Carolina Moon

If I Can’t, I’ll Crawl: K.C.

I felt her tears against my neck, a cooling contrast to the heat still radiating off the rubble behind us. For a second, the world was just the two of us. The smell of lavender and fresh marsh mud fought through the toxic stench of the city. My wolf was quiet, curled up in the back of my mind, satisfied that the mate was safe.

But the silence didn’t last.

A sharp, dry cough broke through the moment. I looked up, still holding Tess tight, and saw Leon standing a few feet away. He was covered in grey dust from the substation, his suit ruined, looking like he’d aged a decade in the last hour.

“Alpha,” he started, his voice tight. He looked towards the main road where the strobe of red and blue lights was already reflecting off the smoke-clogged clouds. The wail of sirens was no longer just a distant threat; they were blocks away and closing in fast. “We need to move. Now. In five minutes, this entire street is going to be crawled over by every federal and local agency in the state. We can’t be here when the questions start.”

I didn’t want to move. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been tenderized by a sledgehammer, and the burns on my back are starting to scream as the adrenaline started to ebb. He was right though. We weren’t just civilians anymore. We were the central figures in a domestic terror site.

“Darian,” I rasped, nodding toward the tree where the former self-proclaimed King of Kingsport was slumped. He looked half dead, but his eyes were fixed on Tess with an intensity that made me want to shift back just to block his view.

“The enforcers will handle him,” Leon said, gesturing to Marcus and two others who were already moving. They hoisted Darian up, and moved toward a waiting SUV. “We’ll take him to the secondary safe house.”

I looked down at Tess. Her face was smudged with soot, her eyes bloodshot, but she looked not alive than I’d seen her in a long time. She pulled back just enough to look at me. Her hands still clutched at the tattered remains of my shirt. “Can you walk?” she asked.

“If I can’t, I’ll crawl,” I promised.

I leaned on her more than I would’ve liked as we walked to Leon’s car. Every step was a battle against the “Lone Wolf” exhaustion that was trying to reclaim my bones now that the immediate threat was gone. The pack bond was still there, buzzing quietly, but the static was gone. It had been replaced by a heavy, expectant weight. The wolves were waiting to see what the Alpha would do next, and I just wanted to be back in South Carolina.

We scrambled into the back seat just as the first fire truck roared past the end of the service road. Its sirens were deafening in the narrow corridor of the warehouses. Leon didn’t wait for seatbelts. He pulled out in the opposite direction, driving over the curb and through a vacant lot to avoid the forming blockade.

As the glowing ruins of the smelting plant faded in the rear view mirror, Tess leaned her head on my shoulder. I reached out, my hand shaking slightly, and intertwined my fingers with hers.

“It’s not over, is it?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engine.

I looked out the window at the dark city. The Grid-Keepers were broken, but the power vacuum we’d just created was massive. Darian was still a prisoner, what was left of Silvercrest was fractured, and I was an Alpha who didn’t want a pack.

“No,” I answered, my heart sinking. I hoped the “two weeks” that she’d told Sylvie wouldn’t just be a fantasy. “You’ve balanced the first ledger, Tess. Now we have to find out who holds the account.”