Page 21

“Oh, I’m here looking for my friend.”

“Is that right? No one here is your friend.”

The man’ smile gave me the creeps. “Come on. I mean no harm. I’m only here for one of my pack. A female. She’s not well, mentally. That’s why we put a tracker on her phone. She’s always running away and getting in mischief like this. Please tell me she hasn’t caused any trouble.”

Rain growled. “You’re the alpha. The big bad man who preys on young women. Now the stories add up. No wonder you can’t produce an heir. Look at you.” Evren hadn’t mentioned that he had no young, but his stumble backward a step showed I’d hit on the truth. And it hurt.

Damn. Rain was cutthroat when he wanted to be. It didn’t hurt that he was speaking to the man who intended to abuse and possibly murder our mate.

“And who in the fuck do you think you are? You can’t keep her from me. She’s part of my pack. I own her.”

“Not anymore,” I said, stepping out onto the porch. Own her? The alpha backed up farther. The sour scent of fear emanated from him. It wasn’t coming from us. “She’s ours and around here, we don’t own people. She’s our mate.”

“Not if I find her first.” In a blur of motion, the alpha shifted to his wolf and took off past the house and into the woods. Woods we sometimes used as a shortcut to town.

We’d had enough. One encounter with the sleazeball was enough to know that he couldn’t leave here. We weren’t murderers, but one way or another this man wouldn’t be allowed to hurt or even get within speaking distance of our mate.

We chased him through familiar woods and once he was cornered, the damned alpha wolf pissed himself. His wolf let out a whimper. His legs shook. He was even skinnier in wolf form, and a tiny, tiny piece of me felt sorry for him.

I looked at Rain, and he at me.

We aren’t murderers. I had to keep repeating that phrase to myself because my wolf didn’t really care about the label. His one and only priority was Evren ,and she wouldn’t be safe from looking over her shoulder all the time until this alpha was dead.

I was juggling the decisions when a wolf tore out of the trees to our right and lunged for the alpha’s throat. I turned away, not wanting to see anyone die, even if it was a monster. It was too late to stop it, even if I wanted to.

My first instinct insisted that this wasn’t a shifter but a regular wolf interpreting the alpha as a threat.

Correctly.

Rain nudged me and I looked over my shoulder. The alpha was bleeding from the jugular Blood poured from the jugular of the alpha—who had shifted back after being attacked. The other wolf hung back, in the trees, eyeing the alpha. Making sure he was dead? He yipped at us, but we were on the same side, the side that knew this Earth would be better if people like that alpha were gone.

My wolf felt the moment he died, like a slight bit of power had been extinguished. He turned back to a wolf again by some magic we didn’t understand. At least we didn’t have a body to dispose of.

Relief sang in my veins

Our mate was safe.

That was all that mattered.

Chapter Nineteen

Evren

We stayed at the bakery all morning. Falling into my usual worker mentality, I helped out where I could, learning as much as possible along the way. It was a distraction, but even though I was doing the job I hoped to do in future, not enough of a distraction to keep me from wondering what was going on at home.

Every time the phone rang, I grabbed for it, hoping it was good news. Finally, about one, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I found Lark behind the counter. The rush had died back, and the line that had been in place when we got here had dissipated. “Lark, we need to go home.”

“Nobody has called yet.”

“I know. Call them. I would do it myself except I don’t know their numbers. I did have them until my phone got turned into electronic waste.”

“I think we should wait for them to tell us it’s safe to go home.”

“But what if it’s not? What if they’re in trouble and need help?”

“Neither of them are ever going to be in that situation.”

I planted my hands on my hips and snarled, “I am going home. You can come if you like and save me the walk or I’ll just get there on my own.” I yanked off the apron I’d been wearing all morning and started for the door.