The tang of blood met Bishop’s nose, and he followed it to Rook’s right hand. Bleeding from several puncture wounds. Hell.
“He bit you?”
Rook nodded, his gaze never moving from Knight. “I reached out to him.”
This was so many levels of bad Bishop couldn’t count them. Knight’s beast had taken over, or he never would have attacked Rook. He’d lost himself to a forced shift. “Knight? Please, brother, if you can hear me, shake your head.”
Knight showed his teeth.
Dealing with a beast gone mad through a forced shift usually meant a fight, sometimes bloodshed. Bishop didn’t want to hurt Knight, but he couldn’t let Knight run off and hurt anyone else. “Rook, call Agnes and Shay. Get them both up here.”
“Shay?”
“Trust me.”
Agnes could help temper some of Knight’s agitation, but if anyone could reach Knight, it was Shay. They had a friendship and a bond that Bishop didn’t understand. The why didn’t matter as long as it saved Knight’s sanity. Rook moved back to make the calls. Bishop shooed Devlin a few paces away, giving Knight a little breathing room.
“We’re going to create a single run with Springwell,” Bishop said. He needed to keep Knight as calm as possible until the two women made it. Might as well talk about important things, make Knight feel included. Try to get through to him. “I’ve petitioned for Alpha. We’ll be building new homes for the new residents. Possibly over here, since the Chesterfields don’t use the barn or the land.”
Knight growled at him like the news pissed him off.
“I think this will work out. No, I know it will, but in order for me to be a successful Alpha, I need you by my side. Not only as my White Wolf, but as my brother. You’re the heart of this family, Knight. Rook and I need you.”
Knight pawed the ground, his eyes occasionally rolling toward Rook, probably drawn by the scent of blood. Rook was still using his phone, conferring with Jillian and texting now so Knight’s sensitive beast ears didn’t overhear and guess what they were up to. If Bishop and Shay couldn’t talk him down, they’d need to sedate him.
Bishop tried a new tactic. He bent down on one knee, putting himself at eye level with the White beast, hoping to take some of the challenge out of his stance. Devlin moved closer, ready to defend him if the need arose. Bishop appreciated the instinct, but he wanted to believe that Knight wouldn’t attack him. He needed to believe that his brother wasn’t gone.
“I know you think the beast is protecting you, that it’s easier this way. Maybe it feels that way now, but you’re stronger than this. Giving in now means Fiona wins.”
The furious roar Knight released told Bishop that mentioning Fiona was a very bad idea. Knight lunged. Devlin knocked him back with a gentle woof, helping without hurting his best friend. Knight twisted and snapped his teeth around Devlin’s left hind leg. Devlin yelped, then slammed his weight sideways. The pair rolled, a blur of black and white fur, and Bishop watched, helpless to stop the fight. Horrified to see it happening at all.
Bishop stood and retreated, the instinct to drop and shift prickling his skin.
Snarls and squeals tainted the silence of the forest. The two beasts reared, teeth snapping at the thick fur around their throats, front paws digging at shoulders and flanks, seeking a hold. Devlin’s leg was bleeding heavily, smearing the dirt and leaves beneath them. Devlin was fighting to protect his Alpha. Knight was fighting to survive.
“Devlin, retreat,” Bishop said. He put as much strength into his voice as he could, booming through the clearing.
Devlin shoved Knight hard, then twisted away and limped off a few yards. Knight snapped his teeth, daring another fight. Red dotted his snow-white coat and his muzzle, and he turned furious copper eyes back onto Bishop. Then he froze, ears laying back.
Bishop heard the approach. Inhaled. Shay and Agnes.
“Oh Knight,” Shay said. She came to stand next to Bishop, shoulders back, spine straight. Calm rolled over him, a gentle gift from Agnes as she tried to control the situation.
Movement in the woods around them caught Bishop’s attention, as well. Other enforcers closing in, preventing escape.
“You’re better than this. So much better.” Shay took a single step forward, putting herself in front of Bishop. Knight didn’t move. “I may share blood with the hybrids, but they are not my family. I relish the idea of their bodies strewn to pieces on the forest floor, by my hand or another, I don’t care which. You want that, too. To see them suffering, dying for all the pain that they’ve caused.”
Knight’s ears came up, but his body remained stiff, ready for attack.
“When I dream of their deaths, you’re with me, as you’ve been with me since I came here. My old life died with my run back in Stonehill, and I awoke to a new one here in Cornerstone. I don’t know this new life without your friendship. Don’t lose yourself, Knight, the way I almost lost myself.”
Shay knelt in the dirt, one hand slowly reaching forward, palm up. “Trust me.”
Bishop tensed, wary of the lack of recognition in Knight’s eyes. Horrified that they may have already lost him. Bishop touched Shay’s shoulder, a gentle warning. Knight’s eyes lit with fury, and he launched. His target was Bishop, but Shay dropped her shoulder and slammed into Knight’s unprotected chest. They toppled sideways. Someone shouted.
Knight righted himself quickly, standing on all fours with Shay awkwardly sprawled beneath him. He didn’t attack her, simply snarled at everyone else around them. Protecting her. He snapped at Bishop, lips curled back, nothing of his brother in his eyes. The eyes were of a feral beast protecting what he thought was his.
“Knight, please stop.” Shay sounded angry, rather than scared. “He’s your brother. He won’t hurt either of us.”
If Knight heard anything, he gave no sign. The beast had beaten back the man, and only an animalistic instinct remained. Talking him down wasn’t happening. Bishop hazarded a glance at Rook, who nodded. Then sent a text.
“I’m sorry,” Bishop said.
The faint buzz of displaced air preceded a red-feathered dart the size of a shotgun shell thunking into Knight’s flank. He howled and twisted, trying to bite the offending object. A second buried itself in his neck. Phantom pain lanced through Bishop’s chest as he watched the White beast stumble and succumb to the drugs. Knight whined once, a terrible sound of betrayal, before collapsing into the blood-smeared dirt.
Bishop went to his knees next to his brother’s head. He stroked the soft, thick fur between his ears, hating everything about this. That Knight had been in so much emotional pain he’d lost control. That he’d been too far gone to bring back. That Knight had injured two people he cared about.
Rook knelt beside him, his fear and anger palpable. “I had Jonas in the trees with the tranquilizing gun. Back up.”
“Good thing.”
Shay appeared on Knight’s other side, her eyes glistening. “I’m sorry I couldn’t reach him. I truly thought I could.”
“In a way you did. He was protecting you from us. You knew he cared about you.”
“But not the rest of you.”
“We were challenging him, even without realizing it,” Rook said. “He didn’t recognize us beyond being a threat.”
“Will he be all right?”
Bishop smoothed his palm across Knight’s muzzle. “I don’t know. We’ll do everything we can to get him back, but I just . . . I don’t know.” And there were fewer things in the world that he hated more than not knowing.
Devlin limped over and nosed Knight’s neck. He whined.
Bishop leaned back to get a better look at Devlin’s leg. Still bleeding, a little ragged. “Dev, head back to town so Dr. Mike can look at that leg.”
He hesitated, probably not wanting to leave them behind, then did as ordered.
“We need to get Knight into the quarterly cage,” Bishop said. “The ketamine will keep him under for a little while, but he’ll be pissed when he wakes up.”
“I’ll go bring a truck around,” Jillian said. “Meet me outside the woods, at the bottom of the path.” She took off without waiting for an answer.
Jonas joined their group with a rifle slung over one shoulder. He didn’t ask for an explanation. Instead, he silently helped Shay and Jillian with the burden of carrying Knight’s beast form down the wooded path. Bishop hated not being able to do more to help, but his right arm was still mending, and he’d likely re-break it under Knight’s weight. Jillian was waiting with the truck, as promised, and they loaded Knight up. Bishop rode in the truck bed with Jonas and the rifle—just in case—with the others up front.
“I’m not gonna ask why he went off like this,” Jonas said once the truck rumbled off toward home. “But do you think he’s gonna come back from it?”
Bishop registered genuine concern in Jonas’s voice, and he looked up. Met the Black Wolf’s intent gaze. The Jonas he’d known these last few weeks wasn’t the same surly, snappy young man who’d walked into Cornerstone with an ax to grind. He’d truly stepped up for the good of his small band of half-breeds and humans. He wanted to be a part of the run and to make up for his traitorous father’s actions.
“I honestly don’t know,” Bishop said. “I hope so.” He’d already lost his father today. He’d fight tooth and claw to keep both of his brothers safe.
Jillian sat up most of the night listening to Bishop pace in the bedroom across the hall from hers. Occasionally his bedsprings would creak, followed not long after by more pacing. It went long into the morning, after the rest of the house settled—even their guest in the basement.
Knight hadn’t stayed unconscious for long, his beast burning off the sedative much faster than the man would. He’d knocked over the bowl of water they’d installed, alternatively throwing himself at the bars, gnawing on them, and lunging at the people standing outside of the prison he couldn’t escape from. The sight had hurt her soul, but not as much as the sight of Bishop and Rook standing together so helplessly. That had broken her heart.
After a while the beast had worn himself out. More water was brought, as well as several medium-rare steaks. No one knew when he’d eaten last. He hadn’t touched the sandwiches Rook said he’d brought upstairs hours earlier. A combination of hunger and emotional overload had caused this. Few loup garou came back from a forced shift the same person they’d been before.
Jillian stared at her bedroom ceiling, the wood slats shadowed by scant moonlight, haunted by her memories. When she was ten years old, a woman named Rosa James had watched both her husband and her five-year-old son die of pneumonia—one of the only human illnesses deadly to loup. She’d taken it badly, refused to eat, and in her grief she’d force-shifted. No one could talk her down, and it taken four enforcers to stop her. Mason’s father had nearly died from his wounds that day.
Joseph Reynolds had carefully explained to his daughter that Rosa was no longer Rosa. She was a shell and a danger, and for the good of the run, she had to be put down. Jillian hadn’t understood “put down” until her father snapped the neck of the wounded, defeated Rosa.
Knight couldn’t be kept locked up indefinitely, and the longer the shift lasted, the less likely it became that he would emerge anything close to the man he was before. Jillian couldn’t help but wonder if that might be a blessing.
A blessing for Knight, perhaps, but not his brothers. She’d observed Bishop throughout the evening, and while the other loup likely saw a stoic man striving to emulate his powerful, well-respected father and keep the run together, she saw a son and a brother on the edge of a very dangerous line. The line between losing it and keeping it together. A line he could not cross in public.
She grieved her own father, and she grieved the three hundred and forty-one loup who’d died in Springwell. She grieved for Bishop’s father. Her beast paced in her mind, needing to be set free. Needing a release from the pain and emotion, even if for only a little while. She needed to run, and she wasn’t the only one.
A little after three, Jillian gave up on sleep. She crossed the hall in her t-shirt and sleeping shorts and knocked on Bishop’s door. He yanked it open on the fragrance of damp leaves and pine, eyes red but his cheeks dry. He was exhausted, at the end of his fraying rope, and he came to life in front of her. Straightening up. Smoothing out his expression. Her beast whined with delight at his proximity.
“Can’t sleep, either?” he asked.
“Not a wink.”
“Worrying?”
“Not about the hybrids.” She slipped around him so he could close the door. Other people were sleeping on that floor, and their conversation didn’t need to happen in the hall.
Bishop kept a respectful distance, even though his eyes seemed to be undressing her. “Your people?”
“You. I’m worried about you, Bishop. And don’t say you’re fine, because I’ll have to call you a liar, and then we’ll go round and round, and that’s not fun for anyone.”
His lips twitched. “I’m not fine. I don’t know what I am right now, to be honest, but I’m not fine. Neither are you.”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to stay over here and not touch you?”
Jillian craved all of the comfort that a night in his bed would offer, but she feared the regrets that came with morning’s light. “I have an idea of it, yes. I thought perhaps a run would tire me out.”
“Are you looking for a jogging partner?”
“Not that kind of run.”
Bishop’s eyebrows knitted. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“For no more than an hour through heavily patrolled woods? Yes. I need to run, Bishop. Sitting around here is making me crazy, and it’s affecting my beast. She needs to run, too.”
“I couldn’t run like that if I wanted to.” He lifted his bandaged right arm. “Dr. Mike wants me to wait until morning to shift again. Give the bones time to mend a bit.”
“Of course.”
Bishop wandered to his bedroom window, moonlight cutting odd patterns on his skin. Reflecting in the copper flecks in his eyes. “I’m so angry tonight.”
“Because of Knight?”
“Knight, our father, Springwell, all of it. I’ve never felt this kind of blanketing rage before, and I don’t have anyone to direct it at right now. Part of me is glad I shouldn’t shift. I’m afraid if I give my beast control, he won’t give it back.”
“You aren’t Knight. You won’t allow your beast to control you, because you have too many responsibilities to this run. You’re strong, Bishop, and you will not lose it. You need release as much as I do.”
His nostrils flared, and she caught the error of her wording. Her belly tightened with arousal, and the look he leveled at her stirred her beast’s response. Her need to be with the man she’d chosen, ten-day window be damned. They existed in that moment, allowing it to stretch between them, a tangible thing tethering her to him. She didn’t love him, but she wanted him, and if Bishop made a move toward her—
He stepped sideways, toward his dresser. The tension snapped. He withdrew a handgun from the top dresser drawer, checked the safety, then snapped the holster onto the belt of his jeans. “If you’re going to run, I’ll go with you. Just don’t get too far ahead of me, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
She stripped and shifted behind the backyard shed, relishing the pain as her body morphed into something new. Something dangerous that wanted to engulf her entire being and take over. But Jillian wouldn’t allow her beast that kind of control. Not ever. She shook out, testing new limbs. Her face and chest ached a bit from old wounds that would be nearly healed when she went back to skin.
Bishop waited for her on the patio. She loped to him, wishing he was also in beast form so they could run together. He needed the stress relief as much as she did. She nosed his hand. He stroked the top of her head, along the peak of both ears, down beneath her chin. Touches that, in skin, would seem odd. As beast, it felt wonderful. A gentle tenderness she craved.
They walked down mostly quiet streets to the edge of the south woods, Jillian restraining the urge to race off for as long as possible. Her body thrummed with energy and emotional turmoil, and just when she didn’t think she could wait a moment longer, Bishop said, “Race you.”
She took off, leaping over a fallen log, not taking the challenge remotely seriously. Even without his healing arm, he was no match for her speed as beast. She raced up to a tree a good dozen yards away, looped around, and ran back to Bishop. Teasing him. She looped the tree one more time before he made it there.
“Show off.”
She yipped, then re-created the game with another tree to the east. Her path kept them on the border of the woods, close to town but deep enough to give the illusion of being alone. Her body burned with excitement and release, exhausting herself with the constant exertion. Maybe after this she’d finally manage a bit of sleep.
Familiar scents tinged the air. Above the heavy odors of pine, earth, and dampness were other loup. Enforcers out patrolling, keeping the town as safe as possible from another attack. They’d underestimated the hybrids’ resources and Springwell was destroyed. No more.
As her path took them too close to the north side of town and the place where they’d found Knight this evening, Jillian circled back to the south. Bishop’s pace had slowed considerably, and he was panting. She trotted along by his side for a while, until his jog became a walk.
“I’m going to sit for a minute.” He found a spot on the forest floor, his back against a tall oak tree. “Run, I’ll be fine.”
She took the opportunity to bolt, a long, hard tear through the woods that had her heart racing and blood pulsing. The kind of run she’d wanted all night. She doubled back several times, never going too far from Bishop’s location, until she was panting for air and exhausted. She slowed to a trot, allowing her body to cool down as she retraced her path to Bishop.
He sat hunched over, forehead resting on his bent knees, hands threaded in his short hair. Shaking. She marched over to him and nosed the side of his neck. Nudged her face right in between his face and his arm, giving him no quarter to turn away or ignore her. He raised his head, his eyes red-veined but dry. Simmering with so many emotions.
“I can’t cry for them.” He sank his fingers into the thick fur on the sides of her face. “Not all day. I can’t even mourn my own father.”
She had no words to give him, nothing to comfort him, not even if she’d been capable of talking. Bishop would find a way to grieve these losses in his own time, and she’d be there for him when he did. She licked his face, hoping he understood the silent promise. He wrapped strong arms around her and pressed his cheek against her neck. She rested her chin on his shoulder, wishing for real arms but satisfied with this.
Jillian had no tears left to cry, and Bishop had too many waiting for release. Opposite ends of a scale that somehow balanced each other. She’d fight for this man with her dying breath. And even though he hadn’t said the words, she knew he’d do the same for her.
***
A gentle yip startled Bishop awake, and he sat up on high alert, disoriented and sore. So did Jillian, whose beast had been curled around him, a warm blanket. They’d fallen asleep in the woods—for several hours judging by the faint lightening of the sky. He blinked at the Black beast watching them from a safe distance. Jonas.
“Thanks for the alarm clock.”
Jonas tilted his head, then loped off into the underbrush.
Jillian stood and shook herself out, somehow managing a perfect look of exasperation. Falling asleep had been idiotic and dangerous. Neither of them had wanted her to stay shifted for so long.
“Come on, let’s get back before we’re missed.”
The walk home seemed to take forever. They went through the backyard, the sun peeking over the horizon when he left Jillian behind the shed to shift and dress. Rook burst out the patio doors, fury a living thing around him.
“Where the hell were you for hours?” He didn’t shout but the question still seemed loud in the quiet morning.
“Mistake. Jillian and I couldn’t sleep, so we went running. We fell asleep.”
Rook’s eyebrows went up. “Running, huh?”
“Yes. Running.”
“You have no idea how much I want to hit you right now, you asshole. What the actual hell?”
“It was a mistake.”
Rook did slug him then—in the shoulder, hard enough to hurt. “You were gone, Bishop, and you weren’t answering your phone. You were
gone
.”
Shame socked Bishop in the chest. Rook had already lost his father and his other brother. Disappearing had been a cruel thing to do to him. “I’m sorry.”
“You can’t do that again. You’re our Alpha now.”
“I know. It was stupid.”
Jillian’s scent gave away her proximity before her footsteps could. “We’re both to blame, Rook.” The cuts on her face were gone. “You have my apologies as well.”
“You’re lucky no one from town caught you two,” Rook said.
“I was out in my beast form. It was innocent.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not exactly the bastion of run policies, but there are rules of behavior in regards to the Alpha female, you know that. Until you two are married, you can’t do anything that might seem . . .” Rook floundered for something, and it might have been funny if the situation wasn’t so tense.
“Inappropriate?” Bishop offered.
“Yeah, that. You’re Gray, and you have to get through ten more days before this run is yours. Don’t give anyone ammunition to use against you.”
“It was a run. We’re not sleeping together.” One time, days ago, did not count in the context of being inappropriate in the present.
“Not that it’s your business,” Jillian said to Rook with ice in her tone. “I’m a widow, not some blushing virgin bride waiting for her husband to take her in marriage.”
Rook scowled. “I wasn’t implying—”
“Leave it, all right?” Bishop said. “This isn’t a discussion we’re having. The run was stress relief, and falling asleep out there was the epitome of stupid behavior. I’m not infallible, Rook.”
Dark emotions fluttered across Rook’s face. “Right now you have to be. Any ambitious Black Wolf gets it in his head that you’re vulnerable and we’ll be up to our ears in challenges. And you know me. If I see you going down in a fight, I won’t be able to stop myself from getting in there and taking the bastard out. Then I’ll probably be executed for interfering just to set an example, and then Brynn will look for a way to stop it and get herself into trouble, and you know.” He made a spinning motion with his finger. “It snowballs.”
“I get your point.”
“Good. Now go take a shower. You smell like mud.”
Bishop cuffed him on the shoulder as he passed, ignoring the wonderful scent of frying bacon wafting from the kitchen, intent on the stairs. He did stink from a mix of sweat and sleeping in the dirt. A shower sounded like a good way to clear his head. He had a memorial speech to figure out before ten.
***
Bishop managed to get through a shower and a plate of pancakes and bacon before his cell rang. He was alone on the back patio with a legal pad and pen, and too many scribbled-out sentences to count. Honoring his father was his duty, but the words weren’t coming. The phone call was almost a welcome relief.
“Mr. Weatherly.”
“Bishop, how are you holding up, son?” Carl Weatherly asked.
“As well as can be expected, sir. We have a plan in place to protect our borders. We’re also looking at locations for new housing to be built for our new residents.”