“Did you find out anything helpful?” Jack asked as Everly approached him. He had been hanging out, speaking to his parents, trying to get caught up on everything he’d missed while they were gone while she was off speaking to Grandma Genevieve, but it was difficult for him to stay focused because he kept thinking about her.
He was worried about her. This entire situation was dangerous, and she would be better off at Margot’s house where she was safe, and now that her father was out here, too, where he was more vulnerable, Everly was going to be in even more danger because she would put herself in harm’s way in order to try to make sure that Jim was safe.“Yes,” Everly said with a nod. “We did find out something that will probably be very helpful—well, maybe. I guess it depends on how good your acting skills are.”Jack’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to figure out exactly what it was Everly was getting at. “What’s that now?” He looked from his girlfriend to his sister, who waThe European Council was made up of eight wolf shifters from eight different countries, and when they got out of the SUV and stepped up into Jack’s yard, Everly found herself feeling almost as nervous as she had been on the night when she turned into a wolf shifter herself.Almost.Some of them looked extremely serious, like they were quite angry they’d been summoned there to help with this situation. Others looked almost humorous, and other different circumstances, she might’ve been tempted to laugh at their outfits of their strange facial hair, or the way they stared at everyone like they’d never seen normal looking wolf shifters before.But she stayed next to Jack with her hand in his and hoped that none of them yelled at her for being the root cause of all of this drama. Not that she could blame them if they did. At the end of the day, it really was all her fault, wasn’t it?Actually… it was really sort of her mother’s fault since she was the one who had been the vic
“Hello, ladies.” Slate put on his flirtiest smile as he approached the mages, hoping to find one or two that would be willing to go with him to Maura’s house. He would need to find one powerful enough to turn him into Jack for a little while. As revolting as it was to think of having to be Jack at all, he’d made it seem like it was going to be impossible for Slate to fool Maura into thinking he was Jack, and Slate resented the idea that anyone thought him incapable of fooling the girl.It wasn’t like she was some mentally astute rocket scientist. She was a high school cheerleader, a dingy one at that, and he was pretty sure he could find a way to get the book back, if it was still in her house.He just needed to fool her into letting him in.“Hi,” one of the mages, a tall brunette with glassy blue eyes said. “What’s up?”“Yeah, you look like you have something on your mind, chief,” a dangerou
Slate went upstairs with Maura, still wearing Jack’s face. So far, it seemed that the magic was working, and the girl was fooled into thinking he really was the Lichtwolf, her exboyfriend. The only problem was, he had no idea what they used to do. He didn’t know Jack well enough to even know what to talk about. He hated Jack, so it was difficult to even say anything that didn’t make him sound like a douchebag because he just wanted to say stupid things—that was all he ever heard when Jack was talking.As Maura took his hand and led him up the stairs, her mother called, “Maura, is everything okay?”“Everything is fine, Mom,” Maura said. “Jack is just upset because this stupid girl broke up with him. But we’re going to go upstairs and talk about it, and he’ll be feeling fine in no time.” Maura winked at him in a way that seemed way too sexual for someone who was talking to her mother about taking a boy t
Everly waited in Jack’s car as Alyson went over to check on Slate. He had only made it to the edge of town before he’d had to pull the motorcycle over and had crumpled on the ground like a wet bag, but at least he hadn’t actually wrecked.Jack hadn’t wanted to come looking for him, but when he’d been gone for so long, and none of them had heard anything, and Brock hadn’t been able to get a response through the mind-link, which might’ve been because he was too far away or because he was too preoccupied, Everly and Alyson had talked Jack into going to look for him.They’d been on their way into town when they’d heard Jack’s bike. Alyson signaled for them to come over, and Jack and Everly got out of the car.With another huff, Jack picked up his bike while Everly and Alyson got Slate off of the ground and into the back of Jack’s car.“I don’t see the book anywhere,” Everly noted.
“I have to kiss him?” Alyson asked, staring at Everly.“That’s what Lexi said,” Everly told her. “She thinks it’s a sleeping spell, and that’s the only way to wake him up.”Alyson’s expression didn’t change. “But what if she’s wrong, and that’s not what it is? What if I kiss him and nothing happens? Or what if I kiss him and something worse happens? Like I fall asleep? Or he turns into an… ogre or something?”“I think you might be reading too much into this, sis,” Will said. He seemed to be enjoying watching his older sister squirm over the possibility of having to kiss a Nachtwolf to wake him up from a sleeping spell. “Just plant one on him already and see what happens.”Alyson’s eyes traveled from the hallway where the three of them were standing back into the guest room where Slate had been taken when they’d carried him in. His parents were in the room with him, his mother wringing her hands with concern while her father rubbed her back and tried to keep her calm. The
Jack was with his parents and several members of the European Council standing in the yard when Everly came outside from watching Alyson revive Slate. Any jealousy she felt when she saw Slate and Alyson interacting in the bedroom vanished when she saw Jack standing there next to his father. His hands were in the pocket of his jeans, and his eyes were focused on the ground as he listened to whatever the others were talking about, and Everly stopped in her tracks for a moment as she was flooded with memories.From the moment that she’d run into him in the grocery store, until she’d seen him at school, looking at her with that scowl on his face that made her think that he hated her, until he’d showed up the night that Toby had been almost killed and whisked her away to make sure that they were okay, she’d had no idea how she was supposed to feel about him.But then… things had shifted, and she’d realized she’d been falling in love wi
“He was at the party?” Everly repeated what Su said. “Slate was at the party where you were turned into a werewolf?”Su’s head bobbed up and down again. “That’s right. He was with the guy that bit me.”“You’re sure it wasn’t him though, right?” Everly asked as she felt Jack tense up beside her.“Oh, yeah. I’m sure it wasn’t him. But still… it’s weird to see someone who knows about all of this. He was with the guy when he was telling me about what happened and telling me that I was in huge trouble and I was going to have to do something.”Everly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Slate had gone through this before. “Slate!” she shouted, and he looked up.His eyes flickered to Everly’s face, and then they went to Su’s, and they widened. Even from across the yard, Everly could read his lips, “Oh, shit.”
Running through the forest with Jack on one side and her mother on the other, Everly felt a nervous tension building inside of her. Knowing that Jack and her mother had vowed to protect her was one thing, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t end up in a situation where she’d be forced to protect herself.And she was pretty sure she wasn’t capable of that.After all, she wasn’t exactly an athletic human to begin with. Now that she was a wolf, that hadn’t changed. These other shifters had been training for this their whole lives, so they knew exactly what to do while they were fighting. And the werewolves were so vicious, they instinctively knew exactly what to do to make sure that they could handle anyone who was stupid enough to challenge them.But Everly felt just about as vulnerable as her dad. At least he had brought a gun. He was riding on her mother’s back right now, and Everly made a point not to look directly into Jim