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But I’m no shifter. Martial arts lessons and sparring with Dariel when he had more control of himself than he does now means I’m not defenseless, but I’d be going into this fight at a distinct disadvantage. “And then there’s Dariel.”
“He knows as well as we do that Saige is ours,” Kade says. “He just needs to listen to his instincts.”
I raise an eyebrow. “So what’s your plan, then? Shove her down the stairs and hope his instincts kick in so he catches her before she hits the bottom because I have to tell you…"
A bark of laughter bursts from Kade’s lips. It’s rare, sofuckingrare to hear him laugh like that, or at all that I let it soak into me. “Fucking idiot.”
“How many packs do you know of in the city?” I ask, figuring the best place to start is finding out who’s after Saige. It didn’t pass me by how careful she was not to reveal his name. Which means it must be someone that she believes we—or Dariel—will know.
Kade shrugs. “Too many and not enough.”
I study him for a moment, leaning against the counter in the nude, unconcerned as he always is about his nudity. But Saige was aware of it. The flare of heat in her gaze and the careful way she kept her eyes trained on his face made it clear it wasn’t something she could overlook, at least not easily.
There’s such a strong pull between them that it makes me wonder what will happen when Dariel stops treating Saige as if she’s an enemy. And us? How will it be between us when we come together?
“What does that mean?” Over the years, Kade, but more often than not, Dariel would talk about shifters, though it always sounded like they were on the outside looking in. Other than the odd shifter who would come to the bar, Kade and Dariel have no shifter friends. Not one.
Kade stares at a counter opposite as he speaks. “In a real wolf pack, there’s only ever one pack per territory. More than that and they will explode into violence. Neither pack will back down until they’ve run the other off the territory or killed them because there can only be one alpha in charge.”
I focus on what he’s not saying. “But we’re not in the wild and a shifter is not just a wolf, but a man.”
One corner of his mouth turns up in a smile. Not of humor, but one of Kade’s empty smiles that he uses to hide something else he doesn’t want me to see. “You’d think it would be the wolves that would be the wild animal, but it’s always the man.”
Pain. That’s what he’s trying to hide.
Kade never talks about what life was like when it was just him and Dariel, but it was bad. I know that. He was human before. The broken nose that never healed right is a big clue he wasn’t born a shifter. Not like Dariel was.
“What kind of things do men do?” I ask as if I don’t know what things can put shadows into people's eyes and hearts.
“In the city,” Kade says, ignoring my question, “you carve out your place in it. Alone, or as a pack, and you fight to keep that small piece or someone will take it from you. Saige didn’t smell like anyone I’d ever met before, nor did the shifter who came to the bar.”
“So they’re from another part of the city. How does that help us?”
He angles his head toward me. “You weren’t listening.”
I fall silent and think over what he told me, slowly. And then my brain clicks. “You hold your small piece of the city or someone will take it from you,” I repeat. “Which means whoever wants Saige can afford to be a man down to send someone after her. A fighter. One who didn’t hesitate to walk into this place. He would have caught your scent and known he was entering another pack’s territory, and he fought well.”
Kade’s eyes are approving. “So we’re likely not dealing with a small pack.”
My mind returns to the brawl in the bar. “Or a weak one. That shifter knew how to fight, and where you can find one good fighter, you’ll find others.”
“She’ll tell you if you asked,” Kade says.
I shake my head. “No, she won’t. She just told me her name. This is bigger than a name. You know it as well as I do.”
Kade doesn’t disagree. Whatever happened to Saige is going to take more than a few days or even weeks for her to talk about.
If she ever will.
“Dariel would know,” Kade says, “he’s older. And he knows more of the shifters in the city.”
I stare at him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?Dariel?”
Kade shrugs, that same empty smile making a reappearance. “If Saige won’t say.”
“She might tell you since she feels safe around you.”
Kade snorts. “Aren’t you supposed to be the observant one? Just because she feels safe around me doesn’t mean she’s ready to open up her heart and empty all those sharp and pointy things that hurt her into my lap.”
