Taken by Storm (Raised by Wolves #3)(16)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

She was my age, and she’d already been through hell.

Of all the kids that Samuel Wilson had Changed, Maddy was the first one to throw off the mental bonds he’d used to control them. She was the first one to believe me when I told her that being Resilient meant that you could make your own choices about who to follow and who not to.

She was the one who’d chosen me. And after I’d killed Lucas, she’d chosen to leave.

If you force me to stay, she said, from somewhere in my memory, I’ll hate you.

I tried not to think of the pain she’d been in, tried not to think about the way she’d looked at Lucas and seen herself. Werewolves had a tendency to fall quickly, and Maddy had identified with Lucas, with the things he’d survived as a member of Shay’s pack.

She’d loved him.

“Maddy’s strong.” Devon’s voice broke into my thoughts. “She’s a survivor, Bryn, and she would kill herself before hurting another human being.”

I believed that, too. I did. But there was a problem with Devon’s logic—Maddy wasn’t a human being. She was a werewolf. A lone werewolf, broken down and beaten and alone.

Sooner or later, most lone wolves go Rabid. I kept a tight hold on the thought and didn’t let it travel from my mind to Devon’s.

When Maddy had left, I’d worried that another alpha might find her and try to claim her, but I hadn’t thought about what it would be like for her, without the pack. I’d only thought of how horrible it was for us without her. She was a phantom limb, a missing piece, a yearning….

And she would have felt that—all of that tenfold.

“You two coming?” Sora called out, and I met Devon’s eyes. If we could hear his mother, she could hear us. Good thing we’d been standing there for minutes in silence.

“Explain to me again why you granted that woman permission to step foot on Cedar Ridge land.” Dev didn’t raise his voice, but he didn’t bother to lower it, either, and with werewolf hearing, there was no question that Sora would have heard it.

“Because Callum is our ride, and he asked.”

Devon rolled his eyes. “Oh, really?” he said. “Callum asked?”

Actually, Callum had said it “might be a good idea” if Sora came with us. Personally, I’d thought it “might be a horrific idea,” but then I’d noticed the way the other alphas and their seconds were looking at her and the way she was looking at them, and for the first time, I thought of what it must have been like to be Sora: the only woman among all these men, for years.

Then I said yes.

“Not only did Callum ask,” I told Devon, “he said, ‘pretty please.’ ”

Devon—and his nose—were unimpressed with that statement. “Liar.”

“He said, ‘pretty please with a cherry on top,’ ” I continued. “And now that I said yes, we’re BFFs. He’s going to make me a friendship bracelet and everything.”

Devon tweaked the end of my ponytail. “You are a horrible liar.”

Maybe—but I was very good at distracting people, including Devon, who didn’t need to be ruminating on his relationship with Sora when we were all going to be stuck in the car together for another hour. Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as good at distracting myself as I was at distracting other people. As Devon and I made our way back to the car, my mind went again to the dark place, to the thoughts I couldn’t bear. If Jed had been there, he would have told me to let them in, so I did.

Human bodies, torn limb from limb.

Blood smeared against white walls.

Maddy.

Minutes went by, miles of travel, while I sat there, lost to images and possibilities and guilt.

“Did you know?” I said finally. My voice was quiet, but I was certain werewolf hearing would pick up on the words just fine, and confident that Callum would understand that the question was for him. “You said there was a Rabid. You never said she was female.”

“I’m not omniscient, Bryn.” Callum’s voice was world-worn and weary, like he’d known the question was coming. “I can’t see everything, and even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to sort through it all.”

“Did you know?” I repeated the question, because he hadn’t answered it, not really.

In the front seat, there was silence, and then: “I knew there was a female involved. It honestly never occurred to me that she might be the Rabid.”

For all the respect he afforded Sora—and me—Callum still thought like a Were. Females might not be sugar and spice, but they certainly weren’t serial killers.

“Is she?” I forced the question out of my mouth. “The female you saw, is she rabid?”

Callum didn’t give me an answer—though whether he was holding back or genuinely didn’t know, I wasn’t sure.

“Your other question,” he said finally. “The one you haven’t asked yet.”

It was just like Callum to agree to answer a question I hadn’t asked instead of the one I had, but at least this way, I didn’t have to actually say the words.

Is it Maddy?

Callum met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “The answer is yes.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

CALLUM PARKED THE CAR IN FRONT OF THE WAYFARER restaurant. I’d expected him to drop me off at the house, but given that Sora was with us, keeping our distance from Ali was probably a good idea.

I knew for a fact that my foster mother was an excellent shot.

“We have days, Bryn.” Callum’s voice was strained—just barely, but for him, that was the equivalent to cussing and screaming. “We have a week, if we’re lucky. Every future I can find is coated in blood. I’ll hold the other alphas off as long as I can, but you need to find her. Fast.”

Her, as in Maddy.

Our Maddy. The Rabid.

“You’re not going to look for her?” I asked, forcing myself to be calm, to not think about the pictures or the bodies or the way Maddy had looked—broken, but regal—last December, when she’d walked away. “You’re just going to sit back and leave finding her to me?”

If the future was as dire as Callum was predicting, I couldn’t fathom why he wasn’t going after Maddy himself.

“My staying out of it will give me more leverage with the others, and someone has to do damage control with the human authorities. Wherever the girl was before, she’s gone now, and she won’t want me to be the one to find her.”