“I can drive-”
“Get in the fucking car, Knox!”
I got in. Noah peeled out of the pack house drive with enough speed to leave tire marks. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, jaw clenched with barely contained fury.
“Someone’s dying?” I prompted when he took a turn too fast.
“Yeah.” His voice was flat now. “Someone’s dying.”
“Who? One of ours?”
He didn’t answer, just pressed harder on the accelerator. We were heading to his house on the outskirts of pack territory, the one he’d chosen specifically for its isolation.
“Did a patrol get attacked? Why didn’t you call me?”
Noah laughed again, that same broken sound. “A patrol. Jesus, Knox. You really don’t have a clue.”
“Then tell me!”
“No.” His voice was deadly quiet now. “You’ll see soon enough.”
We pulled into his driveway and he was out before the engine fully died. I followed, my wolf stirring restlessly as new scents reached me. Rogue wolf, definitely. Blood and infection and poison spreading through veins. Death approaching on swift wings.
“Is it one of the rogues? Did we capture-”
“Do you know what I discovered today?” Noah interrupted, pausing at his front door. “What I found that made me realize just how badly you fucked up?”
I stayed silent, something cold creeping up my spine.
“The other half of your soul dying from a rogue bite while you sit in meetings discussing dinner dates.”
He opened the door, and her scent hit me full force. Coffee and vanilla and everything I’d been dying without. But wrong, so wrong, tainted with rogue poison and fever.
My wolf exploded to life, clawing at my insides with desperate recognition.
“What did you do, Noah?”
He looked at me with eyes full of pain and fury. “What you should have done five years ago. I brought her home. Question is, are you going to let her die here too?”
18
— • —
Lina
Alone with my babies in a stranger’s house, I tried to keep my eyes open through sheer force of will. The reality of our situation kept hitting me in waves: I’d been kidnapped. Actually kidnapped by a man claiming to work for wildlife control who was definitely a werewolf. I was too weak to run, stuck in some bachelor pad in Werewolf Town with my two four-year-olds, and the asshole who’d knocked me up was on his way.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
What would he think when he saw them? Would he recognize himself in Rowan’s gray eyes, in the stubborn set of Thea’s jaw? Would he do the math and realize what I’d hidden from him?
I’d never wanted him to find out about them. Not after what he’d done. Not after he’d made it clear I meant nothing to him.These were my babies, mine alone, and he didn’t deserve to even breathe the same air as them.
“Mama’s really sick,” Rowan whispered to his sister, his little hand pressed against my burning forehead. The kid had turned into a tiny nurse, constantly checking my temperature with those serious eyes.
“The man will help,” Thea insisted with the kind of certainty only a four-year-old could muster. She’d arranged her stuffed animals in what she called a ‘healing circle’ around me, Mr. Unicorn standing guard. “Noah said he would fix you.”
Noah. Right. The werewolf who’d manhandled me into his car and brought me here against my will. Such a trustworthy source of information.
