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“Are you going to live?” I ask Ethan brusquely, charging into the now spare bedroom, because Maya won’t be leaving mine ever again.
Ethan grunts, standing inside the door, one hand pressed to his side, which is still oozing bright red blood. Frowning, I stand in front of him and gesture for him to remove his hand. There is no sign of his supernatural healing kicking in, yet. When he lifts his palm and opens it, I can see why. A silver bullet.
“What kind of coward are you?” I snarl at Kim.
Shifters are anti-gun at the best of times, preferring to resolve arguments the old-fashioned way, with fists, teeth, and claws. Using silver bullets is the lowest of the low. She’s huddled in a corner, holding her bent arm awkwardly with a sickly green pallor on her face. Unless she gets straightened so it can begin healing, she'll be in extreme pain, but she’ll get no sympathy from me. This injury is nothing compared to what Rex will do to her when he finds out she helped the men who tried to kill Leah. He'll tear her apart with his bare hands.
I retrieve a bottle of water from the mini-bar and a face cloth from the bathroom.
“Thank you, Ethan,” I’m unable to express my gratitude with mere words. Instead, I show my appreciation by squirting water into the wound and using the cloth to clean it as best as I can. He doesn’t answer, biting his fist against the pain. Instead, he nods, then hisses as I continue to swipe and poke at the gaping hole, removing any silver residue from his body to allow his shifter healing to kick in.
Ethan is sweaty and pale by the time I step away and clasp a hand on his shoulder, letting him know it’s over. He drops his t-shirt back down and sucks in a deep breath. By the look on his face, I can tell it already feels better. It will knit together soon, and, by tomorrow, he’ll have nothing but a red mark and some bruising.
“Did you come across Ross?” I ask, but Ethan’s puzzled face tells me he hasn’t a clue who or where Ross is.
“What did you do with him?” I glare at Kim, letting all my dominant energy fill the room and leaving her in no doubt that this is a command. The effects of the silver have worn off enough to make it effective again. It's very rare that I use my alpha power to get my way but I’m glad to have it now. Having a family full of dominant alphas makes it pointless most of the time, anyway. But I have no time to waste, and I want answers fast.
Kim squirms under my stare, stubbornly fighting the urge to submit, before reluctantly bowing her head and baring her neck to me. All the while, she glares at me with cold dead eyes, barely recognisable as my old friend.
“Relax. I just knocked him out. He’s tied up in his room.”
Kim flicks her gaze away, looking at the floor and pretending to be ashamed, but she’s not fooling me. Kim didn’t care ten minutes ago about the hell she was putting the three of us through. I doubt she could give a shit about Ross, who's a complete stranger to her.
“I’ll go check. What room?” Ethan offers, pushing off the wall and wincing as he tries to straighten to his full height. Has he lost weight or is it just the injury making him look gaunt?
“No, I will. You can’t go until you’re healed,” I argue, shaking my head. He’s in no shape to go anywhere. He'll be sore for another while and really should rest until he is seen by a pack doctor to make sure all the silver really is gone.
“Sure. I’ll stay here with your mate while you go. That’ll end well,” he says sarcastically and rolls his eyes. My wolf lunges for the surface and it takes everything I have to stop myself from marching across the room and punching my friend in the face. He's not wrong, though. It was a stupid suggestion.
“Fine. No need to be a dick when I was just trying to be nice. Room 201.”
Ethan already knows more about my mate than I ever want any other man to know. I don't need reminding of how close a call that was. I could have lost her. A weaker male would have mated with her and claimed her, and she’d have been lost to me forever.
Ethan staggers into the living room and snatches Kim's purse off the table, tipping out the contents and grabbing the three key cards that tumble out. Hers, mine, and Ross’, I presume. Ethan shoves them into his back pocket as I toss a clean t-shirt at him. He doesn’t even attempt to take his own off, just throws mine on top to hide the blood. It doesn’t really work, but it’s better than before. As he turns to leave the room, I have to ask.
“How did you… I mean, remember when Hayley went into heat? Everyone went crazy, and she was marked by then…”
Nobody knew whether she would even get a heat as a human, but when she did, it was chaos. Cooper had to throw her into the back of a car and flee his own alpha ceremony.
Ethan turns, his wolf shining in his eyes as he takes a deep breath to make a point. His wolf is still there, just below the surface, no matter how controlled Ethan seems.
“Stop that!” I shout, furious at the thought that he can still smell her lust in the air. I should be the only one who gets to enjoy her aroused perfume.
“I’m not unaffected, Nathan. And I fucking hate myself for it,” Ethan admits bitterly. “But my wolf knows she’s not what we want. She’s not ours.”
“I owe you my life and then some, Ethan.”
I need him to understand how much this means to me. Not only did he control himself, but he also put his life in danger by taking Kim down.
“Come home, Ethan. We need you. Whatever debt you think you need to repay, it’s more than done.”
“I can’t. Not yet. I have other things I need to do first.”
“You’ve found her,” I conclude. His mate. It must be. And he won’t come home without her. That’s why he could resist Maya’s heat. His wolf didn’t want to betray his mate. My eyes instantly searching his neck for a mark, finding none. “But you’re not claimed.”
Ethan raises an eyebrow at me in disbelief and smirks.
“If you haven’t noticed, neither are you, dickhead. And yet your mate went into heat. In a hotel. Full of wolves. Away from the pack. Did you learn nothing from Leila?”
