Page 94 of Brandon’s Mate

The polar bear was still hovering over Raines’ body—the only one the panthers had left.

Brandon dropped a kiss on Kitty’s head, and then walked over to him. “It’s over,” he said quietly.

With a shimmer, the polar bear turned into Sasquatch. The Hermit. He still stood looking down at Raines, his huge fists flexing. Even though they’d won, he looked defeated.

He’s got nothing left, Brandon realized. He’d gotten his revenge—his justice—and now he had nothing to live for.

That could have been me.

“Come on, Squatch,” he said quietly. “Let’s go home.”

The big man raised his head slowly and looked at Brandon with that cold, colorless gaze.

In the distance they could hear sirens—the Sheriff and the fire department, no doubt.

“We need to get out of here,” Colt said uneasily. “The last thing we need is to have to explain this mess. Especially a body.”

“Yeah,” Brandon said, looking around. His truck had escaped burning, but the front end was destroyed. It would never make it home.

They ended up stealing Caleb’s truck, laying Callie in the bed. Jason sat beside her, leaning against the side of the truck and looking like he was going to pass out any minute. Colt also sat in the back, pillowing Callie’s head on his lap.

While they were doing that, Brandon searched the discarded clothes in the parking lot until he found a phone. He called the Shifter Council emergency line. “There’s a hot shifter mess in Farville, Kentucky that’s gonna need some intervention with human authorities. Rogue panther crew versus local crows, burning building and…”

He was going to say “a body,” but when he looked around, Sasquatch had disappeared, and so had Raines.

He sighed. You can’t save everyone.

He dropped the phone on the ground so the call couldn’t be traced to him, then slid into the passenger side of the truck cab, next to Kitty. “Hit it,” he said to Remy, and they drove out the back exit just before the first of the emergency vehicles arrived.

After a few minutes of driving, Remy glanced across at Brandon. “So, what now?”

Brandon laid his head back wearily against the headrest. “You’re asking me?”

“You’re the alpha.”

He was the alpha.

Brandon looked around at the cab, then back behind him. Four naked soot-covered former Bad Bloods, an unconscious lynx, and a beat-up turncoat crow.

He couldn’t help it. He started to laugh.

“I vote shower,” Kitty said.

“I vote food,” Colt yelled from the back.

Food. Shelter. Hell, jobs. They needed everything.

He had a crew.

What now? “I have no fucking idea,” he said.

Chapter 43

In the end they took Jason and Callie back to the mansion, stopping to pick up the Catalina on the way. Callie couldn’t be left alone, and Jason was a target for any of Caleb’s crows who were left.

Colt carried Callie inside, Jason glaring at him. Kitty hoped wearily that if they were going to get into a brawl over her, they’d A) ask Callie if she wanted either one of them first, and B) fucking wait until everyone had healed up and had the energy to deal with their shit.

Kitty and Colt sponged her down, put her in one of Colt’s shirts and tucked her into his sleeping bag. She sort of came to during the process, but she was pretty out of it, and she needed sleep more than anything, so she could heal.