His Pups Called Me Mama. He Called Me Nobody. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Lake. Drive.

Mags picks her up past the border, Elspeth skips her wolfsbane for the first time in five years, and when Mossgrave hunters run them off the road her silver wolf breaks loose; then word comes that Clover is burning with silver fever and nobody may send for the Omega.

The black SUV was parked where it always parked, three miles past the Langtry border, tucked under the pines.

Mags got out before I reached it.

Six feet of scarred muscle in a canvas jacket.

The last sworn guard of the Silver Moon line.

She looked at my hands, and her eyes flashed yellow in the dark.

"Who did this?"

"The lake," I said. "Drive."

She didn't drive.

She took my wrists and turned my palms up under the dome light.

The skin was blistered white and weeping at the edges.

"Silver," she said.

"Somebody poured it in the swimming lake. Clover walked in."

Mags swore for a long time.

She swears like other people breathe.

Then she wrapped my hands in a clean dish towel from the glove box and put me in the passenger seat.

"Is the baby alive?"

"She's alive."

"And him?"

"He cut me out of the pack."

Mags went very still with her hand on the door.

"For saving his kid."

"For embarrassing his Luna."

She shut my door so hard the whole car rocked.

We drove north on the logging road with the headlights off.

Mags can see in the dark better than any wolf I know.

"Did you take it this morning?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Tomorrow?"

"I left the tin on his doorstep."

She looked at me sideways.

Then she grinned, the first time in five years I'd seen her grin about anything.

"About damn time, Your Highness."

"Don't call me that."

"I'll call you what I want. I changed your diapers."

"You did not."

"Twice. Your mother was at a council dinner and the nurse quit. I've never forgiven you."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

It hit me twenty minutes later.

The last dose wearing thin.

A pressure behind my ribs.

Then claws.

I doubled over against the seat belt.

"Breathe," Mags said. "She's been in a box five years. She's going to be mad."

"She's tearing me open."

"She's stretching. Let her."

My skin prickled from my scalp to my heels.

The smell of the pines came at me in layers I had forgotten existed.

Sap. Elk. Rain coming over the pass.

And gasoline, sharp and close.

Mags smelled it the same second I did.

"Hold on."

Headlights blazed up behind us out of nowhere.

Two trucks, no plates.

The first one slammed into our back bumper.

The SUV slewed across the gravel.

Mags fought the wheel and lost.

We went off the road nose first into the ditch.

My head cracked against the window.

When I could see again, men were climbing out of the trucks.

Five of them.

I could smell what they were through the broken glass.

Wolves.

And over every one of them, faint and sweet, the perfume Cordelia wore.

"Mossgrave colors," Mags spat. "Your new stepmother works fast."

She kicked her door open and went out roaring.

She shifted in the air, a huge gray wolf, and hit the first man so hard he flew back into the truck grille.

The other four came for me.

One of them yanked my door open.

He grinned at me with too many teeth.

"Wolfless little nanny," he said. "Alpha says no loose ends."

He grabbed my braid and dragged me out onto the gravel.

My burned hands hit the stones.

The fist inside my ribs stopped knocking.

It broke the door down.

I don't remember deciding.

I remember my spine bending and the pain of it, bones that hadn't moved since I was a child.

I remember my cardigan splitting.

I remember the man's face when he let go of my hair.

Then I was standing on four feet, and the whole night was silver.

My fur, white as frost under the moon.

His friends stopped running.

"That's not..." one of them said. "That's not possible. They're all dead."

I went for the one with my braid still in his fist.

He screamed.

Mags had two of the others on the ground.

The rest ran.

Two of them dragged the one I'd bitten into the trees.

The last one made it to the second truck and spun its tires up the hill.

I let them all go, because Mags was bleeding from the shoulder.

When it was over I stood in the road shaking, my breath smoking.

Mags came back to her own shape, swearing and holding her arm.

She looked at me for a long time.

"There you are," she said softly. "Hello, little moon."

I shifted back the hard way, crying out.

Mags threw her jacket over me.

"They got away," I said.

"Then Mossgrave knows by morning."

"Good," I said. "Let him."

We pushed the SUV out of the ditch together.

It ran on one headlight.

We were ten miles up the road to the old cabin when her phone buzzed on the dash.

She read it and her face changed.

"It's the woman in the Langtry kitchen. The one who slips me news."

"What?"

"The little one. Clover."

My heart stopped.

"She swallowed lake water. It's silver fever. She's burning up, and the pack healer can't draw it out."

"Then they have to call..."

Mags held the phone up so I could read the rest.

The new Luna says nobody sends for the Omega. Not if the child dies.

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