13. Shep

Leaving the house is not a good idea.

The sweet scent of Jade’s arousal is impossible to ignore. And my wolf… my wolf is having difficulties staying away from her.

Jade is standing on the other side of the kitchen island. A glass of water sits in front of her, and she’s not looking anyone in the eye. The second our gazes had clashed, she was up off the couch, babbling something about her mouth being dry.

She’s still aroused by what she saw, and she’s aware that I know it.

“I’m going for a run,” I say, hoping my baggy sweats are doing a decent job of hiding the bulge in my pants.

Patten stops peering at his wrist to lift a brow. “Now? You think now is a good time for some exercise?”

Isaiah told him that the bite healed the moment he licked it, but Patten isn’t convinced. Or maybe he just wants a reason to not look at Isaiah.

All of us avoiding looking at each other. Probably for the same reason: embarrassment.

Except Dominik. He hasn’t stopped staring at Jade since she leapt off the couch and darted across the room to pour herself a glass of water.

“Well, enjoy your exercise.” Isaiah rises from the couch. “I need to refresh myself.”

He saunters upstairs.

None of us ask him how he means to do that. But I think we can all guess.

“It’s not exercise,” I tell Jade and Patten as I pad toward the backyard door. “My wolf needs to run.”

Leaving Jade alone with Patten. With the way he’s glaring at Dominik, it isn’t wise, but I need to run off this need for Jade.

If I can.

“It’s the middle of the afternoon.” Jade frowns. “Is it safe? What about?—”

“I will be fine.” I smile softly as I interrupt her.

But you might not be if this need I have for you keeps growing.

Pulling the back door open, I take in the slightly overcast afternoon and the mountains in the distance. It’s become that hunting Atticus Chira is going to involve venturing deeper into those mountains. Out there, in the stark rural surroundings, there is nowhere to hide.

It would be easy to wander into a trap. If he cuts off our retreat like he did in the cell, we have no backup in this town. Just a witch who may or may not want to stick her neck out for us.

We need a plan, but right now, I can’t think clearly to formulate one.

I need to run.

“No one leave. Watch the windows and?—”

“Yeah, yeah, we got you, Momma Bear.” Patten waves away my concern.

“Patten.” I meet his gaze steadily, and I’m not sure he’s as serious as he needs to be. “We barely survived Atticus’s last trap, and he could attack at any moment. We need to stay alert.”

“Then is leaving right this second really the best idea?” Dominik asks, still looking at Jade.

“No.” I eye him for a beat. Do I need to warn him away from her? Or will that start an argument I don’t need when I’m on the edge of control?

A small gust of air blows through the room, whipping the scent of Jade’s arousal toward me. I have to fight myself not to tackle her to the floor and sniff between her thighs. My wolf rumbles in response, my muscles contracting as I tighten my hand on the door to keep myself right where I am.

I wouldn’t want to stop at a sniff between her thighs.

I would take her to the floor and I would?—

“Go.” Patten’s order breaks my intense focus on Jade. He’s looking at the hand I’ve wrapped around the door handle. From his raised brow, he can probably guess my state of mind. “Go do your thing.”

I’ve kept my claws in check. For now. But my skin is itchy as hell and my wolf is restless.

Need to run.

Need to get outside.

I pull the door the rest of the way open. “Stay inside. Patten, no killing Dominik. And Dominik, leave Jade alone. She’s standing there for a reason. Give her space.”

I don’t wait for a response before I step outside and push the door closed. A backyard is not ideal. The run I need is hours long, in a forest, preferably somewhere I can really stretch my legs. But the air is fresh, and there’s less chance of anyone seeing me run through backyards than if I ran on the street. This will have to do.

I strip the clothes from my body as I venture deeper into the tangle of shrubs and trees which make up most of the backyard. Each garden connects to the next, with no fence in sight. Still not ideal, but better than running laps in a small square garden until I make myself dizzy.

My wolf rumbles irritably at the thought, almost provoking a smile.

When I’m far enough from Jade’s intoxicating scent that my wolf won’t immediately run back to the house, I drop to my knees. I don’t have to reach for my wolf.

He bursts free.

I shake out my fur and inhale, wrinkling my nose at the acrid stench of piss. Fox. I fight the urge to cover the scent and mark this place as my territory. My wolf is eyeing up a tree, a prelude to lifting a leg.

Not ours, I warn my wolf. No marking.

Ours is Chicago.

I’m not sure how Isaiah would feel if he knew how much of his estate we marked as ours or how we marked it. But any wolf—any predator—who caught my scent would know it was mine.

Ours, my wolf huffs irritably.

Ours, I repeat, amused at his possessiveness when he’s a mature wolf, old enough to know by now that we share all things.

When my thoughts swing to Jade, I wrench my attention to our surroundings, away from my growing urge to fuck. And bite. Jade isn’t human, but she’s not strong enough to take all the things I want to do to her. Best not touch her at all than hurt her.

I shake my fur, as much the need to feel the air through it as to shake off my humanness and just be a wolf. Lifting my nose, I sniff. No one is in their gardens, but I stick to the darkest parts of each backyard.

I dart from backyard to backyard, always sniffing, exploring. Poison ivy. Mint. A rabbit long since gone, disappointing my wolf, who would’ve liked to have chased it.

Then I realize where my run has taken me.

I hadn’t planned on coming here, but my wolf must have been curious.

A familiar scent. Faintly herby and slightly licorice. I slow and peer through shrubs into a backyard overflowing with potted plants and herbs.

The witch’s house.

I’m feet from the edge of the grass, yet my wolf is reluctant to move closer. No bad smells warn of danger, but something troubles me enough not to want to take another step.

As I ponder my strange response to an invisible threat, the back door swings open and Meliah steps outside.

She’s changed her outfit from the floral green dress she wore before. Now, she’s in the sort of long, black velvet skirt I can easily imagine a witch wearing, and which would probably have Patten running in the other direction.

Pre-Jade and pre-curse, that hot pink tank top would have had Patten running toward her.

Her smile is bright, but relieved. She hadn’t known who was out here before she came to investigate. It’s only when she pulls her right hand out of her pocket that I realize I must have come dangerously close to having her fling a spell—worse, a curse—at me.

“It’s a good thing you stopped there.” She walks toward me, nodding at the shrub in front of me. The one I hadn’t wanted to approach. “Guarding stones. They pack a powerful punch. I have them surrounding the entire house, though they have a tendency to snap back on me as well, but that’s the point. They warn me and give me a chance to prepare for an attack.”

She said Brennan would be safe here, but I hadn’t known exactly what she meant or thought too closely about how she intended to make Brennan safe. I’d been too concerned with finding Jade. It’s not something I’m happy about admitting, but I had my priorities. I was just quieter about admitting it than Patten was.

I consider shifting to ask her about those guarding stones when a faint rustle and a soft groan of pain drift from the house.

Meliah glances over her shoulder. “I should check on him.” She turns to go inside, then stops and peers back at me. “I know you don’t trust me, but I don’t mean him any harm.” She flashes me a grin. “Don’t worry, my interest in him is not purely sexual, despite what your friends think.”

She overheard our conversation.

How could she have not overheard when Patten hadn’t even tried to speak quietly?

Then I catch something else. Her interest in him is not purely sexual. What does that mean?

My wolf rumbles at me, reminding me we were out here for a reason.

To run.

I turn away from the witch’s house to continue my unsatisfactory run as Meliah closes the door behind her.

Before returning to the house, I lift my eyes to the mountains in the distance.

I hadn’t thought a human could or would cause so much problems. My father warned some humans were dangerous enough to be a threat, but deep in the Florida everglades, it was easy to view those stories as just that. Stories.

Now I know better. I’m tempted to call him and ask about what else he knows of collectors. A call from him would mean admitting that we broke the curse tying me to Chicago and there was no reason not to return home.

There was a reason I left, and it’s still the biggest reason I don’t want to go back.

I never believed I would find the happiness I needed there. So I left. I’m as certain of that now as I was when I left over ten years ago.

We underestimated Atticus when we rescued Dominik, and we can’t afford to do it again.

We might not survive it.