Dirty Lying Wolves

2. Another Damn Problem

I dangled it in front of him so he could see. "Sorry, bud. It's fried from your little explosive exploits."

Jerod groaned and rolled face down.

I stood straight again, crossing my arms over my chest. What would Amelia do?

I looked down at the growling mass at my feet.

The better question would be what would the old Amelia do? The Amelia before getting us all hooked on lunaria's dream for a power trip. Amelia had always been aggressive, but the last decade was a whole new level of power trip in a desperate attempt to overcome her past. Our past. There was a reason we didn't have a proper pack anymore. But if it were up to me, we'd go back.

I blinked.

Amelia was out of commission for a while. Nine hours, according to the warlock. It was up to me.

"We're going home," I announced.

"Apollo's castle is just rubble, remember?" Jack said. "We can't go home."

"No, not there. Home. We're going home," I said simply.

The wolves perked up at that.

"Home?" Carson asked, excitement creeping into his voice. "Home-home?"

"Home-home." I nodded.

"Amelia isn't going to like this," Aaron said hesitantly.

"You heard her before, she was considering at least seeing how the pack was doing," I said.

"She probably meant she was willing to call Naomi," Aaron argued. "She's not going to like showing up in this state."

"It's going to take a lot longer to get to the village than nine hours. We'll head that way and see what she says when she snaps out of..." I looked down at her. "This."

"No!" Amelia snarled. "Don't you dare... Dom!"

I crouched down over Amelia, looking into her eyes as much as I could while she flailed about. "Just relax, we aren't getting far with you like this. I'll get us safely to the woods at least, and you can take over when you're yourself again."

Amelia growled and snapped at me, but I stood and stepped back. "Jack, Aaron, grab her. Carson, the warlock."

I looked down at the human on the ground with a sigh. I scooped her into my arms and took her with us. "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sorry."

Not that she could hear me.

"Where to?" Jack grunted, trying to keep a hold of Amelia.

I looked between all of us. We couldn't very well take Amelia around naked in the daylight. At least the rest of us had found a pair of shorts or something. If we had stuck around, I'm sure the fae would have tried to help, but they had more life-threatening situations on their hands than we did.

"Take the warlock's shirt and put it on her," I jerked my head to Amelia. "Then, we get a more discrete form of passage outside the city."

Carson took the shirt off of Jerod, tossing it to Aaron, who was barely able to get Amelia's arms through the sleeves without ripping them while she was fighting his grip.

"What method of transportation?" Carson asked. "We can't exactly take the bus like this.

"We're close enough to a road from this part of the park," I said. "We just need to secure a car or something. First, we move to the set of trees over that way where we can watch the road for an opportunity."