Chapter Four

June

When I woke up in the early morning, it was cold. It was still dark out, but I could never get a full night's sleep in a new place. It was a wonder I had slept at all. Two people in pain nearby made noise all night, with varying degrees of frustration and discomfort. I felt bad for them, even the one who bit me. She must have lashed out in pain, and that was something I could understand.

The thought crossed my mind that I could possibly escape. Even if I believed that I would turn into a werewolf like them, I still would rather handle it at home and not in Canada.

Looking around, I admitted internally to having few outdoor skills, and let the idea of finding civilization anywhere nearby go. I got up and went to the bathroom behind a tree and came back highly dissatisfied with the lack of clean clothes to wear.

"Feel better?"

Dom's voice made me jump. I whirled, running into him standing against a tree nearby. I had passed him and hadn't even noticed.

"Easy, tiger. Just checking in that you're okay," he said.

"You scared the crap out of me." I wrapped my arms around myself as I took a step back, my heart beating fast.

Dom let out a curt laugh. "Didn't mean to."

Amelia was making whimpering sounds and the guy on the ground looked to be having some sort of small seizure. Whatever was happening to them, was it going to happen to me too?

"The plan now is to drive straight through to North Dakota before dumping the car and crossing the border," Dom said.

I turned back to look at him, or as much of him as I could see in the dark. "‘Dumping the car'?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "Is your car stolen?"

"Stolen from thieves maybe. We traded our last ride for this one that was about to be taken apart by a chop shop. What are they going to do, report us?"

"Do all . . . werewolves . . . make a habit of keeping stolen cars?"

"No. We do what we have to, but you'll see the village is a much more normal place. You'll be comfortable there," Dom said.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I thought you'd want to know. I would. And you're sort of one of us now. The plan is no big secret."

One of us. It wasn't the most appealing place to be in, but it was better than being a hostage or a kidnappee.

"Fair enough," I mumbled. "How are we crossing the border? Is there a border patrol? I don't want to get caught with a bunch of highly suspicious people."

He raised an eyebrow. "Highly suspicious?"

"I said what I said." I put my hands in my jacket pockets, shrugging.

"We'll walk through the woods. I can smell a human a mile away, we don't have to get anywhere near them, and you'd be surprised how much of the border is unwatched farmland. There are some cameras and sensors around, but we've got a prepared spot to cross. Witchcraft lets our kind go through unnoticed by other more concerning things that could be watching. Paid a pretty penny for it, too, or at least Apollo did."

"Witchcraft? And who's Apollo?" I bit the inside of my cheek, mulling over the concept of witchcraft when mentioned by a living breathing werewolf.

Dom's face darkened. "It doesn't matter, he's dead."

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said.

He grunted and moved. His body language was now cold as he turned away from me.

I followed Dom back to camp, if you could call it that. Aaron and Carson were already somewhat awake and yawning. Carson took one look at Dom and turned to the last one of them whose name I still hadn't learned yet.

"Get up," he mumbled, prodding the sleeping man's arm. "Time to go."

The sleeping shape groaned, but he did sit up.

"Start scraping camp," Dom said. "Who needs a hand?"

The camp sprang to life. Dom and Aaron worked together to clean up Amelia and the other guy, making them take sips of water while they were at it. Jack and Carson loaded up the belongings, and I sat with a bottle of water to watch. Where one needed help, another hand would appear to assist. When something bigger needed doing, they would move in tandem. And Dom was the one orchestrating it all as if he'd done this a thousand times before.

Food was packed away, blankets rolled up, and the prone figures were hauled off to what turned out to be one of those vans that could seat like twelve people. My after-school program growing up used to pick me up in one of those, so I was familiar enough with the layout when they all loaded inside.

For lack of a better term, the patients were in the back rows. I sat in the middle area next to Dom. Apparently, he wanted to keep a close eye on the back seat while we drove. Carson and Jack, the last member of the pack, sat behind Aaron, the driver. The front driver's seat, which I was surprised wasn't taken, was filled with the blankets and food from our campsite.

"Toss me a water and something to eat that isn't potato-based," Dom said.

Jack leaned forward to rummage through the dwindling pile of food in the front passenger seat. "Uh, looks like just jerky left."

Jack handed back three sticks of heavily processed and questionable preserved meat products. "That's the last of it."

Dom sighed next to me. "This is why I didn't want you getting the food."

He snatched the sticks from Jack and silently passed one to me without even looking at me. I was surprised but grateful as I took it.

"Potatoes and all their products are perfect," Jack snapped back. "You just don't like good food."

"What I don't like," Dom drew out, "is a bunch of junk food that isn't going to power us through to Newfoundland. Just because you can burn all this oil and grease off with our metabolism doesn't mean it's okay to eat it constantly."

Jack huffed, sitting back in his seat with his arms crossed, while Carson failed to cover his snickering.

"Aaron, you get something when we stop for gas. Jack and Carson can help me try to feed these two in the back," Dom added.

Jack and Carson both groaned.

"Amelia bit me last time," Carson complained.

"And Jerod threw up," Jack added.

Dom leaned forward, close to Carson's and Jack's faces, and spoke dangerously quietly. "Until Amelia is back at full power, I am in charge. My job is to get us all there alive, and together. Amelia is ours, and we take care of our own no matter how unpleasant the job. The warlock, by extension, is our problem until we figure out why they're like this. If you want to lead, challenge me for it."

That shut them up real fast.

Dom gave each of them a heartbeat's attention. "If you don't want the job, then sit down and don't question me again."

My eyes widened and I shied away from Dom, not that I could get that far away in the van. A few words came to mind. Intimidating , for one. Maybe jealousy , too, if this was how far he went to watch out for his friends. His tactics could use a little polishing, but the results were unquestionable.

Dom looked down at me with a sideways glance. "Calm down. I'm not coming for you. This is pack business."

"Pack?" I murmured. "As in, a pack of animals?"

Dom nodded curtly and faced forward again, watching the road ahead of us slip under the van and away. "As in a pack of wolves."

We rode in silence for a while, nothing to see out the window but alternating farmland and trees. Jack had dozed off, Dom sat watching the road ahead, and Carson was fidgeting with something while I just laid my head against the window and contemplated everything that had brought me to this moment.

"Aw, what? Your name's fucking awesome," Carson said.

I turned around to see he had a familiar driver's license in his hand. Shooting up straight, I reached for it. "Hey!"

Dom was quicker, and he took the whole wallet from Carson's hands. He looked down at it and a slow smile spread across his lips. "Juniper Gunn."

"Give me back my things," I demanded.

"No can do, Juniper," Dom said, sliding my wallet into his back pocket. "You can have it back at the village, once you've fully grasped the situation."

I sank as the weight of it settled over me. My license was pointless when I was a thousand miles from home with no car. And then there was the whole werewolf thing. If I survived, which I apparently might not, how was I going to get home?

"We'll be there before you know it, Juniper." Carson turned in his seat to face me. "No hard feelings, it's for the good of the wolves."

Carson was such a puppy. A gangly, golden retriever puppy. My mouth flattened into a thin line as I tried to come up with an argument, but when nothing surfaced, I sighed. At least he wanted to cheer me up, unlike a certain growly asshole. "June. Just June."

Leaning my head against the cool glass, I watched the same repetitive scenery fly by. If nothing else, it was something to focus on outside of the bite on my arm and this supposed village of werewolves ahead.

At least I knew all the names now.

And they knew mine.

Lord help me.