Page 66 of The Wolfing Hour

“You help me think straight, too.”

He shot out a hand, grabbed my arm, and yanked me against him. It happened so fast I barely registered taking a step. I was an arm’s length away, and then I wasn’t.

“Betty, I’m not going to be okay if this goes badly. Damn it, Ijust found her.” His voice was barely there, yet insistent, like the whisper of pages turning in a school library.

“It’s going to be all right.”

“You seem sure of that.”

“And I get that it feels like bullshit, but think about it, Ronan. We both know why he grabbed Rory. Leverage. Against you. He knows he can’t beat you in a fair challenge, and he can’t lose face with the pack, so he had to find another way. Frankly, I expected him to grab me.”

Ronan ground his back teeth. Loudly.

“The point,” I continued, “is he’s not going to hurt Rory, because he needs her alive. She’s no good to him any other way.”

“Yeah. I know you’re right. Sorry for?—”

“Nothing. You’re sorry for nothing, Ronan Williams.” I backed out of his arms to better see his face. “This is your sister we’re talking about. You’re allowed to be enraged and show it.”

“I don’t think I’d have lost it like that in front of anyone but you.”

“Good. Because you can trust me—with your feelings and everything else.” I cupped the side of his face.

He dropped the lightest of kisses on my mouth then we broke apart to retrieve our cell phones. I texted everyone I could think of, asking if they’d seen Rory. I attached a photo and a description and offered a favor as a reward for any information. People did some things for money, but they’d do a lot more for a witch favor.

Ronan paced the living room with his cell phone to his ear.

“Eighteen—no, nineteen. She just had a birthday. She’s Afro-Latina with black hair and brown and green hazel eyes. She’s a little over five foot, skinny and petite. Her hair’s cut short in that style, what’s it called?—”

“Pixie,” I supplied.

“Pixie haircut. I’m sending you a recent photo. If you see her, I need to know straightaway. Don’t approach. Just follow and watch where they take her.”

He ended the call and immediately began tapping on the screen. “That was Alpha Blacke of the Sundance group. I got the number from his first alpha when she was here last year. You remember Chandra Smith?”

“The assassin? She’s not exactly the sort of person one forgets.”

“Ex-assassin. So, Blacke and his wife are out of the country, but he’s passing along the information to Smith and the rest of his security team and shifters. Some of them work in La Paloma.”

“Alpha Blacke doesn’t like Floyd, either,” I said.

“They can’t get directly involved in this. Not unless Blacke wants to challenge Floyd for the pack, and Ican’t have that.” His wolf came through on the last half of the sentence, which meant he was holding onto his human side by a thread.

Blacke’s group could keep an eye out for Rory, but they otherwise couldn’t get involved. It wouldn’t end well for any of us if Ronan’s wolf felt challenged or threatened by the other alpha leader.

We texted, called, emailed, and messaged through apps until our phone batteries died. Then we plugged them into chargers and kept going, monitoring Rory’s social media, the secret email she shared with Ronan, and my burner phone.

Nothing.

Once his phone was half-charged, Ronan took it down to the pub so he could talk to his employees and the regulars at the bar. If Floyd was willing to murder a security agent to get at Ronan, they were all in danger.

He gave everyone a round of drinks, told the staff to take the rest of the week off with pay, and an hour later was back upstairs.

“We’re locked down.” He unbuttoned his jeans with a quick jerk of his hand and yanked his work shirt over his head, revealing abs that could’ve cleaned a T-shirt with a little water and elbow grease.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the start of a romantic evening. It was the start of a sinister standoff that had us both by the throat.

The plan was for Ronan to assert himself with the pack. Reconnect the bonds broken when Floyd foreswore him—kicked him out of the pack. Ronan’s wolf hadn’t accepted his sentence, and because he was stronger than Floyd, he was still connected to every Pallás wolf.