“Don’t need to know his name.” I don’t need to know anything about him since I won’t be seeing him again. I can’t, not if I value my own sanity.
Callum scoffs. “Right. And that wasn’t what I meant anyway.”
I turn to face him. “What then?” I deserve every bit of derision he sends my way for that, because I know exactly what he meant. And he knows I do too.
“What was all the sniffing about. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were scenting him.”
“Fuck off.” I bristle. He’s way too close to the truth.
It didn’t register when I saw Morgan the other day, too focussed on Birch to notice anything else. But he had all my attention here and the second I caught his scent Iknew.
I knewhim.
I’d been drunk on aconite-laced alcohol that night at the White Hart. Walking back through the trees when I saw him. I don’t remember much about Morgan’s appearance, but I remember how he smelt so fucking good. I remember the way it felt to graze my teeth over hot skin, how close I was to biting down and making a mistake I couldn’t come back from.
That neither of us could.
It’s why I ran that night.
Why there is absolutely no fucking way I can have him join my club.
I inhale slowly, willing my body to behave and hoping Callum can’t get a read on me.
It’s a mistake.
I can still smell traces of Morgan in the air, on my skin. Sweet and spicy. My wolf stirs in response, and I immediately shut that shit down. I don’t have time to follow whatever path that would lead me down.
Not today.
Not ever.
“Want to talk about it?” Callum’s dropped his voice to barely a whisper. Those inside could hear if they were paying attention, but they’re not. It doesn’t matter, because I’ve got nothing to say.
“No.” I stand, waiting until he does the same. “I want to go over the plan for tonight one more time, then we all need to eat and sleep.”
We can only takeour bikes so far before ditching them just off the road behind the thickest set of trees we could find. Mal’s van is more challenging to hide, but we do the best we can. If anything happens to it, we’ll deal.
Beth pulls the map from her pocket and we all gather round. “We’re closer than we planned for.” She traces her finger on the road we just left. “If your information’s right, they should be a little under two miles north-east.”
“It’s right,” Jet snaps.
Beth shoots him alookbut doesn’t snap back. We all know the risks our informant took to get this to us. And what’s waiting for us when we get there.
“We know they’ll have lookouts stationed around the perimeter.” Mal leans over and points to something on the map. “With the night so fucking clear, we have to go with plan B.”
The moon, usually a source of strength and comfort, is a huge fucking hinderance tonight. A waxing gibbous phase means the night is uncharacteristically bright, and there’s not one fucking cloud to temper it. We can’t risk being seen.
Plan A was to shift and get as close as we can before shifting back. But Beth’s wolf is white, beautiful and a rarity among shifters, and she’d stand out like a fucking target on a night like tonight.
“I can keep up.” She shoots her glare at me instead of Mal, which is fair since I’ll have the final say on this. “There’s no point losing the advantage shifting gives us, when we need every bit of it to get through this.”
She’s not wrong.
Everything’s heightened when we shift. Speed, strength, but most important of all, oursenses. We stand the best chance of avoiding detection that way.
“And my senses are almost as sharp in my human form.”
She’s not wrong there either.
