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It’d lasted days. Cameras and reporters with wide eyes and breathless voices, speaking into microphones about the Terror in Green Creek, as the chyrons all said across the bottoms of screens. And while it started off as a major story, the media quickly became frustrated at how no one wanted to speak about it. No one wanted to be interviewed. They all just wanted to move on.
Sometimes howls could be heard coming from the trees. “Coyotes,” Will told reporters who’d stayed in his motel. “Maybe a couple of wolves. Best stay of out of the forest if you know what’s good for you. If I was a betting man, I’d wager they don’t take kindly to outsiders.”
They left as quickly as they had come, and Green Creek was once again forgotten. Tragedies occurred everywhere, after all.
We waited.
Six long weeks since Mark had shifted back to a wolf and stayed that way.
Oh, Ox had tried to call him back. Tried to do the same for Carter. But while he could still feel them, while he could still feel all of them, they were still Omegas. It was only under extraordinary duress that Mark had been able to shift back when he had, when his mate had been in danger. All his protective instincts had come rushing forward, and he’d forced himself to shift back to human.
But that had passed, and even as that long night had ended, he had shifted back and remained that way.
He never left my side. We slept in his bed at the Bennett house. I’d only been back to the garage a couple of times since we’d rescued Chris and Tanner. At first I’d told myself I needed time to heal. That we’d all been through something traumatic and we couldn’t be expected to pick up right where we left off. That I didn’t want to leave Mark, not while he was stuck as he was.
Chris and Tanner and Rico said they understood. They handled the day-to-day operations of the shop. Well, Chris and Rico did. Tanner tried as best he could, but his arm was in a cast and would be until after Christmas. Robbie still worked the front office and the phones.
They knew, though, what I was doing.
I figured I’d get at least a few more days of feeling sorry for myself.
My hand was done.
There was nothing I could do about that.
The stump was fully healed, the skin slightly gnarled where my hand had once been. It felt strange, the skin bumpy and ridged, with barely any loss of sensation. If I pressed down hard enough, I could feel the jut of bone. Whatever Patrice had done had been effective.
But the skin wasn’t unmarked.
The sleeves my father had tattooed onto my arms extended to either wrist. I didn’t see they had changed until we got back to the Bennett house as the sun rose after the full moon.
The runes were the same. They hadn’t moved.
The roses had, though.
The vines now extended down my forearm, twisting around the runes and symbols, the thorns sharp and curved. And covering the stump was a bloom of roses so red, they looked real. Patrice and Aileen hadn’t been able to explain it. Either my place as the witch of the Bennett pack in our territory under siege had caused my magic to expand to compensate for the loss of my hand, or my mate bond with Mark was so strong, I’d called upon it to make a wall of ice filled with roses. Or a combination of the two.
It was beautiful, regardless. It looked like the work of a master.
But my hand was gone.
I wallowed.
Yeah, it wouldn’t be long before the guys came to kick my ass.
And Ox, always O
x, knew what was going on in my head.
He’d been busy these past weeks. Maintaining control of a couple dozen Omega wolves would do that to an Alpha. There hadn’t been much time for anything other than holding ourselves together as best we could, especially when more Omegas arrived every few days, still drawn by the pull of their Alpha.
But the new moon was tomorrow, and the sky would be dark.
“Shop looks good,” Ox said, and I sighed, knowing what was coming. I’d hoped we could avoid all this, but it was probably time to get it over with. “Everything almost looks back to normal. The diner’s about to reopen. Lighthouse is on track for March. Main Street repaired from all that storm damage.”
I snorted. “Storm damage. Right. I forgot about that.”
“I’m sure. But everything is going good with the garage, in case you were wondering.”
