“Do you remember what happened to you?”
A long quiet fell on the room. At last, his rasp rougher than usual, Malachi said, “The rogues came for April, brought guns to the Lane. I fought them.”
“Are they dead?” April blurted, the first time she’d wondered in this awful long night.
Her wolf’s gaze fell on her with solemn regret. “Two of them are dead.”
Strange that he would be sorry for it. He had killed in self-defense, in defense of his pack and his mate. She would have thought him capable of killing them all without compunction.
“That’s good,” she said in case he needed her to say it. “Safer for all of us. And for any humans they would have hurt in the future.”
“Yes,” he said, but bitterness lay beneath the single word.
Oh.Oh.
Malachi’s regret wasn’t for the wolves he’d had to kill. It was for the wolves who had escaped him.
Sixteen
Whiletheiralpha’slifehung by a fraying thread, the pack had seemed to exist in a suspended state. If they’d been able to help, April had no doubt every last one would have plunged into motion. But in the terrible minutes—less than an hour, though that seemed impossible—that she and Aaron had worked on Malachi, until April called them in, they’d been powerless and motionless. Now that the danger to him was past, they seemed to begin breathing again.
Meanwhile, except to scrub her hands, April didn’t leave her wolf’s side. Aaron disappeared briefly to clean up, and then he, Ezra, Robert, and Trevor lifted Malachi from the table and carried him, blankets and all, to the bedroom closest to the main rooms of the house. April followed, her heart squeezing at the total depletion of her wolf. He should be resisting, showing himself strong, grumbling that anyone would think he needed support like this. Instead he lay docile in their arms.
Four wolves in the room made it seem smaller than it was. On the king-size bed, Malachi lay still bundled up. They propped him with multiple pillows, so he was more or less upright. He looked ashen and exhausted, but his eyes were clear as he gestured to April. “Come, please.”
She crossed to his bedside and, due to the crowded room, couldn’t help checking the expressions of the other wolves. They nodded to her, accepting and acknowledging. Because they’d heard her call herself Malachi’s mate?
Aaron stood closest at the foot of the bed, arms folded across his chest. “How do you feel?”
“Exposed,” Malachi said. “Blankets notwithstanding.”
“He’s back, all right,” Trevor said. “Bookish vocabulary, check. Extreme modesty, check.”
“I’ll see where Rhett disappeared to, ask him for a change of clothes.” Robert strode from the room.
“Okay, wardrobe replacement on its way.” Aaron handed Malachi a giant stainless-steel tumbler with a straw. “Meanwhile replenishing fluids is the biggest priority for your body. Also meanwhile, you didn’t actually answer my question.”
Malachi took the tumbler in one hand. He closed his eyes and rumbled deep in his chest, a growl so quiet April felt it more than she heard it.
“Mal,” Aaron said.
“I’m alive,” Malachi rasped quietly. “It’s more than I expected when I tried to run home.”
“You tried torun?” Trevor’s voice was sharp, stunned.
“He almost made it,” Ezra said quietly. “When we got to him, he was within a hundred feet of Rhett’s door.”
“I knew my time was limited. I had to speak to Rhett.”
“So you decided to outrun death?”
Malachi’s voice came laced with a stern growl. “Don’t mythologize me, Trevor. I tried to reach home before my strength ran out. That’s all.”
“You’re unbelievable, Mal.That’sall.”
Ezra growled his agreement. Aaron’s gaze remained on Malachi, careful and perceptive. April stood watching from outside their intimate circle, these four friends who had grown from pups to adults together. Jeremy, their fifth, seemed glaringly absent, but April remembered from a passing remark at the last cookout that the wolf had an overwhelming phobia of blood, even the scent of it. Once the dining room had been cleaned, Jeremy would be able to rejoin the pack.
Aaron folded his arms across his chest. “Since you’re being so deflective right now, I’m going to run through some checkup questions.”
