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VANESSA

“ H elp me!”

Leo was calling for me; I would know that voice anywhere. Suddenly, I was thrust into a miasma of technicolor. None of it made much sense, just a mire of shades.

“Ven! Help me!”

It was as if his voice conjured the world. All the vague shapes suddenly solidified, and I was back in the lab again, the lights flashing red around me. Leo was in front of me, faceless lab technicians grabbing at him, trying to pull him away from me.

“Vanessa! I need you!”

“I’m trying!” The words coming out of my mouth felt like mush and were incomprehensible.

I threw myself against the window separating us, clawing at it and slamming my head against it, but I was so goddamn weak . I could only watch as Leo was dragged farther and farther away, still crying out my name, begging me not to abandon him.

“No, no, Leo, please! I’ll get to you! I swear I’ll get to you!” I slammed my palms into the glass, as if somehow I would become strong enough to shatter it.

But the crazy thing was, I could have sworn it was starting to give. The faintest green glow appeared around the edges, with spiderlike cracks growing in the glass.

Wait, no. Not spiderlike. Vine - like. Little hairline slivers of emerald. I had no idea what that could possibly be, but I did it again, and again, and again until the cracks began to spread farther out across the surface.

Suddenly, the ground turned to something like quicksand below my feet, and it was pitch black. I began sinking almost instantly, the floor greedily sucking me down like it was ravenous. My nails scored along the wall as I tried to grab the window ledge, but there was no stopping the insistent drag. Bit by bit, the ground swallowed me until the hungering void reached all the way up to my chin.

I was still calling for Leo as acrid nothingness spilled across my tongue. It was a curse and a plague all wrapped up in one, and I couldn’t even spit it out before my entire head was swallowed and I was plunged into the endless dark.

I screamed—at least I thought I did—but there was no sound. Nothing. For a moment, I thought I would spend the rest of my life trapped in an endless void of nonexistence. But then I was dropped into a room where I hadn’t been in quite a while.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. And by that, I meant it quite literally. Flames lit up the walls to my left while thick, cloying smoke bellowed through my closed door.

It was hot, so abysmally hot! I sat up from the bed and tossed off my comforter. Some part of my brain knew I needed to stick close to the floor and find a way out, but it was like my body was no longer my own. Fear, discomfort, and confusion overrode that small voice that knew what was safest.

I crawled to the closet, opening the door and hiding myself among the plushies there. All the while my mind was screaming that I needed to get out.

Get out.

GET OUT!

“Vanessa! Vanessa, baby, where are you?”

Oh, that voice.

I hadn’t heard that voice in over a decade. It was melodic and usually full of love, but now it was packed with the same terror I felt.

I tried to reply, but when I drew in a breath to answer the call, my lungs filled with smoke, and all I could do was cough.

It was getting hotter, and every second that passed made it harder to breathe. I needed to get out, but all I could do was hide with my toys.

That voice kept calling me, begging for me to come out, but I couldn’t. All I could do was cough and cling to the closest stuffed animal. I was so terrified, my entire body was paralyzed. My grown mind was screaming at me to move, to do something other than hide.

But I didn’t. Even as the world burned down around me, I let my fear win.

“Fuck!” I sat up so fast, my head spun. My stomach churned, wanting to get in on the action, some sort of competition for which body part could make me feel sickest quicker.

“ Mrrr? ” Goober trilled inquisitively as he rubbed his cheek against mine.

Mudpie wasn’t far behind, kneading my thigh and rumbling lightly.

Fork was missing, but a few beats later he came marching in, dragging his favorite toy along. He jumped on the bed and dropped it in my lap.

Oh, goodness.

They were all trying to help me. I loved my little family, and I couldn’t be more grateful for them. Ever since we’d returned after our disastrous outing to the medical facility, they could tell something was up. They’d been extra nice to me, buttering me up, never leaving me alone, almost always sitting on me and purring, like they were trying to heal me.

I loved them so much

“Hey, are you okay in here?” Ricky asked, peering in through the gap between my door and the wall. “I thought I heard something.”

“I’m fine,” I said, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue. “Nightmare.”

“Sorry about that. Want me to make some of that sleepy-time tea you have in the kitchen?”

Only a week had passed since my world had been turned upside down yet again, but in those seven days, Ricky and I had grown more comfortable with each other. It was nothing like what I’d had with Leo—nothing would ever be like that—but it was nice and familiar in a world that was rapidly becoming more and more foreign to me.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind. Especially since I think I’ll make some for myself anyways. I’d like to get a few more winks in before having to face the world.”

I got the feeling he was lying, but that was okay. “Well, if you were already going to make some for yourself, I wouldn’t mind some.”

“Sounds good. Do you want it up here?”

“No, I think I’m good on sleep for now.” To be honest, the thought of closing my eyes and possibly slipping back into another nightmare was too horrifying. Going out into the garden to siphon whatever peace I could from it would be far better than trying to force myself to go back to sleep. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good, I’ll put the kettle on to boil.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. We got to take care of each other, right? That’s what packs do.”

I gave him a soft smile, even though my heart ached.

Pack.

Who would have guessed that would become such a loaded term for me? The word was irrevocably tied to Leo and everything that came along with him. So much had been promised, so much we had all been hoping for.

And all of it was gone.

But I was determined to get Leo back. Our story wasn’t going to end with him being ripped away like that. I wouldn’t let it.

It would be nice if Ricky stopped getting in my way, however.

I’d thought that when we found the loophole in his alpha’s orders, we’d turn right around and go rescue Leo. But no, that wasn’t how it had turned out at all. Ricky was open to us going back, but not until we had a plan in place. What annoyed me the most was that he shot down every plan I came up with.

It was strange to be on the opposite side of such a similar argument that I’d had with Leo, but I was trying to be a little logical while also being speedy. It was called efficiency—at least, that was what I told myself.

While I knew there was some truth in what Ricky was saying, and that infiltrating without enough information last time had gotten us into trouble before, it was hard for me to care. I wanted to get Leo. There was no telling what they were doing to him, or even if he was still alive. My biggest hope was that they had no idea who he was, because if they realized he was the head of the pack who had killed three of their brothers… I didn’t even want to imagine what they would do.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried on my own, either. Ricky still needed a lot of sleep since he wasn’t fully recovered, so I’d waited until after he’d drank a particularly potent blend of tea with extra chamomile before I ventured out back to the medical facility. I couldn’t use the truck for obvious reasons, but I had my trusty bike.

Yet even with my phone’s GPS, I’d gotten hopelessly lost, which made absolutely no sense. I wasn’t a savant, but I was pretty good with direction, so it wasn’t likely that I’d gotten turned around. And yet every time my GPS said I was five minutes from my destination, it recalculated, then I was twenty minutes away again. They must have put some spell on it after we broke in. It was the only thing that made sense. And as much as I hated to admit it, that also gave a lot of credence to Ricky’s insistence that we needed to wait for the heat to die down. There was no doubt they would be looking for us. Just because we’d escaped didn’t mean we were safe.

Despite my morning shift at the grocery store the next day, I’d ridden around the entire night before giving up and starting back home. I knew Ricky would wake up before I got there, and sure enough, he’d rolled up with the truck when I was about two-thirds home. All that biking, along with work, had me practically confined to my bed all night and the next day because my legs hurt so much, but that still hadn’t been enough to distract me from the gnawing in my chest.

They still had Leo. Nothing had changed.

Well, there was no use ruminating on that abysmal failure, so I went out to my garden and tried to do something productive. My work was punishing me for taking so much time off by cutting my hours, but I didn’t care. We were heading into the real productive time of my little horticultural space, and I would fare well enough from that bounty. Especially since Ricky had brought home two rabbits the other day. He’d skinned and butchered them as well. I’d been surprised to say the least, but he said it was part of his responsibilities since I took care of everything else.

I could see why he and Leo got along so well. They definitely took on a lot of responsibility and cared for those around them. While I appreciated it, I wished it didn’t make me miss Leo so damn much.

“Hey, guys, you’re looking good,” I murmured, trying to put my heart in it as I greeted the rows of tomato plants I’d been struggling with for the week. Although gardening was my respite, it wasn’t easy to concentrate on it these days. Especially since every time I dug a hole or pruned an errant branch, I thought of how I could be saving Leo instead.

Soon. The thought was calming, even though I didn’t really have any proof it would be soon at all. But whatever. Sometimes hope was a drug I very much needed.

Thankfully, my garden did turn out to be somewhat of a respite, even if its effects were muted. I focused on getting the rest of my heirloom tomato varietals in below the cattle panel trellis I had erected on three T-posts, then went on to harvest a whole bunch of greens for lunch. No one could complain about not getting enough fiber in my house.

While I was washing some particularly vibrant leaves of chard at my makeshift processing station, I noticed two pairs of eyes staring out at me from the greenhouse. Fork and Mudpie were perched in different spots, watching me with that keen interest cats naturally had. It had been ages since they’d both been in the greenhouse while I was outside. The arrival of a giant wolf had definitely shaken things up a bit.

Goober was there too, but unlike his siblings, he wasn’t lounging. No, he was prowling around, looking for something. Maybe a mouse had gotten in? That was one of the reasons I had gotten the landlord’s permission to build the cat tunnel. Although, if I was being honest with myself, my primary motivation had been hanging out with my cats while I was working outside—a difficult thing to do, considering I was strictly against having outdoor cats, so the cat tunnel was the best compromise.

Sure, some farms had barn cats, but those were animals with jobs. To me, that was very different from allowing my pet outside. I was well aware plenty of people would disagree with me, but those people wouldn’t have to deal with the heartbreak if a coyote somehow got hold of my babies. Not to mention that back when I was volunteering at the clinic, we’d had a surge of FiV and FeLV kitties, which had also put me off having an indoor-outdoor cat. While veterinarian sciences had come a long way since then, those two infectious diseases could be so insidious, and if keeping my cats indoors kept them from suffering from debilitating conditions, then I was all for it.

It was under their watchful eyes that I finished all the planting I had to do for the day. After that, I was supposed to move on to weeding—goodness knew my garden needed it—but a quick look up at the gray sky, as well as the smell of camphor and geosmin in the air, told me it was going to rain. And soon.

I could go inside, do some deep cleaning, maybe do more research on the internet about the Mammon cult, but all I wanted was to shut off my brain and listen to some music while keeping my hands busy.

Propagation it was.

As I headed into the greenhouse, Ricky stepped out on the back porch, fully dressed, looking much more awake than the last time I had seen him.

“Looks like it’s about to rain. You gonna come in?”

I shook my head. “Going to get some work done in the greenhouse. I’ll be sheltered in case it storms.”

“All right, I’m heading out for a bit. See if I can hunt something to fill your freezer. Don’t be alarmed if I’m not back until dawn.”

As much as the prospect of fresh venison or other game was exciting, I couldn’t help but feel there was something off about Ricky’s tone. Or maybe it was his body language. It was hard to tell since I was still getting to know him.

“You okay?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to sound suspicious. I was going for concerned. I figured he had the right to be a little off considering everything he’d gone through while trapped in his wolf form and abused for so long, but it never hurt to check in.

“Yeah, yeah.” He said it in a way that made it sound like he wasn’t okay at all. “Got a lot on my mind.”

“Anything you want to share?” We weren’t that close, but I hoped he knew I was more than happy to listen to anything that was troubling him.

“Nothing that’s new. Same ol’, same ol’.”

“Leo?” I hedged. Although a good part of me resented Ricky for carrying me out of the laboratory and keeping me away for the past week, I also understood that he’d had to go against his very wolf nature. He chose to follow Leo’s orders and keep me safe rather than save his best friend. I had to respect that even if I hated it.

“Pretty much.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say, because really, what else was there? We’d gambled, and it hadn’t turned out in our favor. As a result, we’d lost someone incredibly important to us, even if Leo was important to each of us in different ways.

“You ain’t got nothing to apologize for.”

“Feels like I do.”

Ricky let out a sigh that was jam-packed full of emotion and scuffed his shoe against the ground. I got the sense he was thinking, so I didn’t interrupt him. But it seemed like he wasn’t quite done grappling with whatever was in his brain, because after quite a pregnant pause, he tipped his head.

“You be safe now. I’ll be back soon.”

“I will,” I promised.

With that, Ricky shifted into a wolf and took off into the trees.

I watched him go, idly observing all the differences between him and Leo in their wolf forms. Ricky was still far larger than the standard lupine, but several inches shorter than his alpha, and he didn’t have nearly as much mass. His coat was darker with a reddish hint, and his eyes were bright yellow. And now that he had quite a few good meals into him, his bones didn’t show anymore, making him look much more like the apex predator he was supposed to be.

Once he disappeared out of sight, I headed into my greenhouse to work on some climbing jade babies as well as golden pothos nodes. It was soothing, especially with my cats all around me. Goober was still on the hunt, winding around my legs occasionally and eek-eek-eeking like he usually did whenever he saw a particularly pudgy squirrel scurrying past the kitchen window. But there were no squirrels here as far as I could tell, so I chalked it up to my Maine Coon being a silly Maine Coon.

Sure enough, about an hour or so into my propagation groove, the sky opened up and rain poured down. It was impossible not to think of the time Leo and I had been caught in the rain together, as well as everything that had happened after it. It had all seemed like a fairy tale at the time. Now, my story felt like more of a tragedy.

Depressing.

I tried not to think about it, though, which was easier said than done. So, I put all my focus on my plants, being as meticulous as I possibly could.

I stayed out until it was time to feed the cats again. Once all their bowls had the appropriate serving in them, I realized I needed to feed myself, too. I made a salad out of the greens and tossed some shredded chicken on top. It was no steak smothered in deliciously caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, but it was plenty tasty—and there was the added satisfaction that I had been the one to grow it.

Granted, it was impossible not to think what Leo would say if he was eating it. I knew he needed a lot of protein in his diet, but it never stopped him from complimenting whatever I served him from my garden. I closed my eyes, trying not to think how excited I was to feed him his first garden-fresh tomato or pick a cucumber off the vine and slice it up for us. I would get him back before either of those were ready to harvest.

I swore it.

I stared out the window as I ate, watching the rain. Once I was done, I quickly did the few dishes from the day and settled in to read a book with my cats curled around me.

I had become so used to being alone in my home. Used to the quiet. Used to the emptiness. But having Leo and Ricky in my space for such a short time had made me accustomed to company. To the warmth of another person. To being able to walk up to either of them and start a conversation. Hopefully, I’d get that back soon enough.

I just needed to come up with a better plan.

With so many heavy things on my mind, sleep didn’t exactly come easy. Just when I’d managed to drift off, a loud bang from the kitchen had me sitting bolt upright in my bed. I needed to be careful otherwise I was gonna throw my back or my neck out. Maybe both. Then I really would be useless.

My cats scattered as I put on a robe and hurried down to the kitchen, grabbing the bat I kept at the door along the way. While I knew investigating such a sound would likely get me killed in a horror movie, I’d lived out in the country long enough to know that many things that went bump in the middle of the night had natural explanations beyond an intruder.

“Ricky?” I exclaimed as I rounded the corner into my kitchen, the bat raised.

He looked worse for the wear, battered and absolutely filthy. It was a bit of a shock, especially since it was so similar to how Leo had first stepped into my kitchen. Except Ricky was Ricky, and Leo was Leo, and my heart belonged only to the alpha.

“Ven,” he wheezed, limping over to my kitchen table and plopping into a chair. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to patch me up?”

“What the hell happened?” I asked, immediately going into triage mode. Step one was grabbing my first-aid kit, step two would be evaluating his wounds, then anything after that would come from the information gained in step two.

“I tried to get in, Ven. I figured the last thing they would expect was for me to grab one of their workers on a Monday night so I could infiltrate on a Tuesday morning before they got to doing whatever they do down there. And I figured I could use the night to press any information out of whoever I managed to grab.”

I gaped at him. That was about the last thing I’d expected. “You went to save Leo without me?” Perhaps not the most pertinent or mature question, but sometimes my mouth moved faster than my brain.

Ricky gave me a rueful look, but his wince of pain marred the expression. “Thought I had a way not to risk you. Because if I got Leo back but something happened to you, he’d never forgive me.”

I didn’t know how I felt about that. While my ego was definitely pleased at the idea that Leo would be so affected if something were to happen to me, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe I could have helped Ricky, so he wouldn’t have come home so battered.

“What happened? Did whoever you pick have more bite than bark?” I asked, trying to inject some humor into the situation, despite the fact that it wasn’t very funny at all.

“Never even got that far,” Ricky grumbled, staring at the floor. Embarrassment and shame radiated from him, but I wasn’t really sure what to do about it. “I had to shift to get close this time, ’cause I figured they’d know our truck, even with switching out all the license plates.”

That made sense, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the same issues I’d had with my GPS had extended to the truck America and her tribe had given us. I didn’t say that, however, because I didn’t want to interrupt Ricky.

“But I guess it’s still too soon, because right when I took my wolf form, I wasn’t in control anymore. It was like my inner wolf was rabid. My entire mind was full of hatred. It was like every thought was bite, rip, tear . I couldn’t keep track of my plan at all, and my wolf locked in on some enemy shifters’ scent.”

“Bears?” I murmured.

Ricky’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

“That’s how Leo and I first met. He’d been pretty badly wounded by a couple of bears. I didn’t know they were shifters at the time, but I wouldn’t doubt it now.”

“Holy shit! Two bear shifters got their paws on him, and they didn’t finish the job?”

“Well, I chased them off.”

It was so strange to think back to that time—a world I’d thought only had humans and animals, and I didn’t fit well into either group.

“ You chased off two bear shifters?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” I asked with mock offence.

“Come on. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to spell it out. A human versus two aggressive bear shifters enthralled by a group of evil warlocks? That pretty much only has one outcome.”

“Two outcomes, apparently,” I teased, and it felt like the tension eased ever so slightly. Good. I needed Ricky to relax before I cleaned his wounds. Although I had witnessed the wonders of shifter healing firsthand, it was a bit less effective while they were in their human forms. Also, they healed so rapidly it was easy for foreign objects to become sealed within their body, causing little pockets of infection. Their systems could handle it, but it took a lot of extra time and energy. The wounds I managed to clean first healed much faster than the ones I didn’t, and they never scarred. Not even temporarily. “But if I’m being honest, they probably already thought Leo was dead. All I did was scream and wave my hands around. Made a real fool of myself.”

Instead of chuckling, Ricky simply shook his head. “Leo wasn’t kidding. You really are something else, aren’t you?”

Oh, no. I could barely tolerate it when Leo got all complimentary; it felt downright weird coming from Ricky. “You know, normally when people say that, they don’t mean it in a nice way.”

“Well, I do, so fuck all of ’em who say otherwise. Leo’s a good judge of character—always has been. So, if he says something, I’m gonna believe my alpha.”

“Fair enough.”

The conversation tapered off as I focused on tending to his wounds. The entire time, my mind raced. I knew I had to say something, but I wasn’t sure how best to do it. It wasn’t until I finished up and tossed the last bloody washcloth into the sink that I turned to Ricky.

“If you’re going to rescue Leo, we have to do it together. This is not a solo project.”

“Ven, I admire you, I do, but I’m already pushing things by even trying to rescue him. My orders were clear, and it isn’t right for a beta to be going an’ exploiting loopholes. Taking you would be a step too far. I’ve gotta keep you protected. For Leo.”

I took a deep breath, quickly calculating what cards I had to play. “I understand that, but I need you to understand something as well.”

“What’s that?”

What I was about to do was underhanded and would likely ruin the trust I had built up with Ricky, but I was desperate. And desperate times most certainly called for desperate measures.

“I’m the one who broke Leo’s curse and then yours. Neither of you would have your humanity or even an idea of what happened to your pack if not for me. I’m the one who orchestrated the plan to save you. And in the end, I’m the one who drove the truck into that bastard and then found the medical facility.”

Ricky looked downright uncomfortable. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying the two of you owe me, and pretending you know better than me, like you’re grown men and I’m some little child, is ridiculous. You need my help. Either we build this rescue plan together and try to come up with the best way to keep all of us safe, or I will find a way to go on my own. And I doubt this time the bear shifters will be so accommodating to my strategy of screaming and waving my arms.”

Ricky didn’t say anything for a long while. He just gave me a hard stare colder than any look he’d ever given me. Not that I could blame him, but I hoped he would understand in time.

“You drive a hard bargain, but all right. Let’s come up with a plan to get Leo back.”

“And this time you won’t automatically shoot them down because you don’t think they’re good enough? You’ll give real reasons if you’re dubious?” I hated to be such a stickler, but I felt like I had to be considering the switch-up he’d already pulled on me.

“Yeah, I promise. We do owe you everything, so the least I can do is honestly hear you out.”

“All right, then,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack as relief flooded through every cell in my body. “Let’s get to planning.”