Destiny and Deception Read Free

another us . So as long as we stayed together, neither of us would truly be alone again.
    Marlaena
    We were so screwed.
    The winter wind pulled me along, claws dug deep in my nostrils, dragging me toward destiny. With hunters barely two states behind and snow hemming us in on all sides, our choices had been limited since we lost Harmony by the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. The gunshots still rang in my ears like they’d been fired yesterday, although Chicago was far from the mountains we now raced across.
    I wanted to shake free of my humanity—the stain seeping through the wolf in me and reminding me I’d failed, that I’d made the choice to leave the Windy City too late. That my failure had cost my pack.
    In lives. Every human cell in my wolf body whined, weak and slow, sluggishly processing our loss.
    Lingering over worthless emotion.
    Muscles burning with effort, I pushed on, clawing into thickly frosted ground, my eyes slitted against the sting of the snowflakes threatening to blind me. Warmer weather wouldn’t have narrowed our options. My snout wrinkled. We should have gone south with the migrating birds.
    I should have known better. As alpha, I should have been smarter—more prepared. I glanced around the fur rippling across my shoulders and counted the wolves fighting to keep pace.
    Eleven stumbling, bleary-eyed wolves with bellies rattling like beggars’ bowls followed me. And one ran ahead, laying down our path with nothing but scent, a thinning reminder of his red hair and fox-like features. All together twelve wolves looked to me to keep them all safe.
    All we had was one another.
    And that amounted to next to nothing with hunters on our tails.
    Jessie
    Closing the door to Pietr’s room, I leaned against it and caught my breath. Only a few hours had passed since Tatiana’s death. Inside, Pietr dozed on his bed, exhausted from the impact of the cure and the emotional strain of losing someone he’d only just won back. Disbelief and anger at our failure warred within him.
    The same way they’d battled inside me when I lost my mother.
    Over the past months I’d dealt with my grief (certainly not gracefully), but it didn’t make me any better at helping Pietr through his pain.
    I was failing. I should’ve known the right thing to say or do to make things better. But every time his eyes met mine, my throat clogged and all the words stopped.
    There had to be something I could do.
    The temptation to have Dad come get me was strong. I could head home and saddle up Rio. A ride in the crisp wind might help clear my head.
    I closed my eyes. What would a ride do for the Rusakovas?
    Nothing .
    Now was not the time to be selfish. Now was the time to buckle down and do whatever I could for the people who needed it most.
    Even if most of those people were werewolves.
    … were werewolves. Past tense.
    With a groan I pulled away from the door and stumbled down the hall. I paused by the bathroom to assess the damage Max had done: towel racks torn from the walls; tile broken; chunks of plaster and a coating of white dust covered a floor that wallpaper brushed, trailing raggedly from the walls in long shreds. The mirror over the sink was shattered—by fist or paw, I couldn’t tell.
    What had he seen to make him lash out, intent on destroying his own reflection?
    The sink, tub, and shower were still intact. That was good, at least. I’d talk to Max about cleaning up a little later—but before Cat decided to talk to him and the tension between them grew even more difficult to control.
    Or … I stepped into the bathroom, glass grinding between my sneakers and the tile. Maybe I’d just clean it up myself.
    “Jessie.”
    I jumped, but breathed a sigh of relief seeing Amy in the doorway.
    She held a bucket and mop in her gloved hands. “I can’t do nothing,” she said. “I’ll do the physical cleanup, and you handle the emotional. You understand this better.” Her eyebrows pulled together, and she looked at the bits