Chapter Seven

Dom

The sickness was passing. I had no way of knowing how long it had been, but when I stopped having headaches and nausea completely, I figured the others would be on their way too. Maybe they already were, since they had shifted into their wolf skins and would be healing faster that way.

"How are you holding up, Jack?" I asked. The wolf nearest to me gave an exhausted whimper but nodded. I looked at the others. "If you're not already coming down off of it, you will be soon. Get ready to shift back and we can go get something to eat. I'm starving."

Amelia was still next to me, clearly exhausted but holding stubborn and not making a sound. She also hadn't met my eyes since I last mentioned the old pack. She was either pissed at me, mulling over what I said, or probably both.

Jerod was doing a bit better, his suffering coming in waves of bad and worse, giving him just enough relief that sometimes he and Amelia could sleep briefly. I wondered what we were supposed to do with the warlock. He had been digging things out of his pocket for a while now. A little red Hello Kitty pouch. A candle. A knife. A bright-green string. I didn't know shit about warlock magic, but I knew casting components when I saw them. I made my way to Jerod and nudged him with my foot.

"Hey, warlock," I said. "It's been more than nine hours. When is this going to end?"

"Finding . . . out," he managed through gritted teeth.

A low growl of frustration crept into my throat. If he had a way to find out, I wish he had done it sooner. If I wasn't going to be a part of the spell, I was at least going to watch, so I backed up to keep an eye on him. I was still pretty pissed that this accident had happened in the first place. As soon as Jerod could form whole sentences again, I was going to beat the truth out of him until I had an explanation of what was going on.

Jerod was slow going, pausing a lot to hold his stomach or gag. He spit up blood at one point, but nothing too worrisome. When he finally had his string, knife, some kind of powder, and a crumpled-up flower, he pricked his thumb and smeared blood down the string.

Then he spoke a bunch of warlock gibberish, and the string emitted vivid purple smoke. When he finished the string of magic words, and at almost the instant he stopped, an ugly as sin green demon stepped through the thick smoke. Its eyes bulged, its teeth protruded, and its skin sagged. The thing took a good look at Jerod and chuckled.

Okay, that made me smile a little.

When it started speaking in that same gibberish Jerod had used to summon it, I was lost. It was pretty obvious they were having a conversation, but about what I had no idea. There was a lot of back and forth, and Jerod's answers were pained and short, which only seemed to amuse the demon further.

"For the last time, my liver . . . is . . . spoken for," Jerod snapped.

"You need me to step in and kill this thing?" I asked.

Jerod's eyes slid to me for a moment before going back to the demon. "No, I've got it."

Then they went back to their demon language, and I was out of the loop again. Hoped that June was okay back at the campsite. The whole wolf community would come after us if we let a rogue-bitten baby wolf walk away.

A crackling and a pop snapped me back. I looked up Jerod, only to find the demon gone in a puff of smoke.

Jerod struggled to his knees, holding his stomach and waiting for something. When the ugly demon popped back into our world, I growled low. I didn't like this kind of being. It wasn't natural for it to be here, and everything I was made of, the wolf in me, didn't like it.

The demon ignored me and said something to Jerod in that demonic tongue. Then it cackled and disappeared again. The string used to summon it lit in a burst of flame and fell to pieces in an instant. The tie to the demon was gone.

"Shit," Jerod hissed. He dropped from his kneeling position and slumped onto the ground.

I walked over to him, crouching down to see his face better. "Well?"

"Nine . . . days," he grunted.

"Shit." I echoed his earlier sentiment and stood, staring at Amelia. "What happened to nine hours?"

"Amelia spilled the offering," Jerod snapped at me. "The summoned party . . . was pissed."

My face darkened. "Amelia was thrown during a battle, don't make it sound like she did any of this on purpose. The middle of a battlefield was no place for your summoning ritual, warlock."

"My ritual was a huge part of why you're all alive, wolf," Jerod gritted back.

Running my hand down my face, I closed my eyes. Looked like I was in charge for a little longer, and that meant I'd have us to the village before Amelia could take over and turn us back around.

"Fuck. Okay, okay, let's just get back on the road. Aaron, Jack, Carson, get your asses out of your wolf skins and come here. We've got new info."

Nine days . The warlock had intended to trade nine hours of pain to that demon he'd summoned on the battlefield. The incident that knocked Amelia into the ritual had altered it to nine fucking days.

The sun was up by the time we rode out the initial wave of withdrawal. The cravings would stay, a bit of nausea, and I was sure we'd be shaky for a while. But this was far better than it had been in times past. Walking through the woods, carrying the two incapacitated members of our group, we made it back to the van with the first rays of daylight poking through the trees. June was on the ground by a now-dead firepit. She'd scraped a circle down to the dirt and kept a very small fire going until what looked like less than an hour ago, and was stirring in her cocoon of blankets, wide-eyed at our approach.

"Morning," she mumbled, climbing to her feet. "You were gone all night?"

"We were," I confirmed, heading to the van where I opened the doors for Jack and Carson to settle in Jerod and Amelia.

"What can I do to help?" June asked.

I moved out of the way, letting Jack take my place as they situated our leader and the warlock. As I faced June, my stomach was still turning and my mouth dry from the long night. "There's nothing for you to do. Pick a seat and settle in, we're going to drive straight through to where we'll cross into Canada."

Her mouth flattened into a thin line as her eyes darted to Jerod, now being helped into the van. "I have some medical training. I can see if I can make them more comfortable, or —"

"There's nothing." I held a hand between us, snapping more than I had intended to. "Not one thing you can do right now. Their pain isn't natural, and it's nothing you can do a damned thing about. The best way for you to help right now is to get your ass in the van and out of our way."

"I'm not useless," she said in a low, even tone. "But I'll get out of your way. Let me know if you change your mind."

She turned before I could say anything else, and I cursed under my breath. The others were already passing around the food and cleaning up camp, which we hadn't even gotten the chance to use last night. Aaron pressed a bottle of water in my hand.

"She's going to be a wolf," he said. "Don't be so hard on her."

"I know." I opened the drink and drained the bottle.

"She called home back at that gas station, you know." Aaron eyed me, opening his own water. "She settled her shit, and kept our secret. She could have made this a mess, but she didn't."

I studied Aaron's face. He wasn't one to lie and he wasn't one to stick his neck out for anyone else. "Seriously?"

"She's going to be a wolf, so stop treating her like a human. If she's useful, she's useful. It's the way of the pack to find your place."

He turned, leaving me alone by the van with one last look at the woods where we'd spent the night. I stared down at the empty space where June had slept, her blankets now packed up and loaded and the fire checked and extinguished, probably by Aaron.

To be a wolf was to find your place to do your part in your pack. Was this June's wolf starting to show, or was it purely Juniper Gunn? Either way, I felt like the asshole I was, even as another roll of nausea passed through me.

"Fucking Lunaria's Dream." I spat, got in the van, and we drove off.