I hear him calling my name. Properly. Like with my ears, I hear him. He’s here, dragging me from the edge of berserker rage that was building and growing, like a snowball rolling down a mountain, gathering in size and speed.
“Raff.”
I barely face him, and he’s there, holding me tight. Keeping me from erupting again. His arms are like bands around me, holding me together, like it has been since the second we were born.
“Tally,” I roar into his ear. My emotions explode out, the stress of everything making it hard to breathe or think. I go to shove him off so I can get to her, but he stops me, squeezing his arms so I can’t escape.
“Keegan’s got her. Ro found where she put Daisy. They’re good, Rafferty. You hear me? They will both be okay. You come back to me now.”
Tynan holds me still; his forehead pushed against mine and I lean into him, taking everything he offers. His eyes are full of a thousand emotions. My brother is a closed book. And how talkative he is right now, how fucking bonkers I am too, let’s me know how close we came to death tonight.
“Shit, Raff, your eyes and scent are freaking me out. You’re still snarling and hissing. We need to get Tally to a doctor, and you probably need one, too, but she’s not great. I need you to help me by calming down, or I can’t let you come with us like this.”
Hearing him say that about me eats arse. But it also makes sense, because looking back at how I felt, I’m kind of scared of myself too.
“She was hurt, and I saw red.”
“I think it was more than red.” He smiles, his eyes not leaving mine for a moment. And in them, he shows me exactly how he feels. He hides nothing. “Guess we found what flips my favorite brother into beast mode.”
“Only brother.” I flame red like a tomato under his praise. Stupid, because I know how much Tynan loves me. Making him proud is kind of next-level amazing too.
I close my eyes, letting his barely there lemon verbena scent wash over and settle me like it has always. There’s still a battle of wills going on inside me, because now I let the cat out of the bag, my beast side doesn’t want to relinquish his rage, just in case, but he knows he needs to because Tynan said Tally’s hurt.
I count up to ten really fucking quickly before shutting the monster inside me down. Shaking my head and twisting out of Tynan’s hold, I swing my arm around his shoulder.
“She saved me. We wouldn’t be doing this if she hadn’t shown up and jumped in to help.”
Tynan’s jaw snaps shut.
I do one of those full body twitches that shakes the both of us. And we are back to who we are.
I pull him closer, resting my head on his shoulder and breathing in his subtle scent in.
His lack of words tells me how fucking furious he is.
He helps me to the car, our hands moving over each other, not in a sexual way, but it’s a twin thing where the touch is as necessary as the air we share.
The drive passes in the blink of an eye. I can’t remember if we spoke, or who sat where, each of us consumed by everything that happened. Lost in the reality that our night could have turned out very differently. It’s like a broken film or like reading chapters in a book out of order, because while I remember key parts of it, all the details were lost.
I definitely remember getting in Ronin’s face and shoving him back to Keegan when someone suggested he should hold Tally. The look on their faces—a mix of horror and respect—is etched in my mind forever. As is the perfume my Alphas leaked.
Then there’s a rather large gap in my memories. Clearly, we stopped at Maeve’s, or she came to ours, because Daisy was tucked under my arm one minute, and then she wasn’t. And since no one was going on another rampage, and the scent of relief hung in the air as much as the scent of my pack, our niece must be okay.
We made it home, though it’s another thing I don’t remember. Although I’m not sure I will ever forget the arsehole doctor playing me. He came in all coy and shit, then my arm was hurting like a bee sting and I was blinking to stay awake.
“Why?” I ask Ronin. My mouth starts to move slower, the fog in my head weighing me down.
“You keep kicking and screaming when anyone tries to take Tally from you. I know, it’s freaking me out too. You being all territorial and downright violent towards anyone but your pack.”
“Pfft, you know she’s ours. She always has…” I go to sit up, but Ronin drops his hand on my chest, holding me down.
The way he looks at me, the shine of color in his eyes and the soft run of his fingers as he brushes the hair off my face, makes it even harder to keep my eyes open.
“Sleep, Raff. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”
“Where’s Tally?” It’s even harder to say the words now. Everything is so sluggish, but I fight again to sit up. His hand is getting heavier.
“Right next to you.”
