Taken by Storm (Raised by Wolves #3)(9)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“Because,” he replied, rising to his feet and heading for the door. “You need to be human for this.”

This?

In the kitchen, the phone rang. Callum tilted his head to the side. “Shay,” he said. “For you.”

I had no choice but to answer the phone. To ignore the oily condescension in Shay’s voice, the undertones, the fact that he’d tried to kill me—indirectly, of course—more than once. I stayed in control. I calmly told Shay that he could count on my presence at the Senate meeting. I said the words man-killer, rogue, and Rabid like they were nothing.

But Shay wasn’t the type to let things lie. “I’m looking forward to your, shall we say, insight,” he said. He wanted me to know that no matter how calm I sounded, he was aware that this issue was personal to me.

“I don’t know, Shay,” I replied, refusing to take his bait. “I’d bet you know more about the kind of wolf that kills humans than just about anyone.”

I could practically feel my words hit their target. Shay wasn’t a Rabid. He wasn’t out of control, he wasn’t an exposure risk, but he was a killer—and I deeply suspected that he’d killed more humans than anyone on the Senate knew. Humans who weren’t a threat to Shay’s pack or the species, more broadly.

Humans like Caroline’s father.

I doubted the Senate knew what Caroline and I had discovered—that Shay, unprovoked and in his right mind, had attacked and killed a psychic and exposed himself to the man’s coven, with the intent of inciting their hatred against other werewolves. That knowledge was a card in my hand, and I needed Shay to know that I wouldn’t hesitate to play it.

“I look forward to your arrival,” Shay said, his voice as calm as mine. Still, in the silence that followed, I could practically feel him on the other side of the line, his eyes pulsing with bloodlust, hating Callum, hating me.

I said good-bye and hung up the phone.

Fear, Jed’s voice suggested from somewhere in my memories, and for just a fraction of a second, I let myself smell it, taste it, feel it.

I let it usher in the red.

And then I let it go.

I turned back to the door, where Callum was standing. I wanted to ask him again why I had to stay human, when going to a Senate meeting in my current state was the equivalent of taunting a bull and drawing a big red target on my back.

But I didn’t. Callum wouldn’t have answered the question anyway, and I wasn’t in the mood to let him tell me no.

“You did well,” Callum said.

I accepted the compliment, but didn’t dwell on it.

“We should get ready to go,” I said, turning to leave. “We’ll want to arrive in Shay’s territory well before nightfall.”

I’d made it halfway out of the room before Callum spoke again. “I know you have questions. I know that you want to know why I haven’t Changed you yet.”

Those words stopped me in my tracks.

“There are limits to what we are, Bryn. Humans grow. They age, they change, and they learn.”

I didn’t make a sound, didn’t give any indication that I’d heard his words, though if he were listening for my breath, he might have realized it was caught in my throat.

“There are reasons, Bryn-girl,” Callum said finally. “And the only one you’ll be getting out of me is that, sometimes, it’s hard to teach an old wolf new tricks.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOURS—AND AN EXTENDED ROAD TRIP—LATER, I still hadn’t made any sense of Callum’s words.

WELCOME TO NORTH DAKOTA! The sign in front of me declared cheerfully. DISCOVER THE SPIRIT!

I glanced over at Devon. He held his hands artistically to the side and wiggled his fingers.

Jazz hands? I asked silently.

No, he corrected, jerking his head toward the sign. Spirit fingers.

I choked back a laugh. We were getting ready to cross into another pack’s territory, and my second-in-command was making spirit fingers. I couldn’t blame Dev for injecting some much-needed comic relief into the situation, especially since I

knew he’d spent the past few hours thinking about the member of Callum’s pack due to meet us here.

Sora. Callum’s second-in-command. Devon’s mother.

If Callum realized what the idea of seeing Sora again was doing to Devon, he gave no indication of it. Instead, he’d spent the drive here silent and still, his hands on the wheel and his gaze locked on to the road. I’d passed that same stretch of time playing Callum’s cryptic statements over and over again.

It’s hard to teach an old wolf new tricks. You need to be human for this.

This as in the things Jed was teaching me about being Resilient? Or this as in whatever was about to happen with Shay?

There are reasons, Callum had said. Reasons, plural, but he’d only given me one—not the whole story, never the whole story with him.

“After you, Bryn.” Callum’s voice brought me back to the task at hand. I glanced back up at the welcome sign and then stepped forward, out of Montana and across state lines. I expected to feel something as I crossed the border that separated Snake Bend territory from Cedar Ridge: an electric shock, a chill on the surface of my skin, nausea, power, something. But there was nothing, no indication that if it hadn’t been for the Senate meeting, if Shay hadn’t invited us into his territory, stepping over this invisible line would have been an act of war.

Shay wouldn’t have forgiven my trespassing the way I had forgiven Callum’s. He would have used it as an excuse to attack me. He would have killed me, and he would have enjoyed it.

“My turn.” Dev crossed to join me. He bumped his shoulder against mine, a gesture of comfort and solidarity as old as our friendship. His presence beside me calmed the thoughts in my head, slowed the beating of my heart, but as I glanced back over the border—at our land, our territory, our home, I felt a sliver of unease take root in my gut.

Leaving my pack behind felt wrong. Taking Devon with me felt worse. If I couldn’t be there to protect them, he should have been. Without the two of us, they were vulnerable, open to attack.

“They’re safe, Bryn,” Callum said, from the other side of the border. Even without any actual psychic connection between the two of us, he could still read me like a book.

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help the question, because I had to be sure.

A change fell over Callum’s face. His pupils didn’t pulse, but looking at them was suddenly like staring into a bottomless cavern, knowing in the pit of your stomach that something was staring back.