Chapter 54

“I can’t carry you both.”

The male’s voice was angry, and even when I opened my eyes I couldn’t quite figure out who it was. The small amount of light that had filtered through the window earlier had faded, so all I saw was a silhouette with some sort of complicated headgear confusing the man’s profile.

Firefighter, my wolf whispered. I blinked twice and, sure enough, the dark shape above me came into sharper focus. Helmet, breathing apparatus, heavy coveralls with reflective stripes encircling the arms and legs. Chances were good the fabric would be neon yellow in daylight.

But beneath all of the paraphernalia, the human looked strangely familiar. “Officer Lambert?” I croaked.

I wasn’t sure if the reaction came from me or my wolf, but our shared body abruptly cringed away from the intruder’s outstretched hand. Because wasn’t it strange how Lambert kept turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time? First he’d been Johnny-on-the-spot at the bomb threat, then he’d taken me into custody outside the high school, and now he was decked out in firefighter gear despite supposedly being an officer of the law.

Add in Lambert’s intense interest in my mother, and I was abruptly certain the witch hunter and the man in front of me were one and the same.

No. The voice in my head, my mate’s voice, was rougher and more frantic than usual. Through our bond, I could feel his proximity to the flames, the way his lungs burned as he took the stairs two at a time, rushing toward my location.

Flashes of memory caught me up to speed on past events in milliseconds. A rogue wolf somehow shoving the kitchen door open and evading the uber-alpha’s grasp long enough to dart down the hallway and into the living room. Hunter following in the beast’s footsteps even as he used the pack bond to monitor my reality and that of the other wolves he’d recently loosed on the sleeping neighborhood.

Outside, the majority of the uber-alpha’s clan hadn’t scattered as I’d initially assumed. Instead, they sniffed and circled and finally caught the scent trail of the witch hunter. Gasoline, smoke, anger, madness. The half-feral werewolves put their noses to the soil and followed, baying out their intent to stop the enemy in his tracks.

One block over, the wolves cornered a one-body who lingered to watch the plume of smoke rise into the dark sky. I gasped as the witch hunter’s face was illuminated by a streetlight in Hunter’s borrowed memory.

Middle-aged, round, pleasant. Chuck.

I barely remembered the one-body’s name, but I did remember seeing the human in Arborville’s cemetery on the day of my father’s funeral. Yes, he’d been nearby when I’d fled Celia’s presence then heard my relatives bay their grief into the suburban air. Chuck had been out walking his dog and he must have caught the shifters’ transformation from a distance, drawn his own conclusions about Celia’s supposed powers, and acted accordingly.

So this disaster, this string of intensely unfortunate events, was the fault of werewolf-kind...in an oddly roundabout manner. But I hadn’t been the one to lead the danger onto Celia’s doorstep after all. And the cop-turned-firefighter in front of me wasn’t the enemy.

If I’d been standing, the relief would have been enough to make me weak at the knees. Instead, I pulled most of my mind out from behind Hunter’s eyes and grimly forced my body to unfold so Lambert would only have one person to drag down the stairs.

“I can walk,” I told the policeman-turned-firefighter just as Hunter burst in the door. “If you can get my mother to safety, then your job here will be done.”

***

“I felt you fall.”

Hunter was a man of few words, but I could almost taste the shock and grief as his memory traveled down our shared bond. Back when I’d initially drifted away from reality, he’d immediately abandoned the final rogue to its own devices and had allowed the rest of his pack to do what they would to Chuck. Then he’d taken off after me before my head even hit the floor.

Now, the uber-alpha pulled me close with one arm around my waist, half supporting and half guiding as we coughed our way down the upstairs hallway. The floorboards were so hot beneath our feet that I thought the house’s fever might burn through our shoes and blister my skin, and I couldn’t help but imagine the associated joists charring as the fire in the dining room ate up the closest fuel and went looking for more. I wasn’t a fireman, yet I had a bad feeling that we possessed minutes, not hours, if we hoped to assist the final trapped shifters before my mother’s once beautiful home fell down around our ears.

But Celia herself was safe...or at least very close to the sought-after refuge offered by the great outdoors. Glancing backwards, I could barely make out the woman’s form draped across Officer Lambert’s shoulder as the volunteer firefighter trod at a snail’s pace down the stairs toward freedom.

I wanted to scream at him to go faster and I also wanted to be right there beside him, testing the safety of each board before he stepped. Instead of succumbing to either impulse, though, I reminded myself that my mother’s safety was now out of my hands. But maybe together Hunter and I can save the rest of my pack.

Twining my fingers around those of my mate, I thought my next words rather than speaking them. No reason to open my mouth and inhale yet another lungful of caustic smoke when my nose’s soot-filtration job was barely sufficient to make the air palatable.

Glen and Cinnamon are unconscious in the other bedroom, I told my mate. We have to try to get them out before we can leave.

Hunter’s wolf answered me instead of his human brain. There were no words in the reply, only a yearning to run shoulder to shoulder with me through sunlit meadows. An aching refusal to lose me to the flames. A tug at his feet and mine to trail down the stairs behind Officer Lambert right here, right now.

And, at the same time, Hunter broadcast a willingness to follow wherever I led. Yes, even into the heart of the flames that raged beneath our feet.

I accepted the wolf’s honesty with a wordless burst of mirrored emotion. Then I turned away from the beckoning freedom and pulled my mate into the room that Celia had created for the daughter she’d once wished me to become.

The domicile appeared dramatically different than it had during my previous visit. Then, the interior had been shrouded in near darkness. In contrast, flames now licked up the outside of the house and lit the room with an orange glow that would have been beautiful...if the increasing illumination hadn’t spelled death for me and three shifters who I loved.

The thought froze me in place like a scared rabbit, and I might never have moved again if an ominous cracking noise hadn’t filled the air. Abruptly, I was running toward the two still forms lying on the floor beside the bed, just where Ginger and I had dropped them. They didn’t appear to have moved in the minutes I’d been gone.

Frantic fingers felt for pulses. Found the heartbeats, thready but present. The pain in my throat, my eyes, my chest, vanished for a split second in the face of sheer relief.

We aren’t too late.

I gazed up into Hunter’s face from my position crouching on the floor. “I know they’re not your pack....” I said aloud, heat from the fire beginning to burn my cheeks.

Another, louder crack broke into my words, this one so deafening it made me twitch and lose my grasp on Cinnamon’s wrist. In my mind’s eye, I saw the floor fall away beneath us, all four living bodies tumbling down into the fire’s gaping maw. We’d burn alive....

I shook my head against the vision. Terror will get us nowhere.

Then Hunter was pulling me to my feet. I half expected him to throw my resisting body over one shoulder and drag me kicking and screaming away from the ever-increasing danger. But the uber-alpha didn’t even suggest we leave my friends in an effort to save our own hides. Instead, he sized up their forms before repeating Lambert’s earlier admission: “I can’t carry them both.”

Males. I would have rolled my eyes if the house hadn’t been falling down around our ears. Still, I allowed my exhausted brain to indulge in a little snark. How typical of Hunter to be annoyed when he butts up against the limits of human endurance and finds himself lacking in superpowers.

“Of course you can’t,” I answered aloud. “But if you put Cinnamon on my back, I can carry him out.” Despite Ginger’s hysterical babbling about the male twin’s dining habits, her brother was the skinnier of the two comatose shifters. Cinnamon was all long legs and lanky arms and he probably didn’t weigh much more than I did.

I resisted the momentary worry that I might not be able to handle the other shifter’s weight after all. Because if Hunter and I were the only rescuers currently available, then I’d jolly well rescue.

“You’re strong enough.”

My companion’s husky voice itself was a balm, and my nerves calmed yet further as I took in his vision of me through the mate bond. Yes, I was smaller and physically weaker than Hunter. But through his eyes I looked like an avenging warrior, turned into Joan of Arc with sword raised high.

The uber-alpha didn’t doubt for a moment that I’d somehow manage to drag Cinnamon’s unconscious body from the room, down the stairs, and out the door to safety. In fact, I appeared to be doing so in his dreamworld in high heels and with a perky sway to my hips that made his mouth water.

“We’re gonna have to talk about your lack of a grasp on reality at some point,” I bantered. But I also smiled—Hunter’s belief in my abilities made the impossible appear possible.

“Later,” Hunter agreed. Despite his curt words, his eyes sparkled even as they reflected the flames leaping for joy outside the window. And his simple touch when he brushed past me was exquisitely profound.