Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,38
out how to keep us safe.
She showed me the memory of her twenty feet tall and sinking her teeth into the throat of the demon lord Orias. We are safe, she stated. She faded into the shadows.
I opened my eyes. Sean squeezed my hand. “What did you do?”
“I asked her to be patient and stop hurting me.”
He rested his forehead on mine. “That won’t work long term. You have to dominate her, or she won’t learn her boundaries. I know you don’t want to, but you have to.”
He was right: I didn’t want to dominate her the way he had, because it caused her pain—pain I understood all too well. I also knew boundaries were important. Somehow I would have to make her obey me, even if it hurt both of us to do so.
“I will,” I promised him. “She wants to run.”
“Of course she does. She’s a wolf, albeit one made of magic. Wolves need to run. I’ll take her running at the pack land. When do you and Malcolm have to leave?”
“As soon as I have a chance to talk to Carly and see if she can make me some goodies to take with us. Depending on how long she needs to make them, we might be leaving as early as tomorrow night. We don’t have much time.”
“Then I’ll take her now.”
“What? Now?”
“Yes. You can stay here and get some sleep. When we’re done, I’ll bring her back.”
I shook my head. “This is a bad idea.”
“Alice, made of magic or not, she’s a wolf in our pack, and she needs to run.” He kissed my forehead. “Trust us both.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.” I closed my eyes and found my wolf’s golden eyes in the shadows again. Go run with Sean, I told her.
My wolf didn’t need any coaxing. With a growl, she leaped from my chest in a surge of power and landed on the floor next to the bed, radiant with golden magic.
I sat up, rubbing my chest, which ached from her abrupt departure. “You can’t go around glowing,” I told her. “You have to be stealthy.”
She showed me her teeth again. She shook herself briskly, then turned into a black wolf with a band of gray across her shoulders and a streak of white in her tail.
Sean kissed my temple and climbed off the bed. “Get some sleep. We’ll be back.”
I didn’t know how I was supposed to sleep after what we’d just done, or while he and my wolf were gone, but I’d have to try. “Be careful. And don’t let her eat Rogue.”
He chuckled. “She knows he’s pack, but I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”
He dressed quickly, gave me one last kiss, and headed downstairs with my wolf at his side. The house wards tingled as they left. I heard the sound of the Maclin Security SUV as it backed down the drive.
A few minutes later, as I dozed, Rogue appeared at the side of the bed. He put his chin on the mattress and stared at me.
“Sean’s going to be annoyed at me if he comes back and you’re on the bed,” I told the dog sleepily. “But come on anyway, fur-face.” I patted the bed.
Rogue jumped up and settled in with his back against my shins. I pulled the covers up to my chin and tried to imagine Sean, in wolf form, running through the pack land with my wolf.
“I wish I could run with him,” I murmured to Rogue. “I don’t want to be a werewolf, but I’d like to run with Sean, just once, to know what it’s like. There’s no way for me to do that, I suppose.”
Rogue wriggled closer and let out a contented sigh. I snuggled under the covers and drifted off to sleep.
7
Sean and my wolf returned just before dawn, far more contented and happy than when they’d left. Apparently the run had done them both some good.
My wolf returned to my body and settled so deeply into the shadows in my head that it felt as though she’d gone to sleep. Sean changed into pajamas and joined me in bed for a few hours before he had to go to the office for a meeting.
After he kissed me goodbye, I dragged myself out of bed and showered. Malcolm hadn’t come back from hanging out with Liam, so I put Rogue out in the backyard and headed for Brew a Cup, in desperate need of caffeine and Carly’s blueberry scones.