TWENTY-EIGHT
SNIP. SNIP.
Bryn’s mouth twisted
as she concentrated on the task at hand.
“Really, Cal, if you
wanted a haircut, you should have just asked. You’ve made a
complete mess of this.”
I watched strands of
my hair drift to the floor. It hadn’t been easy to get here. I’d
managed to disentangle myself from Shay’s arms and slip unnoticed
from his room, quietly making my way back to my own.
It wasn’t that I was
sorry for spending the night with him, but I didn’t know what the
morning would bring, and my head was already spinning with
everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours. I
needed some time alone before I’d be ready to talk to Shay about
last night in the garden. And his room.
The memory sent
flames licking through my belly and I shuddered.
“Calla, I swear I’m
not going to hurt you,” Bryn said through clenched teeth. “Can you
please hold still?”
“Sorry.”
Guilt had nipped at
my heels with each step as I’d searched for my packmates, finding
them at last exactly where I’d left them. My stomach rumbled as the
scent of freshly baked bread and citrus rolled over me. The dining
room was busy that morning, but not full to bursting as it had been
when I’d fled from the previous night’s assembly. Searchers moved
in and out of the room, some grabbing croissants and popping grapes
into their mouths as they went about their mornings, others
lingering over steaming cups of coffee at various
tables.
Nev, Bryn, Adne,
Connor, Silas, Tess, and Sabine—who appeared to have fully
recovered—were gathered at the same table where the Searchers had
shared coffee two days ago. Ethan and Mason were conspicuously
absent. I approached the table slowly. Someone else seemed to be
missing too. My chest burned when I realized I’d been looking for
Monroe.
I’d joined them at
their table, ready to make up an excuse for my absence and answer
all the questions they had about how I’d come to form an alliance
with the Searchers.
But my appearance
had stopped all conversation, leaving a heavy silence in its wake.
Adne had furrowed her brow before shrugging, turning her attention
back to her bowl of fresh fruit and cream. Silas kept tilting his
head back and forth as if trying to figure out what exactly was
different about me. Tess was kind enough to smile a greeting but
not say anything. A grin kept sliding on and off Nev’s mouth as
though he wanted to laugh, but knew better.
It had taken less
than five minutes of this for Bryn to stand up with a quick nod to
Sabine. Both girls shuttled me out of the dining room and up to my
bedroom. Bryn had been trying to amend the hack job I’d done on my
locks ever since.
Sabine clicked her
tongue, moving to stand in front of me so she could get a better
angle on Bryn’s work. “You’re cutting all wrong. It’s going to be
uneven.”
“Do you want to do
this?” Bryn snapped.
“Yes.” She grabbed
for the scissors.
“Wait a sec.” I
straightened in the chair and Bryn had to jerk the scissors away to
avoid impaling my neck. “Seriously, Sabine? You want to cut my
hair?”
I frowned at her,
not sure if I trusted her to give me a haircut that was
flattering.
“It would be my
pleasure, Calla. I always cut Cosette’s hair.” For a moment the
skin around her eyes tightened, but in the next instant she smiled
again.
“Oh, she had
adorable hair.” Bryn beamed. “You should let Sabine take over, Cal.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I can style like a pro, but this
cutting thing is out of my league.”
I swallowed but
nodded. If Sabine was going to be our ally, I had to let old
animosities fall away.
Bryn handed Sabine
the scissors with a relieved sigh.
There was the sound
of a throat clearing behind us. We all turned toward the
door.
“Uh, hey.” Shay
ruffled his hair, taking in the group of girls before him and
looking like he might bolt.
“Hi, Shay,” Bryn
said, not quite hiding her giggle as she glanced back and forth
between the two of us.
Sabine nodded at him
but quickly turned her attention back to my hair.
“What’s going on?”
He took a couple of steps into the room, still indecisive about how
safe it was to be there.
“We’re trying to fix
Calla’s hair. She just hacked it off.” Bryn curled a few strands
around her fingers. “What did you use, exactly?”
“Pruning shears.” I
was staring at the floor. I shouldn’t have left Shay this morning
without talking to him first. Now everything felt awkward and I
didn’t know how to fix it.
“No wonder it looks
so awful,” Sabine muttered.
“I think it looks
good,” Shay protested, inching toward us.
Sabine barked a
laugh. “You’d think she looked good if she had
leprosy.”
I blushed and Bryn
giggled.
Shay smiled
sheepishly, clearing his throat again. “Cal, I was hoping we could
talk.”
I bit my lip and
kept my eyes off his face. “Sure, but I’m a little busy right
now.”
“Yeah, yeah, of
course. Well, I’ll be in my room.”
“Okay.”
He shoved his hands
in his pockets, but at least he managed not to run from the
room.
Bryn began to laugh.
“I think we scared him.”
“It’s a tough room.”
Sabine didn’t look up from her deft maneuvering of the scissors.
“He’s probably a little thrown.”
I had to fight to
keep still in the chair. “Thrown by what?”
“Being our new
alpha. Ren’s out, he’s in. It’s a lot to swallow. He’s only been a
wolf a few weeks; he’s not used to it like the rest of
us.”
“What?!” Bryn and I
exclaimed in unison.
“Calla, you can’t
jerk around like that; I’ll either stab you or ruin your hair,”
Sabine said, unfazed.
I grabbed her wrist,
but she continued to gaze calmly at me.
“What are you
talking about, Sabine?” I said slowly.
The corners of her
mouth turned up slightly, as if she were the only one aware of a
hilarious, private joke. “You can’t be serious, Calla. Don’t you
know?”
I frowned and
glanced at Bryn, whose bewildered expression was giving way to one
of astonishment.
Sabine’s smile
broadened. “See, Bryn knows.”
Bryn nodded. “You’re
right—of course, you’re right. I can’t believe I didn’t realize . .
.”
She looked at me,
guilt painting her cheeks rosy. “I just always thought it would be
Ren.”
“But . . . how?” I
couldn’t believe I had to throw that pleading question at
Sabine.
“It’s simple,
really.” Sabine shook my now limp fingers off her wrist and began
shearing my locks once again. “We all know that alphas can’t be,
well, promoted for lack of a better word. Alphas are born. Shay’s
always been an alpha, but he wasn’t a wolf. When you made him one,
it put him in the running.”
Sabine was right.
Alphas couldn’t be promoted. That was part of the reason the
Keepers’ solution to their Guardian troubles in Vail would be such
a mess. But I couldn’t make the connection to Shay’s role in all of
this.
Bryn smacked her
palm against her forehead. “I’m an idiot.”
“Well, I must be
too,” I snapped. “Because I’m still not following.”
“You’re not
following because you are an alpha, Cal.” She offered me a
sympathetic smile. “Shay’s always felt like an equal to you, right?
He talks to you on your level, has never backed down if you
challenged him?”
I chewed on my lower
lip. “I guess I thought that was just a human thing. That he didn’t
know any better because he wasn’t one of us.”
“Nope,” Sabine said.
“It’s an alpha thing.”
Bryn threaded her
fingers through mine. “Ren always saw Shay as a competitor. Even he
must have known.”
“And he was right,”
Sabine said, pulling strands of my hair between her fingers to
measure their length. “You chose Shay.”
“What?” This time
the scissors did scratch my neck. “Ow!”
“Don’t jerk like
that.” Sabine tilted my head. “No blood. I’m still
cutting.”
“I didn’t choose
Shay,” I said, fingering the tender skin. “I was saving his
life.”
“I didn’t mean the
sacrifice,” Sabine said. “I meant last night.”
I managed not to
skewer myself on the scissors, but I gripped the edges of the
chair.
“Last night?” My
whisper came out hoarse.
“Sabine.” Bryn
kicked her shin. “Don’t.”
“I’m not judging,”
Sabine said. “She’s within her rights. Shay’s an alpha. That means
he’s a contender. Plus I’ve seen his shoulders. I’d let Shay take
me for a ride if he offered.”
“Sabine!” Bryn
shrieked, staring at me in horror.
But I was too
shocked to be angry.
“How do you—” My
cheeks were on fire.
“You smell like
him.” Sabine smirked. “That’s the other thing. He smells good,
doesn’t he? What does he taste like?”
Bryn turned her
back, but I was pretty sure it was to hide her grin because I could
hear her laughing. “Stop, Sabine. Just stop.”
“I took a shower!” I
wanted to curl up into a ball and die.
Sabine chuckled. “It
doesn’t matter.”
I cast a sidelong
glance at Bryn. She was doing her best to twist her lips out of a
silly smile.
“It’s not like you
smell bad, Cal,” she said, trying to make me feel better. “And
Sabine is right. Shay has a nice smell. You know, like a
garden.”
“Oh my God.” I
dropped my face into my hands.
“Well, I’m not going
to be able to do anything with your hair if you stay like that,”
Sabine said, giggling.
“Fine.” Squaring my
shoulders, I sat up and took a deep breath. “Just finish it. And no
more talking about last night.”
“Really?”
I bared my teeth at
how disappointed Bryn sounded.
“Calla, I’m trying
to tell you, you probably did the right thing.” Sabine moved to
shape the layers near my face. “Ren made a mistake. If he wanted
you so much, he should have come here. He should have been here to
fight for you.”
I stared at my
hands, embarrassed by the hot stinging in my eyes.
“Calla.” Glancing
up, I met Sabine’s gaze in the mirror. “Don’t blame yourself for
Ren. We all know you cared about him. He made his choice. We all
made our choices.”
I stared at her and
then at my own reflection. Pale blond hair framed my face in soft
layers that tapered from my cheekbones, falling just short of my
shoulders. My lip quivered.
“You made me look
beautiful.”
“I didn’t do much.”
Sabine set the scissors aside and brushed stray hairs from my
shoulders. “That’s just who you are.”
I opened my mouth,
but words didn’t emerge, only a choked sob.
“God, don’t blubber,
Calla. You’re supposed to be an alpha,” Sabine grumbled. But then
she squeezed my shoulder and quietly left the room, letting Bryn
wrap her arms around me while I continued to cry.
Bryn left my side,
coming back with a tissue.
“So when did Sabine
get a personality transplant?” I said. “I could have sworn she was
just nice. Kind of.”
“She is nice.” Bryn
smiled sadly. “When you’re locked in a cell with someone for
several days, you learn a lot about them. Sabine wasn’t ever the
bitch we thought she was. She was just angry. Really angry. The
things she had to . . .”
She shuddered. “She
has a lot to be angry about.”
Bryn was right. Of
all the young Guardians, Sabine’s life had been the worst, but
somehow I was the one crying. I blew my nose, then looked at her,
still sniffling. “You must think I’m pathetic.”
“Hardly,” Bryn said.
“We’ve all been through a lot. And if it had been me, I would have
done the same thing.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“But I don’t know how you can say that. You don’t know what
happened.”
“Connor filled us
in,” she said. “And Silas kept interrupting, trying to explain the
history of all of it. He’s really weird, huh?”
“Yeah, he is,” I
said. “What did Connor tell you?”
“Well, I guess he
couldn’t tell us how you felt,” she said. “But it’s easy enough to
imagine. He told us who Shay is and why he’s so
important.”
“Did he tell you
about the alliance?” I asked, already nervous that any alliance
between Guardians and Searchers was off the table.
She nodded. “It
sounds like they can teach us some pretty amazing
things.”
“Like what?” This
was new. I tossed the crumpled tissue into the trash
bin.
“Combat, magic. Our
real history.” She crossed the room, shaking her head. “It’s still
hard to believe. All the lies.”
“I
know.”
“For all their
magic, I wish the Searchers could do something for Ansel.” She was
at the window, staring at the rolling surface of the ocean, now a
gleaming turquoise under the bright morning sun.
“So do
I.”
“They’re treating
him well,” she said, running her fingertips over the gauzy drapes.
“He’s not in a cell. It’s just a small bedroom.”
“You visited him?”
Guilt bit into me much harder now. Why hadn’t I visited him
yet?
“Mason and I have
been staying with him in shifts,” she said. When she turned around,
it was like a shadow passed over her face. “But he won’t talk to me
even when I’m there. Mason said it’s the same for
him.”
“He
won’t?”
She shook her
head.
“Maybe he just needs
time,” I offered, though my stomach was twisting itself into a
knot.
“Maybe.” She
shivered. “Calla, I’m afraid we’re going to lose him.”
“I swear I won’t let
the Searchers hurt him,” I said, a growl edging out with the
words.
“No.” She rubbed her
arms. “It’s not them I’m worried about.”
The painful twisting
in my belly wasn’t a knot anymore. It was a knife.
“I barely recognize
him,” she whispered. “He’s drawn so far inside himself. I don’t
think he wants to live. He’s been scratching his arms so much that
they bleed.”
“We’ll help him.” I
worked past the lump in my throat. “We’ll help him get
better.”
She nodded, brushing
tears from her cheeks.
“Wanna go see him
now?” she asked. “It’s time for me to switch with Mason anyway. He
gets grumpy if he doesn’t eat like every two hours.”
“I think that’s true
of every teenage guy.” I smiled, taking her hand. “Let’s go see
Ansel.”
“So are you really
not going to tell me anything about last night?” A wicked smiled
flashed across her mouth.
“No.” But I smiled
too. My world had been spinning out of control. Having Bryn around
made everything better.
We’d only made it a
few steps out of the room before Bryn stopped, turning to face
me.
“What’s wrong?” I
asked.
“Nothing,” she said,
taking my other hand in hers, squeezing my fingers tight. “It’s
just . . . Sabine’s right.”
“About what?” I
tried to puzzle out the expression on Bryn’s face; she didn’t look
upset, just curious.
“About Shay,” she
said. “He’s our new alpha, and he needs to be part of the
pack.”
“Oh.” I shifted my
weight, uneasy. While I wasn’t against the thought of Shay as my
alpha mate, I was still getting used to the idea.
“You should go get
him,” she said. “Come together—the alpha pair. It will show Ansel
that things are changing. That he . . . that we have a
future.”
I nodded. Would that
help Ansel, knowing that the world that had hurt him so much was no
longer the one that ruled us? He’d always believed that love came
first. Maybe seeing Shay and me together, by choice, would bring
him around.
“Okay.” I nodded,
drawing my fingers from hers. “I’ll go find him.”
“Great!” She threw
her arms around me. I leaned into her, resting my cheek against her
springy ringlets, remembering how much Bryn’s scent reflected her
personality—sweet and spicy like a mix of toffee and cinnamon. The
kind of smell that made you feel at home anywhere.
She bounced down the
hall and I went to Shay’s room. I knocked on the door. No
answer.
I knocked again.
Maybe he’d fallen asleep.
“He’s not in
there.”
I turned around to
see Adne approaching.
“What do you
mean?”
“Anika has him
locked up with the Guides in Haldis tactical,” she said, jerking
her head in the direction of the meeting room. “They’re
strategizing the Tordis pickup.”
“Why didn’t they
tell me?” I frowned.
“That’s part of the
discussion,” she said. “With your brother’s questionable status,
some of the teams have expressed concern about bringing Guardians
along for the retrieval.”
I didn’t know
whether to be shocked, outraged, or both. “They’re planning the
mission without us?”
“They’re weighing
their options,” she said, smiling briefly. “But that’s a good thing
for us.”
“What do you mean
for us?” I asked, wary of the sudden flash of her
eyes.
“I need your help on
another mission,” she said, fingering the skeans at her waist.
“Under the table.”
“What mission?” The
hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
Adne’s mouth cut
into a hard line. “We’re going to get my brother.”