‘One hour,’ I confirmed, acknowledging the threat. ‘You have my word.’
The second I opened my bedroom door, I knew I would break my promise. Sitting on the window seat, staring out at the night sky, was Wyn.
‘Emily.’
He leapt to his feet and crossed the room before I’d even let go of the door handle.
‘Wyn? What are you doing here?’
He barrelled into me, knocking the back of my head against the door and embracing me so tightly, the breath I’d been holding since I saw him escaped as a gasp, along with the rest of the oxygen in my lungs.
‘I couldn’t explain it all in a message, I had to see you, had to make sure you were OK, that you were ready.’
The rambled words barely cut through my shock.
‘The trial is set for tomorrow, on the full moon, like I said it would be.’ Wyn released me just long enough to brand my forehead with his kiss then pulled me back in. ‘The pack is coming, Em, the whole pack.’
A trial. My trial. For the murder of Cole Evans.
‘You couldn’t call?’ I replied, trying to find steady ground with a simple question.
‘They took my phone.’
A wave of fear threatened to drown me.
‘They know?’ I whispered. ‘About us?’
‘No. It’s standard before a phase. We have a network that moves our phones around so we aren’t tracked all together in one place.’
‘But the wolves change. How can anyone move them around?’
‘Only the male wolves have to change,’ he said, face buried in my neck, inhaling deeply. ‘Female-identifying Weres have more control. Resisting the phase is brutal but two females deny the moon each month to run the network – family members mostly, like my dad, and sometimes a kid who wasn’t chosen for initiation. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that I got here before them.’
‘And they let you go,’ I stated slowly.
‘Told them I was coming to see my girl.’
‘I thought you told them we broke up?’
He released his hold on me, looking down, his forehead creased with confusion.
‘Gramps didn’t question it. Said something about teenagers breaking up and getting back together all the time and warned me to be at the apartment by dawn.’
I wanted to believe him. I had to believe him. But Jackson’s questions rattled back and forth in my mind.
‘There was a pack leader meeting this morning, I wasn’t allowed inside but I heard enough. Told Gramps I was leaving, got right in my truck and didn’t stop.’
‘Wyn,’ I said, pushing my doubts as far away as I could. ‘What’s going to happen tomorrow?’
When he growled, the pink painted roses on my walls turned blood red.
‘Someone will come to you at midday and issue terms, tell you where to be and when.’
‘Here?’
‘Anywhere. They’ll have eyes on you from dawn.’
It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
