The last thing I wanted to talk about today was gifts. Besides, she had no idea what kind of mess I’d made with my love life—and all because of emotions.

  I changed the subject.

  “You didn’t call me up as a character witness.”

  “No. I didn’t want to invite any accusations of bias.”

  “And you knew you were already pressing your luck with Silas.”

  She stopped and turned to face me. “I want to show them he’s not just harmless but also an asset to us.”

  “And you can’t do that with both of us next to you at once,” I said.

  She winced. “I’m sorry, Chloe. You know I always have your back.”

  “Kel,” I said a little more sharply than I’d intended. “Please don’t make promises that you can’t keep. You’re a coven leader now, and that will come before friendship. It has to.”

  She looked hurt but she nodded.

  “Once I’ve made progress on getting them to accept him, I’ll nominate you to be considered as the healer for the coven. Officially.”

  “How will you do that when LaDonna is nearly finished with Induction?”

  The words were out before I could stop them.

  Kel’s expression flashed with guilt. And regret.

  “She’s temporary,” she said quietly. “I swear. I didn’t tell you because—”

  “Please,” I said, “Don’t.”

  She looked ready to press it, but I couldn’t stand here and listen to her try to smooth this over. The more she talked, the more it sounded like she’d chosen Silas over me somehow. And I didn’t want to fight. Not today.

  “I’ve seen what’s coming,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “My visions where you’re concerned have been kind of a roller coaster,” she admitted. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant, and I promise it will all make sense soon.”

  “Can you tell me what you see?”

  “Not without ruining it, apparently.” She looked frustrated but not with me. “You’ve always been my best supporter, but I think it’s time you stood up for you.” I scowled, but she went on in earnest now. “I want to step in. To make a different choice. More than you know. You’ve fixed my problems more times than I can count, and believe me, I want nothing more than to return the favor. But every time I try to see it through to the end, my involvement only makes it worse. All I can do is give you a piece of advice.”

  I studied her, trying to read the somber look she wore. “What is it?”

  “Please trust yourself, Chloe. Even when you don’t trust me or anyone else—trust yourself. Okay?”

  “What does that mean?” She didn’t answer, and irritation speared through me. “That’s all I get? You had some vision—about my future—and that’s all you’re going to say?”

  “I should get back inside,” she said quietly.

  I nodded stiffly. “See you in there.”

  “Okay.”

  She hesitated another moment and then reluctantly turned and left me with the roses.

  My heart ached in grief. Anger. Betrayal.

  Her decision to support Silas, even as it cost me my dream, hurt like nothing else. I could have called in my favor. Demanded she elevate me to healer. The council would have to honor it once they knew she owed me. It was law once a bargain like ours was made. Miranda would probably lose her shit, which, in itself, could be worth it.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  When I became healer, I needed to know I’d earned it. That the people of this town actually accepted me. Otherwise, it meant nothing.

  Otherwise, I’d walked away from my mate for nothing.

  Trust myself.

  Yeah, right. I couldn’t trust anyone anymore. Least of all me.

  Shoving aside my own feelings, I headed for the doors.

  What I felt about Miranda or Kel or even Silas was irrelevant now.

  It all came down to the vote.

  And if Arnie was exiled, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t go with her.

  What would be left for me here anyway?

  “Chloe.”

  The sound of my name had me faltering. The familiarity of the voice raked across every nerve until I felt frayed and undone. If I’d been stronger—or meaner—maybe I could have kept walking. Ignored him. Pretended he wasn’t there at all. But I was me.

  And this was Silas.

  The moment our eyes met, I felt the unspoken words and the impossible chasm between us that contained them all. For the first time since we’d met, Silas looked awkward and uncertain.

  “I saw Rusty the other day. He looks good.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  He gave me a strange look. “I figured you would have gone to see your patient by now.”

  “Apparently, the new healer has it all handled.”

  “You heard about that?”

  My eyes narrowed. “Against everyone’s best efforts, yeah, I did.”

  “Whoa. I wasn’t keeping it from you. I haven’t seen you.”

  “Yeah.” I forced my tense shoulders to relax. He wasn’t the enemy. “I know.”

  Another awkward silence descended.

  I glanced at the door where people had begun filing inside again.

  “I should get back in there before the seats fill up,” I said.

  He nodded.

  I hesitated. “Tell Arnie I love her.”

  Pain flashed over his expression at my words, there and gone, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Silas—”

  “Miranda filed the complaint.”

  My eyes widened. “You know for sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  I bit back all the curses I wanted to unleash.

  “She’s angry about what happened to her mother,” I said.

  Angrier than I’d guessed if she’d stoop to ruining other people’s lives, people who’d had nothing to do with her mother’s fate.

  “I’m going to get that complaint dropped, Chloe.” A fire burned in his eyes as he said the words. “I’ll win her over. And then you won’t have any reasons left to deny what we are.”

  My chest ached so badly I thought it might cave in. I didn’t argue with him, and he must have taken my silence for an agreement because he closed the distance and brushed a lock of hair from my cheek. His knuckles grazed my skin, leaving a trail of warmth. Then, he stepped back and walked away.

  It took everything in me to not chase him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Instead of heading back inside, I whirled and went in search of Miranda. The bitch was going to hear what I really thought of her. No more playing nice. Screw keeping my head down. She wasn’t going to get away with this shit—not anymore. Not with me.

  Before I could reach her, she disappeared back into the house. Dammit. Debating whether to follow, I spotted another figure striding across the garden lawn. Travis. I might not have paid a single bit of attention except for the fact that he was walking in the opposite direction of everyone else. Away from the house.

  Something about his movements and the way he paused at the corner of the hedge, darting glances right and left, drew my suspicion. When he ducked around the corner, I followed.

  Travis wound his way around the house, taking the longest way possible before circling back to the access door where I knew they would be holding the prisoners until their turn at the podium came. There were only two people scheduled to be in that room today.

  Arnie.

  And Merle.

  Keeping my distance, I watched as Travis paused outside the door and held out his hand. Magic sparked in his open palm, and a second later, I saw the small, thin icicle he’d conjured.

  Dread slammed into me.

  I looked around for anyone else, but with the recess over, the gardens were empty. Everyone else was already inside.

  I slid out of sight, watching from a distance as Travis used the icicle he’d conjured to pick the lock on the door. It shouldn’t have been that easy. Jason should have been here, standing watch, or at the very least, using his gifts to create an impenetrable locking system. But it took Travis all of fifteen seconds to jimmy the door open.

  My dread turned to horror as he disappeared inside.

  I hesitated, pulling out my phone and dialing Drew with my eyes locked on the now-closed door. Travis would be caught. Surely, whoever stood guard just inside that room would have grabbed him by now.

  Right?

  But no one exited, and even with my wolf hearing, I heard only silence from the other side. The ringing in my ear stopped as Drew’s voice mail picked up.

  Shit.

  Inching out from behind the hedge, I approached the door.

  Halfway there, it opened again, and Travis stepped out. Except, this time, he wasn’t alone. Beside him stood his father, Merle.

  In the open door behind them, I saw a woman. We’d met only once, but hers was a face I couldn’t forget. Not when she was here to steal my future. She met my gaze with wide eyes, her expression frozen in surprise.

  “Chloe.” Travis looked just as surprised to see me as I felt about this entire horrific escape unfolding before me. Because there was no question it was an escape.

  “What the hell, Travis?” I demanded.

  Merle nudged his son. “We don’t have time for this.”

  His wrists were still bound with a rope I knew Jason had made specially to keep Merle’s magic at bay. That meant he wasn’t a threat—not yet.

  Travis glanced behind him to the healer.

  “Stop her,” he said and then urged Merle toward the inner gardens. Beyond that, at the back of the property, was nothing but forest.

  “Do you really think you can just walk out of here?” I demanded.

  My words were answered by a sharp hiss.

  Something hard slammed into me, tossing me to the ground harder than anything I’d felt before. The wind was sucked from my lungs, but I rolled to all fours, struggling to get my bearings before being struck again.

  Then I saw what had hit me.

  The door.

  It had been torn from its hinges and now lay in the grass beside me.

  LaDonna loomed over me, eyes burning with a hatred that shouldn’t have been possible considering I didn’t even know her.

  “You’re going to wish you’d stayed down.”

  She wasn’t wrong, honestly.

  I felt her gathering power and jumped to my feet. Desperation halted me, and for a second that felt like an eternity, I hesitated to do what I knew I must. Areona powers against whatever this bitch was about to do would be useless. And even with a photographic memory to instruct me on hand-to-hand combat, I wasn’t a match for her powerful magic.

  Nothing about being a hexerei would save me.

  Only my wolf could do that.

  I shifted, my clothes ripping free as my body changed forms. Flesh turned to fur, and two legs turned to four. My strength, my speed—it came flooding in. And I didn’t waste any more time putting it all to use.

  The healer stared at me in total shock.

  It gave me the opening I needed.

  Honestly, knocking her over and ripping into her soft flesh was almost too easy. Forcing myself to release her before I completely ripped her throat out was a bit harder. She whimpered—a sound that probably would have been a scream if I hadn’t already punctured her vocal cords.

  That startled me enough to let her go.

  I backed away, watching as the blood from the gash I’d left behind pooled onto her skin and down to the grass beneath her. She wheezed, gasping and struggling to sit up.

  I watched her, muscles tensed and ready to attack again at the first sign of magic from her hand.

  Behind her, movement drew my eye, and I froze as Miranda emerged from the doorless entrance. She stopped at the sight of me and stared in complete shock. Then she raised her palms, and I felt the call of her magic as it rose to the surface.

  “Back away, lupin, before I kill you where you stand,” she said. “You will not take our healer.”

  I bared my teeth and let out a growl.

  Miranda raised her hand at me.

  Before she could loose her magic at me, Drew rushed up behind her and grabbed her wrist.

  “Don’t,” he said with enough force behind the word that Miranda actually listened.

  “That lupin just tried to kill LaDonna,” she hissed at him.

  Silas, Arnie, Kel, and the rest of the council appeared, spilling out of the doorway and taking in the sight before them. Kel met my eyes, but I had to look away when I saw the sorrow in her gaze. Sympathy and sadness weren’t going to do anyone a bit of good.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Vylan demanded.

  Then Silas was there, putting himself between me and the healer-murder. More importantly, between me and anyone intent on doing me harm.

  “Chloe, what happened?” Silas asked.

  “Chloe?” Miranda echoed. “Uh, are you high?”

  Silas ignored her and kept my gaze. “You have to shift back,” he said in a strained voice. My wolf could feel his rising to the surface, desperate to get out. “I need to see you. To know if you’re all right.”

  When I didn’t move, Kel took a step toward me.

  “Chloe… it’s all right,” she said.

  Judging from the litany of curses Miranda unleashed at that, I wasn’t sure I believed her.

  Miranda had stopped trying to attack me with magic, for now, but Drew remained close beside her, and I knew it was only a matter of time before someone broke this standoff in the worst way.

  “I’m not going to let them hurt you,” Silas whispered.

  I took a deep breath and let my wolf form recede. A second later, I stood before them all. Naked. Bared. And vulnerable in a way that made my nudity the least of my problems.

  “Are you hurt?” Silas broke the silence, all his attention on me as if the others weren’t even standing there, silently judging me.

  “No,” I said.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I was on my way back inside,” I told him. “Travis was out here, sneaking around. I saw him break in through that door and come out with Merle.”

  “Shit,” Kel swore. And then to Drew, “Go check his cell.”

  “You think she’s lying?” he demanded.

  “I want to see if he left a clue about where he was going,” she shot back.

  Drew eyed Miranda then me. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll go.” Vylan dashed back inside along with Nevil.

  “What happened next?” Silas asked me.

  “I tried to stop them, but she blew the door off its hinges. She hit me with it, and by the time I got up, I knew she wasn’t going to stop until I couldn’t get up anymore.” I blinked back the tears that threatened. “I shifted to protect myself. The moment I knew she was disabled, I stopped.”

  “I see that,” he said. “Everyone sees that.”

  “What I see is one of our own bleeding out,” Miranda snapped.

  Vylan reappeared, breathless, with Nevil at his heels. “He’s gone,” Vylan said. “No trace.”

  “We need to hunt them down,” Kel said. “Gather a team. Drew?”

  He hesitated, eyes locked on mine.

  “Drew,” Kel said again, but he didn’t answer her.

  He was waiting for me, I realized.

  “They went into the woods out back,” I said. “Those trails split off in a thousand different directions. You’ll never find them.”

  “I’ll go,” Silas said. “I can track them.”

  “Right. Like we’re going to let our enemy track our enemy.” Miranda glared at him. “Do we look stupid to you?”

  At that, the tenuous hold I had on my own control snapped.

  I shoved around Silas so I could face her fully.

  “Actually, you look guilty,” I told her. “You’re the one who brought LaDonna here in the first place, and she betrayed us by helping Merle escape.”

  She sneered, ready to offer up some bitchy retort, but I was done. With this. With all of them.

  “I’m going to shift and track them,” I told Kel. “Silas and I can cover more ground together.” I purposely kept my attention away from Drew.

  But in the end, it didn’t matter.

  My secret was out.

  There was no going back.

  He stepped forward and said quietly, “I’m going with them.”

  My heart broke and mended in that moment. I felt so much sorrow for what he’d lose because of this one moment. But I also felt pride and love at the way he was choosing to stand with me.

  Silas tugged my hand, urging me to move.

  He didn’t push, though, and I could tell his impatience was more to separate me from danger than anything else.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Drew fell into step with us. Behind me, I could hear the murmurs beginning as the council whispered about what we were.

  “Wait,” Miranda called to our backs. “What about LaDonna?”

  “Make a poultice with honey, calendula, and tee tree,” I said.

  “That’s it?”

  “She’s the healer. Tell her to heal herself.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Despite what I considered logic and practicality, Silas and Drew refused to split up. In fact, they refused to even shift and get started until I swore not to pull any more “hero shit” as Silas called it.

  “Fine, whatever, are we doing this, or are we just going to let those two scumbags get away?” I demanded.

  “You understand that even if we bring those two assholes back, the council is going to come after us next.” Drew’s expression was grim. “This could be our only shot to run and actually get far enough they can’t find us.”

  I shook my head. “Merle and Travis are hell-bent on destroying every lupin they can find. Even if we leave, letting them go means always looking over our shoulders. I, for one, am done with that.”

  “The council,” Drew began.

  “The council can go fuck themselves,” I snapped.

  “Right then,” Drew said. “Guess we’ll go grab Merle and Travis.”

  Silas eyed me dubiously. “You’re on an adrenaline high,” he began. “We should wait to make sure you’re not in shock.”