Page 28

Faith leaned against the side of Tala’s car, the phone pressed to her ear, as bone-deep exhaustion overcame her.

They were alone on the dark road now. The pack’s vehicles had disappeared into the night a few minutes ago.

After getting Tala’s phone from Arlyn, Tala had managed to send her family home ahead of them. She had told them there was no time to explain because Faith had to make an urgent phone call. But Faith knew that as soon as she set foot into the Petersons’ home, they would demand answers.

That was a problem for future Faith, though. First, she had to stop her father from sending out every HASS member in Virginia to search for her.

“Calm down, Dad. I’m fine. I promise.” Faith repeated it for the fifth time, but she wasn’t sure her father heard her.

He was shouting so loudly his voice was cracking. Or maybe it was cracking because he was trying to hold back a sob.

It stunned Faith. She had only heard him sob once—right after they had found her mother’s body, late at night, when he’d thought she’d been asleep in her room.

“I never should have let you follow them,” he said. “I thought you were… that they had—”

“I’m fine,” she repeated, even though she felt anything but. “My battery just died because I used my phone as a flashlight. I never should have called you in the first place. I overreacted. Turns out it was all completely harmless.”

“Harmless?” her father echoed. “That’s not what Noah said. They saw wolves in those woods! Dozens of them!”

“Of course they did,” Faith replied, trying hard to sound as if she had never expected to find anything else. “I told you Tala’s family was heading to the woods for a ritual.”

“She’s a fox.”

Faith glanced over at Tala, who was leaning against the other side of the car, staring off into the night. “She’s a Syak, Dad.”

“A…what?”

“She was raised by wolves,” Faith said.

Her father paused. “You’re not talking about her table manners, are you?”

“No. The Petersons are Syak. Wolf-shifters.”

“That makes them even more suspicious! The autopsy report said—”

“It said inconclusive ,” Faith interrupted before he could start his wild accusations again.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Her father sounded tortured. “I know every line of that report by heart. It’ll be burned into my brain until the day I die. Inconclusive .” He said it as if it were the most horrible word in the English language. “I won’t accept that. I can’t. Inconclusive just means we need more evidence to prove that the shifters hunted her through the woods until she fell to her death.”

“That’s why I followed them into the forest, but there was no evidence to be found, Dad.” Faith reined in her impatience. “I watched them long enough to make sure nothing sinister was going on. They sat in a circle, surrounded by flowers, and sang a song. Then they shifted into their animal forms and ran around the clearing like a bunch of huskies after the first snow fell.”

Tala made a choking sound. “Flowers?” she mouthed. “Huskies?”

Faith shrugged. If she told her father the truth and even hinted at how scared she had been, there was no telling what he would do—probably send Noah and Violet to the Petersons’ house to kidnap her.

“They’re fooling you. If you keep watching them long enough, you’ll see that.”

Faith didn’t have the energy to continue this discussion, and with Tala listening to every word, she didn’t want to talk about his plan to have her keep spying on the Wrasa. “I need to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you want to stay with them until tomorrow?” her father asked. “I can send Noah and—”

“No!” Now Faith was the one who was nearly shouting. She drew in a steadying breath and repeated more calmly, “No. Don’t send them. And if you’ve sent out anyone else from HASS, call them back right now!”

He was quiet for a moment. “Fine.”

“I mean it, Dad. Never send them after me again when I specifically tell you not to.”

“I can’t promise you that. You’re my daughter. I need to keep you safe.”

“I would have been a lot safer if Noah and Violet hadn’t shown up like a SWAT team on steroids!”

He sighed. “We’ll talk about it when you’re home. Please be careful. I love you.”

“I will. Love you too.” She ended the call and stood with the phone in her hand for several seconds before handing it back.

Tala made a quick call to her superiors but stalked away from Faith while she spoke so Faith couldn’t hear her.

Once she was done, they got back into the car.

“You lied to him,” Tala said after starting the engine, a note of surprise in her voice.

Faith stared through the windshield. “I’m not proud of it, but I didn’t see another way.”

“Well, he lied to you first—about not sending his goons to follow you.”

Faith studied her. Was Tala trying to make her feel better? Did that mean she had forgiven her for bringing two HASS members down on her family? “I know he did it because he thought he needed to protect me. And that’s also why I had to lie to him now—to protect your family. I honestly didn’t mean to harm them. Or you. I just saw Sutton’s map and…”

“And every doubt, every bad thing you had ever heard about the Wrasa came flooding back,” Tala finished for her when Faith trailed off.

Faith could no longer look at her. She hung her head. “Yeah. Something like that. I didn’t want to believe it, but I needed to see what was going on with my own eyes.”

Tala didn’t reply.

“What happens now?” Faith asked as they passed the sign at the entrance of Silver Falls. “I mean, obviously, I’ll have to apologize to your family…explain everything, including this entire fake-relationship scheme…right?”

Tala sharply turned her head to face her. “No! They can’t find out about that.”

“You want to keep making them think we’re a couple?”

“Yes, of course,” Tala replied. “Nothing has changed.”

Did she really believe that? Faith felt as if everything had changed this weekend—her view of the Wrasa, Tala, and maybe even herself.

“At least that hasn’t,” Tala added, as if hearing Faith’s thoughts. “If your reaction proves one thing, it’s that we need to…uh, humanize, for lack of a better word, us Wrasa in the eyes of the public. If we broke up, or made people think we did, we wouldn’t achieve that.” She glanced away from the road and at Faith. “So, are you still in?”

Faith had wanted to back out of their scheme after their visit with Tala’s family in order to protect Chloe. But Chloe wasn’t the only one who needed protection; the Wrasa did too. Plus after the mess she had created, she owed Tala, so she nodded. “Yes. But what do we tell your family?”

“I’ll think of something.”

Faith gave her a doubtful look. “Something that would explain why I showed up to the yasi makasar with a gun?”

“It’s yasi makamar,” Tala said. “And my pack won’t remember the gun or anything that was said in the forest. They were in their wolf forms, where they don’t understand human concepts or language. But they will remember you being there, reeking of fear, and two humans chasing them through the woods.”

The SUV made it around the last bend, and the Petersons’ house loomed before them. Despite the late hour, lights shone inside.

Faith swallowed, knowing she’d have to face the entire pack in a few seconds.

“It’ll be fine,” Tala said. “Just let me do the talking.”

They got out of the car and headed inside.

Tala’s parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins awaited them in the entryway. A cacophony of voices rained down on Faith.

“What in the Great Hunter’s name is going on?”

“How did those humans know where to find us?”

“What was she doing out there?”

Their voices overlapped so Faith didn’t understand half of what they shouted, but what she caught was more than enough.

They formed a semi-circle around her and Tala, and it seemed to tighten around them with every shouted question. Their faces were a mixture of concern, confusion, suspicion, and outright hostility.

Faith felt their scrutiny as if they were slicing into her with their fangs. She took an instinctive step back and bumped into Tala, who wrapped a steadying arm around her waist and snarled at her family. “Back off, everyone! Give us some space.”

For once, no one listened. Questions continued to fly at them from all directions. Tala’s grandmother drowned out everyone else: “I bet she’s in league with them!”

“Everyone, shut up!” Finally, it was Brennan’s voice that cut through the chaos.

Faith’s stomach dropped to her knees. She had hoped Jemma, Tala’s friendly mother, would be the one to take over the conversation. Instead, she was now facing the stern alpha.

He looked at them with a stare that sliced through Faith. “Explain!” was all he said.

Tala’s grip on her tightened. “I…”

Faith couldn’t let her flounder or force her to lie to her family. If someone had to do it, it had to be her. “To be honest, my father doesn’t approve of our relationship.”

“Big surprise.” Tala’s grandmother huffed.

“Let her talk,” Brennan said.

“I’m not trying to make excuses for him, but he’s got his reasons,” Faith continued, even though it wasn’t easy to talk about it in front of so many near strangers. “He’s convinced Wrasa have something to do with my mother’s death.”

“Right,” Arnold muttered. “We’re also to blame for dinosaurs dying out.”

Tala bared her teeth at him. “Hear her out. I used to think MacAllister was just a bigoted asshole. Okay, I still think that.” She glanced at Faith, took her right hand, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Sorry, babe.”

Warmth spread through Faith’s body, and she wasn’t sure if it was annoyance or a flicker of attraction. After this horrible day, her emotions were a tangled mess.

Tala turned back toward her uncle. “But I have a little more compassion for him now. In his mind, he has a good reason for hating us. Faith’s mother died in Shenandoah National Park—right where our ritual spot is today—and they can’t rule out that wolves or Syak were involved.”

Gasps and murmurs rippled through the pack.

“Great Hunter! You poor child!” Jemma rushed over and engulfed Faith in a tight hug, forcing Tala to let go of her.

Faith stiffened in her arms, overly aware that she was being held by a wolf-shifter. But Jemma’s warmth…her forgiveness…felt so good that she couldn’t help relaxing. She clung to her.

“That’s why MacAllister had us followed,” Tala continued. “He probably thought we were out there, sacrificing humans or something. When she found out, Faith went after us to warn us.”

“Thank you,” Jemma whispered into Faith’s ear.

Apparently, the mate scent perfume they had applied before the feast was still masking their scents, so everyone had bought the lie. But instead of being a relief, it made Faith feel worse. She wanted to dig a hole, crawl in, and never come out again.

Jemma cradled her in a gentle embrace for a few seconds longer before letting go. “There’s no need to feel guilty, sweetheart. You’re not responsible for your father’s actions.”

It seemed the perfume hadn’t entirely covered her scent, but luckily, Jemma had misinterpreted the reason Faith felt guilty.

“So what?” Tala’s grandmother said loudly. “That’s not an excuse for what he’s doing to us. I lost loved ones to humans, and you don’t see me on TV every five seconds, preaching hate.”

Tala planted herself between her grandmother and Faith as if protecting her with her own body. Her golden eyes blazed. “You might not be on TV, but you’ve been preaching hate against humans all my life, Grandma. Just look at how you’ve been treating Faith—how you are treating her right now. She lost her mother when she was just a child, and all you can say is ‘so what?’”

It felt surprisingly good to have Tala stand up for her, like another warm hug.

Arlyn shoved through the crowd. “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day. Faith and Tala can explain all the details tomorrow, but now I need to check Faith out.”

“Check her out?” Tala asked with a frown.

Arlyn rolled her eyes. “Not that way. Humans are much too complicated for me. I’m talking about her hand—and whatever other injuries she might have sustained.”

Gently, Tala pulled Faith closer and ran her gaze over every inch of her, pausing on her face and hand. “She’s right. You’re hurt!”

“What? No. I…” Faith paused and took stock of her body. Her adrenaline had been pumping nonstop since she had seen the map on Sutton’s iPad. Now that it slowly started to fade away, she became aware of dozens of aches. Her knees stung, and her left hand burned.

When she turned it palm-up, the skin on the heel of her hand was broken and oozing. It was barely bleeding anymore, but earth and leaf particles from the forest were embedded in the scrapes.

Tala cradled her hand gently between both of hers and studied the abrasion as if it were a deadly wound.

Was she playing the concerned lover in front of her family, or was the compassion on her face real?

“It’s nothing,” Faith said. “Just a few scrapes. You don’t have to bother.” All she wanted was to escape the pack’s attention and to crawl into bed. Besides, after the chaos she had created, she wasn’t sure she deserved Arlyn’s help.

“Nonsense,” Tala said. “Arlyn, grab your bag!”

Her tone didn’t leave room for objections, so Faith sighed and gave in.

~ ~ ~

How could she have missed that Faith was hurt beyond the welt on her cheek? She had assumed the coppery tang emanating from her mate was from her period. Still, she should have noticed.

She was the Saru’s best tracker, for the Great Hunter’s sake!

Tala nearly kicked down the door to her bedroom instead of opening it.

“Are you that angry?” Faith asked in a whisper after glancing back as if to make sure Arlyn hadn’t caught up with them yet. “Again, I’m very sorry for putting your family in danger and making you lie to them.”

“No!” Tala wasn’t angry at Faith; she was angry at herself. “I just…slipped.”

Faith arched both brows. “Into a kick that nearly lifted the door off its hinges?”

Tala didn’t reply. She gently placed a steadying hand beneath Faith’s elbow, careful not to aggravate any other injuries that might be hidden beneath her clothes, and guided her into the room.

“Um, I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own.”

Arlyn caught up with them, her doctor’s bag in hand, and laughed. “Don’t bother. Dominant Syak go into hyperprotective mode whenever their mate is hurt.”

“I’m not—”

Tala gave her an alarmed look, hoping Faith wasn’t about to reveal they weren’t really a couple.

“—hurt,” Faith finished. “It’s a little scrape. No big deal. You don’t have to bother. Besides, didn’t you say you don’t treat humans?”

Arlyn shrugged. “I make exceptions for family. You’re part of the pack, and we take care of our own. Get used to it.”

Faith blinked several times, then lowered her gaze.

Tala didn’t need to be able to smell her emotions to know what she was feeling. Either her emotions were so strong that they were obvious to anyone despite the mate scent perfume, or Tala had gotten to know Faith better and could read her facial expressions.

Whatever the reason, she could tell that Faith felt guilty—and deeply touched. Clearly, she wasn’t used to having a big family that took care of her and didn’t feel as if she deserved it now.

Tala fought the urge to wrap both arms around her for comfort. Damn. When had she gotten so soft?

Arlyn put her doctor’s bag down on the bed, opened it, and prepared everything she would need. Then she led Faith over to the bathroom to clean the wound.

“Whew,” she said after the bathroom door swung open. “Why is your mate scent so strong in here?”

Oh shit! Of course it was strongest in the bathroom—that was where they usually applied the perfume. Would her sister start to suspect that something was off about their mate scent? Maybe even follow the scent trail and find the bottles? Tala tried not to let her panic show. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said as calmly as possible, “but if you absolutely have to know…yes, we did spend some quality adult time in here. Humans have a thing for shower sex.”

Faith’s cheeks flushed bright red.

For the first time in hours, a smile curled up Tala’s lips. Who knew humans could be this cute?

“Oh, just humans, huh?” Faith nudged her. “So it wasn’t you who pulled me back under the spray to—”

“Lalalalala!” Arlyn clutched her ears. “I don’t need any details, thanks.”

Phew. Apparently, Arlyn had bought their excuse.

Arlyn washed her hands at the sink, then rinsed the scrape on Faith’s palm beneath running water.

Tala watched over Arlyn’s shoulder to make sure her sister knew how to patch up a human and didn’t cause more pain.

The smell of rubbing alcohol stung Tala’s nose as Arlyn cleaned a pair of tweezers, then used them to remove small pieces of leaves and wood from the wound.

When Faith winced, a snarl escaped Tala. “Hey, careful! You’re hurting her!”

Arlyn glanced over her shoulder. “You’re hovering. Why don’t you give us some space?”

“I’m not hovering. I’m just making sure you know what you’re doing.”

“Of course I know what I’m doing,” Arlyn said. “I’m a doctor.”

“A doctor of Wrasa medicine. For a simple scrape, all you’d have to do for your usual patients is tell them to shift. This is more complicated than that.”

Arlyn let out an exasperated sigh. “I treat pups too, so I can’t tell all of my patients to shift. Besides, it’s a scrape, Tala, not an organ transplant.”

“Thank God,” Faith muttered. “Because if it were, I’d bleed to death while the two of you bickered over the correct treatment.”

Tala and her sister looked at each other.

Arlyn laughed. “I like her,” she said to Tala, as if Faith wasn’t standing right there. “Now get out of the way. I want to apply the ointment in the bedroom before I pass out from inhaling this cloud of mate scent.”

Tala backed out of the room and turned on the light on the nightstand.

Faith sank onto the edge of the bed as if her legs felt shaky. Gingerly, she held out her hand for Arlyn to see.

Tala peeked at the scrape. It was clean now but covered the entire heel of her palm. She winced in sympathy.

Gently, Arlyn patted the wound dry with sterile gauze, then applied a thin layer of antibiotic ointment and covered the scrape with a bandage.

Tala watched her every move, glad to see her sister’s practiced efficiency. But the bandage didn’t seem impressive. “Do you think that’s enough? Maybe you should add some padding or another layer. We don’t want the wound to get bumped or infected.”

Arlyn gave her a long, exasperated look. “Sure, Dr.Tala, and while I’m at it, why don’t I wrap her entire body in bubble wrap?”

A muffled sound escaped Faith, as if she was stifling a laugh. “It’s okay, Tala, really. My daughter had worse scrapes than this, and they healed just fine with only a bandage.”

“All right,” Tala grumbled. “You’re the expert when it comes to human injuries.”

“ I am the expert,” Arlyn said.

Finally, she finished up the treatment by applying ointment to the welt on Faith’s cheek. But instead of closing her doctor’s bag, she gestured at Faith’s jeans and her top. “Now take off your clothes. My nose is numb after inhaling that overdose of mate scent, so I can’t smell if there are other injuries or not.”

Faith hesitated. “It’s fine. I think I scraped my knees a little, but my hand probably took the brunt of it.”

Arlyn fixed her with a commanding stare. “Let me see.”

A renewed flush tinged Faith’s cheeks, and her gaze went to Tala, who all of a sudden felt overly warm too.

“Your mentors didn’t teach you proper bedside manner around humans, did they, sis? Humans aren’t as casual about nudity as we are.”

“What’s the big deal?” Arlyn looked back and forth between them. “As a doctor, I see naked bodies every day, and you’ve seen each other naked plenty of times.”

Except, of course, that they hadn’t. Truth be told, Tala really wouldn’t mind seeing more of that smooth skin, but Faith was clearly uncomfortable, and that was the last thing Tala wanted.

“Right,” she said, her mouth dry. “No big deal at all. But you know what? I’ll get out of your hair and go get myself a snack. After shifting earlier, I’m starving.” She reached down and squeezed Faith’s uninjured hand. “I’ll bring you back a cookie or something.”

Faith curled her fingers around Tala’s thumb and returned the gentle pressure. “Thank you.”

Tala nodded, knowing Faith meant more than the cookie. “Be right back.”

Her grandmother was nowhere to be seen as Tala headed downstairs, and the younger cousins had been sent to bed, but the rest of the pack descended on her as soon as she entered the kitchen.

Tala started making sandwiches and putting together a mini picnic, even though she knew she couldn’t avoid their questions.

“How is she?” her father asked while her mother filled the kettle to make tea.

“She’s fine,” Tala said without turning around to face them. “Just a few scrapes.”

“She didn’t smell fine in the forest,” her brother Felix spoke up. “The last time I smelled such panic from a human was right after we came out and they all thought the werewolf apocalypse had started or something.”

He was right. Tala’s nose still itched at the memory of it. She didn’t want to lie to her family again, so she decided to reveal as much of the truth as possible. “After what happened to her mother, the forest is a scary place for her,” she said quietly. Only now did she understand why Faith had seemed so tense when they had driven up to her pack’s home for the first time.

“And so are Syak,” her mother said just as quietly.

Without turning around, Tala nodded grimly.

“But she’s with you,” Kiera said, a silent question in her tone.

Tala’s grip on the bread knife tightened. She turned around to face her family.

Rey, Mirella, and Lasandra had joined them. Even Uncle Arnold and Aunt Celia, two of her biggest critics in the pack, were leaning against the island separating the kitchen from the dining room. A “gotcha” grin spread over Uncle Arnold’s bearded face.

“Yes, she’s with me.” Tala spoke with her head held high, ignoring how stiff her jaw felt. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t see me as a Syak.”

“Right,” Uncle Arnold drawled. “Why would she share the bed with someone whose bloodkin might have killed her mother?” He shook his head. “I guarantee she sees you as a cute little fox. An exotic pet. I hear they’re all the rage with humans in Russia right now.”

Silence descended on the kitchen, interrupted only by her mother’s gasp.

Gazes rested on Tala like weights as everyone waited for what she would do.

Blood roared through Tala’s ears, and a burning sensation flared along her forearms as the need to shift overcame her. Her fox clawed at the walls of her self-control, and for a second, she toyed with the thought of letting the change take over and showing Arnold just how scary that “cute little fox” could be.

Breath by breath, she fought down the urge until the burning lessened.

“Enough, Arnold!” Her father snarled. “I won’t have you talk to my daughter like—”

“Let me handle this, Appo,” Tala cut him off. If she didn’t stand up to Uncle Arnold now, she would lose her position in the pack. “When I turn into my animal form, it’s that of a fox. Don’t think I’m not aware of that. People like you never let me forget it for a second.” She swallowed down the bitter taste in her mouth and took two long steps toward him, right into his personal space. Her gaze locked onto his without wavering. “But you know what? I’m done being ashamed of it. You know what happened earlier, in the forest? Faith was scared to death of the huge pack of wolves charging toward her. Even in my fox form, I jumped between her and the pack without hesitation, ready to defend my mate.”

“And that’s why I trust her, even though I know she’s a Syak,” came Faith’s voice from the doorway.

Tala’s head jerked up. She had been so focused on Uncle Arnold that all her senses had been locked on him and she hadn’t heard or smelled Faith approach.

Arlyn lingered behind Faith and sent Tala a “sorry, couldn’t stop her” look.

“Tala is strong, loyal, and brave, and she would stand up for me no matter what form she’s in.” Faith crossed the kitchen, past staring pack members, without paying them any attention. Her stride was that of an alpha—not a hint of a limp or fear of the two dozen Syak who slowly backed away to let her through.

Tala’s mouth went dry. The presence of the pack, even Uncle Arnold, faded away until the only one she could see was Faith. She couldn’t look away from her.

The fire in Faith’s deep brown eyes was a sight to behold. Her hair cascaded in loose waves over her shoulders. The chestnut strands were tangled, and a few leaves stuck to them from their wild chase through the forest.

A pull that came from deep inside of Tala made her step toward Faith until only inches separated them. The connection between them made Tala’s body tingle in a way that not even an impending transformation could.

A visible jolt went through Faith. She whirled around to face Tala’s family, now side by side with her. “I have no idea why some of you”—she zeroed in on Uncle Arnold, then on Rey—“keep treating her as if she were less than! Scratch that. I know why. It’s for the same reason my father treats all of you the same way—out of a deep-rooted fear and insecurity. It’s a you issue, not a Tala issue, and if you can’t see that, you don’t deserve her as your natak!”

Then, not waiting for a reply, she marched past them and out of the kitchen.

Like everyone else, Tala stared after her for several seconds. Wow. What was that? How had Faith, injured, probably still scared, and after spending time around a pack of Syak for the first time in her life, managed to say what Tala should have told them years ago instead of ducking her head in shame?

She tossed the bread knife into the sink with a clatter, picked up the heaping tray, and hurried after Faith.

At the door, she paused and glanced back over her shoulder.

Everyone still stood frozen.

Tala wanted to laugh at their slack-jawed faces, but her own expression probably resembled theirs and her throat felt too tight. “She’s right,” she finally got out, her voice hoarse. “If a single human woman can stand up to you, why can’t you believe that a Syak who was born a Rtar can lead this pack? Courage, loyalty, and leadership can come in any form!”

She didn’t wait around to hear their answers. As she followed Faith up the stairs, she realized it didn’t matter anymore. Her sense of worth was no longer dependent on whether they accepted her as a fellow Syak and their leader or not.

A low whistle was the last thing she heard from the kitchen, then a mutter from Felix, “It’s not that I don’t believe in Tala, but if natak were an elected position, I’d vote for Faith right now.”

Tala couldn’t help grinning. So would I, brother. So would I.

~ ~ ~