Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,113

police station.

Katelyn called him immediately, and he picked up.

“Kat,” he said. “Mike. I didn’t do it.”

“I know.” She chewed her lower lip so she wouldn’t cry. “They know that now, too, right?”

“I guess.” He didn’t sound convincing. “This all started when Haley died. It keeps getting worse. I want to tell you that I wish you hadn’t moved here, except I’m such a selfish bastard that I’m glad you did.”

A single tear ran down her cheek.

His breath caught. “I’m going to keep you safe.”

“I know you are.” You’ll keep my heart safe.

This was love. She loved Trick Sokolov and she always would. No matter what happened in her confusing, complicated life-within-a-life, there would always be an entire world inside her where she loved Trick and he loved her. Beyond dreams of flying on a cloud swing and the realities of running with werewolves, even if she died in the next heartbeat or was forced by Lee Fenner to let Trick go, there would be a secret forever place where she and Trick would be together. And if it had taken all the tragedies and terrors in her life for her to realize that, then she was glad for them.

And now she knew what friendship was, too. Cordelia had risked everything to help her. Katelyn could, and would, do no less. A strange new kind of peace settled over her, the knowledge that she wasn’t a powerless victim. Even in this dark place, the darkest place, there was hope.

“Keep the faith, Vladimir,” she said to Trick, and then she hung up.

Next, as she had planned, she told her grandfather that she was going over to study at Paulette’s in the morning. She figured that she could call him in the afternoon and tell him that she was going to spend the night there so they could work on some school stuff.

Then she took a very deep breath and said, “So, do you want that gun back?”

There was a barely perceptible pause, and then he answered, “Why don’t you keep it in your car?”

And another pause as she said, “Okay.”

People kept guns in their cars in Wolf Springs. Obviously, he assumed that she didn’t know her gun was very special.

In the morning she drove to the Fenners’, and when she made the call to her grandfather about spending the night at Paulette’s, he seemed distracted and told her to have a nice time. His lack of questioning was one of the first lucky breaks she’d had in a while. But it concerned her, too. He was usually so protective of her. And with another death, she had assumed he would have been even more so. Something was up with him. She remembered how he had snuck out and lied about it, and she wondered what secrets her grandfather was keeping from her. For now, those questions would have to wait.

After traveling south all day, switching drivers and gassing the trucks and cars as fast as they could, the Fenner pack had reached the border between Fenner and Gaudin territory: Bayou des Loupes — Bayou of the Wolves, not named as such on any map.

Katelyn held her breath as the sun sank beyond the horizon. The bayou was muddy and dark; ropy vines and trees hung over the water, and strange, knobby wooden growths jutted up beneath the surface. Things skittered and glided and the air felt heavy, wet, and leaden. It wouldn’t snow, but it might rain, and the wind made the tree trunks sway.

“Got your gun?” Mr. Fenner asked. She nodded. It was in a holster he had given her, pressed up against her ribcage. “Get it ready.” He looked up at the sky. “Sun’s coming down. They’ll wait for moonrise. It’s tradition.”

“Then we should attack now,” Arial said.

She and Regan stood with their husbands while Justin was with some of the other men in the back. And everyone was staying in their clothes. Did they assume they wouldn’t need them again? Were any of the Fenner werewolves around her preparing to give their lives for the pack?

Justin came up beside her. He looked down at her gun with a wounded look in his eyes — she hadn’t told him — then he slid his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

“Stay behind me,” he murmured. “I’ll protect you.”

Studying her face, he chewed the inside of his cheek, then exhaled harshly. He looked at his uncle, then pulled Katelyn away from the group. He glanced left and right, searching for