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We walked straight through the house and into a fenceless back yard. There were other houses nearby, but none of them were insanely close to each other.
“I had no control,” a guy who looked like Rocco, but with darker hair and broader shoulder snarled. They were clearly brothers. Rocco’s brother had his arm draped over Rocco’s shoulder, and was having a hard time remaining on his feet. The dark circles under his eyes looked like massive bruises, and even from across the yard, I could see that his expression was crazed. “I didn’t make this fucking decision.”
“He needs rest, James. Not a fight!” A middle-aged woman yelled. “Walk away.”
A middle-aged man stormed past us, and Ford maneuvered me out of his path so quickly and smoothly that I wouldn’t have realized he was protecting me if I hadn’t been paying such close attention.
Rocco’s mother threw her arms around both of her boys, hugging them fiercely.
“We’ll get through this,” she swore to them. “We’ll figure something out, and we’ll get through this.”
Rocco’s brother snarled, “There’s no getting through losing your mate, mom. She was my whole fucking world.”
My stomach clenched at the pure pain in his words.
Elliot jogged up to us, his face red and sweaty like he’d been running or something. The expression on his face was a grim one.
“Now she’ll move on, and I’ll be fucked for life,” Rocco’s brother snarled again, then staggered.
A group of five guys who all looked a few years older than us came jogging up. One of them carried a baby in a backpack thing over his chest, and they all looked as grim as Elliot.
Ford tucked me behind him, and I didn’t have any desire to step around him so I could see what was happening better.
I did peek over his shoulder, though.
“Come on, Oscar. Let’s get you home,” one of the guys said, his hands outstretched. I noticed the guy with the baby hanging at the back of the group, and the casually protective way the others formed a barrier between him and Rocco’s brother, whose name was apparently Oscar.
“I don’t have a home,” Oscar snarled. “She fucking left me, and she lives in my house. It’s hers; it’s not mine. I don’t have a damned thing left to my name, or to live for.”
“Cam and I have a spare room,” the man at the front said, his voice calm as he stepped closer to Oscar. “And you’re a part of our pack; you know you’ll always be part of the family.”
A feral snarl left Oscar’s lips, and it didn’t sound anywhere near human. Not that he was entirely human, anyway, but it sounded like a full-on wolf snarl.
“There’s nothing for me without my mate. Nothing.” His back snapped, and he collapsed. Rocco held him up, and the guy with the outstretched hands ducked under his other arm. He and Rocco lowered Oscar to the ground, dodging flying limbs as the man’s body kicked and fought as it broke and reformed.
I watched in horror as Oscar howled, snarled, and cried, clearly in physical, mental, and emotional agony.
My fingers gripped Ford’s biceps, and I held on for dear life.
“Shit,” Teagan whispered, from where she stood behind Jesse. He was protecting her the same way Ford was protecting me, though she had to lean to the side to see past her mate.
His mom collapsed to her knees, her hands lifting to her mouth as she sobbed. Rocco kneeled beside her, his arms wrapping around her. She leaned on him for support, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of the horror of Oscar’s shift.
It didn’t look… right.
He was bleeding; he shouldn’t have been bleeding, should he?
When he finally made it fully into his wolf form, the wolf tilted his head back and let out a howl of so much pain that it felt like a knife in my belly.
My wolf surged to the surface, but Ford’s arms reached behind him and he pulled me tighter to his back, holding my body against his.
The wolf took off into the forest, and I noticed that all five of the other guys who’d come running had shifted too, while Oscar was shifting. There was no blood on their fur, though.
Elliot walked over, wearing the carrier and baby of the guy from Oscar’s pack. I hadn’t noticed him slip away and take the other guy’s baby, but it made sense that he had.
The pack was a family; they needed to be there for Oscar.
Rocco’s mother wailed up at the sky, and her husband—James, I think—came back out of their house.
