“Gage mentioned you’d found your One,” she said, her lips curving. “I wondered how long it would be before you showed up here—or ended up in jail.”
Max smiled wryly. “Good to see you have so much faith in me.”
“It’s not that we don’t have faith in you,” she said as she led him toward the back of the house and the kitchen. “It’s just that we know how finding The One can make a werewolf behave. Gage will be thrilled you decided to come and tell him up front instead of calling him after the crap hit the fan.”
Max grunted. He wasn’t so sure the boss would be as thrilled when he found out the deputy chief had been ready to pull a weapon on him.
Gage, Xander, and Mike were sitting at the kitchen table along with Khaki, while Florian and Armand Danu, the oldest members of the family Cooper had married into, were leaning back against the granite counter of the island. The two men had become ingrained in the Pack’s effort to form a safe haven for werewolves here in Dallas. With their knowledge of werewolf hunters, their presence at gatherings was as important as anyone’s.
“No handcuffs,” Xander observed dryly. “I’m going to say that’s a good thing even before I hear the details.”
Gage didn’t seem as amused. “What happened?”
Max took the empty seat next to Mike and told them everything that had happened that night, starting with the call he’d gotten from Peterson and finishing with his decision to reveal to Lana that he was a werewolf. He might have downplayed the part where he’d beat up on the two Good Samaritans in the alley. For all the good it did him. One look at Gage, Xander, and Mike convinced him they knew he was keeping something from them.
“Well, that’s one way to let Lana know she’s a werewolf,” Mike said. A big guy with light-brown skin, dark eyes, and close-cropped, black hair, he had been an undercover narcotics cop before he became a werewolf and joined SWAT. “Probably not the way I would have done it, but I give you an A for intentions. How did she handle it?”
“Not well,” Max admitted. “She flipped out and almost shifted. I don’t think she realized what was happening to her, though. Before I knew it, she took off running and didn’t stop until she reached her parents’ house.”
Gage grimaced. “And you decided to go over and try to talk to her, right?”
Max shrugged. “I had to try to make sure she was okay. She still doesn’t believe what she is or how much danger she’s in.”
“Try?” Xander prompted. “You didn’t talk to her?”
Mac shook his head. “No. The deputy chief was waiting for me at the door with a gun. He wasn’t going to let me within ten feet of Lana. I could hear her crying upstairs, though. I really scared her.”
On the other side of him, Khaki put a comforting hand on his arm. “When she realizes what the two of you have, she’ll come back to you.”
Max snorted. “You sure of that? You didn’t see her face. She was terrified when she saw me fang out.”
“If she’s The One for you, it will happen,” Armand said, his French accent slight but still discernible. “Everly was horrified when Cooper showed her he was a werewolf.”
“You mean after you stabbed him and forced him to partially shift, don’t you?” Xander pointed out.
Armand shrugged. “Maybe. But the important thing is that even though my sister ran away, she was unable to resist the tug pulling her back to her soul mate. She was bound to him so strongly that being away from him made her physically ill.” He looked at Max. “If you’re meant to be together, it will be the same with you and Lana. You can’t force her to accept something she’s not ready for. Just give her a little space.”
Max hoped that was true. If Lana felt like he did right now, he didn’t understand how she could stay away from him. It felt like he had a hole in his chest where his heart should be. “What about the hunters? What if they come looking for her while I’m not around to protect her?”
The mere thought made his gut clench.
“There’s not a lot we can do about that right now,” Gage said. “I think she’ll be safe with her father watching out for her.”
Max opened his mouth to complain, but Gage cut him off. “Even so, I’ll work up a duty roster and have the Pack do drive-by patrols every couple hours. We’ll keep an eye on her.”
“I’ll take the first two rotations,” Max said eagerly.
“No, you won’t.” Gage scowled at him. “In fact, you’ll take none of the rotations. The deputy chief will suspend you if he catches sight of you anywhere near his home. If he doesn’t shoot you. Let the rest of the Pack handle this. You figure out what the hell you’re going to say to Lana if Armand is right and she comes back to you. And please try to come up with a more intelligent approach than showing off your fangs and claws, would you?”
Max was about to point out that the whole tell-her-the-truth thing had been Cooper’s idea but decided to keep that to himself. Admitting to Sarge he’d taken anything Cooper had to say seriously probably wouldn’t make him look any better in his alpha’s eyes.
He only hoped the hunters wouldn’t show up before Lana came back to him.
Chapter 10
Lana knew Brandy and Miriam were trying to cheer her up, but dragging her out to a dance club had been a horrible idea. There was a good crowd for a Sunday night, mostly college-age types who didn’t seem to need sleep or care about crashing at their desks tomorrow. But it was the same club she’d been planning to go to with Max last night, and that made going there hard to handle. Right then, all she wanted to do was go back to her friends’ place and curl up on the couch with Netflix and a cheese and spinach pizza.
