He wondered how she could possibly know it was him. Perhaps it was because they were soul mates. Because he doubted his furry face resembled anything like his human one. But ultimately,he didn’t care how she knew it was him. She did and that was all that mattered.
Trevor closed the last few inches separating them, then pressed his broad forehead against her stomach, letting out a soft chuffing sound. Jenna’s fingers sank deeper into the fur to either side of his neck before sliding up and down his ears. This kind of contact in his wolf form was a first for him, but truthfully, it was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt.
He let himself sink into the sensation, exhaling out all the tension that had been locked in his body for the past few hours. If he could, he’d stay locked in this moment forever.
But soon enough, Jenna took a step back, telling him that they needed to get back and check on Hale, Mike, Maya, and Owen. “We need to make sure they’re okay. Then you have to fill me in on what happened with Connor and Hannah and everyone else.”
Trevor chuffed again, less than pleased when her hands stopped caressing his ears. But he knew Jenna was right. Everyone else could still be fighting for their lives while he and Jenna stood here having a moment. Looking around, he realized that the two ghouls had disappeared somewhere while he’d been standing there with Jenna. He only hoped that letting the creatures go didn’t turn out to be a mistake.
Knowing that staying in his wolf form wouldmake any future communication impossible, Trevor decided to go ahead and shift back now, before they headed off to check on everyone. Dropping to his belly, he started the shift, hoping he didn’t freak Jenna out too badly.
To his relief, she didn’t seem bothered at all, even when his bones cracked as they reformed. She simply stood there watching with an interested expression on her face. Something told him that knowing her, Jenna was memorizing the scene so she could sculpt him in wolf form later.
As soon as he completed the transformation and stood, Trevor immediately found himself wrapped up in Jenna’s warm embrace, her arms around his neck and her face pressed against his bare chest. He wrapped his own arms around her, holding her close.
“While I do love your big furry wolf self,” Jenna murmured softly, “I have to admit to enjoying the feel of having your arms wrapped around me. By the way, it goes without saying, but thanks for coming to rescue me.”
“Always,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You ready to see what’s going on with the rest of the team?”
Jenna pulled back, looking him up and down with a smile. “Definitely. But before we head back, maybe we can find you something to wear? You’re naked.”
CHAPTER 24
“So that’s it?” Jenna asked as she led Trevor, Hannah, and Connor into her apartment a few hours later. “The patriarch of the ghoul clan is dead, and now they’re simply going to give up kidnapping and eating people?”
No one answered as they headed straight for her kitchen, yanking the fridge and cabinets open, taking out food and stacking it on the counter. Jenna left them to it, flopping in exhaustion on the couch, too tired to care about the mess she was probably making with her filthy clothes.
Trevor walked into the living room a little while later with two glasses of almond milk in one hand and two plates of food balanced in the other. He handed one of the glasses and a plate to Jenna, then sat down beside her. She glanced at the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he’d made for her, smiling when she saw a stack of five PB&Js on his plate.
Connor and Hannah came out of the kitchen a few seconds later with their own plates of sandwiches. Her brother also had a bag of Doritos and a package of cookies to go with his half dozen PB&Js while her sister was carrying a big bag of peanut M&M’s. With all the food, Jenna almost wonderedif Hale and Mike, as well as Madeleine and the peeps from HOPD, had changed their minds and decided to join them but knew they hadn’t. Everyone had figured that this was going to be a family discussion and had decided to give them some privacy.
Jenna supposed she was going to have to get used to how much werewolves ate considering she was dating one and related to another. Surprisingly, Hannah ate almost as much as Trevor and Connor, devouring two sandwiches, half a dozen cookies, and a few handfuls of candy.
“To answer your earlier question,” Hannah said, reaching for another cookie. “When a patriarch of the clan dies, the members of the clan’s ruling class come together to elect a new one. Normally, this would be a completely meaningless exercise since the ruling class is composed of all the old farts who all think totally alike. It doesn’t matter who wins because they all behave the same.”
“But it’s different this time?” Jenna prompted.
“Yeah,” Hannah said with a nod. “Quite a few of the previous rulers were wiped out in the fighting, and those who weren’t killed were demoted to a lower level of the hierarchy. As in all the way to the bottom. The new ruling class will be composed entirely of members of the Others—the ghouls who are on our side. With new leadership comes new rules and new customs. In this case, that means no more kidnapping people.”
Connor looked dubious as he helped himself to more chips. “They’ll change decades of behavior simply because someone tells them that’s what’s going to happen, just like that?”
Hannah nodded, her eyes rolling a little in pleasure when she bit into the chocolate chip cookie. Jenna had to wonder when her sister had last eaten one. Ten years ago?
“It is the way of the Umdar,” Hannah said after she finished the cookie. “Those below obey those above. They don’t usually think about it because they’re discouraged from having opinions of their own. That’s why it took me so long to change the beliefs of the ones I spent time with. I had to get them to see the value of the individual first and then build from there.”
Jenna sat and stared at her sister, awed beyond belief. To go through everything Hannah had experienced and still be able to dedicate herself to a goal as unobtainable as changing an entire culture was more than amazing. It was unreal.
“So what’s going to happen to all the captives we rescued tonight?” Jenna asked, thinking of all the people currently bedding down in Davina’s club. “I mean, while we were still down in the tunnels, Trevor told me that you’ve been getting people to freedom for the past five years. But that was one or two people at a time. This is different. Won’t the world notice if over thirty missing people all show back up at once?”
Hannah gave her a small smile. “You’d think so, but in reality, most of the people we rescued tonight were never on anyone’s radar. And the ones who were have fallen off long ago.”
Jenna shared looks with Trevor and Connor, seeing the same expression on their faces that she knew was on hers. Was that the way her sister thought of herself, as someone who’d fallen off the radar? That no one would care—or notice—that she was back?
“What about you?” Jenna asked. “Now that the ghouls aren’t going to kidnap people anymore, you don’t need to go back to living underground.”
Her older sister looked over, and for a moment, there was such a look of panic on her face that it took Jenna’s breath away. It was as if the question had caught Hannah so off guard that there was no possible way she could answer it.
“Right?” Jenna prompted.
