Wolf Bound Read online

  ‘You need to get more sleep.’

  Shelley laughed. ‘I think that is most definitely the pot calling the kettle black, my friend. If the bags under your eyes got any bigger, you’d be able to keep the kitchen sink in them as well as everything else.’

  ‘Good one!’ Hallucination-Adam laughed.

  ‘It’s difficult to sleep with so much going on,’ Bron said.

  ‘My point exactly. And with Morrigan and Cain out there plotting god knows what next, it’s difficult to go to sleep.’ She gritted her teeth together on those names. ‘If I could get my hands on them …’

  ‘You and everyone else,’ Adam said.

  She ignored the comment. ‘If anyone is to blame, it’s Morrigan and Cain. I need to keep focused on that. Working to make sure they don’t get to do whatever it is they plan.’

  ‘Damn right,’ Adam said.

  God, she wished she could block out his voice like she’d blocked out her ability to see him right now, but it wasn’t that simple.

  ‘Sounds like a good plan,’ River said.

  ‘So does going home.’ Shelley firmed her face against the wistfulness that thought evoked. She didn’t like feeling wistful. It made her think of all those ‘what ifs’ she studiously avoided. There was no room for ‘what if’ in her life. There never had been. ‘I need to surround myself with something normal for a little while. Go back to work. They’ve been calling me, offering any shift I want if only I come back.’

  ‘That’s great.’ Bron put her arm around Shelley to give her a little squeezy hug, the kind she’d only ever allowed Bron and Skye to give her. ‘Go back to work and do the research you enjoy. If that’s what you need, that’s what you should do.’

  Shelley nodded and headed towards the door. As she got there, she swung back, being very careful to look nowhere but at Bron and River, their arms around each other, comforting, supportive. A united front. A matching pair. She was happy for her friend. For both her friends. At least they had found the one person on this earth who would love them and look after them and see to their wants and needs. It was enough. It had to be enough.

  ‘What is it?’ Bron asked.

  ‘Just make sure you look after Adam’s body while I’m gone, okay.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And yourself. And call me if you need me back.’ Her gaze darted to just behind where they were standing. Adam stood there, near his body, worry, pain and something else in his eyes. Something that hurt too much to try to figure out. She looked away. ‘I’ll come back if you need me.’

  ‘We know.’

  She turned and left.

  She was in the lift on her way to the surface before she realised that hallucination-Adam hadn’t followed her. Huh. She’d been right. It was being around his body, seeing him so quiet and still, that had made her mind conjure him up. It was part of the psychology of grief. People often felt their loved ones nearby when visiting them in the hospital. She’d seen it time and time again. That’s what this was. Not that Adam was a loved one. But she did feel something for him. She couldn’t push away that fact, no matter how much it aggravated her.

  The doors dinged and opened. Gareth was standing there. ‘That sneaky bastard. River called you the moment I left the room, didn’t he?’

  He smiled broadly as she frowned at him. ‘Yep. He told me to take you back to Melbourne and to ignore your scowls and any temper tantrums you might throw about overprotective Were.’

  ‘Did he just?’ Shelley’s eyes narrowed as she moved out of the lift.

  Gareth’s smile broadened as he fell into step beside her. ‘Yes. And then Bron got on the line and told me to tell you that if you tried to ignore my offer of a lift back to Melbourne, that I was to call her and she would come up and use her healer powers to make you unconscious so you wouldn’t be able to drive yourself back.’

  ‘Did she?’ She shook her head. She should feel angry at her sneaky friend and her equally sneaky mate, but right now she just didn’t have the energy. Leaving that room after being there for so long, leaving Adam’s body, the hallucination of him, was harder than she realised it would be. It almost felt like she was tearing herself in two.

  Was that insane?

  No. Now she was being ridiculous. Tiredness. That’s all it was.

  The sooner she got back to Melbourne and filled her time with things other than tending to Adam’s unconscious body, the better. ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’

  Gareth faltered, a cloud of sadness crossing his expression, before he nodded and led the way out of the barn to the SUV parked just outside. For a moment, she wondered why he looked so sad, then she remembered.

  ‘Lead on MacDuff’. That was Adam’s saying. Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them rapidly away.

  She really needed to get away from here. The sooner the better.

  Chapter 4

  The room was deathly quiet, the only sound the constant wind that seemed to whistle around him at all times. It had got worse since Shelley had left. Everything was worse without her around. He wanted to talk to her. It didn’t matter that she’d been studiously ignoring him pretty much since the night he’d ended up like this. He was used to Shelley ignoring him. She’d done that on and off ever since they’d met at the snow. It was kind of their thing. Besides, even when she ignored him, he knew she could hear him. Being heard. He never realised how important that was. What a difference it made. It made him feel something. Like he was still part of things.

  The depth of aloneness he’d felt since she’d left was astonishing. He’d often felt different in his life, like he was apart, but he’d never felt lonely.

  He wanted Shelley to come back.

  Fuck, you’re pathetic! he told himself as he pushed away from the wall where he’d been staring glumly at the room. And seriously selfish. Shelley had needed to go back to Melbourne. Apart from having work there and the diaries to go over, she needed to get away from this room. More than anyone else, the memories of what had happened, the level of grief that hung over the room like a shroud, affected her. It was a withheld pain inside, and he’d felt it like a knife slashing in his chest every moment she was here. He’d done what he could to cheer her up, but every time he’d almost surprised a laugh out of her, she’d shut down further. He was glad she was gone. Sort of. When he wasn’t being a selfish prick.

  He had to look on the bright side.

  What bright side? the depressive voice in his head mumbled.

  The up side of him tried to rally. Now she’s gone, I can focus on what the fuck is going on with me. He clapped his hands together. Lead on MacDuff. Let’s get shit done.

  He glanced at his body lying on the bed in the corner, the wound in his chest still blackened and horrifying to look at. His chest rose and fell without the help of the machines arrayed nearby. Thank the moon. Seeing himself with that tube shoved down his throat had made him want to gag. Thankfully Bron had decided he didn’t need it and had taken it out after a few days. A light shone on the bed from above. His usually golden skin was so pale, it looked like he was glowing in the light—apart from the blackened ring in his chest that Bron hadn’t been able to heal, no matter how much healing energy she’d shot into him. Staring at the light glowing off him and the hole in his chest, he couldn’t help but snort a laugh.

  ‘Fuck, I’m holy.’ He looked around, waiting for someone to groan and tell him how awful the pun was, and then he’d torture them by explaining why it was so brilliant. But Bron was the only other living person there—and she’d fallen asleep in her chair. Aside from her, there were only the spirits who constantly hung around his and Cordy’s bodies. They were next to useless insofar as an audience went. Despite being able to see them, he couldn’t hear them, and unless they were seriously having him on, they couldn’t hear him either. Although he hadn’t really tried to talk to them when Shelley was here. That was about to change.

  ‘Right. Here goes nothing.’ He walked over to the closest group. They turned to look
at him. One of them said something, but all he heard was the wind in his ears. ‘What was that?’ They said it again and he tried reading the ghost woman’s lips. He only caught every other word and none of it made sense. ‘Can you say that again? I seem to be in a wind tunnel. Is that the same for you?’ She said something else—he really wasn’t good at the lip-reading thing, as it seemed she’d called him a nobbin tup thumper and followed it up by saying that erstwhile ferrets were all around and something else he really didn’t catch at all. He tapped his ear and shook his head. She tried sign language—it didn’t help. She rolled her eyes and turned to a ghost at her side and said something to them. They laughed.

  Huh. At least that answered one of his questions—they could hear each other. So why couldn’t he hear them or vice versa?

  He tried talking to a few more but with no success. Then he noticed one of them looking at him. She was standing beside where Bron was asleep—he’d noticed her around Bron a lot. He’d thought she’d looked familiar that first night and suddenly realised why. This had to be Adeline. Bron’s dead grandmother. There was a definite familial resemblance, especially around the eyes.

  He approached her. ‘You’re Adeline.’ He pointed at Bron. ‘Bron’s gran.’

  She nodded and said something back, some of which he caught. ‘No, I can’t hear you properly.’ He gestured around his head. ‘Some kind of wind.’

  She nodded again, as if she understood. He sighed in relief. It was nice to be understood.

  He turned and gestured back at his body. ‘Do you know why I’m here, like this? Why I’m different from you?’ He moved his hand between himself and her. It took some time, but he eventually managed to understand most of her answer—a combination of her talking slowly and making hand gestures. Nothing she said was good.

  She had no idea what he was, why he couldn’t hear her, or why his wound wouldn’t heal. He thought maybe she was going to ask some of the other spirits she knew, but wasn’t sure that’s what all the hand waving in a circle had actually meant. She didn’t bother to ask any of the other spirits in the room that he’d already tried to communicate with, though. Instead, she simply turned and disappeared.

  She didn’t come back for days.

  And days.

  And days.

  He spent those days trying not to sink into the depression he’d been in when Shelley left. It was difficult. He couldn’t talk to anyone. Couldn’t make himself heard. Could barely make the other spirits listen to him—even though they seemed so very interested in his body and what Bron was doing to it to keep him alive. He just had to concentrate on the fact he’d managed to communicate with someone and they were trying to help him.

  When Adeline finally came back, he almost wept with relief. That was until she told him she had no answers but that she’d keep asking around. It might just take time.

  He had to be happy with that because, quite frankly, he didn’t have any other choice. But it was aggravating not to be doing something more. Especially for someone who was known for his frenetic energy. And the whole thing was made worse by the fact his link with the pack still seemed to be operating. He could feel the pack’s worry like fingernails raking down his spine. He usually helped them through stressful situations by making others laugh or see the light side of things, but given they couldn’t hear his amazingly funny quips, that was no use.

  He tried not to think too much about the fact that he was as useful as tits on a bull now, but as days slipped into weeks, he couldn’t help focusing entirely on that fact. Or the fact he needed Shelley to come back. It was like a pulse inside him, getting stronger every day. He needed to talk to her. Needed her to hear him. Needed someone else to focus on other than himself.

  And wasn’t that just the must pathetic and arseholish thing of all! The fact he wanted her to come back to a place that caused her so much pain just so he could feel better was a sure sign that something in him was horribly wrong.

  Fuck. He had to find a way to get back into his body or he’d go stark raving nuts.

  But how? Bron had tried everything she knew. So where did that leave him?

  Maybe it wasn’t something that someone could do from the outside. Maybe it required the direct approach. That usually worked for him. Yes! He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. Kicking himself mentally, he walked over to the bed and looked down at himself. How best to do this? Probably if he hovered over the body and then sank straight down into it—except for the fact that he had no idea how to do the hovering part. So far, the most ghostlike thing he’d done was walk through a wall, but he did that with his feet touching the floor. Maybe if he just moved into the bed and into the middle of his body, that might do the trick.

  He tried it. Nothing happened. Except for the fact that he felt really stupid standing in the middle of his body. He tried to crouch down, to fit himself to the body. Nothing. No sucking or popping sounds or sensations. He was still completely separate. He walked out of his body and thought about it again. Maybe something smaller. Maybe if he held his own hand. People often said they experienced feelings of intense connection just through the joining of hands with others. They always did it in séances, right? He reached out, touched his hand—and sank straight through it. Tried again. The same. Bugger.

  Bron woke up then, rubbed her eyes and put her hand out over his wound. He could see the golden glow of her healing, feel the link between her, the pack and him. Maybe he could use that link to get back into his body. The warmth of her healing of his body was like a faint echoing buzz in his chest. He closed his eyes, tried to anchor to the strength of it, to her bond with the pack, to travel back through it to himself. Something happened, like sliding through a warm, golden shower of water—a waterfall—but then he hit a wall and was thrown back across the room.

  Head reeling, he staggered to his feet. What the hell? That shouldn’t have happened; it as as if his body had rejected him! He returned to Bron’s side and tried again. Wham—he was smacked back, harder this time, so hard pain tingled in his chest. He looked across the room and saw Bron was rubbing her fingers as if she too had been hurt.

  ‘Are you okay, Bron?’ He raced back to her side, touched her shoulder without thinking about it.

  She jerked and stood up, knocking the chair back. ‘What the?’ She looked around, her gaze grazing over him.

  ‘Did you feel me, Bron? Did you feel that?’

  She looked blankly around then breathed out slowly. ‘I think I need a break,’ she said, righting the chair. ‘I’ll be back later. Don’t go anywhere.’ She kissed Adam’s body’s cheek and left.

  ‘Damn it!’ What the fuck was going on? None of it made any sense. If he wasn’t a ghost and he wasn’t a shade, then what the fuck was he? He needed Shelley here to talk it over with. She’d go straight for the books and find something. He knew she’d find something. But she wasn’t here and the part of him that wasn’t a selfish prick knew she couldn’t come back. Not yet. He had to figure this out himself.

  Okay. First things first. Why could he still feel his wolf and the pack bond if he was separated from his body like a Shade? It was weaker than it had been before, but it was still there, a small tendril of connection to his body, his wolf, his pack—although apparently not enough to allow him to find a way back in, to reconnect. Maybe he needed to strengthen it before he could do anything else.

  He stood beside his body and looked deep inside, to that place in his mind and heart and soul that held the bonds to wolf, to self, to pack. His head started to ache. There was a flickering sensation that shot up and down his body. He lifted his hand. It didn’t seem as solid as it had before, and was definitely flickering. He knew he was doing that thing he’d done when trying to help Iain to keep Eloise alive. Shelley had yelled at him for it. Told him whatever he was doing he was giving too much of himself. Making himself fade. But he couldn’t stop. Not until he’d strengthened the thread connecting him in an essential way to life.

  The flickeri
ng began to get faster, a burning pain accompanying it. But he wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop until …

  There.

  In his body, he saw the glimmer of bond strengthen and become something closer to what it had always been—an earthly twine, laced with threads of silver and gold. He couldn’t see it, but knew a part of that thread was still attached to whatever he was now. He leaned against the bed, head hanging down between his shoulders, breath a pant in his throat, every part of him aching. ‘Shit, that was exhausting.’

  As the pain faded, his mind cleared a little and he opened his eyes.

  Adeline stood there yelling at him.

  He couldn’t hear her, but he knew what she was saying.

  Stupid.

  Stubborn.

  Idiotic.

  Male.

  He understood those words clear as day.

  He grinned at her and waved his hands in a gesture he hoped she would take as meaning he was sorry for worrying her and that he wouldn’t do it again.

  She calmed down but was still giving him the stink-eye. She mouthed something at him that he took to be, ‘Why would you do such an idiotic thing?’

  ‘I thought maybe it would help me to reconnect with my body.’

  She frowned and shook her head. She didn’t understand, and right now he couldn’t be fagged trying to explain. Eventually, when no further explanation was coming, she shook her finger at him and mouthed something about him not doing it again, and wandered off.

  He smiled after her, but even that felt like too much effort. He slumped to the floor and sat there for what could have been an hour or a day, semi-dozing, aware of others moving in and out of the room. Bron came back in with River and started another healing on his body. Nothing changed. The wound remained the same. She got up and staggered away, River at her side, urging her to lie down on the bed on the other side of the room to rest.