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I choked back a sob. Ridge had taught me so much in the short time we’d known one another, not least that my wolf was not something to be feared. She was as much a part of me as my left leg, as the blood in my veins.
As I fell against the glass doors of the emergency room, they burst open, and the cold night air greeted me. The cluster of law enforcement vehicles and personnel talking into their radios and phones, each more frantic and furious than the one before, was hard to miss.
Sheriff Birch Clawson, Ridge’s best friend and second, stood at the center of the circular drive.
Drawing on the strength of my wolf, I plowed toward the sheriff as quickly as I could, yelling frantically to him and anyone else who’d listen.
“Birch! Birch Clawson!” When he turned to look at me, my stomach dropped. “It’s Ridge. They took Ridge! He’s gone. Why the hell are you just standing around? Find him. Get him back!”
I let out a scream. It pushed from my lungs, and the strength of it strained my throat. I needed to be heard over the cacophony of sirens, engines, and people talking.
I couldn’t tell how loud I was because my head still seemed to be in a vacuum. It sounded like I was leagues under the sea. Mouths were moving, but the noise mingled and sounded like murmurs.
Clawson’s head snapped in my direction, and his eyes widened as he raced over to me. All his men, all the other deputies and law enforcement staff, turned and gaped at me. A few turned away, unable to even look me in the eye. Like if they looked at me, my pain might become theirs.
I didn’t care if I looked crazy. All I needed was for them to do their damn job and get Ridge back.
“What are you doing out of bed? There’s no way a doctor cleared you to be out of bed, not with your wounds.” Birch gripped my shoulders. “It’s been over twenty-four hours, Tori. When we couldn’t wake you, they ran blood tests and found an unknown substance in your system. The doctors had no idea what it was but ascertained it was some kind of sedative. We weren’t even sure you’d wake up.” He shook his head and my shoulders in short little bursts. “You should be in bed.”
“Like hell am I going back to bed now. I have to find Ridge. No one is doing anything. You have to bring him home to me.” Something churned in my belly, and I didn’t know if it was the pain from my injury or the desperation in my soul.
Clawson let go of my shoulders but kept his hands raised around me as if afraid I’d fall. “Tori, calm down. We’re doing everything possible, but you getting all worked up isn’t going to help.”
My wolf growled and prowled inside me. She was growing stronger by the second, healing faster than I was, and she was about ready to snap at the sheriff, to take off and go after Ridge. Reasoning wasn’t part of the equation for either of us at that point.
The drugs were slowly leaving my system, so I wasn’t feeling the effects as much. The blossoming headache from clamping down on my wolf grew fierce as she became angrier and more alert. If she kept pushing me, I would soon lose control, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do.
Swaying, I stepped forward to stop myself from falling but misjudged. The ground rushed toward me. Clawson caught me, then carried me back into the hospital. He’d done it with such little effort, too.
“No, no, don’t put me back in there!” I protested. “We need to go after Ridge. They’re going to torture him. I can’t let that happen.”
I needed to make him understand the danger Ridge was in, but how could I when he wouldn’t listen to me? I was the best resource he had, the key to finding them and bringing them back, the best tool in his toolbox. He just didn’t know it yet.
“In your state, you’re not going anywhere right now except back to bed, where you can heal properly.” His voice was stern, as if I had no choice.
The effects of the tranquilizer and the befuddling cloud I’d been forced under delayed my comprehension, and it took some time for me to grasp what he’d said. I couldn’t tell if it was an order or a threat, and by the time I was ready to argue some more, we were back in the hospital room.
“Stop, Sheriff Clawson. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. We need to get Ridge back before it’s too late. We have to go now and get him back.”
He gently deposited me on the bed as if I was made of the finest china, then turned away. I opened my mouth to call him back, but he shut the door and turned to face me.
“This is an ongoing inquiry. We’re doing everything we can to get him back, but we need to investigate first.”
His calm voice made me want to punch him in the throat. I didn’t understand how he could be so restrained. He should have been mad as hell and ready to tear the state apart to bring his alpha back. Wasn’t that the shifter way? Shifters were a pack, which was nothing more than an extended family. Obviously, there was always the crazy uncle no one wanted to talk about, but that wasn’t Ridge. Ridge was the alpha, and he needed his pack right now. It’d be impossible for him to escape with no help.
Gripping the sheets in my fists, I fought to keep my wolf in check. She was seeing red, ready to go through anybody and anything who got in our way to bring Ridge home. Right now, that was Birch Clawson.
It was a lot harder than it should have been to hold her back, but my reactions were still dulled. I breathed hard and heavy from the effort of keeping her at bay. Now that she’d shaken off the last remnants of the tranquilizers my brother had used on me, she was much stronger than I was.
My breaths came harder still, in short, angry puffs. I was hyperventilating even as I fought an internal battle with her. I wasn’t above begging, but I was weak from the hunter’s drugs and the stab wound, so my conniving wolf prevailed. Clawson’s shocked face was the last thing I saw as the circle of light dimmed and darkness overtook me. My wolf emerged triumphant.
I struggled for control, but she was powerful and it took a lot more strength than I’d thought to drag myself back to consciousness. My mind was heavy and hazy, and I imagined wrestling a boulder up a hill. When I finally made it to the top and gained a foothold within my psyche, I was able to make sense of what was going on.
My wolf snapped and snarled at the sheriff. Shit, this was bad.
Clawson had shifted along with me, planting himself in front of the door as if he sensed it wouldn’t be pretty if I got free. There would be damage. He was an alpha in his own right but chose to be Ridge’s beta, and his size alone was enough to make a regular shifter back down.
My wolf, though, was anything but regular. She was slowly going feral, and because of the desperate circumstances, she had nothing to lose. An animal with nothing to lose was dangerous, one to be feared. She wouldn’t play fair.
