Then I realized it was on purpose. One of the women gave a me a look and that was all I needed to know.
My mate was putting himself in danger.
Fool.
I slipped away and contacted the two witches who worked for ASH that I’d made deals with. One arrived to where I was almost immediately, handing off her kids to my cousin who was looped in and then opened a portal to where we needed to go.
To say the shifter was shocked and on alert was an understatement, but I said exactly what I needed to for my own goals.
“Your mate is in grave danger and I can take you to him,” I told her, extending my hand to her. “We don’t have time.”
She didn’t hesitate, and I didn’t care if it was another reason I suffered in hell later. Add it to the list of my sins, but I would do whatever was needed to protect my mate and keep him safe.
Like the idiot was trying to do for me.
She fell for it and came through the portal with me so we ended up outside of the house I was staying at.
“Know I want you dead for what you’ve done to Creed and don’t be foolish,” I told the woman as I grabbed her by the throat and dug my nails into her skin. “You understand, yes?”
“Have they hurt Creed?” she rasped.
“Don’t act like you care,” I snarled, my fangs out and itching to tear out this woman’s throat. I dragged her with me when I heard elevated voices. “Touch my mate and I will slice yours to ribbons before sucking down your entire pack one by one. And before you think I can’t, I’m centuries old and have endured horrors none of you pups can dream of.”
“Aurora, wait—no—what are you doing here?” Creed whispered.
“Shut it,my mate,” I snapped. “You are grounded and so is your lion. For a long time.”
I didn’t even cut him a glance, focused on the two men who had come for Creed and were dangerous. One now looked at me with my death in his eyes since it was his mate I was holding.
But the other was more dangerous by far.
Because he was the Alpha of the NYC wolf pack.
23
Creed
From the moment I knocked Connor unconscious, there had been a presence of NYC wolves in Atlanta. At least five at any time from what we could tell. At first just trying to get any information on me and my situation that they could.
But when they weren’t getting anywhere, they tried applying pressure and sent more.
“You are beyond annoying me and it’s about to cost you your head,” Ha-joon told a wolf in the recording Ellie sent me. “And don’t lie to a fucking Alpha wolf stronger than yours, git. Just don’t. If you’re too weak to gauge how powerful I am—have some fucking self-preservation.”
“None of that matters, but the relationship between our packs is—”
Ha-joon threw an elbow with impressive speed and growled in the guy’s face. “I’minsultedthat your fucked Alpha sent such an uninformed lackey to come try and talk and pressure me. You’re not even clever fuckers and I’m insulted. I’m the son of one of the biggest Alphas in theworldand ya fucking talking to me like we need ya fucked pack?
“Are ya having a laugh? I could eat ya Alpha and not blink, fool. I’m a world-renowned doc and ya come in here treating me like ya Alpha canmake me?Ya Alpha isshitecompared to meand I like Aurora, not to mention she’s basically my mother-in-law since I want to mate Ellie. So take all that back to ya Alpha if ya can fucking manage it.”
He threw another quick punch and stormed off cussing under his breath that he was so tired of bullshit.
The message from Ellie was that they were desperate enough to be stupid and make mistakes, so like… What did I seriously know?
Yeah, I didn’t blame her for asking that.
And impressed she knew that was what was going on and not just some wolves being stupid. The Alpha—thatpack—kept power for a long time by being smart.
They didn’t make stupid moves really. This was them unraveling.
