Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,49

because no one else was going to. I remembered tenting the book over our heads as she held the flashlight, whispering the words to her so we wouldn’t attract our parents’ attention.

Then I’d left the pack, and she’d chosen them. There was nothing left of those two kids and the easy relationship we used to have.

But we could develop a new relationship.

She broke into my thoughts as she sat back. “Where am I going to live now?”

Penn sighed under his breath and raised his head, giving up on the pretense of sleep. He folded one arm over the backseat as he leveraged himself up, pressing his arm against the wound in his side. The past few hours of Rosemary complaining—about things that mattered and things that didn’t—had clearly worn on him, maybe more than his injuries.

She had just left the only home she knew behind; it was understandable she wanted to know what her living situation would be. I kept reminding myself that I had no idea what the kind of trauma she’d been through was like.

I promised, “We’ll figure something out, Rosemary. But for now, we have to go to the academy.”

“Why?” she demanded. “I was trying to get away from danger. You know that the academy is the most dangerous place there is right now, right?”

Penn leaned forward in his seat to look at her. “Our friends will be coming home to the academy. And when they get there, we’re going to make sure they’re safe. And you are going to help defend the academy until that happens.”

She stared at him. Penn’s voice had been quiet, without the growl of many alphas, but he sounded absolutely certain.

“Fine,” she said, before crossing her arms. She huffed out a breath like a pouty teenager.

I glanced at Penn, who shrugged. I couldn’t tell if that shrug was embarrassed because he was alpha-ing. But maybe Rosemary didn’t know how to live without a bit of bossing around, not yet. Maybe after living under our parents’ and pack’s brutal rule, it would take time for her to learn how to stand up for herself… in a way that wasn’t obnoxious.

The Kierney pack was no longer going to show up at the academy, but I wasn’t sure how many shifters were still converging to attack our friends and try to keep Maddie from coming back from the shield.

“How many packs do you think allied with the witches?” I asked Penn.

“I don’t know,” he said bitterly.

I pressed the accelerator harder, taking a corner tightly. I hated that we’d left the academy, but I knew I’d made the right call in protecting my sister.

“Come on, Lex,” Rosemary chided me. “There’s no point in saving me if I’m just going to die in a rollover.”

“Would you knock it off?” Penn told her.

“It’s all right,” I said. I felt guilty about leaving her behind, even though I’d been desperate to save myself.

“No, it’s not,” Penn said.

Rosemary sat back in her seat, pouting. Penn rolled his eyes and rubbed his hand across his face.

“The next generation of academy students isn’t going to be any less of a pain-in-the-ass than the current ones, I can tell,” he muttered.

I had to grin. “Well, the pains-in-the-ass that I’ve known have all been worth it.” I didn’t look away from the road, given the speeds we were moving at, but I added, “Thanks for the save back there.”

Penn was amazingly skilled. I hadn’t truly recognized that before, and while I’d hated feeling helpless yet again—just as I always had at the alpha’s house—I could always trust him to watch my back.

“It was nothing,” he said. “I was lucky to have some good teachers.”

“And a bit of magic.”

His lips turned up at the corners. “And a bit of magic.”

Losing our wolves had changed us forever, and I wondered what would happen when—if—we ever gained our wolves back again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Maddie

* * *

Jensen and I were playing cards in the kitchen when we heard movement outside. We both tossed the cards face-up on the table and stood, swords in hand.

When they came back, as soon as he made it in the door, Rafe said, “They moved the shield.”

Silas sauntered in behind Rafe, his hands in his pockets. Echo’s face was tranquil under the mass of dark hair.

“So much for twenty-four hours,” Jensen said.

I resisted the impulse to kick him on Silas’s behalf, which I thought was pretty mature of me. Silas had the dreamy look I’d come to associate with plotting, even though on Echo’s face