“I’ll take that as a promise,” Maddy said and kissed me one more time before I got out.
Drying off, I left her to finish her shower. I dressed and went to my office—I hadn’t checked my phone or emails in days. I’d been too busy fucking Maddy. Not a bad way to spend three days, but things still needed attention. I had dozens of texts to answer from Luis, Sebastian, Felipe, and Donatello. There were at least ten emails from some of the pack leaders and multiplevoicemails. As I worked my way through them all, the back of my mind slipped into the introspection of the previous three days. It was one flash of sex after the other. Writhing bodies, warm wet holes, moans of pleasure, and exhaustion.
A memory flitted through my mind, and my fingers froze on the keyboard. That very first moment. The morning Maddy woke up. It had been so fast and furious. A blur. My own hormones had gone haywire at the scent of her heat. I frowned. Had I put on a condom? I couldn’t remember. Maybe I had, but…
117
MADDY
When my eyes opened the next morning, I could sense something was wrong. A dark foreboding settled on my mind as soon as I was fully conscious. I sat up, quickly glancing around the room. Part of me was worried there was an intruder, but I was alone. The other side of the bed was empty. Nico was nowhere in sight.
I grabbed my phone, and my eyes widened when I read that it was almost nine in the morning. That was later than I’d been sleeping. Ever since shutting the bar down, I no longer slept until noon. Nico must have let me sleep. I definitely needed it after three straight days of nothing but sex. Still, I wondered where he was. Part of my sense of impending doom was that I could sense Nico’s worry. I could tell he was upset and scared. I needed to find him.
Jumping from the bed, I yanked on my clothes and hurried out of the room. At the top of the landing, I heard the faint murmuring of the TV. The sound was loud but still unintelligible. As I came down the stairs, I heard a voice—Sebastian.
“Holy shit. I can’t believe this is happening.” He sounded heartbroken and terrified.
A thin spike of fear sliced through my heart. I didn’t want to know what was happening, but I had to find out. Once I was at the base of the stairs, I noticed Nico sitting on the couch, leaning forward, intent on the news broadcast. Felipe, Sebastian, and Luis were all there. My parents were sitting on the other couch—twin looks of horror and shock on their faces. Gabriella stood in the kitchen, her eyes trained on the TV screen. Her face was a stony mask of anger. She was the first to see me.
“Maddy? You need to see this,” she muttered.
Nico spun in his seat, and my heart almost shattered at his expression. I’d never seen him look so broken. Devastation and sadness marred my mate’s handsome face.
He raised a hand, beckoning me forward. “Come on.”
I moved toward him in a haze, almost like I was in a dream. I took his hand and sank into his lap. The news seemed to be of a war zone.
“They’ve been playing the same report on repeat for the last fifteen minutes,” Luis said. “It’ll start over again in a second.” He sounded weary beyond words.
True to his words, the report started over with an anchor in a studio. The wordsEmergencySpecial Updatescrolled across the bottom of the screen in large red letters.
“Good morning,” the reporter said. “We come to you today with a report out of Virginia. Early reports have come in that local anti-shifter activists, under the assumed direction of Viola Monroe, have attacked a wolf-shifter compound near Roanoke. A local affiliate is on site. Before we go to them, we have to caution our viewers. If children are present, it would be best if they left the room. What you are about to see is… disturbing, to say the least. We go now to Johnathan Moyer.”
The camera switched to a man standing in the rain, a blue raincoat with the network’s logo on the chest covering him. He looked shell-shocked. Someone shouted his name off-camera. He blinked twice and seemed to come back to himself.
“Yes… uh… thank you, Clarice. This is Johnathan Moyer with Channel Twenty-Two News out of Roanoke. I’m standing here at a Roanoke County wolf-shifter enclave. The compound houses nearly three dozen families, with the Harris family being the alpha seat of power in the pack.
“At approximately three-thirty this morning, a group of seventy-five to a hundred anti-shifter activists approached the fences and gates, demanding that the shifter population inside bring themselves out for some form of lynch-style justice. The local police force had nearly a dozen officers on site to guard and protect the compound. Surviving members of that police force tell me that when the officers refused to allow them access and asked them to turn around and return home, a second group of anti-shifters, hidden in the forest, opened fire on them. This resulted in the deaths of nearly all the officers before they had time to draw their weapons.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, slapping my hand to my mouth.
“Once the officers were down, the activists flooded into the pack lands.” The reporter glanced behind him, then turned back to the camera, his face ashen. “The activists proceeded to attack… all members of the wolf pack. Semi-auto weapons, shotguns, homemade Molotov bombs, and simple hand tools like… like axes and hammers were used in the attack.”
Behind him, I could see EMTs, police officers, and firefighters walking through the remains of the compound. Fire had gutted several homes. I glimpsed human and shifter bodies littering the ground. Most were covered by sheets or already placed in body bags. The body of a young girl, no older than seven, lay face-up in the rain, eyes closed. Closed forever.
Pain pricked in each of my fingertips as my claws threatened to extend. The anger roiling inside me was almost enough to force me to shift right then and there.
The reporter went on. “Thankfully, one mortally wounded officer was able to radio for backup before succumbing to her wounds. The Harris family pack defended themselves, but both sides sustained heavy losses. By the time officers arrived, the battle was over. Officials are still tallying casualties, but as of right now, we know that thirty-seven of the activists were killed, along with at least that many wounded to various degrees. Nine officers were killed in the line of duty, with six more hospitalized with severe injuries. The shifter pack sustained a loss of twenty members, and of that number, five were adolescents.” Tears glittered in the reporter’s eyes. “That includes two twin children, one year of age, who perished in a fire started by the activists.” He broke down and chopped his hand across his throat, telling the cameraman to cut.
The original anchor returned to the screen. “Thank you, Johnathan. I can’t imagine what it’s like there. We now have Glen Harris, alpha of the pack that was attacked last night. He comes to us live from the local Roanoke hospital where his pack mates are being cared for.”
The screen split in two, and a man appeared on the other side. A bandage covered his left eye. Fresh, red scratches ran all the way down to the thick salt-and-pepper beard that covered most of his face.
“Mr. Harris, I would like to extend my condolences to you and your pack.”
“Thank you, Clarice,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
“How is your pack dealing with this tragedy?
