Page 7 of Corbin (Wild Wolf Pack from the world of Gallize Shifters #2)

Eirene would help any female shifter she could, but she knew nothing about drugs other than the monsters who experimented on shifters.

She’d heard those stories. Bending her knees, she dropped all the way down, ignoring what she sat on to hold Lauren against her.

She no longer noticed the odors, only the woman shaking hard in her arms.

Lauren suddenly gripped her arm and lifted her head to look at Eirene with shocked eyes. “You’re not ... you’re not him .”

“No, I’m not.” She didn’t need to know the name of the man who had put this pitiful shifter through hell. Not yet. She’d find out in due time.

Lauren’s lip trembled. Eyes drawn deep into the sockets, she looked much older than twenty-one. Her scrawny body tried to rock back and forth. “Save me. They’ll catch me again. I can’t go back.”

Again. How awful.

Heart pounding at the terrified begging, Eirene used one trembling hand to smooth Lauren’s ratty hair. “I won’t let them get you. I’m going to put you somewhere safe and find help to deal with whatever drugs they gave you. We need to—”

The woman slumped into a boneless pile against her.

“Lauren, please try to stay with me.”

Whispering in a child’s voice, Lauren said, “Okay.” Tears ran down her face. She cried softly as if she could barely manage the effort.

Eirene’s throat tightened, hating what some bastard had done to this woman.

Who was he? It would be helpful to know who might be hunting Lauren.

Could it be one or two wolves using drugs to keep female shifters obedient?

Or an entire pack? Were they somewhere around Spartanburg or maybe another nearby state?

More information was always better than too little.

She waited for the sobbing to slow and the woman to begin breathing evenly before asking, “Do you know who captured you?”

The room quieted for so long she assumed Lauren was out of it until she heard, “Black River wolf pack.” Then her head dropped. She fell unconscious.

Eirene’s lips parted. That pack produced Jugo Loco, a hallucinogenic drug for shifters.

This should have been a simple meet-up to find a lone female shifter waiting for someone to move her to a safe place.

That’s why Eirene had agreed to help Nova, who said she had a hotline set up for female shifters in need.

Eirene welcomed any help offered in finding these women, but she had to be careful.

She might as well put a target on her back by interfering with a dangerous rogue pack that lived outside of all shifter laws.

No one crossed the Black River wolf pack and lived long.

This one rescue could cost her life, right along with Lauren’s if they found her.

Hesitation hit her in the gut. For a second, she wondered what to do, then dropped her gaze to Lauren’s pitiful face and smoothed her hair again. She’d lost a close friend because no one had been there to help, and Eirene had been too late.

Not merely someone close, but her only female shifter friend she’d met after high school.

Eirene was in it now and would not leave Lauren to be captured by those hunting her again. The problem was going to be moving Lauren from here without being seen. She’d parked her car a half mile away, thinking the shifter she’d come to save would be mobile.

Her phone buzzed in the front pocket of her pants. She would ignore it if it hadn’t been the text tone of her manager. Using the long tail of her shirt, she pulled the phone out to read the message.

Our new client has a group of six VIPs who have paid a hefty fee to meet you tonight before your show in Charlotte. Arrive an hour early. Don’t bite off my head. You wanted this bonus contract. I warned you it might come with strings.

Not tonight! She gritted her teeth to keep from yelling at her phone. For the first time since walking into this building, panic took hold. How could she make it early to the auditorium over an hour away?

If only she had access to all her money. The bastard trustee controlling her money could not know what she was doing right now. If he figured out her sneaky way of financing her efforts to save destitute female shifters, he’d find a way to stop it at the cost of their freedom.

She had to have that bonus contract. Leszek had his hands on every other penny she earned.

Shifting Lauren’s limp body in her arms, Eirene could not lose the funds from those charity contracts.

Tapping a simple “K” to his text was the only reply she could manage without starting an argument about how a manager should not expect her to jump through hoops on such short notice. That would eat up time she could ill afford to waste.

In fairness to him, she would normally be happy to accommodate the request.

At this moment, she still had no idea how she could leave a woman going through withdrawals from Jugo Loco, or worse, without supervision. She wasn’t sure her warehouse was strong enough to prevent a shifter strung out on drugs from breaking free.

A crashing sound and yelling from the direction of the humans shook her into action.

Screaming downstairs started up. What had happened?

Sirens peeled in the distance.

Oh great. Eirene shoved the phone into the back pocket of her pants and pushed up to stand. She hoisted Lauren over her shoulder. “Umph.” Lauren might be thin, but she was still a shifter.

The sound of glass breaking shoved adrenaline through her body. She had to get out before the police arrived. Even someone with her celebrity status could be arrested by shifter law enforcement and thrown in an underground cage.

Going back down the corridor she’d taken from the front entrance was not possible.

She opened the door and looked to her right. A cracked and unlit EXIT sign dangled in the dark. That had to be stairs, but would it offer a second escape point from the building?

The door she’d seen the human male step out of burst open. Three human men brawled to her left. One bled from his head. They were distracted by fighting each other. This was her best chance to make a run for it.

She slipped out to her right, glad her shifter vision adjusted as she moved into the dark corner.

She yanked open the door beneath the broken sign.

Rusty hinges squealed, hurting her ears.

The men fighting quieted. Without a look back, she raced down the stairs, pleading silently that the rotted steps wouldn’t break beneath the weight of two shifters.

The sirens howled louder now.

When she reached the bottom floor, she started out an exterior door at the opposite end of the building from where she’d entered and paused. Flashing lights zoomed past. She rushed, moving as quickly as she could with the weight she toted.

Bless poor Lauren, but she smelled terrible.

Eirene jogged through tall weeds and scattered garbage to the rental car she’d hidden, glad no one had found it, or she might have no wheels or tires.

She dumped Lauren in the back seat. Legs and arms flopped loose.

Good for now. If she woke up and thought Eirene was kidnapping her, this situation could turn deadly fast.

If the Black River wolf pack ever found out what she’d done today, they’d come for Lauren and take Eirene as well. Did that terrify her?

Yes, but someone had to help these women who, like her, had no one else.