15. Caleb

FIFTEEN

Caleb

I’d traveled fast. Alternating between wolf and man, I’d stolen more clothes in a few days than I had in my entire life. I’d almost reached Whispering Pines when I’d stopped.

The connection between Willow and me had never been this visceral. But I was a few miles from her home when I pulled the stolen car over and got out, inhaling deeply.

My eyes narrowed on the road I’d just been on. Wetting my lips, I forced myself to concentrate and focus.

“Son of a dick,” I cursed, hurrying into the thicket. Stripping off my clothes, I changed to my wolf, relying on the wolf’s sense of smell more than mine. I’d passed a bus on the road. The fact that she was likely to have been on it pissed me off. Where the hell was she going? Did she know she was in danger? Flooring it, I raced after a bus I passed a few hours ago.

I didn’t even know the destination, but I would find her.

I checked three bus stops before I caught the scent of her. I made the change from man to wolf. I was in packlands now. I couldn’t remember the shifters of this territory, and they lived further up the mountain, but still, it was easier to deal with patrols in my wolf form.

I never met any, and I made a note of where I had been, because even though I was a drifter, there was always pack border patrol to talk around while you passed through. The fact that there wasn’t any here was noticeable.

After deciding to not go on to Whispering Pines, I stood in a wrecked motel room. The jeans I wore were too short, the shirt too big, and the boots fit but they were old and worn. I’d grabbed the jacket from the back of someone’s truck at a drive-thru. It had been hard to detect her scent over the smell of fast food, trash, and fumes, but I got a brief hint of her.

“You her boyfriend?” Turning my attention to the night receptionist who was looking at me with interest, I nodded once. “You know she was with two other guys, right?”

I’d scented Doc, but the shifter was fainter. Confirmation that Willow was traveling with two people made more sense.

“So, she cheating on you?”

Bending down, I grabbed the edge of the bed and lifted it, the frame creaking under the strain. With a quick jerk of my head, I motioned for her to look. “Anything under there?” I asked, my voice low but tense.

Her hesitation and look of wariness lasted but a moment before she crouched down, then with another look at me, she ducked her head to see if there was anything hidden.

“You see anything?” I asked, but she was stretching under the bed.

“Only this?” She straightened, holding a notebook in between her finger and thumb like it was diseased. “You interested in this?”

Snatching it off her, I flicked through it, recognizing the familiar pencil strokes, hesitating briefly when I saw how much I featured on the pages. Closing it, I shoved it in my back pocket.

“Thanks.”

“That it?” she asked indignantly.

“That’s it.” I walked out of the room, ignoring her muttered curses about being too lousy to tip. I walked around the back of the motel, and from the ground, I could tell that Willow and the shifter had come out the window.

Which meant they were being chased.

“Damn it.” I needed to get to her, fast, because time was slipping away. I would need to use both human and wolf forms to be most efficient. The wolf could cut across the mountains for speed, but I would also need to use the efficiency of human transport.

If Doc was with her, then they’d be heading to Blackridge Peak. The last place that I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be around Cannon or his pack, but I didn’t have much choice.

Looking at the Rockies, I decided to take a car as far as I could, and then the wolf would take me across the ridge. I needed another car. I wasn’t particularly proud of how easy I found it to steal. But picking pockets was one of the ways I’d gotten by for years when I needed money or transport.

I ended up with a hybrid that had a small engine, but it was clean, had a full tank of gas, and I’d heard the owner discussing going to the movie theater with a date, so they wouldn’t miss the car for hours .

Driving out of town, I once again felt a surge of resentment towards Cannon’s pack. Yet I couldn’t avoid him or his pack. Willow was heading there, and I knew I wasn’t the only one following her.

The thought sobered me. Who else would be tracking her? What did they want with her? Was it me? Were they out to get me and thinking they could use Willow to do it?

As I sat in a stolen car, heading to a pack I didn’t want to see, the irony that it was working wasn’t lost on me. But the thought that if I didn’t reach her first, that if they got to her before I did…

Pressing my foot down on the pedal, the little hybrid roared in response, echoing my frustration that I couldn’t let anything happen to her. I’d destroyed the cell phone when I left Cannon’s house that day, and I hadn’t replaced it. The only number in it had been Royce’s, and I no longer remembered it. I wanted to talk to one of them and find out if she was safe, but I also didn’t want to trust any of them.

I was still sure they were trying to trick me, but I knew in my bones that Willow being in danger wasn’t their fault.

It was mine.

Night fell quickly. The road was eerily quiet, the moon hardly a sliver in the sky. As the car ate up the miles, the feeling of urgency began to ride me harder. Tension settled within me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Something was really fucking wrong .

With frustration, I opened the windows, letting the night air saturate around me as I hoped to catch a trail of her scent. Blue and red lights shone in the distance, and I pushed the car even faster, slowing down as I approached but wanting to run into the thick of it.

Getting out of the car, I edged closer. No one noticed me as I slipped into the trees. The smell hit me before I saw anything.

Blood.

My breath caught in my throat, the coppery tang of spilled blood burning my nostrils, making my mouth dry. Up ahead of me, I saw police and EMTs looking downwards. I was already aware that something rested at the bottom of the slight valley.

My feet slowed when I caught a glimpse of the overturned truck that lay on its roof. All the windows were shattered, and two of the doors were missing completely. The smell of gasoline, burnt rubber, and blood was a lot for my senses, but it didn’t stop me from getting closer, my eyes narrowing as I searched the scene for any signs of her. I could feel my wolf close to the surface, and I tried to control my emotions, but the scent of blood was messing with my head.

Her blood.

So much blood.

Ignoring the humans, I got closer to the truck, taking in the blood-covered leather seats. Blood on the dashboard, on the roof of the truck, I took it all in. Seeing the torn seat belt, my anger surged.

There were so many scents. Doc, I could identify, his shifter blood coming through. Willow’s scent was everywhere, but not strong enough to indicate she was nearby. I tried to sift through the other scents, trying to distinguish between first responders and anyone other.

Stepping back, I saw her backpack, recognizing items of clothing strewn among the wreckage as hers.

But one thing was clear. She was gone.

Circling the truck, I looked for any other signs of her or who took her. I knew she wasn’t in an ambulance. The nearest hospital was behind us, and they would have passed me on the road.

My wolf grumbled in my chest, a low growl sounding from me, hinting at how restless and angry I was.

Had someone taken her? Did they have her? Searching the ground, I looked for tracks. Where the fuck was she?

Crouching down, I dipped my fingers into the blood as I struggled to keep the wolf contained. The blood was still wet, and my instincts were telling me she was alive.

But for how long?

Why would they take Willow? My fingers curled. The need to swipe my claws across this truck and release my frustration was building.

I saw her backpack again, and at the same time, a human saw me.

“Hey! You! Get away from there!”

Snatching her backpack, I ran to the trees, the dense forest hiding me from their sight, and I knew woods much better than any of my pursuers.

Still, I moved carefully, hoping to find a trace of Willow. My nostrils flared as I caught a faint hint of fresh blood. My head whipped in the opposite direction of where the wreck was. I was running towards it, barely taking a moment to consider if it was a trap.

The scent of another had me slow down and start to move with caution. Resting against a tree, I forced myself to quiet down and listen. Pushing past the sounds of the emergency services at the wreckage, I drilled into the sounds of what else I could hear.

Footsteps? Straining, I concentrated. Two sets and… there .

Willow.

I was running again. I had her scent now. It was faint, and I knew she was in trouble because I wasn’t the only shifter in the woods honing in on her.

He came at me from the side, catching me unawares. The force of his impact took both of us off our feet, and we hit the ground hard. I didn’t recognize him, but he was definitely a shifter. His punch to my gut winded me, but I didn’t have time for a fistfight. I caught his neck with my teeth, my fangs elongating, sinking deep right over his jugular, and I bit down. His blows fell across my body, but with a quick jerk of my head, I ripped his throat out. Blood poured over me, and I cursed as I pushed the lifeless body off me.

Wiping my face of the blood, I resumed my search for Willow.

She was on her hands and knees, her hair wild and bloody. She was swaying, and I guessed it was because she hadn’t consciously fallen. She was so out of it. From my position, I could see the glazed, vacant look. She was hurt and in danger of passing out.

But I couldn’t run to her because of the shifter who was across from me. We stared at each other, and a quick inhale told me it was only me, him, and Willow, who was currently in the middle of us.

Which one would get to her first?

We had the same thought as we both rushed forward at the same time. Only, he made the mistake of thinking she was my target.

She wasn’t.

He was.

So, when I jumped over her body, my body shifting to my wolf, claws and fangs ready, he wasn’t ready for the savagery of the attack.

The fight was over before it began, and I shifted back to human, turning to see she was lying on the ground, her eyes closed. Crouching down beside her, I placed my hand on her neck, checking for a pulse.

“Willow?” I whispered, my fear closing around me. “Willow, can you hear me?”

She didn’t move, didn’t stir. My heart lurched, my pulse throbbing with how fast my heart was beating. Hovering over her, I laid my head on her chest. Faint, so faint. She needed a hospital.

“Willow…” I tried again, but my voice sounded raw.

Nothing. No movement. No response.

I stripped the dead shifter of his pants, his boots, and the shirt he’d been wearing, and hurriedly dressed. I didn’t care what I looked like; I needed to get her to the EMTs. My eyes fell on the backpack across the other side of the underbrush, and I knew I couldn’t take it. I could only hope that there was nothing discriminating in it, and it was for that reason that I sprinted across to it, grabbed it, and stashed it as far as I could from sight.

Picking her up gently, I rushed back the way I’d come, encouraged when I saw the red and blue lights of the ambulance still there.

“Help!” I yelled. “She needs help!” Men surged into action, and when I ran up the embankment, there was a gurney waiting. They took her from me, my fingers digging into her soft skin before I relinquished my hold of her.

Questions were fired at me as they buzzed around her like bees. A mask was placed over her mouth, and somehow, not long after, I was in the back of an ambulance with her while being told I was lucky I wasn’t in worse shape.

They assumed the blood that covered me was hers and mine. I didn’t correct them. The scratches and cuts I had from the bushes where I put her backpack and the run back to the road served me well. I willed my body not to heal too quickly so I wouldn’t look even more suspicious. Not that it would work, but maybe there was a chance that Luna was listening to me.

“We’ll check you out at the hospital,” the male told me.

“Just focus on her.”

“We are.” He reached over and patted my knee, and I almost ripped his hand off for trying to console me when he should have been paying attention to her. “She needs blood and a lot of it.” He didn’t notice my anger as he returned his focus to Willow. “It’s a nasty cut on her forehead, but nothing seems broken. We’ll know more when we get her to a hospital.” He continued to check her when he looked up again. “You were the driver?”

“No. ”

“Her?” He looked confused, and I suddenly remembered Doc.

“Our friend, he was driving, did you find him?”

He shook his head, and using his phone, he told someone there was another body out there.

Body.

I remembered the two I had killed. I didn’t need them to find them. With sudden clarity, I remembered Royce’s number.

“I need your phone,” I told the medic. “Please.”

He thought about it, and then he handed it over. Quickly punching Royce’s number in, I waited for him to answer.

“Who is this?”

“Caleb.” I sensed his stillness. “They ran them off the road, not sure if it was intentional, think it was. She’s in an ambulance with me to the hospital, two behind, not sure where our driver is.”

The responder was pretending not to listen, but he kept shooting me worried glances as I gave a very emotionless, detail-less account. Like I had something to hide.

“You got it?” I asked as the silence stretched.

“We have an idea of your location,” Royce confirmed. “We’ll find him.”

I heard movement in the background and hung up. I took a moment to delete the call history, handing the phone back. It wouldn’t stop him from searching his phone record to know, if he wanted, but not many people were that invested.

“How much farther?” I asked, reaching out to take hold of her hand.

“Almost there.”

My finger traced her vein, feeling the throb of her pulse, not trusting the machine that they’d hooked her up to. Her pulse was faint. I clutched her hand tighter.

“This shouldn’t have happened to you,” I whispered hoarsely, my voice heavy with regret. I leaned forward, gently raising her hand to my lips, and pressed a soft kiss to her bruised knuckles. The kiss lingered for longer than it should have, but I couldn’t pull away. My hand trembled as I held hers, wanting to protect her, but I was too late.

Willow lay unmoving, but the machine told me she was alive, though her chest barely rose, her breathing shallow. The sight of her, lying like this, twisted inside of me, the ache of regret and guilt.

I’d failed her.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured against her skin. “I won’t let you die,” I told her.

Her fingers moved slightly, barely a movement, so subtle I could have imagined it, but I held her hand tighter. “That’s it, fight, Willow.” I looked at the EMT and he nodded. Had he seen it too?

“We’re here,” he announced.

I stayed out of the way as they unloaded her, and the surge of doctors and nurses swallowed her up, rushing her to the ER.

“I’ll fix this,” I promised the cold night. “I’ll make this right.”

It wasn’t an empty promise, because the thought of her suffering more than she had, because of me, was more than I could bear.

Whoever had attacked them, I’d find out.

Then…I would kill them all.