“You think that will stop me?” he asked thickly as he stepped toward Danny. Bron took a step after him, but Kath—human again—dragged her back. “Go on, then, boy. Shoot me and I’ll take that thing off you and—”
“How long will your eyes take to grow back?” Danny asked as he lifted the shotgun to his shoulder. Faced with the steady, black barrel of the weapon, James, despite his faith he’d survive the shot, hesitated. “How fast will your spine stitch itself back together to get your legs working?”
Bron shoved Kath away. “Not fast enough,” she answered for James. “I’ll have his throat before he stops pissing himself. I don’t care if they’re deadora dog, you keep your mouth off my brother and my baby.”
Doubt flickered over James’s face, and he uncomfortably shifted his weight on his mauled feet.
“You wouldn’t dare,” James said. “You know I’ll get back up and beat you worse.”
Danny bared his teeth in a dog’s grim smile. “When did thateverstop me?” he asked.
“And you won’t get back up,” big, genial Craig—who was barely above Danny in the Pack because he didn’t like to fight—said in a soft, dangerous voice that sounded odd from him. “Those dogs you don’t think should be in our pack? They saved my daughter. I like them better than I ever liked you, James.”
James turned awkwardly to glare at him. “And my boy?!” he demanded. His voice cracked. “Why didn’t they save Greer when they were about it, then?”
“He never got there,” Ellie said. She leaned against Jack’s leg, her head on his thigh, and visibly defied the need to cringe when James turned his glower onto her. “The prophets lost him, and the Wild took him. He wasn’t there to bring home.”
James’s face flushed red and twisted. It could have been rage or grief. Jack stepped in before the emotion could decide what it was and gripped the back of James’s neck.
“We’ll find Greer,” Jack promised as he held James in place. He dug his fingers into the tense cords of James’s neck. “We’ll bring him home. But first we have to end the prophets and put the Wild to rights. Otherwise he could be lost in the miles between one step and the next.”
James shuddered and relaxed, his shoulders slumped and his chin dropped. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he decided on grief. He leaned against Jack, relieved to let go of the responsibility. That was part of the comfort of the pack—that you could let someone else make the decisions if it got too much for you.
Danny had never accepted that, but he could acknowledge the attraction.
Jack let James grieve for a second, then kicked his bloody feet out from under him to put him on his knees. He dug his fingers into the scruff of James’s neck and bent down to growl in his ear.
“Next time you disrespect me or my brother,” he rasped, “I’ll put you on your back. If you ever touch Danny? I’ll put you in your grave.”
He waited for James to lick his lips and bend his neck to the side in submission, weather-tanned skin pulled taut from collarbone to jaw, then he dragged him back to his feet.
“Go home and clean up,” he said gruffly as he turned James toward the door and gave him a shove. “The sooner we put the prophets down, the sooner we get your son back. All of you. Go. Get some rest.”
James looked away from Kath and Bron in apology as he limped toward the door. His mate went with him, and with that, the meeting dissolved without fuss. Danny let out a slow breath and felt his muscles quiver with aftershocks of adrenaline.
“As for you,” Jack said. He walked over and put his hand on the barrel of the shotgun to pull it down. Danny resisted for a second, but only because he’d forgotten he still had it raised. Jack took the shotgun off him and then wrapped his free hand around Danny’s neck. His thumb pushed Danny’s chin up until his throat was exposed and Danny swallowed nervously. “Don’t shoot my guests with my gun.”
Danny nervously licked his lips and glanced down. “It’s actually your da’s,” he said.
“Da’s not here,” Jack said. He leaned in to sniff the soft skin under the line of Danny’s jaw, skin that still smelled of Jack. “And I don’t need a guard dog.”
“Fuck you,” Danny said roughly.
On the floor, where he’d forgotten her, Ellie choked in surprise. Jack leaned back from Danny and glanced at her.
“Spend too much time with humans and you pick up their bad habits,” he said as he let go of Danny’s throat. He dropped his hand, possessive and familiar, to Danny’s shoulder instead. “Although Danny’s always had enough of his own.”
Ellie’s attention shifted from Jack to Danny and then down to Danny’s collar where it pulled down enough to expose his bite-bruised throat. Her mouth twitched awkwardly in an attempt at a smile. “It’s hard to love a dog,” she said. “So close to us, but—never enough for us.”
She trailed off with a shrug as she glanced down at her scuffed knees. Her scent had the dull, dust-and-ash smokiness of regret and loss. Maybe she expected someone to be sorry for her. It wasn’t going to be Danny. He didn’t need any reminders of what he was and wasn’t.
“Maybe you just didn’t try hard enough,” Danny said as he ducked out from under Jack’s hand. He ignored Jack’s “stay” gesture, because he might be a dog, but he wasn’t trained. “I should go and check on Bron.”
“GREGOR?”
Bron wrinkled her nose at Danny as she chewed on a hunk of dry venison, her cheeks puffed and her hands greasy with it. They were in the kitchen of the house they’d grown up, in clothes pulled from wardrobes in their old rooms. It was probably less strange for Bron, who’d never left. The fire was stoked, and the embers burned a dull, stubborn red. An old copper kettle sat on the tiles in front of it, burnished with the flames, and the air around the uneven stone chimney rippled as the heat sank into it.
“Jack?” Bron parroted back, with a pointed nod at his shoulder. Danny flushed from the pit of his stomach and pulled his collar up uncomfortably. It wasn’t the sex. In the Pack, everyone knew when someone had sex. The tangled smells stuck to your skin like honey. A bite was possession, a claim that Jack knew couldn’t count for anything.
