Wolves' Bane (The Order of the Wolf, #3)(87)

I nodded as I briefly closed my eyes, my mind reeling. This was my last chance. If I let Lance drive away, I was sure I’d never see any of them again—never see Cal again. I didn’t even know where the mansion was located exactly. As I opened my eyes, I released the breath I’d been holding and nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.

Lance clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek as he stared at me. “Morgan, if he’d wanted to kill you, he wouldn’t have missed.”

His words hit me like a sledgehammer, and I stared after him as he pulled himself back from the window, waited for another full minute, and then drove away, his tires skidding along the pavement as he went.

Of course, Lance was right. Cal never missed with his sai, I knew that. But it didn’t change anything. I still couldn’t trust him to put me ahead of the Order and that was what I needed. For someone to finally put me first…and I was going to start things off by doing it myself.





Chapter Forty-Two





Awakening


For the millionth time, Cal checked the messages, or lack of messages, on his cell phone. Why he continued to hope that she would call, he couldn’t understand. He’d never given her his cell number, how would she know how to reach him?

It had been three weeks. Three weeks of sleepless nights and no appetite. Three weeks of rollercoaster emotions: rage, sorrow, pain, loss. Every day waiting and wondering when she would break the bond. Cal knew now what he had put her through when he left to find another woman. He understood the hell of waiting for someone to destroy his heart. But he didn’t dare go to her. She’d made her choice, and she’d been perfectly clear. She didn’t want him. She hadn’t asked for it.

He sat in the wing-backed chair that looked out on the backyard from Kelly’s room, as he had for all the waking hours and sometimes the restless nights since his return. With Andrew gone, Cal felt obligated to sit with her, speak to her, explain how he’d f*cked up, how he’d gotten her Hunter killed—or worse—transformed into a beast. He didn’t know if she could hear what he said and without Andrew there to connect with her mind, Cal had no idea what she was thinking. It was unending silence, punctuated by the machines that were keeping her alive.

The other Hunters were outside training. The wolves had been silent for weeks. There had been only one attack on a human shortly after the battle where Lazarus died. A small team of Hunters had gone to investigate, but really, without an active Huntress, all they could do was threaten and injure if they encountered one of the beasts.

The scholars were busy decoding the text as it continued to write itself. Without Kelly’s premonitions, they once again had no idea where to find the next Huntress. They had to rely on the text to show the Huntresses to them. And so far there had been nothing.

Cal’s heart hurt. There was no other way to describe it. It ached for Morgan in ways that he couldn’t understand. His body longed to touch her, to hear her voice. He felt like the walking dead, tied to a woman who still breathed, who was still connected to him, but whom he couldn’t have. For all of his precautions, all of the sacrifices he had made when he’d first met her, he’d lost her anyway, and Andrew had been right—the pain was truly unbearable. He had no desire to fight, no desire to live. The only thing that kept him from plunging a dagger into his heart was guilt and hope. Kelly had lost her Hunter because of Cal’s actions. Hitting Andrew with his sai had disabled him for the fight. Cal had done nothing to protect Andrew, instead he had been too focused on Morgan and the remorse was eating him alive.

And then there was the hope that had him checking his phone for the impossible. Each day that went by without Morgan breaking the bond gave Cal hope she would change her mind. She would find a way to contact him and tell him to come and get her.

But that was a pipe dream too. She wouldn’t ask him to get her. She didn’t want to come back to the mansion. And he didn’t blame her—she’d been right, after all. They had betrayed her, all of them, but Cal worst of all. Lance felt a lot of guilt—he hadn’t really said it, but Cal knew. Lance thought he should have tried harder to convince her to stay. But it wasn’t his fault, it was Cal’s. He’d made too many mistakes. Taken too many risks.

Cal took in a deep breath, blowing out the air as he stood and stretched. His body truly ached, from missing Morgan and from inaction. Sitting all day and most nights had him cramping all over, common sense said he should go for a run and give the punching bags good round of ass-kicking. But he couldn’t leave. He was tied to that bed just as surely as she was.

He turned away from the window and moved toward Kelly’s bed. She lay as she always did, peacefully sleeping as the machines worked her body to stay alive.

“I really wish I knew if you could hear me, Kelly.” He laid his hand on her arm. “I know I say this every day, but I am truly sorry for what I’ve done…trapping you in your mind because there’s no one here who can hear you.”

He lowered his head, closing his eyes as he ran his fingers down her arm and clasped her hand, squeezing as he always did.

And she squeezed back. Hard.

And then her heart monitor began to beep wildly.

Cal snapped his eyes open and shifted them to Kelly’s face only to reel back in surprise. Her eyes were open, staring at him, her brow furrowed as she seemed to fight against the tubes that filled her throat.