Stefan’s POV
“What are you doing?” Gwen asks, rushing to my side. She pushes my hand away from the gauze I’m pulling away from my wound.
“I want to see if it has healed up,” I tell her, peeking through the edge of the side of the gauze I’d pulled away before she showed up. It’s still raw.
“Of course, it hasn’t,” she says, taping the side back to my skin. “It hasn’t been an hour since I applied it.”
Yeah, well…
She pats her palm over the gauze and looks up at me. I meet her gaze for a second and look away at the mirror. She starts doing up the buttons I’d released to check on my wound. “You are brooding,” she says.
I frown down at her head. “What?”
“You didn’t say goodbye to her, did you?” she asks. “Why didn’t you?”
“I told you I saw her before the meeting.”
“No, you didn’t,” she says, and I wonder whether Mari said something that gave away the fact I hadn’t interacted with her since the previous night. “She wanted to see you before she left, I think.” She finishes with the buttons and tilts her head to look me in the face. “Did you two have a fight or something?”
“What would we fight about?” I ask, turning away from her and heading towards the door. She follows me into our bedroom.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“I need to go back to the office,” I tell her. “You’re not going to the club today, are you?” I don’t want to let her out of my sight. Not until we deal with the present threat. She can always take Hanna or Andreas with her, but even that doesn’t settle my worries.
Instead of answering my question, she asks, “Did you send her away because of me?”
My eyebrows pull together. “What?”
“Is it because of what I said when she first came here? I’m not insecure about that anymore.”
I turn to her and take her hands in mine. “I already told you I did it so she’ll be safer. We are going to be at war with Blackrise soon, and I don’t want her to be at risk. Especially now that they have a vampire on their side. I cannot be too careful.”
Her gaze searches my eyes as if she’s deciding whether to trust me or not. Finally, she says, “Okay.”
I bend down and kiss her on the lips, but the sound of my phone ringing interrupts us a second later. I pull back and retrieve it from my pocket. I frown when I see it’s Max calling.
I receive it right away and press the phone to my ear.
“We are under attack,” he says.
“What?” I bellow, hurrying for the door.
“It’s an ambush. I count five of them. Bridge on Red Creek. We need backup.”
“On my way,” I tell him, hanging up immediately.
“What’s going on?” Gwen asks as she comes after me, jogging to keep up with my quick strides.
“They have been ambushed.” Going down the stairs, I spot Andreas coming into the house from the back. “Where’s Hanna? They’ve been attacked. We need to go, right away.”
Andreas jogs over immediately, frowning. “What? They’ve only been gone for about twenty minutes.”
And that means we’ll get to them fast, thank fuck.
Rapid footsteps come down the stairs, and Hanna appears, holding a phone. “I just got a text from Levi–” she takes in our faces and starts towards the front door. “I’ll bring the van around.”
A hand wraps around my upper arm, and I look down to find Gwen looking at me with worried eyes. “Will they be okay?”
“As soon as we get there. I need you to stay here–” Fuck. If I take Hanna and Andreas with me, Gwen will be on her own.
“Let me go with you.”
“No!” I’m definitely not bringing her to a fight that probably involves boosted werewolves. “You’re not a warrior. You can’t come with us.”
“Hanna will stay with her,” Andreas says. “I’ll tell her to get back,” he says, heading for the front door.
I’m not sure Hanna will want to hear that.
“You haven’t even healed from last night’s attack,” Gwen points out, her hold on my arm tightening. “What if–”
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Nothing bad will happen.” But it will if we don’t leave right away. Now that Hanna is not going with us, we’ll need to bring at least three more warriors with us. If the five attackers are anything like the one from last night, we’ll need more numbers.
I release Gwen’s hand from around my arm and head towards the front. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
She follows me outside. A few of the fighters from the security house are gathering outside, and while I brief them, Hanna parks the van nearby and jumps out of the driver’s seat, a pissed off expression on her face.
“What’s this about leaving me behind? You need me.”
“We need someone back here,” Andreas tells her.
“It can be you,” she snaps at him.
“You’re not going into a battle without me.”
She laughs bitterly. “Oh, so that’s it. I can take care of myself well enough, thank you.”
“Guys–”
Andreas grabs her by the arm and pulls her away from us. “You know why I can’t let you go alone,” he seethes.
“I told you I’m fine,” she seethes back.
“You are not. You’ve gone through a pack already this morning, haven’t you?”
Why are they having a discussion about Hanna’s sudden smoking habit when Levi, Max, and Mari are in danger?
When four of the warriors have settled in the back of the van, I open the driver’s door and address the siblings. “Hanna, you stay. It’s my order.”
Her shoulders drop and she turns away from her brother, crossing her arms over her chest. “Fine.”
Andreas gets into the passenger seat, and I give Gwen one last look. She’s watching me with a frightened look on her face, her hand curled below her chin.
I turn away and get into the driver’s seat. There’s no time to dally.
“What’s going on with Hanna?” I ask Andreas when we have left the compound and I’m driving the van like a bat out of hell down the forest road that leads to Red Creek.
“Huh?” he asks, and I know it’s not because he hasn’t heard me. He just wants extra seconds to fabricate an answer.
“She hasn’t been herself these past few days, has she?”
Andreas rubs his hand along his stubble and shakes his head. “Personal stuff,” he says.
I have a feeling he is bullshitting me.
“You didn’t think she was fit enough to fight,” I state. That was why he suggested that she stay back. He typically doesn’t like it when Hanna is in battles without him, but she has not been letting him get away with that for a while now.
“She is distracted,” he explains.
By what? “Should you be telling me that when I left Gwen in her hands?”
“She’ll die before she lets anyone get near Gwen. You can be sure of that.”
“I prefer her alive.”
“Me too.” He sighs. “They’ll be fine.”
I nod and let it go. Even after knowing the siblings for years now, I can’t say I have them figured out. I don’t know much about their past, but I figured something must have happened to make Andreas so overprotective over his sister.
“If I can help, don’t hesitate to ask,” I let him know.
He gives me a light pat on my shoulder. “Got it. For now, let’s get those bastards.”
***
We find the car they took abandoned by the side of the road. I stop the van on the other side of the bridge and we run across to check the car. There’s no one around.
I get ready to sense out the surroundings to figure out where they are, but Andreas beats me to it. “South!” he says, and then he is shifting. The other warriors follow suit and rush into the forest.
I stare down at myself, wondering why I’m not shifting. It never takes too much effort. Especially not when there is tons of adrenaline pumping through my veins. In this situation, I should be having trouble preventing shifting–not the other way around.
I concentrate my strength and focus, but I only get the slightest tingle in my limbs. I walk towards the edge of the forest where Andreas and the others disappeared into. I close my eyes and strain my ears. Nothing.
Panic is beginning to set in when my eyes land on the talisman around my wrist. My lost night vision. My dimmed senses before that werewolf attacked me last night. My slow healing. Me not marking Gwen when we had sex.
And his words, telling me without him, I don’t have a wolf.
I’m certain of it now. The talisman has been compromising my abilities. Losing my night vision in my human form was a small price to pay, and it wouldn’t have bothered me if that was all. But my speed? Strength? My ability to shift?
Dammit.
That’s my wolf. I’m the one who lets you use my wolf.
He wasn’t lying.
The talisman not only blocked him from my head. It suppressed all of him. And since the wolf belongs to him…
Dammit.
I loosen the bracelet tie and remove it from my hand. I’ve been suppressing him for a while now. How fast can I get him back?
I pace, waiting to hear the familiar thrum that courses through my body when I’m ready to shift.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I mumble.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
A loud growl emerges from the jungle. My first instinct is to run towards it. In my current state, that would be a death wish.
Dammit, where are you?
A groan resounds through my brain.
“Hey. Are you there?”
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
‘What did you do to me?’
His voice is groggy, weak, and unclear, but the relief it sends through me is monumental.
“I need to shift.”
‘What have you done?’
I don’t have the time to explain that to him right now, but what choice do I have? Whether I like it or not, I need him.
“I’ve been using a talisman.”
‘You were trying to get rid of me.’
Is he looking for a confession?
“Can we talk about this later? I need to shift. She is in danger.”
‘Gwen?’
I almost correct him. Almost.
‘Is she okay?’
“She won’t be if I can’t shift and protect her.”
He cares about Gwen. He might not want to give me access to his abilities given what I’ve done, but when it comes to her?
‘You’ve been suppressing me with magic. I’m too weak. I tell you, Stefan Lee Klose, if anything happens to her, I’ll make you suffer!’
His voice is so loud and angry, it feels like my head is splitting open.
“You have to try.”
‘Give me time. And shut up!’
I can do that.
It takes a few minutes to feel the tingle in my spine and limbs. I instantly try to grab onto the feeling, but it’s gone as soon as it appears.
‘I can’t shift fully.’
“I’ll take what I can get.”
By the time my hands turn into paws and my fangs extend from my gums, I’m sweating profusely. Power surges through my body. Suddenly, there are all sorts of sounds in my ears. The water rushing below. Bird calls. And the growls of werewolves.
“Stefan?” Andreas’s voice rings in my head. “Where the fuck are you?”
I charge into the forest, following the sounds of fighting werewolves and the smell of blood.
She’d better be okay.