Chapter 14

Gavin

My wolf stared down Catrina's. Her black fur was still spiked with rage. Her blue stare hollowed me out. Outrage and shock heaved through me. As I'd broken onto the trail, Catrina's jaws had tried to go for the sandy brown wolf's throat. Catrina's fangs had only been inches away from Billie's neck before I'd barreled into her. She'd been going for the jugular vein.

Since the argument Catrina and I had had yesterday, I'd been on high alert. The suggestions she'd made at Pioneer Point about killing our fated mates had had me stake out the Grandbay and Dalesbloom border.

And it had been tonight that the pain echoing through my depths had gotten me to summon my pack to me and sprint here. As I neared, the telepathic connection between me and Billie had strengthened. I swore I'd felt Billie's exhaustion thrumming through my depths and known I must reach her. I'd torn through the woods like never before, knowing in my gut that if I didn't get here in time, Catrina would kill Billie.

After yesterday, I shouldn't be surprised. But words were one thing. Although my ex's proposition had chilled me, acting on it was a different thing entirely. That Catrina was heartless enough to take out her adoptive sister all for the theoretical hope that she and I might be presented to one another as each other's fated mate sickened me to the core. It made me even surer that I'd never really known the woman I'd been dating these last few months.

As my wolf stood before her, my muscles twisted with outrage, and my teeth ached to rip into her. But I restrained my wolf's lust for blood.

Catrina's attempt to kill Billie wouldn't go unanswered. I'd sent up a howl into the night sky, and the first thuds of paws on the earth resounded in the air and through the ground. A pair of black wolves melted out of the night. Colt and David appeared. Judging by the scent of fresh blood on the leaner one's muzzle, they must have just come from a hunt. Sure enough, the rest of their pack materialized from out of the trees, lingering in the shadows just as my packmates did behind me.

I exchanged my beast's form for my more civilized human's. Although, as I stood with my jaw still locked, my hands clenched into fists, and my chest heaving, I barely felt any more civilized than my wolf.

I watched as the Alpha and his son morphed into their human forms, too.

I fixed my eyes on David. "I demand you to try Catrina. My pack and I just witnessed her trying to kill Billie."

David's eyes wound over to the sandy brown wolf behind me, then to Catrina's black wolf, still staring me down.

"Catrina. Billie," David called out, his voice filled with authority. "Shift!" The pack Alpha's influence caused the two women to obey. Catrina's eyes were filled with defiance. Billie was behind me, from where I'd intervened between her and Catrina, but I sensed her movement as she took her human form, too.

Catrina took a step back, then another, moving toward her father and brother. The movement seemed conniving. I narrowed my eyes, a muscle ticking in my jaw. Was she already regrouping with her pack? As if she were preparing for another fight.

Meanwhile, Billie took the opportunity to move a few steps closer to me. A little of the tension in my muscles eased as she came closer. In the periphery of my vision, I noticed her fidgeting with her sandy brown hair, easing it over her shoulders as if she sought to shield her breasts from view.

We shifters got used to standing before one another in the nude, but I sensed this was very new to her. For the first time, I wondered whether she'd only just been able to shift when she'd had the Moondream. She was eighteen, which was a little later than most wolves, but it wasn't unheard of.

At the thought, even more protectiveness stole over me. If she'd only just been able to shift in the last weeks, she'd already fought more than most wolves did in years. She'd taken on two dragons and now Catrina. Right now, I was inclined to believe that the more ferocious and wily adversary of those was the latter.

My gaze tracked down Billie's body to the wound below her ribcage. It still bled too quickly for my liking. In her human form, Billie's wounds were slower healing, but I knew she needed to stay in this form to speak out against Catrina.

"Aislin, Helen," I called out to my packmates. "Shift."

My best friend and the pack healer, now both in their human skins, too, came over to me.

"Find some catappa leaves for Billie's wound," I instructed them. All through the Gunnison forests, the packs had long ago nurtured plants that were good for their healing properties, which, in a pinch like this one, could be used as bandages with their absorbent quality.

The women soon returned with the leaves, and while Aislin was dressing Billie's wounds, I noticed Colt's heated stare on my friend. But to the young man's credit, it disappeared as he took in what she was doing. Judging by the sincere flicker of pain as he witnessed the grimace of pain across Billie's face, he wasn't in on Catrina's plan to do away with their adoptive sister. I believed that his affection for Billie was real.

Helen and Aislin left Billie to hold the catappa on the wounds, then returned to their lupine forms and the rest of the pack behind us.

David's voice cut through the air. "What do you have to say for yourself, Catrina?" His attention going to his daughter.

"I was only trying to wound her," Catrina said. "You ordered Billie not to leave the house, and she disobeyed. I was only following orders."

Hate coursed through my veins at the ease with which she lied.

Once again, David's indifference toward his adoptive daughter's welfare was evident as his cold eyes snapped to Billie. "You were ordered to stay in the house, weren't you, Billie?"

Once more, my assessing stare went to Colt. His eyebrows had shifted down into a frown.

"Colt, I want you to escort Billie back to the house," David said.

My blood boiled that David really thought that this was all the "justice" that needed to be dispensed after what I'd just witnessed.

The younger man, standing beside his father, made to move, but eager to show Billie that she didn't need to conform to David's command, I spoke up, "I don't think so, David. Billie seemed as if she was very eager to get away from your house. I believe she was coming to Grandbay before Catrina tried to kill her tonight. And I won't allow you to take her when she's clearly unsafe here."

My words seemed to give Billie the strength she needed to speak up. Her voice cut through the night with decisiveness. "I was going to Grandbay. I don't belong in Dalesbloom. I never have, and I won't be locked up and kept here against my will."

Adrenaline seared through me as she spoke about "belonging" in Grandbay. I wondered if she'd felt that she had a deeper connection with the place when she was there. Or whether it was simply that compared to the treatment she'd received here that it had seemed like a better place to be. Anger thrummed through my veins at her words about being locked up, and I wondered what the Dalesbloom Alpha and Catrina had done to Billie since the last time I'd seen her. After seeing Catrina going for Billie, nothing would surprise me now.

"Billie," David gritted out, his cold stare raking her face. "You have no place at Grandbay. You're under my care."

I wanted to laugh with scorn at the "care" he'd been giving her but waited for him to finish.

He continued, "So, I'm only going to say this once. Return to the house." A vein throbbed in his forehead. "Now," he ground out.

But Billie didn't move.

I drew closer to Billie, putting a hand on the back of her neck. I noticed the softness of her skin beneath my calloused palm. Her pulse picked up a notch but then eased, as did her shoulders. Warmth pulsated through me at the thought that my touch gave her comfort.

"No, David. I claim Billie as part of the Grandbay Pack," I said decisively.

Even in the gloom of the night, I noticed the splotches of angry red coloring David's face and chest.

"If you take what is mine, Gavin," he warned, his voice rumbling to a lower decibel, "then the alliance that exists between Dalesbloom and Grandbay is over."

Our territory and strength were lesser than Dalesbloom, but I refused to be backed into a corner by this despicable man. David had shown his true colors tonight. He'd shown he was unjust and cruel. I hardened my gaze as it flicked from him to Catrina. And his daughter was just like the crooked leader.

I thought about how I'd relayed everything about my suspicions concerning Billie's identity to Aislin and my Betas yesterday. After coming back from seeing Catrina, I"d told them all about her proposition concerning Billie. I'd told them, too, what she"d let slip about Muriel.

Of course, I'd had to fill them all in about the Moondream and what Vana had revealed to me concerning Billie being my fated mate. But it had lightened my load, and it felt good to know that the pack members closest to me knew everything. For them, what I was about to announce wasn't going to be a revelation. But for the rest of the Grandbay Pack, I knew it was going to send shockwaves ringing through it.

With a deep breath and knowing that all of my pack's links with Dalesbloom would be utterly destroyed, I leveled my final accusation against David, wanting to see his face when it fell.

"I can assure you," I said, "I want nothing to do with the Dalesbloom Pack or you. Not when you are responsible for stealing the daughter of Shannon and Tobi Rathbone and displacing her from her true pack."

David's eyes widened and fell to Billie, who was staring with intensity at her adoptive father, her heart pounding in her ribcage, audible to my ear with my sensitive shifter heritage.

The Dalesbloom Alpha's voice rang. "With such a wild, empty accusation, I should be chasing you out of my lands." His feigned tone of nonchalance only heightened my ire.

I shouted, "Empty accusation? Does it mean nothing that the deep wound she suffered was healed with Grandbay magic? Something that proves she's of our Alpha bloodline."

I felt the shiver of tension run through the wolves behind and in front of me. The healing magic that Vana had imbued in each of our lands designed for our pack members alone was a sacrament common between all packs.

I willed David to try to deny something so intrinsic to our culture, but he couldn't. Coldness stole over his features, but he remained silent, not able to deny such weighty proof that Billie belonged to us, not Dalesbloom.

I felt the congregation of wolves behind me, responding to this revelation about Billie's true lineage. A few ears sharpened, and a growl from a few rumbled through the air. The loyalty of the pack was deeply rooted, and an accusation of taking one of their number from them was a serious one. The tension in the air thickened as each of the wolves in the woods knew that the allies that had previously rested opposite them were now their foes.

But, amidst that tension, Billie's bright green eyes flickered to me, filled with a sense of gratitude and hope. Her look sent a ripple of warmth through my chest, and my eyes softened for a moment.

I relished the sight of David's locked shoulders and jaw as fury poured off him. Catrina, so full of defiance earlier, now stood still, her attention gone from me and Billie to her father. Clearly, this wasn't a deception she'd known about. I reflected on how her plan to eliminate Billie, her adoptive sister, had backfired spectacularly tonight. Colt, too, looked confused. At least there was some justice in the universe, as this would disrupt their lives.

With one last furious look at me, David ground out, "You'll live to regret this, Gavin." But he didn't hang around to deliver on his threat. Instead, he turned tail, calling his wolves to him, and retreated in the other direction toward Hexen Manor.

I and my wolves remained on alert for a while until I was certain that the Dalesbloom Pack had retreated. The surge of strength roiling through the pack engulfed us all, and I knew we'd all move heaven and earth to protect Billie, who was one of us now.