1
SAM
The odor of wet dog burned my nostrils as I stalked into the infirmary with one purpose in mind—tear out Dane Gray’s canines with my bare hands. My eyes flashed from green to silver and my fangs lowered slow and deadly.
Dane was responsible for what had happened to Ben. I couldn’t exactly prove it, but Ben’s wound was definitely from a large animal. Bears were a possibility, but they were rare in and around the city.
For the last eleven days since the ambulance brought Ben in, he’d been in and out of consciousness, and as the days passed, his condition wasn’t improving.
It felt like a dagger stabbing my heart over and over again anytime I looked at my best friend. He’d been through hell and back since I’d become a vampire. He’d been the product of an experiment gone wrong, and as a result, he was half human and half vampire. The vampire in him should have been healing him, which led us to believe he’d been bitten by a shifter. According to Doc, their venom could be poisonous to vampires. Not so much for humans. I was curious about whether Ben’s half-human side would become a shifter.
Tripp had said no unless an alpha had bitten him. Despite that, I was thankful a clerk at a gas station not far outside the state forest had found Ben behind his establishment and reacted quickly. Luckily, one of the paramedics on the scene knew Ben was a Navy SEAL stationed on the naval base. He’d gotten ahold of us, and we’d rerouted them here.
Tripp marched toward me, his bronze eyes pinpricks. “Back away. We don’t know that Dane’s pack is responsible for Ben.”
I glowered at the alpha in the distance as he and a bald dude gave Dr. Vieira their rapt attention.
I gritted my teeth. “He is. I feel it in my bones.”
Tripp slapped a hand on my shoulder just as Dane sat in a chair and held out his arm. He was there to give Doc a blood sample for his research. We’d agreed to help the Gray Pack uncover why one of their own had died from a shot of a drug used by Layla Aberdeen and her sisters that night at the club.
Tripp guided me into an empty patient room. “We invited them in. We are not getting into a fight. Not here. Not now. Are we clear?”
Growling, my fangs clicked into place as rage boiled inside me. I was one second away from ramming my fists into the glass supply cabinet. “Who’s the bald dude?”
Tripp swiped a hand over his sandy-blond hair tied into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. “Dane’s beta, Ross. Look, after Doc pulls their blood, I have a plan.”
I retracted my fangs. “Care to share?”
“Just follow my lead.” He sounded as frustrated as I probably looked.
I tucked my fury away for the time being, stretched my neck one way then the other, and trailed behind Tripp. If he had a plan, I was sure it was a good one. Unlike me, Tripp had an uncanny way of extracting the truth without beating someone over the head.
Blood flowed from Dane’s arm into a vial before Doc switched the filled tube with an empty one. Ross was engrossed in something on his phone as he waited his turn near the stainless steel counter along the sidewall opposite Doc.
Dane lasered his dark eyes on me as though he was ready to leap over the black countertop and tear out my throat.
That rage I held so tightly was about to burst as I approached.
Tripp pressed his hands into the edge of the counter.Easy, Sam,he said telepathically.
I sidled up to him.I’m cool,I lied.
Dane swung his gaze to Tripp. “Did you work out your issues with the hunters?”
“Let’s stay focused on why you’re here,” Tripp said.
Ross’s bald head shot up from his phone, his hazel eyes glinting beneath the stark bright lights overhead. “The Aberdeen women need to atone for what they did to one of our own.”
I tucked my fisted hands into the pockets of my cargo pants, staring him down. “Touch any of them,” I barked, “and you’ll deal with me.” If he so much as said Layla’s name, I might tear him to shreds.
Ross whistled. “Sounds to me like you have it bad for one of them.”
It was hard not to. Layla Aberdeen was beautiful, wild, tough, sassy, feisty, and bold as fuck, and she was all mine.
Sam, take it down a notch.Tripp’s caustic tone blared in my head.
Easier said than done. Layla was embedded in my psyche, my skin, my veins, my brain, my dreams, and every part of me. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since she left. The way she made me feel like a god among gods, like she was my other half—which sounded fucked up on so many levels. A relationship between a human and vampire wasn’t unheard of. After all, my mom had been human. But my mom hadn’t been a hunter and had no desire to burn my father at the stake.
