was worse. I felt Callum come into the room behind me, and as he crossed it, I turned, averting my eyes to keep from looking straight at him. A second later I realized that I needn’t have bothered. It wasn’t like he was looking at me. His movements were stiff, his face unreadable. For what I could only assume was the first time in a thousand years, he looked old.

Callum said nothing to me. He just nodded at Sora, and she walked over and told Chase to move away from me.

He didn’t want to.

He wanted to stay.

To protect.

But he’d promised, and so he let go of me and I of him. “He’s safe?” I asked Sora, knowing deep down that Callum wouldn’t respond.

“Safer than you are,” Sora replied. “His disobedience was mild.”

Chase hadn’t reneged on a pact with our entire community. I had. Message received.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I didn’t want to be asking those words, but there they were.

Sora didn’t answer. She just dragged me from the house, out onto Callum’s front lawn. Callum followed, but didn’t step past the threshold of his door.

“Permissions were granted and conditions were set,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Those conditions weren’t met. Justice demands blood.”

This from Callum. The closest thing to family I had, next to Ali. The man whose Mark I bore—and would always bear—on my flesh. The man who’d lied to me for years and years. The person who for the longest time I’d looked up to most in this world.

“However,” Callum said, and that provoked a hum of grumbles that settled when the alpha demanded silence. “However, the girl is human. Her body would not recover from that which she has rightly earned, and our justice—if it is to be justice—cannot be blind. Sora will serve in my stead. She will extract our pound of flesh.”

I really, really hoped he was talking about a metaphorical pound. Ice-cold terror filled my veins, and from head to toe, I froze.

“But Sora will do so in human form, and only until the girl’s body gives out.”

Gives out?

Gives out how?

“And how will Sora know when it’s enough?” Ironically enough, that question—which was on the tip of my tongue, too—came from Marcus, his lips twisted into a colorless sneer. “Who is she to judge? The pack will be satisfied. This cannot be a slap on the wrist.” He paused and then added, “Alpha,” with what sounded like respect—probably to stave off a lesson in what challenging the alpha really meant.

“Sora will know,” Callum said, and that was all the warning I got. One moment, things were still being debated in the abstract, and the next, a circle had formed around me and Sora—Devon’s mother, pack, protector—had thrown me to the ground. I scrambled to my feet, but the next second, she came flying at me, a kick delivered to my chest. I flew backward, and there was a popping in my ears. It took me a second to recognize the sound as the cracking of my ribs.

I was lucky she hadn’t broken them in half. But somehow, I didn’t feel lucky. Again, I made my way to my feet, and again, she was upon me. Instinct said to draw my knives, but even I had more sense than that. This was as much of a reprieve as Callum could give me. If I touched silver, I’d lose it.

I’d die.

And I owed Chase more than that. I heard him howling, as if from a great distance, and I knew that he’d lost the battle for control, that he’d Shifted and that it was the wolf and not the boy who was bound now by the promise he’d made me not to interfere.

I lost my tenuous grip on that fleeting thought when Sora backhanded me, strong enough to send me down again. She rained blows down upon me, and I could feel my eyes blackening, my lips swelling, my body hopeless under the barrage.

All of Callum’s training, and this was what I was reduced to. I couldn’t fight, couldn’t resist, couldn’t do anything but let her beat me.

Survive.

The word was a whisper at the back of my throat, a ghost in my mind, maybe even an echo on the wind. I’d given into it before. I’d absorbed it, acted on it.

Survive.

I don’t know how to survive this, I thought. This was me losing my family. My friends. Every illusion of safety I’d ever had. Every promise I’d ever made myself that nobody would make me a victim again.

Survive.

Sora moved to drive a deceptively dainty foot into my side again, but she must have misjudged my position, because she lost her footing and stalled, her elegant, angular face completely blank of emotion and strain. Before she could regain her balance and momentum, I scrambled backward and forced myself to my feet.

My face was wet, warm, and sticky, and I could taste the blood in my mouth. But even then, I knew that I could take much, much more. That this could go on. And on. And on.

When would the pack be satisfied?

How would Sora know when to stop?

Trapped. Fight. Blood. Run.

I could feel the need building inside of me. Could feel the fury threatening to overwhelm my mind, take over my senses.

No.

If I fought back, it would only be worse. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t run. But I had to. My heart was pumping. My ribs were throbbing. There were no sinks to hide under, no strangers to save me.

Fight.

I stood ramrod still. I didn’t move. I didn’t run. I just stood there, hurting, fighting off the haze and the need to taste blood myself.

The need to get out of there alive.

Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

I was. I was desperately afraid, and this time, the Big Bad Wolf wasn’t Rabid. It was Sora. Her fist connected with my jaw. My head snapped back.

Danger. Fight. Blood. SURV—

No! The word exploded in my brain, and with it came paralysis. It washed over my body, taking first my legs and then my torso, my arms, even my lips, until I couldn’t manage a single cry when Sora’s fist crashed into my face again.

I wouldn’t fight this.

I couldn’t.

My field of vision exploded, first into red, then into black, and then into nothing. Blessed nothing, and numbness, and as black faded to star-tinged gray, I crumpled to the ground.

Unconscious.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FLOATING IN DEAD MAN’S CREEK, I STARED UP AT the night sky. The dark expanse and the bright stars took turns dominating my visual field, but the oscillation between inky blackness and white-hot light didn’t hurt my eyes, just like the water under and around me didn’t chill my skin