Moonlight's Ambassador (Aileen Travers Book 3)(56)

"It's possible her bite has changed. The demon taint has affected her and made her transformation unstable. Her wolf is not as static as ours. It can be larger following some changes and smaller others," Clay said.

"But this is different than her bite in the past," I said.

Clay frowned and hesitated, as if he didn't want to confirm that. "Yes, it's different."

"It's still likely that she's the one responsible," Sondra said from the mouth of the alley. Her eyes were sad as they took in the scene.

"But not definite." I could work with that. This changed nothing. I still needed to find her, talk to her and get her side of the story before deciding what needed to be done.

"Even it isn't her, it's only a matter of time before she loses her grip," Brax said. "The full moon is in two days. The chances of her surviving a change with her sanity intact with no support from the pack are very small."

"Why is the pack's support so important?" I asked.

"In the first years after welcoming our wolf, it can be difficult to maintain a sense of “self” through the change and after. We're pack animals. We need that social bond to be healthy. We're stronger with the others around us. With a pack, you can rely on the older members to guide the change and safeguard your identity when you might be too weak to do so for yourself," Sondra said. "Without a pack, most wolves, especially in the beginning, go mad. Some never come out of their first change. It's why we're so diligent in hunting down those who might have been bitten in an attack or by accident, so we can bring them into the pack before it's too late."

"Aileen, we need to know where she is," Brax said.

"I can't help you because I don't know." It was the truth. I really didn't know. "She called me a few days ago and apologized for getting me involved. When I tried to get her to meet with me or at least consider some kind of compromise that would involve contact with the pack, she flipped out and hung up."

"How did you get that call?" Nathan asked. "We've been monitoring your phones."

That confirmed one suspicion and made all my precautions worth it. I didn't answer him, not wanting to give up my secrets so easily. They'd guess eventually but maybe not until after the next call.

"What did you do to her that scared her so badly she's willing to risk her sanity?" I asked. Because that was the real question. Caroline wasn't stupid. If they'd explained to her what they’d just told me, she never would have run. Her mom's grasp on mental health was shaky at best. I doubt Caroline would have done anything to risk hers.

Brax's attention focused on me, the great power that followed him around like a pet ratcheted up to nuclear intensity. "What makes you think we did something?"

"She wouldn't have just run like this. Not without a reason. Something happened to make her pull a disappearing act. I want to know what it is before I help you."

He cocked his head, the predator in him coming out. "So, you do have an idea?"

I shrugged. "A few."

Liam advanced on me. "The time for games is over. There are dead on the ground—people I swore to protect. Tell us what you know."

"Doesn't work like that," I said. "I won't hand her over—destroy our friendship—without knowing why she ran in the first place. If I do, this will just happen again, and next time she won't reach out to me first." They needed my help, whether they wanted to admit it or not. The only question was if they could get past their alpha-ness and superiority complexes to see that.

I might be a novice at the spook stuff, but I knew my friend and I knew how humans thought.

"There was an incident about a week before she ran," Sondra said, the shadows playing across her face sharpening and softening her edges as she walked into the alley. Her high-heeled sandals clicked against the brick, the shoes at odds with the otherworldly grace in her movements.

"What kind of incident?" Liam asked.

"The kind that shook her confidence and caused her to shut down," Sondra answered, holding Brax's eyes with a small, sad smile. "Until then, she seemed accepting of the wolf. She wasn't happy about having her life disrupted, but she was willing to learn and gain control."

"Her demon taint was stronger than expected," Clay explained. "One of our other new pups had difficulty controlling their wolf and attacked her. Caroline's wolf took over and defended her, but savaged the other wolf."

"We tried to make her understand that her response was self-defense, but her wolf’s reaction to a minor infraction was extreme. She didn't just subdue her attacker, she nearly ripped her head off."

"It is an understandable reaction for one of us," Brax said. "Our world is brutal and requires a certain amount of violence to survive. We didn't blame her or hold her at fault."

"I think she was afraid of the wolf within after that," Sondra explained in a soft voice.

"It didn't help that the demon taint has made her wolf a little different than the rest of the pups," Clay inserted. The violence around him didn't seem to bother him as he maintained his good ol' boy charm. It made me revise my assumptions. Anyone who could keep a smile on his face while surrounded by this much carnage was a lot more twisted than I’d thought.