“You mean Daniel?”
“The great white wolf. Your safety is to come first and foremost.”
I smiled slightly at the idea that Daniel still cared, in some way, about me.
“We only left you for a while—to change back.” I knew Ryan not only meant to transform back into human form, but to also change back into their clothes. That was one of the difficulties of the werewolf transformation—clothing usually wasn’t optional.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, glad not to wake up in a yard full of naked guys. That definitely wouldn’t go over well with the neighbors if anyone were to look out their window this early in the morning. And I was glad they weren’t hanging out in their wolf forms anymore, either. With all that howling last night, it wouldn’t be safe.
“I’m just glad you didn’t die while we were gone,” Brent said. “He’d be so pissed. And you know, you’d be dead. So that would suck.”
“Thanks for the concern. I’m pretty sure I’m safe on my front porch, though.”
“With all due respect, Miss Grace, our father—I mean, Caleb—and the rest of the Shadow Kings are still out there somewhere. You should be more careful.”
I nodded. “You’re right.” It really had been stupid of me to drop my guard like that. That was “rule number one,” as both Daniel and Talbot used to tell me. Caleb was still out there, and it was impossible to predict what a madman like him was capable of doing next. Considering the state of my stupid ankle, I wouldn’t have stood a chance if I’d encountered him or any of his still-loyal boys last night.
I stretched forward and concentrated my healing powers into my throbbing ankle until the pain subsided into an uncomfortable ache. Then a thought hit me. “How do you know what Daniel wants? Can you … can you talk to him when you’re in wolf form?”
A trill of hope ran up my spine, and I no longer cared about the soreness of my ankle. Maybe I could get one of the boys to talk to Daniel for me. Tell him…
“No,” Brent said. “It’s just like we know what he wants. And we do it. That’s how it works with an alpha.”
“Like telepathy?” My brain was running much too slow this morning. But it couldn’t be any later than six a.m., so I didn’t blame myself for being so sluggish running on less than three hours of sleep. But there was a much quicker thought—too quick to be my own—that flitted through my mind. If you were a wolf, you could communicate with Daniel, too. You could be together.
“No,” Ryan said. “We can’t read each other’s thoughts.”
“Thank God,” I heard Zach mumble. He and Marcos had edged closer to the porch.
“All animals have their ways of communicating,” Brent said. “Facial expressions, vocalizations, and such, but with the alpha, it’s more like a feeling. Sometimes it manifests as images or impressions. But mostly, it’s like we feel what he feels.”
I mulled that over quietly in my head for a moment.
“What does he feel?” I finally asked, even though I was afraid I already knew the answer.
Ryan and Brent exchanged a look, but I couldn’t read the meaning of it.
Marcos stepped forward. “He loves you very much,” he said in his Brazilian accent. “He wants us to keep you safe … but at the same time, it feels like part of him is … I don’t know quite how to say it. Like part of him is leaving.”
I nodded and bit my lip. That is exactly what I’d been afraid to hear. I didn’t need to be one of his wolves to be able to feel that a part of him—the part that was Daniel—was going away.