Nate flipped him the middle finger.
Silence settled between them again, interrupted only by their father’s labored breaths. For once, even Nate had nothing to say. He crossed his arms and stared blankly at their father.
An unsettling scrape came from the direction of the front door, causing Milo to raise his head again. The canine gave one lowwoofbut didn’t find the noise concerning enough to leave the bed to investigate it. Kyle rubbed the tightening skin at the back of his neck. “What was that? Sounded like claws.”
“Who knows? We’re in the middle of the woods. Probably raccoons.” Nate stood and stretched. “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee.” He waddled toward the kitchen.
With a whimper, Milo laid his head back on the bed, staring at the old man with the single-minded intensity only man’s best friend was capable of. Kyle scratched the dog behind the ears. “It’ll be okay, Milo. I’ll take care of you.”
The quiet morphed into something even quieter, a silence that only came at the end of things when man and beast became equals and the last stroke on the portrait of a life was cast upon the canvas. No rattling breath filled the space between them. Kyle waited. His father’s chest did not rise. It did not fall.
Kyle stood and, with two fingers, searched for a pulse.
And then he said good-bye.
ChapterThree
“Becca, can you turn up the music?” Laina spread the incision she’d made in the belly of the spaniel on her operating table and skimmed the spay hook along the inside of the pup’s abdominal wall. On her first two attempts, she’d caught the intestine instead of the uterus. She swore this dog was hiding its reproductive organs on purpose. Thankfully, as her assistant upped the volume on the Doja Cat tune blaring into the operating room, she found her surgical mojo. “Ah, there she is.” She clamped the ovarian vessel and proceeded with the spay.
If she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for her date with the mysterious Kyle. She’d never experienced anything like the moment she’d laid eyes on Kyle Kingsley. Her wolf had pressed against the inside of her skin the way it did when the full moon was about to rise, fur rubbing her inner flesh, bones stretching in his direction.
A werewolf’s inner wolf was a second soul, a personality separate and distinct from her human mind, one that usually got its way only three days per month. It was common for wolves to have relationships with other wolves during the full moon, when their human counterparts were asleep. Those relationships didn’t remain when the wolves were in human form. Likewise, human relationships rarely translated to wolf world. As far as Laina was aware, it was unheard of for an inner wolf to wake up and show attraction to a human. Laina had no idea what it meant, but she was bound and determined to find out.
“You seem distracted, Laina. Are you still thinking about Mr. Sexy Dog Owner?” Becca teased over the speaker. Laina caught her assistant’s eye through the observation window and watched her curly brown hair bounce with her off-speaker giggles.
“Aren’t you?” Laina asked incredulously, keeping her hands steady as she tied off the blood vessels to the ovaries and uterus before removing the lot. It was careful, delicate work. She prided herself on her execution of the procedure, one she’d perfected for ease of recovery.
“He was sexy if you like that chiseled, underwear-model, superhero look, but I got a whiff of stiff and pretentious. Did you see his watch? That thing cost more than my entire net worth. I bet he’s warped. Rich guys are always warped.”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, too clean-cut for my tastes. A man without a tattoo is like a hot dog without mustard.”
“I don’t want to hear about the way you like your wieners, Becca.” Laina grinned. Becca’s laughing face broke eye contact to answer the phone on the desk behind her. After a few heated words, she pressed the hold button before returning to the loudspeaker.
“Your older brother is on the phone. He says it’s an emergency.”
“Tell Silas I have a patient open on the table. I’ll call him back in forty-five minutes.”
“That’s what I told him. He said it was a family emergency and if I didn’t ask for your immediate attention, he’d see that I was fired.”
Laina rolled her eyes as she continued the procedure. “You’re not going to be fired. Tell my brother, if it’s such an emergency, he can come to the clinic and talk to me in person. By the time he gets here, I’ll be done.”
“You got it.” Becca turned back to the phone.
Laina continued her work. “You know,” she whispered to the anesthetized spaniel, “you don’t realize how lucky you are that puppies aren’t in your future. Being part of a pack isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” She checked for bleeding, then began the arduous process of stitching the incision.
“Why the hell didn’t you answer my call?” Silas said from the door to her surgical suite.Fuck, he must have been in the neighborhood.
“So help me God, Silas, if my patient gets an infection because you dragged your flea-ridden ass into my OR, you’ll be next on my table. I’ll have you neutered before you can say sepsis.”
“I’m the alpha, sister. When I call, you answer.” It was true that her older brother was alpha of Fireborn pack, and as such, she was obligated to obey his direct command. To be honest, it was why she regularly refused to answer the phone, instead leaving that task to Becca, whose humanity made her blissfully immune to pack hierarchy.
Until recently, despite his machismo, Silas had housed a soft heart for her and her younger brother, Jason. But Alex Ravien Bloodright changed all that. Three years ago, the rogue pack member had murdered their parents in cold blood, forcing Silas to become alpha of Fireborn pack before his time. As head of the largest pack in North America, the Fireborn alpha automatically became first alpha, the leader of the Lycanthropic Society, the council that led all werewolf packs. Grieving and orphaned, Silas was thrown into both roles overnight. He wasn’t ready for either.
Alex was cruel and exceptionally deadly. Thanks to a dragon-scale amulet he’d stolen from a family of Siberian dragon fae, he’d wielded elemental magic similar to a warlock. He used it to slaughter pack leaders and force their packs to follow him. If Silas hadn’t used his position as a detective to hunt Alex down and stop him last summer, all the members of the Lycanthropic Society would likely be dead, and every werewolf in North America would be forced to bow to a madman.
Technically, the threat wasn’t even over. It had been more than two months since Silas had recovered Alex’s body, and they still hadn’t confirmed it was him and not Jonah, his Zafka—a doppelgänger used as a security detail for werewolf royalty.
