His chest expanded as my words penetrated, and his shoulders relaxed, leading me to believe I’d gotten through his thick skull.
“Just to be clear,” he said with a low growl. “The only way to break a thrall is to kill the vampire responsible. If I even suspect for a second that you are under his influence, I won’t hesitate to take him out.”
I’d felt the call in my blood to Sebastian as he drank from me, the magic trying to entwine with mine, but Indigo had rebutted it, and it had recoiled from her. He might have my blood in his veins, but there was no link, and once it had cycled from his system, he would not have any connection to me other than the strong friendship we shared.
“I understand.”
Dave reappeared through the door like he’d emerged from the shadows once it was safe from the domestic argument.
“What are we going to do about the shifters?” he asked.
“Sophia says it would be dangerous to reverse the magic for them,” I warned. “So I guess you got some new pack members.”
Dave wiped a hand down his face like he was exhausted. “This is not helpful.”
“Why?” I wondered.
Hudson gave a subtle shake of his head at Dave. “There are issues with the pack,” Hudson said with zero intention of giving me an explanation.
“Could you expand on that?”
“It’s not important right now,” Hudson said, brushing off my concern. A red-hot flush of anger swept through my veins.
“I see, so you get to know my deepest darkest secrets, lay claim to every part of my life, my home and my heart, but I get nothing in return from the things that trouble you? Some partnership.”
I huffed just as one of the wolves raised their heads and caught Dave’s steady gaze. “Change,” he snapped. The lash of command echoed in the room and the wolf trembled. Please, don’t be stuck like they were a few months ago. This situation is already bad enough.
The wolf whined and pawed at its head before shivering violently. Bones began to snap and alter, and within a minute, a naked woman lay on the floor. She tipped on her side, hugged her knees to her chest, and cried. The other wolves fell into the same routine until Dave had one woman and two men who were in varying states of disbelief. The enormous lion that rivaled the size of Hudson’s beast twitched his paw.
Hudson completed the same ritual, finding an enormous tattooed male in place of the lion.
“Help me,” a woman’s voice cried from the huge hole in the floor. Dave and Hudson leaned on their fronts and each offered a hand to the woman beneath, they dragged her out with ease and rose. She fell into Hudson and wrapped her arms around him with a sob. She was a curvy bronzed bombshell with blonde wavy hair that touched her ass. A naked woman was hugging my mate, and a flare of jealousy burned hot in my veins. Hudson’s gaze snapped to mine and he peeled the woman’s arms from around him and took a step back.
She spun and wrapped herself around the naked male lion shifter. “Josh, what happened?” she asked in a whiny voice that grated on my nerves.That’s right, hug your own boyfriend, and keep your mitts off mine.
“I have a van on the way,” Dave said. “You guys can take the Escalade, I’ll get them to the pack and give them a crash course in the factions and what their lives now look like.”
One of the wolf males started to argue, and I decided I had enough supernatural drama of my own without dealing with the fallout from my grandmother’s experiments.
Hudson followed me out of the town hall, leaving behind the sheriff who was busy spinning a tale to the residents about a freak earthquake that had occurred in their little town. It was sad to think that to be in our circle, you had to tell all these lies.
I nodded to him just as Aunt Sophia appeared from outside with a plate. “Cabbage rolls,” she explained to Robert. “These will help your bad day.”
“We are heading out,” I explained. “Dave will take the others affected with him.”
Aunt Sophia nodded. “I’ll catch a ride back with the sheriff.”
“You want to stay?”
She shrugged. “I can help with any lingering doubts the residents have. Sebastian left already in an Uber.”
Umm, I guess that was a good reason, but something told me my aunt was giving me and Hudson space to talk before we arrived back at the house and everyone could hear everything we said.
I was both grateful and annoyed. I didn’t want to hash out anything else that had occurred here—my life saving blood, Hudson’s embrace with a naked woman, or my grandmother’s plan that had crystallized into startling and terrifying clarity. Hudson side-eyed me as we approached his abandoned car that still had the doors open. Wow, he must have been in a hurry. There was no way I was getting out of this round of twenty questions. I slid into the passenger seat, clipped on my safety belt, and closed my eyes as the engine rumbled to life, then we were off. Perhaps I could feign sleep?
“We need to talk,” Hudson rumbled.Cora Roberts - daughter of death and queen of wishful thinking.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
