Putting Mathew down, Eva waited until he’d ran ahead to walk with a boy near his age before asking her next question. “What’s the likelihood of an attack here?”
Olivia glanced at her gravely. “Honestly, I don’t know. All we can do is hope for the best.”
But hoping, Eva knew, didn’t get you anywhere. She’d watched her mother slowly fade before her eyes and hoped every second of every day for a miracle to change her fate. She’d hoped her father would see sense and contact her once he’d left pack lands and arrived home, yet she’d heard nothing from him, other than what her brother had passed on. Hope was an emotion that you clung to when all else was lost, but it was useless when the world was ripped from beneath your feet, and the darkness of grief smothered it out. Hope was a beacon on the horizon urging them forward, but sometimes the distance was just too far to reach.
***
“Hey, Anna, is everything all right? You’ve been staring at your phone for the last twenty minutes,” Olivia said.
Eva looked up from watching Mathew and toward Anna. She’d also noticed the woman staring at her phone and wondered if everything was all right, but while Eva had met her several times, she didn’t feel like she knew Anna well enough to ask her such things. Sometimes Eva felt like an outsider looking in, no matter how many people made an effort to include her. It was the curse of being a human in a pack of supernatural creatures and being the most fragile and unprepared. And while Anna might be human, at times, Eva saw her as the least human of them all. Not because she was cruel and without humanity, but because seeing the future made her the most different and unearthly.
Startling green eyes met Olivia’s, wide and glassy, and a line of tension gathered between her brows. “I sent Katalina a text just before she was taken… but I don’t remember sending it.” She ran her hand through her ruby red locks, brushing them from her face. “What use am I if I send cryptic texts without warning anyone she’s in danger? I should have known.”
“You can’t control your gift, Anna,” Olivia reassured her, placing a hand on the woman’s knee. “And from what Nico told me from the scene, it appeared a small army took her. I don’t think a warning would have stopped this.”
Anna looked to the ground, gaze forlorn “You’re right. Castor was destined to take her. It’s up to Katalina how fate plays out now, but it doesn’t make me feel any less useless.”
Eva didn’t know much about fate or foreseeing the future, but what Eva did know was her previous envy of Anna’s powers was maybe the wrong emotion. One look at the red-haired beauty, and even a relative stranger could see the toll it had taken to know what was to come and yet be powerless to stop it.
“Kat never struck me as a pushover,” Eva added. “She’ll not back down easily, I’m sure.” It had amazed Eva the strength she’d possessed, not just physically but mentally. Katalina hadn’t long lost her mother before Eva had lost hers, yet she seemed to have coped with the loss far better than Eva. Or maybe it was simply how life was for Eva. Living life in fast-forward, thrusting events and emotions onto her she didn’t have time to process, let alone mourn. John… Mathew… they were the best surprises but also a lot to comprehend, and Katalina had Bass and two whole packs to deal with. It was a wonder the woman hadn’t crumbled under the pressure.
Chapter 41
John
Watching Bass out of the corner of his eye, John concentrated on the road as his alpha directed him with the internal compass that led him to his mate. His alpha was humming with violent energy, a breath from snapping. Yet his face showed none of the chaos John’s inner wolf sensed battering his instincts.
As terrible as Bass felt right now, a part of John was jealous he had the ability to track his mate across towns. He longed for such a connection with Eva, and as he’d kissed her goodbye, a grave voice had whispered into his mind that he may never have the chance to truly experience the magic of the bond between two mates.
“Right,” Bass gritted between clenched teeth. “We’re close.”
“Hang in there, Bass,” Nico murmured from the back, leaning forward and briefly touching his friend’s shoulders. “Kat’s strong. She’ll hold out.”
Bass shook his head as he hissed out a breath. He’d been doing that every so often, enough that John had been unable to hold back asking if his alpha was hurt, but then Bass had revealed a much worse answer. It wasn’t his pain he felt, but the injuries currently being inflicted on Katalina. Despite this, John still envied him, because Eva could be hurt right now, crying out his name, and he’d never know until it was too late. He just hoped Castor kept the fight away from pack land, but hope hadn’t yet been all that kind.
“She’s giving up,” Bass rasped. “Her energy is leaving her.”
John pressed his foot harder on the gas. He was already driving over the speed limit, but fuck rules. He couldn’t take much longer trapped in the car while his alpha pair were hurting. His heart beat with the need to help Bass and Katalina; they’d earnt his respect and loyalty, and the wolf at his core would lay down his life if it meant they’d live.
“Stop!” Bass instructed on a growl. His gaze swiveled to the right, gazing out over the vastness around them fading quickly to night. “We’ll need to go the rest of the way on foot.”
Abandoning the large number of vehicles along the so far empty country road,
