Clarity (19 page)

She grinned and slipped her hand into mine. “We’ve already talked about this. We’re out in the open, plenty of witnesses, and Jeremy’s keeping an eye on us. So relax. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Witnesses didn’t stop the other one,” I reminded her.

She made a face. “If he’ll attack now, he’ll attack anytime. At least this isn’t him sneaking up on us in the middle of the night.”

“Fine. But if he even hints at attacking, you run.”

“He won’t. I have a good feeling about him.” But her fingers tightened on mine.

“You doing okay at home?” I asked to take her mind off it.

“I’m avoiding home as much as possible.” Her voice was strained with tension. I wanted
Perdita
to get along with her mother, but I hadn’t exactly realised how complicated and messy it would be if she turned up out of the blue. I wasn’t sure why Meredith had shown up, but I guessed it might get worse before it got better.
Perdy’s
dad banning her from seeing me was the icing on the cake. I hoped he would calm down soon.

“He’s up there,” she said, pointing toward a small cafe I had never visited.

“I know. I can smell him.”

She glanced at me, amusement curving her lips upward. “Well. That’s interesting.”

“None of that. Okay, let’s just go in. No agreeing to anything without discussing it first, right?” I tried not to look as if I was sniffing the air to make sure Jeremy was still close by.

“I know; I know. Let’s get it over and done with. I’m nervous.”

“It’ll be okay.” I kissed her lips lightly before leading her into the cafe. I walked straight over to the werewolf, even though it took everything in me to stop myself from leaping over the tables and taking a chunk out of him. The vivid imagery that popped into my head surprised even me.

He held my gaze calmly, unflinching, and
Perdita
made a frustrated noise and brushed past me to sit across from him. He turned his head to face her, but I could tell he was still hyper-aware of me.

“Can we skip past this bit?”
Perdita
said, clearly annoyed. She didn’t get it. The wolf inside me wanted to tear him apart.

The werewolf smiled and gestured for me to sit. After a couple of seconds, I did.

“Thanks for coming,” Ryan said. I tried to think of him as a person, but I kept seeing the red wolf who had been prepared to attack
Perdita
in the woods. That was all I could see, and soon I had red flashes of rage before my eyes.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I murmured to
Perdita
as my inner wolf tried to break its cage, and my heart thundered in my chest.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Give it a few minutes, and the sensation will pass.”

I tried to glare at him, but sort of choked out a sigh instead. There were no anger vibes coming from him, no aggressiveness at all. The tension all came from me.
Perdita
touched my hand under the table, and breathing became a little easier again.

“I remember what it was like, having to face Vin for the first time after he took my girls. I wanted to bite his face off, but I knew I had to stay calm to keep my family safe.”

I understood the pointed look he gave me, but it didn’t help me calm down. Only
Perdita
could do that. It occurred to me how absolutely mental it was having a meeting with a killer werewolf who had previously attacked us. We should have been doing fun things together, not crazy, serious stuff. I consoled myself with the idea that when all of the madness was over, I had plans to take
Perdita
on a proper date.

“I need your help,” Ryan said. “I can tell you things. Anything you need to know. I can try to turn a few wolves to your side. But I need your promise that your family will help me in return.”

“How are we supposed to trust you?” I blurted. “I can’t even sit here without…”

“I know.” Ryan rubbed his eyes, and he suddenly looked old. “He took my daughters a little over two years ago. I haven’t seen them since. It was because your family had moved to the
UK
. The entire time, he searched for other wolves in the
UK
. No luck, until he made it to
Scotland
… and found me. He took my girls to force me into his pack. He needed… my skills. At first, I put up a fight, but he showed me a photo of my eldest daughter with two black eyes, said that’s what I’d earned for her. I couldn’t… I had to do whatever he said so he would let us go home.”

“I’m sorry.”
Perdita’s
voice was full of pity.

“So what’s changed now?” I tried to sound tough, but even I was beginning to pity him. He looked so downtrodden, sounded so… honest.

“What’s changed is I’ve realised he has no intentions of letting us go. He would promise another month, another couple of weeks, and yet I’m still here, still waiting. I can’t prove this, I know, but I can take you to
Willow
. You’ll see when she goes for me that my loyalties aren’t with her pack. But you could help me persuade her that Vin’s no good. It’s true. He isn’t any good. He’s all about his own gain. He has no concern for the rest of the pack. All command and no support.” He made a face, and for a second, I saw some common ground. He’d practically described the way my grandfather had been acting.

“Say you help them,”
Perdita
said, leaning over the table. “What would they have to do? What would Nathan have to do?”

I sensed her worry. I wasn’t that brave. I worried for myself, too.

“Either come with me to rescue my girls or help take out Vin if we can lure him here.”

“But won’t we be outnumbered?” she persisted.

He licked his lips, and I could sense his reluctance. “You’ll have me and
Willow
, hopefully. And if we can somehow surprise Vin, he won’t have a chance to call in the other packs.”

“There are other packs?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.

“It’s complicated. Hard to know how many are really out there. There are a couple of small packs here and there with only a handful in each one. Even less would be capable of a fight. As far as I can tell, there are some loners, too. Some have hidden in the real world, and everyone else sticks with Vin, mostly out of fear or coercion, like me. There’s no knowing how many families are out there like mine, with a werewolf born to normal parents. Either way, he’s alpha of all the wolves, meaning the other packs obey him. The numbers are pretty small, and there are humans amongst them because there are very few female werewolves. Innocent people live amongst them. Some are elderly. Some are children. It wouldn’t be right to run in and attack them. The best way would be luring him out.”

“But?” I added, knowing he was stalling.

“But that will be the difficult bit. Although, I don’t think we need strength of numbers. Vin wants to destroy your pack because he’s afraid he’ll lose the alpha position to one of you.”

“One of us? We barely know how to track a wolf. How could we take it?”

His face cleared. “Ah. You don’t understand the power. It makes sense now. Short version then. For whatever reason, your line is pure blooded. At some stage, it seems as if the bloodline became diluted for everyone else. This curse everyone’s always talking about enabled your family to produce strong wolves. From what I understand, Vin’s pack has always gone after the mates because you’re all stronger after you bond with them. And the rest of us can’t compete with that natural ability, not if you harness it properly. We’re weak. All of us. And the curse, this mate business, makes you all so much stronger. I’m not even fully sure why. Your family doesn’t have the kinds of problems we do. There are so few female werewolves that there are very few true
matings
. The older wolves tell stories, say that when your family became wolves, the rest of us got weaker.”

Frowning, I glanced at
Perdita
. If we could be like the other wolves, then we might surpass them. Maybe even beat them without having to battle them for it. That piqued my interest more than anything. She hated violence, and we might be able to skip that part. If one of us could put fear into their alpha, then we wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted by them again. But I was the only one in my pack with a mate, and I was just a kid.

“They don’t have mates anymore. My family, I mean,” I said.

He avoided my eyes. “I know. I’m betting on you being enough.”

Panic beat heavily in my chest. If my family helped him, we were relying an awful lot on possibilities rather than fact. I had to figure out if it was worth it. “If we get rid of this alpha, will that be it? We’ll be left alone?”

Ryan nodded, but there was something edgy about the way he looked at me.

“What is it?”

“It might not be as simple as that. There will always be a few who are loyal to Vin, and he’ll do anything to take advantage of the situation. You could handle them, I’m sure of that. But if Vin is beaten down, he’ll be seen as weak. Someone will have to take over his role. That could be a problem, depending on who exactly steps into his place.”

“It’s starting to sound as though it’ll be for nothing,”
Perdita
mumbled.

“If you take a stand, then they’ll think twice next time,” he reassured her. “But you’ll need help. We need
Willow
.”

Perdita
stiffened. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t want to work with the wolf who’d attacked her father, either. But maybe we wouldn’t have a choice.

“Why is all of this happening now? Why follow us? Why try to figure out who my mate would be?”

Ryan’s face hardened. “It’s happening now because there are wolves in the pack with the ability. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ve always been followed around in some form or another. There are those with another sight. Humans who can see signs. They see when it’s almost time for the bonding. Then Vin sends a tracker.”

“But why not with my parents? Or my uncle?”

“They hadn’t found a tracker then. The tracker has a hyper-awareness, something that lets them zone in on the right bloodlines. Basically, they have the ability to find the potential mates and even werewolves. It’s how Vin has gathered everyone together. It’s how all of the past alphas have kept the werewolves linked together. Vin’s hunted them down over the years. It’s hard to explain, but once there’s even a clue, it becomes a process of elimination.
Willow
has a little of the awareness. Enough to find werewolves—like me—but not mates.”

“My grandfather told us that there were mates for him before my grandmother. That your pack kept finding them. That was because your pack had a tracker then?”

He nodded, but he looked incredibly uncomfortable.

“So who is the tracker now?”
Perdita
asked, and I cursed myself for not thinking of that question sooner.

“Well… that would be me,” he said quietly.

I swore so loudly that the only other customer in the cafe turned to watch us with curiosity. I lowered my voice, but I could barely get the words out I was shaking so much. “How could you do that?”

“I had no choice. I made it as hard as possible. I even told them there were two possibilities to buy some time. Vin decided it was time to leave blood warnings to distract you all, and I thought that would work in your favour. I thought you would understand because it happened before. But
Willow
and Jack were stalking your sister and
Perdy
, and they saw when you two… connected. That was it. I tried to help you. You have to see that now. I’m trying to make sure my own kids stay safe.”

“I believe you,”
Perdita
said firmly. I glared at her, but she raised her eyebrows as if to say,
Don’t push it
.

I groaned. When did I get so whipped?

“I know how you feel,” Ryan said. “But we need each other right now. Your family needs to make a stand against Vin, and soon. It’s not only you and me. There are a lot of wolves who need to be free of him.”

“What do you think will happen if we don’t fight back?” I asked.

“They’ll keep following your family. They’ll keep trying to take your sister. They’ll watch the unmated one and try to take his mate first, if they possibly can. Vin wants what you have. No matter what it takes to get it.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do what it takes.”

“Nathan!”
Perdita’s
horror at my instant agreement wasn’t exactly a surprise.

“I know what I said. But I need this to be done. No more waiting around to be attacked. All we’ve been saying for the past month is how much would be different now if only we had acted when we had the chance. Now we have that chance. We have to do it.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.”

I grinned, faking confidence. “I won’t. Promise. Okay, Ryan. I’ll go with you to see
Willow
. Prove yourself, and we have a real deal.”

After much arguing, we dropped
Perdita
at the hospital, and Jeremy and I joined Ryan in the search for
Willow
. Jeremy was far too easily persuaded, while Ryan kept warning us that
Willow
wasn’t like other wolves and that we couldn’t hurt her. We had to be nice to her. It felt as though we were about to try to tame a feral kitten.