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“Come on!” he said. “We have to go—Gabriel will join us when he’s finished.”
Feeling dazed, I let him drag me out of the reception. We ran through the big house, the shouts and shrieks and growling getting gradually fainter behind us. At last, we burst through the front door and ran down the front steps.
“Here—we have to go!” Christopher was already pressing a key fob to unlock the big black Escalade he and my brother and stepfather had come in.
Just as we heard the beep-boop of the car unlocking, the big black wolf burst out of the house and galloped down the steps towards us.
“There you are!” Christopher shouted at him. “Come on—we’ve got to get out of here!”
He opened the back door and shoved me inside. The black wolf jumped in after me, his muzzle wet with blood. I gasped and shrank away from him but he looked up at me and his silver eyes were Gabriel’s.
“Don’t worry—Gabe won’t hurt you,” Christopher said and slammed the door closed. He jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car just as the Alphas from both packs started pouring out the front door.
“Go! Drive!” I exclaimed. I could only imagine what would happen to us if the Alphas caught us. We would be as good as dead!
But Christopher gave a grim laugh.
“They aren’t going anywhere. I slashed their fucking tires—every last one of them.”
He threw a grin over his shoulder at me as he backed the Escalade out of the drive.
Sure enough, I could see the other Alphas getting in their cars…but none of them went anywhere, despite all the revving engines. That must have been what my stepbrother was doing when he left the reception earlier, I thought.
“Did you two plan all this?” I demanded, as we headed out onto the open road.
“Not this exactly,” Christopher admitted. “We were going to try and sneak you out of the reception and run away together but I never dreamed that Gabe was going to Shift.”
“How did he do it?” I looked down at the huge wolf, who was lying across my legs. He was panting now, as though he’d run a long race. His pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and his furry sides were heaving.
“It must have been Wolf’s Bane.” Christopher shot a look over the back seat and I saw a worried look on his face. “God, Gabe—why did you have to take that shit?” he demanded, frowning at the wolf. “You know how bad it is!”
“How bad is it? What’s going to happen?” I exclaimed.
“He’s going to die if he can’t Shift back—and maybe even if he can,” Christopher admitted. He was still driving much faster than the speed limit, but so far no one was following us. He must have done a very thorough job on their tires, I thought.
“What? No!” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” Christopher confirmed. “Wolf’s Bane gives an Alpha the ability to Shift out of season—that means, Shift to his Fur-form even when it’s not the full moon,” he explained. “But it takes a toll on the one who uses it. Most of them die afterwards—especially if they can’t Shift back to human form. Damn it, Gabe!” he added, glancing back at the wolf again. “Why’d you go and do that? We could have found some other way to get Zoe out of there!”
“It’s my fault.” I felt like crying. “He saw Moncrieff choking me and decided he had to Shift to save me.”
“No, don’t blame yourself, Little Sis,” Christopher said. “I think he was planning this all along. That’s why he gave me the keys to the Escalade—he knew he was going to Shift and he didn’t want to lose them when he burst out of his clothes.”
Looking down at the huge wolf, I stroked his shaggy coat.
“Gabriel, please,” I begged. “Don’t die! Don’t leave us! Please—can’t you try to Shift back?”
The pure silver eyes that looked into mine were dull and the wolf panted even harder. I wondered if he was dying—I didn’t want him to die! I didn’t want to lose him—he and Christopher and I belonged together.
“Listen to me, Gabriel,” I said, taking the big, shaggy head in my hands and looked down at him. “You have to Shift! Please—you can do it—do it now. Shift!”
The furry body in my lap shivered and then, finally, I felt the bones and muscles begin to change configurations. Slowly and clearly with a great deal of pain, my older stepbrother changed from a wolf back into a human. He lay there with his head in my lap, panting with pain and effort.
Finally, Gabriel was back!
But he wasn’t out of danger yet.
THIRTY-SIX
“Christopher, look! Look—he changed back—he’s Gabriel again!” I exclaimed.
But my older stepbrother wasn’t moving. He was naked, his muscular body laying full length across the back seat of the Escalade with his head in my lap, but he seemed semi unconscious.
