Page 74 of Wolf's Chance

He nodded, looking out the window and pressing his foot on the gas a little more as silence filled the small space once more.

The silence didn’t help. I wanted answers. So many answers, but where did I start? “So what now?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Now, we keep moving,” he replied, his eyes hardening again. “I’ll protect you, I promise. But we do need to find answers. And maybe I need to think about things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well, I changed my mind about taking you to my friend, but I wasn’t expecting others to come after us.”

“Why did you change your mind?” I wasn’t interested in outside of the truck. Caleb was finally talking, and I had been waiting so long for this that I wasn’t ready for him to stop.

He gave a slight shake of his head. “I don’t know…” I wanted to tell him that he did know, but he spoke before I could. “I saw the first wolf, the one on the road, remember?”

How could I forget?

Caleb looked over at me and must have read the answer on my face, and surprisingly, I saw the corner of his mouth hook upwards in the semblance of a smile. “Right,” he said with a lightness we’d been missing since we left the B&B. “Well, it didn’t sit right,” he explained. “Shifters don’t willingly expose themselves to the human world. But…” He hesitated. “The alpha said that we were traveling through packlands and it wasn’tthatmuch of a coincidence that a wolf would stop us on the road.”

He was using the terms so loosely. Casually. His openness was almost as surreal as the topic he was discussing.

“Alpha.” My murmur brought his attention back to me. “You told me about them. Leaders?”

Caleb grunted. “Most packs have one,” he explained.

“Are they bad?”

Caleb was already shaking his head. “No, not all of them.” A look I didn’t recognize passed across his face. “Some are the best of men.”

Was that wistfulness? “The one you were taking us to, he isn’t?”

Caleb cleared his throat. “I think he’s decent enough.”

I waited. When he said nothing more, I gaped. “That’s it? He’s decent? It’s hardly a ringing endorsement.”

Caleb chuckled. “I don’t really know him,” he reminded me. “From what I knowofhim, he’s okay. I’ve seen him once before, a long time ago, when he was in his wolf form.” He seemed to think about it. “Put it this way. There are ones I would never take you to, so the fact I was taking you to him means I know he’s one of the good ones.”

“But you didn’t take me to him.”

He met my look with an unreadable one of his own. “I made a mistake.” I watched as he scratched his jaw, the look of determination on his face unsettling me. “I should have taken you there and never detoured, even when you were sick.”

Emotion overwhelmed me, and I turned my head away so he couldn’t see my tears. “I appreciate that you looked after me.” Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I spoke softly. “Iappreciate that you got a doctor. You didn’t need to. I’m sorry you wasted your money.”

“It wasn’t a waste,” he corrected me quietly. “You were lifeless. I was sure you were at death’s door.”

I let out a low chuckle. “You sound like Lily. She likes to dramatize it sometimes too.”

“I’m not being dramatic.” Caleb’s snort made me turn and face him. “Knowing that you lose your energy around me, I had no way of knowing if I was causing you harm.”

“It was just a bad spell.” I tried to offer him comfort. “Trust me, you’ll see more.” I’d spoken flippantly, but by his look, I knew what I’d said worried him. We couldn’t afford for me to be…well, me.

“It may be hard to get to the alpha now,” he said, measuring his words carefully.

“I can keep up.” Sitting straighter, I tried to look like I was fine. Healthy.Normal.

“I don’t know if you can,” Caleb admitted. “It could be rough, and…” I saw his glance at me, but I stared straight ahead. “We need to walk some of the way.”

“I’m capable of walking, Caleb.” My voice sounded defensive, but I couldn’t help it.

“I know.” He wisely didn’t argue. He didn’t remind me that he had seen me after I’d walked to and from my store and then almost collapsed afterwards. He didn’t remind me of the times he had carried me when I was too weak to walk.

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