Page 23

Grey

“I’m sorry to have to make you do this. Fuckin’ hate it, babe, but–”

“It’s okay,” she softly says and through the phone line I can hear the pain and know I’ll see it blended with the resolve in her expression when she gets here.

I fucking loathe this shit. But she needs to come to the cabin and see if she can identify these bodies. My father is picking her up from the house and bringing her over. It’s not a long drive and I’m sure that fucker Wyatt Meadows has retreated at least temporarily, but I asked Dad to do it despite that Bailey offered to bring her.

I had to rush out ten minutes after sex when I felt the urgent call of the pack connection coming at me. And it came at me with a blaring alarm from Riley because of what he and Erica were enduring. And then Linc and Mase, too. That there was a triple alarm caused an extreme reaction in me that had me running faster than I’ve ever run and faster than I ever thought I could run. I ran my ass off, not even thinking about shifting or getting in my car. I just fucking ran until I caught up with Ty just up the road from his place. All of us felt Riley’s distress call.

I could tell my exit frightened her, could still feel her tension through our connection when I called Bailey to go over there and give her the phone, so I could tell her there was an altercation with more of her pack members including her brother, and that two betas from Silver Hills needed identifying because while they were there to take Riley out and steal Erica away, Erica unleashed holy hell on them.

Wyatt Meadows, wherever the fuck this fucker is now, he’s damn lucky to be alive. Ty is chasing, trying to track him down and I asked him to bring him back alive. I could tell it was a big ask because Ty tore off like a bat outta hell.

***

Dad pulls up and Stacy and Bailey get out. My father surveys the smoking bodies as Stacy walks into my outstretched arms. I hold her for a minute, feeling her trembling, wanting to purr for her but needing to know.

“Catch the scents?” I ask.

“That’d be Jeremy and Thorn.” Her eyes pan the still smoking pile, and quickly dart away. Emotions surge from her and I fucking hate it.

Worry. Fear. Pain.

She’s got a good nose because there’s no other physical detail that’d be identifiable in that pile of smoking charred remains. It’s a testament to her scenting abilities that she knows those scents. I wondered if she’d be able to pull those scents out of the potpourri of aromas between the smoke and all the other shifters that are here and have been here in the past thirty minutes or so.

I’m relieved that just as we leave I’ve heard Riley inside the cabin. He’s now conscious after taking multiple shots from a weapon that lodged drugged darts into him. Mase and Linc both took darts and regular gunshots but Erica yanked those out with her magic.

Rye sounds tweaked and I can feel his anger through our pack connection, but I know the others who are still here have it in hand and I also feel relief that I can feel him. He’s been fucked up for a few days and now he’s endured this .

First, he and Erica were stuck in a copulation tie for a couple days and then using his wolf to help release the knot, Riley’s wolf locked him out of his own body. Far as we figure, he came back to himself to save his mate when the now dead shifters tried to take Erica.

But Riley didn’t save Erica. She saved him. She also saved Mase and Linc.

I don’t know that it’ll be easy to save my mate’s brother from what he’s courting with repeated attacks on my pack. Repeated attempts to take Erica.

My mate is quiet and visibly troubled all the way home.

“It’ll stop,” I assure her, knowing I might have my work cut out for me convincing Riley to give me this.

She stares straight ahead out the windshield as she answers, “Don’t give him any chances, Greyson. He wouldn’t give you that chance. He doesn’t have it in him to take a minute and think, not about innocent lives, not about his suffering and dwindling pack, not about anything that doesn’t fit with his agenda. He’s focused on one thing. Winning.”

She dashes tears off her cheeks. The hoarseness in her voice, the pain there, they infuriate me.

I can feel how much she hurts, and it fuckin’ guts me. Not just that, it’s making me feel like I’m in the wrong fucking skin.

I grapple with all these emotions – mine, hers, in tense quiet the rest of the way home.