Home > Roman (Wolves of Winter's Edge #2)(4)

Roman (Wolves of Winter's Edge #2)(4)
Author: T.S. Joyce

Stupid boy.

Chapter Three

She shouldn’t be here.

Mila gripped the steering wheel of her Jetta and blew out a frozen breath. The car hadn’t even gotten the chance to warm up before she was sitting in the parking lot of Winter’s Edge. Memories flooded her. Playing with Asher, Gentry, and Roman in the woods behind the bar while the old Striker pack held meetings inside. Gentry locking her and Roman in the freezer once, calling it Seven Minutes in Heaven. There had been no kissing, though. Mostly Roman had beaten on the door and yelled at his brother while Mila had sat huddled in the corner, scared of Roman’s already dominant wolf, even at twelve years old. She remembered countless dinners with the pack at Hunter Cove Inn just through the woods. Changing with the Striker brothers. Howling like she was one of them. Roman’s face when he and Asher were kicked out of the pack. That had been one of the worst meetings she’d ever been to. The devastation on his face would haunt her soul forever.

She’d practically grown up here. How many life lessons had been taught by her elders right here, in Winter’s Edge.

She still couldn’t believe Noah Striker was dead. If the Striker brothers knew what really happened to their father, they would call the Bone-Rippers to war. They wouldn’t understand how messed up everything had gotten. But if she was in their position, and it was her dad who had to be put down, she would want her pound of flesh, too.

She shouldn’t be here.

She should be back in bed, enjoying her morning off, sleeping in, making pancakes, or reading the newspaper, doing literally anything other than sitting in the parking lot of Winter’s Edge, wishing everything had turned out differently.

The side entrance door swung open, and out ran Blaire Hayward, redheaded mate of Gentry and brand new wolf. Mila didn’t know how to feel about her yet. She was probably a nice person, but truth be told, Mila was envious of how easy her life was. She’d landed Gentry, dominant protector. Not only that, but her wolf felt much more dominant whenever she was around her. She could probably defend herself just fine, while Mila was at everyone’s mercy. And she got to live here, in beautiful Hunter Cove, and work for some publisher with some fancy job she got to do from home. She and Gentry would have a dozen pups and live happily ever after, while Mila was bound to a life of nothingness in the Bone-Ripper Pack.

Blaire was running now. No. Mila sat forward and tracked her movement through the woods. She was stumbling.

Mila shoved the car door open and made her way silently across the frozen parking lot. The scent of blood filled her nose and made her hesitate on the edge of the woods. Tiny, red flecks dotted the white snow.

Blaire was hurt.

Mila cast a quick glance behind her at Winter’s Edge and then made her way through the forest, following the blood trail Blair had left in her wake. Perhaps the lucky wolf had cut herself with a knife in the kitchen. But when she heard the sobbing and smelled that inky, heavy black magic that was so familiar, she knew Blaire was in bad trouble.

She should leave. This was none of Mila’s business, but Blaire was muttering something now, over and over. “Please, please, please.” Who was she begging? The wind? The woods? Mila?

She had to have known she was there. Her wolf would sense her, but Blaire sat on her knees in the snow, her back to Mila, her shoulders shaking with her body-wracking sobs.

“Blaire?” Mila asked, stepping carefully over a log.

Blaire gasped and twisted around. Her nose was streaming blood and dripping down her chin, and her glowing green eyes were so scared. “Don’t tell him. Please don’t tell him.”

Mila approached carefully as Blaire doubled into herself and groaned, then straightened again.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know. I can’t Change. I try and try, I feel her right there, but I keep getting these nose bleeds and these headaches. Ooooh,” she groaned as she fell onto the snow and curled into herself. Blaire hugged her knees as tears streamed down her face.

The stink of black magic was so thick it was choking Mila, but now it made horrifying sense how Blaire had survived. “Did the witch raise your wolf?”

“Yes,” Blaire whispered brokenly.

“Jesus,” Mila murmured, kneeling beside her.

“Jesus had nothing to do with what happened to me. I know your scent. You were there. You helped kill me.”

“No, I was there as a witness, but I didn’t help in the hunt.”

“It’s getting worse,” Blaire murmured, her entire body trembling. “If I can’t Change, something bad will happen, won’t it?”

No point in lying. Changes were crucial. There had to be a balance between the wolf and the human side, or one would kill the other. And if one died, they both died.

Blaire looked so pale and frightened against the red-splattered snow. Her freckles were stark against her cheeks, and her tears were freezing at the corners of her eyes. “Gentry is bound to me.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Mila murmured, lifting Blaire’s shoulders until her head was in her lap. “That’s why you don’t want to tell him? You don’t want him to know he’ll…”

“You can say it.”

He’ll die, too. Mila couldn’t force the words up her throat. The White Wolf of Winter’s Edge wasn’t as privileged as Mila had assumed. Blaire was bound by black magic into a life she hadn’t chosen, just like her.

Mila hated Odine. Clearly she’d ruined yet another life. Two, if Blaire and Gentry were really bound. Werewolves died with their bound mates.

   
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