Chapter 13

Billie

The daylight was leaving across the meadow, and my pulse was pounding ... It was almost time. Colt and I had decided that the best time for me to make a break for it was when the pack was off on the hunt. They had scheduled one this evening.

My breath caught in my throat as I watched the wolves stream from the house and out into the meadow. I counted all twelve of them. No … that was Colt at the rear of the pack, and the other Black wolf at the front was David.

Which meant … Catrina was unaccounted for. Alarm spiked through my blood. Colt had said that he'd keep David and the pack distracted this evening. But why wasn't Catrina with them? My adoptive sister had checked that I was securely locked in my room before she'd disappeared this evening.

My skin crawled with a sense of foreboding. She hadn't brought me lunch yesterday. Instead, Colt had been on jailer duty. He'd informed me that she'd driven off in her truck. When she'd returned yesterday, Catrina had been sullen and unusually silent. She hadn't bothered to throw her usual barbs at me when escorting me to the bathroom. The one time I'd managed to catch her gaze, it had been full of anger and … pain. I suspected she'd seen Gavin. Had she and him broken up? Judging by her sullen expression and silence, it sure looked that way.

An avalanche of questions had swept me up. Had Gavin instigated the break-up? What had prompted him to do that? A flurry of hope stole through my chest. Could it have anything to do with me? But I'd buried those questions. I couldn't afford to lose sight of my current goal: to escape.

As I stared out at the rapidly failing light, I longed to see my sulky adoptive sister or her black wolf disappearing into the forest to join the rest of the pack. But nothing else stirred beyond the pane of glass. My heartbeat quickened, feeling like a warning not to venture out. Not knowing where she was was a definite threat, especially given all that anger and pain I'd spied in her eyes. Goosebumps pebbled my skin as I knew all that anger would be aimed at me.

But I quashed my worries down. This was the best opportunity I had. The majority of the pack was away. It was tonight, or I didn't know when my next chance would be.

I stole to the door. Colt and I had schemed for a while about how I was going to get out. We'd talked a while about him stealing the key Catrina kept in her pocket. But even if he'd managed to get it, we knew she would check to see if my door was locked before leaving this evening.

In the end, Colt realized there was a far simpler solution. He'd remembered that there was a skeleton key that unlocked all the doors in the house in the vanity table in his dad's room. The dresser had belonged to Colt and Catrina's mum, Rebecca, who had passed away when Colt had only been four years old. Colt had once told me that he had a vague memory of that sad time. But shortly after, he remembered how I'd come to live with them and that my arrival during that dark spell had been like the light returning.

I thanked Vana that I had my friend to watch my back tonight.

Anyway, he'd remembered once when he'd been looking through his mum's drawer that he'd found the key and discovered that it was a skeleton key. And it had still been in the dresser when he'd searched it yesterday. I inserted the tiny key into the keyhole now and unlocked it.

Not bothering to take anything as I'd be traveling in wolf form, I stole down the stairs and toward the back door. I didn't look around either, as the only thing I'd miss within the manor was my friend.

I'd mapped the quickest route to Grandbay using a map on Colt's phone. The route was fresh in my head. The caress of the night air on my face as I headed out the back was heavenly. But I didn't have time to enjoy it. I let my wolf out, a fresh wave of relief swelling through us as the fresh air hit our nose and the breeze raked through our fur.

With the thought of freedom ahead of me, I concentrated on keeping to the trail. Of course, I'd gone to Grandbay the night I'd found Muriel, but we'd already been much deeper into Dalesbloom territory and almost at the Grandbay border. But after envisaging the way so many times, I thought I'd manage to stay on track.

My wolf followed my guidance, pointing her nose where I wanted, her paws pounding with an urgency that showed she understood that keeping to our route was vital. We moved like a shadow as the night grew steadily darker around us. My pulse hammered with the thought that we were leaving Dalesbloom for good.

It may have been where I'd lived for the majority of my life, but it had never been home. My panting breaths as I ran matched the excitement humming through me. I couldn't help thinking of where my paws were taking me: Grandbay. I thought of that inexplicable sense of belonging that the place had conjured, and my wolf's stride lengthened. I couldn't wait to see both Aislin and Muriel again, especially after being shut away so long from everyone except Colt, whom I'd only seen over the last couple of days to plot and plan this escape.

Then, my heart went into a mad dash as the thought of seeing Gavin fired through me. Stupidly, I thought of that last moment I'd looked at him when we'd been in the cabin together, with the warmth of his smile lingering in his hazel eyes.

Hope squeezed my chest. But worry quickly followed. What if, after all the effort I'd gone to tonight, he turned me away? But surely, after I explained to him how David had locked me up for days and kept me a prisoner, he wouldn't turn me away. After all, he'd sheltered Muriel from the dragons. I knew he was more than capable of doing the right thing when it came to exercising his duty as an Alpha, part of which was protecting those in need in the Gunnison area.

My swift legs carried me through the woods, now veering toward the canyon. Very distantly, I heard the first rush of water, thrilling that we'd made such good time. But, just then, a flash of jet black caught my eye. Before I'd done more than notice it on the periphery of my vision, it hit me.

A startled whimper escaped me as the ebony-coated wolf knocked the breath out of me. On the ground, with my heart rattling through my ribcage, I realized that Catrina had rammed into me so hard that I'd been knocked off my feet.

Scrambling up, I stood just in time. She came at me again. Catrina's sleek muscles rippling beneath her black coat always looked powerful, but brimming with fury, she looked positively lethal. Her jaws snapped toward me, lunging for my throat.

I dodged away, panic zipping through my veins. She hadn't gone for my shoulder or flank but the tenderest, weakest part of me. As disbelief hit me, she lunged for my throat a second time.

I veered away from her, instinct telling me to stay out of her grip when she was this vicious. My heart thrashed in my chest, both from shock and tiredness. My energy was already dipping. I'd been tearing along the trail with such force that I'd left little energy in reserve.

The black wolf lunged at me again, her eyes blazing with rage and her mouth frothing with spittle. I twisted away from her snapping jaws, but her claws raked my flank, slicing through my flesh.

The pain seemed to feed my terror. I struggled to catch my breath as the sting muddied my focus, and Catrina leaped at me once more. She wasn't letting up. Her ferocious snarls and snapping jaws seemed to say the same thing, "I'm going to rip you apart just as my heart has been." As I veered away from her, pushing past the sting of my injury, I felt sure that her fury was stoked so high because of her and Gavin's breakup.

As my energy waned, I knew I couldn't just stay out of her clutches. Otherwise, she was going to tire me out until she managed to land a killing blow. As I acknowledged that Catrina wanted me dead, fury surged through me. My wolf's visceral snarl ripping from me. I had to fight back.

I lunged at Catrina's shoulder, but my teeth snapped at thin air, failing to land a hit. Whereas Catrina used the opportunity that my getting closer to her had awarded. Without hesitation, she launched herself at my exposed neck. Terror pounded through me, and I thought the shadow falling across me was death.

But something slammed into Catrina instead. As I stopped weaving, I took in Gavin's majestic dark brown wolf standing over Catrina. She scrambled up to all four legs, righting herself. The lines of Gavin's snout hardened, and his ears flicked back. A threatening snarl rumbled out of his throat. My thundering heart finally started to ease in my own ears, and I grew aware of the huge heaving breaths my wolf was sucking in. Sweat bathed my flanks from my run and the fight I'd just endured.

I wondered if Gavin had felt my pain in the same way I suspected he'd felt my pain the night the dragons had attacked me. As I caught my breath, I realized that the Grandbay Alpha wasn't alone. The mahogany-coated wolf that walked to my side, knocking my shoulder with her own, made my heart stutter with relief, too. Aislin had come for me, too. I blinked behind me and realized many of the other Grandbay packmates, who had been present in the clearing with me and Muriel, stood behind us. Hope swelled through my chest. I wasn't alone.

The fur along my back prickled up as Gavin's howl punctured the night. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I knew that he was summoning the other wolves in the area—the Dalesbloom pack and its Alpha. He pinned his eyes on Catrina, her black wolf huffing out steaming breaths into the cooling night. The Grandbay Alpha was going to hold Catrina accountable, and a sense of vindication trilled through me. She was going to answer for the fact that she'd just tried to kill me.