Chapter 41

Chapter Forty-One

Callum

T he four of us are not enough to get our mates back. Even supposing we had the time to gather the scattered members of Gray's pack, we would not have the numbers. There is no choice now but to try and reach the Halket clan before Rufus or his pack members can.

So we travel by horse because I cannot yet command my shift.

I was too slow.

My beast whines inside before lifting his head and howling. He shares all my sentiments and then some. We had one job to do, getting Ada to safety, and we failed.

"Are you listening to me, whelp?"

Gray is in my fucking face again .

We are standing in the forest where he wastes valuable time trying to teach me how to shift for the second time today.

"I am fucking trying," I growl back.

"It was not your fault," Gray says with disarming quietness. "This failing is on me."

"Not my fault?" My heart is pounding out of my damn chest. "Do not give me your fucking leader bullshit motivational talk," I snarl. "I tolerate you on a good day and hate your guts on the bad one." This is a lie. I am too far gone to care. "But you told me to get her to safety. I took too long to shift. What is the point of having a giant beast if I cannot call him?!"

"Damn whelp," he snarls back. "I all but gave Ada and Lizbeth over to our enemy. Do not presume you are the only one with failings today."

"I trusted Saul and Don, too," Arlo pitches in from where he sits on a fallen tree at the side of the clearing where we stand. "Bastards."

"Arlo," Drake says, voice low and warning.

I only have eyes for Gray. "You are right. This is your fault. We would not be in this mess if you had never snatched Ada from Bleakness!"

"I will bloody your damn hide," Gray snarls back.

"Technically, he cannot shift, so it would be hard to bloody his hide," Drake says.

Arlo huffs out a humorless chuckle.

I would roll my eyes if I were not so pissed.

The world begins to distort. I cannot get enough breath. Distantly, I realize Gray is taking a cautious step back, but I am too busy contorting in agony to care.

The pain becomes all-consuming. It feels like every bone in my body snaps, and then scents and sounds assault me, and I shake out my coat.

Coat?

I look around the forest to see three other wolves. Gray is, well, gray. Arlo is a darker gray, and Drake is black, gray, and tan.

"Finally," Drake says. "You should piss him off more often."

Wait? What the fuck was that about. He is a wolf, and his lips did not even move. "How the fuck do I get back?"

"Yes! He is in the pack bond!" Arlo says, also not moving his lips.

"Shifters really talk with their minds. I thought that was just a story."

Arlo yips and comes over to nuzzle against me, his tail wagging with approval.

My tail is also wagging… What the fuck is wrong with my beast getting all perky?

Drake comes over to greet me next, nuzzling me before giving me a playful shove.

"Time to train, whelp," Gray says, although his tail is likewise beating from side to side.

Then he charges me and knocks me flying.

I roll straight to my feet and charge him back.

Which is when I discover I know fuck all about fighting as a wolf.

By the time Gray is done with me, dusk is falling, and every muscle in my body twitches with fatigue. I can now shift to all three forms, although the transition to bipedal beast is clumsy, and his size varies depending on how much Gray has riled me up. As Gray is swift to point out, while powerful, my beast is not always the best form for close combat or speed, and if I am to reach my true potential, I must master all forms.

We ride the horses to the next village and leave them with the farmer, who is delighted by his bounty.

Then we take off into the forest as wolves, running through the rest of the evening and into the night, bound for the Halket clan.

As we run, my mind is cast back to that pivotal night when I joined my father in his secret work for the underground rebellion.

I seemed so innocent back then, on the cusp of understanding.

I didn't know I would rescue Ada that night, nor how important she would go on to become.

A life stretches before me, but it will be desolate without her.

The jubilation of shifting is bittersweet. But for the first time since Ada was snatched from the courtyard, I find some small measure of hope.