So he simply shook his head. “Not all of them. Triana and Lacey are soul mates of two members of the Pack, and Saunders is a doctor Gage has known for years. He’s helped us out a couple times. Gemma isn’t a werewolf, either, though she was married to one.”
“Gage, Brooks, Remy, and Alex are all werewolves?” she asked. “They’re all in your pack?”
That’s when Max finally figured out what Lana was getting at. She wanted to know how many other werewolves like her were out there. Now that he thought about it, it was a question he probably should have seen coming. The fact that he hadn’t likely had to do with the multiple orgasms. It was a well-known fact that orgasms made men stupid—or at least dulled their wits for a period of time. Years in some cases.
“Yes, they’re all werewolves.” He ran his fingers down her back to rest his hands comfortably on the upper curve of her butt. He liked her butt—it was a nice butt. “Just like all the other members of the Dallas SWAT team—all seventeen of us. We’re one large pack, extended to include the women each of us have bonded with.”
“Like me?”
He smiled. “Yes, like you. You have a pack now, a group of werewolves who will always be there for you, no matter what you need.”
Lana must have liked the sound of that, because she smiled like crazy. “I can’t believe there are so many werewolves in Dallas and I never knew. I can’t wait to meet all of them. I have so many questions.”
“And they’ll be thrilled to meet you too. But as long as we’re talking about the subject of werewolves in Dallas, I guess I should mention there is more than just our pack. One of the guys in the SWAT Pack bonded with another werewolf who already had her own pack, so they’re here, too, with all their various mates. Then there are all the smaller packs and the loners who started showing up when the hunter threat started to get worse. There are maybe fifty werewolves in the metro area these days who have shown up hoping to get protection by being close to a large pack.”
“Hunters? You used that word before in the alley when you changed in front of me. I guess that’s who chased me earlier tonight,” she said casually, almost curiously. “Go ahead and say it now—you were right about them, too.”
Max started to nod, but then the words sunk in. “Wait a minute.” He sat up so fast he almost dumped Lana off his lap. He quickly adjusted her so she was sitting back on his thighs, any thought of another round of fun and games completely gone now. “You were chased by someone tonight, and you didn’t think to mention it to me?”
She looked at him in confusion. “I didn’t mention it when I walked through your front door? I’m sure I did.”
“I think I would have remembered you saying something like that,” he said. “It’s kind of important. You walked in, showed off your claws, then jumped on me.”
Her lips curved. “Oh yeah. I guess that’s how it happened. But in my defense, the concern that you might not want me in your life after the way I’d treated you outweighed any worries I had about being shot at by a bunch of crazy men in downtown Dallas.”
They’d shot at her, too? Max cursed. “I need you to go into excruciating detail about everything that happened. Leave nothing out.”
Max sat there with Lana resting on his thighs, listening in stunned silence as she explained what had happened at the club and how the same guy who’d spritzed her with that nasty perfume at the mall had chased her, along with some of his buddies. By the time she was done, he didn’t know if he was furious with her for not telling him about it right away or impressed as hell that she’d gotten away from five heavily armed and well-trained hunters.
Regardless, he picked Lana up and deposited her beside him on the bed, then grabbed his phone from the bedside table to call Gage. He hadn’t even thumbed in his passcode before the thing rang in his hand, almost making him drop it. At the sight of Gage’s name on the screen, he thumbed the green button. Good freaking timing, he guessed.
“Max, is Lana with you?” Gage said before Max could even get a word out. But Sarge’s tone said it all. Something was wrong.
“She’s here,” Max said. “What’s wrong?”
“Get her to Medical City Dallas Hospital, ASAP. Paramedics just brought in her father. Someone broke into their house and attacked him.”
Max wished she hadn’t, but it was obvious Lana had heard everything Gage said, even though it wasn’t on speaker.
He heard her heart kick into high gear as she leaned forward and thumbed the speakerphone button. “How bad it is? Was my mom there, too?”
“Your mother wasn’t there. She was handling some kind of crisis at the restaurant. She’s on the way to the hospital now.”
“How badly is my father hurt?” Lana asked again.
Gage hesitated. “It’s bad. They broke in and beat the hell out of him, no doubt trying to get him to tell them where to find you. Then they shot him and left him for dead. He’s hanging on, but he’s in critical condition.”
Chapter 11
Brandy and Miriam met Lana and Max the moment they walked into the Medical City ER, hurrying them down the hall as fast as they could.
“Your dad is heading in for surgery, but he’s asking for you,” Brandy said. “He’s refusing the surgery until he sees you and Max. Talk to him fast, then convince him to let us take him into the OR. Every second we waste is making it harder to save his life.”
Lana started to hyperventilate, her gums and fingernails tingling like mad. She probably would have shifted right there if it wasn’t for Max holding her hand. He was like a rock, a steady presence she latched on to as emotional waves threatened to drown her.
There were a dozen cops in the hallway outside the ER, some of whom were Max’s SWAT teammates—his pack mates. Well, hers now, too, she guessed. All of them looked as worried as she felt.
