“Sure he is, but he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you here, including make decisions that could get him killed.” He leans in close, his breath heating my ear and neck. “He’s planning to raid a WSSO facility that’s twice as fortified as any he’s hit before. He’s going in despite the odds. For you. To rescue those shiftersyoulured. Whatever happens will be your fault.”
My breathing speeds up and I can’t think straight. “Why are you saying this?”
“Because it has to be said. No one wants you here. Except Garrett… and that won’t last long. Eventually he’ll realize that you’re not half the shifter Marla was.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GARRETT
“We have a tie! Time to vote.” Hayden announces on the stage, standing to the right of Damien and me.
“Feels like I just ran five miles,” I say, still trying to catch my breath.
Damien shoots me an annoyed look between heavy breaths. “Only five? Don’t recall this—being so—hard.”
Hayden slams the flat side of the paint ball gun against Damien’s chest. “You’re getting slow. You should have pinned him before that last shift.”
“He’s a slippery SOB.”
“That’s because you shot me with paint balls. Who the fuck added that to the bin?”
“Hasting’s kid bought it in town. Christine caught him shooting up the back of their cabin. Confiscated it.”
Hayden lifts Damien’s arm. “Let’s hear your howls for Damien.”
The crowd goes wild, louder than I remember from our early twenties.
“I still got it,” Damien gloats, the asshole.
“He’s enjoying this too much,” I remark to Hayden.
“You noticed that, huh?” Hayden lifts my right arm up for the crowd. “And your vote for Garrett.”
Amid the howls, I search the grassy area for my sweet Angel. I can’t wait to see her smiling face. Despite how sore I am, this little escapade she and Tess cooked up seems to be what Damien and I needed. We got out our tension, all the resentment that’s been building between us, and it’s like we’re twenty again. Cousins and friends, with nothing between us.
These past weeks have been so freeing. I’m more alive than I’ve ever been… thanks to Angel.
Where is she? I ask my wolf, scanning the crowd.
“Looks like we have a tie,” Hayden announces. “You know what that means. Another song!”
I spot Tess, but don’t see any blonde hair nearby. Something’s not right.
I shift and spring from the stage.
“It appears Garrett’s conceding the win to our alpha. Let’s hear it for the Howling Howliday Cousins!”
My wolf’s hackles rise as I dart through the crowd, feverishly scenting the air. Too many shifters. I can’t sort through the scents fast enough to find even a trace of my female.
My wolf veers left, to where I last saw her.
“I don’t know where she went?” Tess says without my having to shift to ask. “I just got back. She can’t be far.”
No, she can’t be. But why did she leave? One by one, I tick off the possible reasons, from needing a bathroom to having a conversation with Langdon about working for him…. to how I claimed her without talking to her first. I fucking let my wolf drive me into doing something she didn’t want.
And yet she was beaming afterwards. Then why leave here without me?
She worked with Tess to get me to this celebration, and onto that stage where I could remember what Damien and I are to one another. Family. Angel wouldn’t walk away without cause.
