Page 39 of Ice Devil

Okay, you asshole. You started this, you’d better be ready to face one furious bitch. You should know that when I get very angry, blood rains in the streets.

I hit send before I thought better of what I’d written. Maybe a little mafioso, but tough.

Ping.

The email came back, address not found.

Oh, the motherfucker was good. I moved past pissed straight to livid. That’s the point I could crush a man’s… cock and balls with my bare hands. With my heartrate rising, I fisted my hand, my thoughts shifting to the person I suspected had been the illustrious photographer.

The asshole in the hallway. Beck had been right. I should have grilled the weirdo until he’d confessed.

“I’m glad I caught you.”

Hearing Matt’s voice only feet away almost had me panicking.

I snapped the laptop lid shut, jerking to a standing position and with my ridiculous actions, my hand smashed against the computer with more force than I knew I had in me. As it went flying into the air, my groan was classic.

My unwanted savior grabbed it for me at the same time I lunged forward. When we both stopped, his face was two inches from mine.

The awkward moment only added to the horrible situation.

“Are you okay?”

His question seemed rhetorical. Of course I wasn’t okay.

“Fine. Perfectly. Fine. Why would you ask?” I yanked the laptop from his hand, or at least I tried to. When he held on, I cocked my head. “Really. I’m just heading out. Do you need something?” I was trying to maintain a sickeningly sweet attitude that hopefully he didn’t see right through.

At this moment, I was nothing but a piranha with a need to feed.

Thankfully for him, he backed away. “You’re going to need to put a hold on the shifter piece.”

Good.

“Why is that?”

“Because the Kendrick patriarch and pack leader is on life support.”

CHAPTER 9

Beck

Portland Herald: Patrick Kendrick, Beloved Father and Patriarch of the Shadow Dancers Wolf Pack is Reported to be on his Death Bed

“Do I look like I’m on my deathbed?”

Our father, a man with more brawn than common sense, decided to perform some ridiculous country bumpkin jig right in the middle of the hospital room in his hospital gown. When he turned around, his ass toward the door, and shimmied, I closed and rubbed my eyes.

“Dad, the nurses don’t need you flashing them. We do want them to continue working at the hospital.” Cole was fighting to keep from laughing while our mother was the only one brave enough to try to coax our father back into bed.

“He’s right, Pops,” Ford added. “The nurses’ station is right outside the door.”

So they could keep an eye on our ornery father who’d made it his business to make everyone suffer during his stay.

He hated human hospitals more than any other shifter I’d known. The only reason he’d agreed to stay was because Georgia, Ford’s fiancée who was about to graduate from medical school, had coerced the right medical personnel to take over his care.

I wondered how much Georgia had needed to bribe the doctors.

I glanced at the open door, amused since our father’s least favorite nurse was glaring at him. He called her Nurse Ratched, which certainly hadn’t endeared him to her.