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I tried to get around Clawson by leaping and snapping at him, but he reared up and pushed me away. He acted with restraint, not hurting me, even though he could. My wolf wasn’t holding anything back. She was driven and only had one purpose—find Ridge and help him. Until she did, neither one of us would rest. As long as Ridge was in danger, chances were my wolf was going to be in control, whether I liked it or not.
Clawson growled at me, using his size to subdue me, but I paced, moved side to side, growled, and paced some more. Without warning, my wolf attacked. Fangs and claws sliced his coat, leaving small blood trails behind, but just as quickly, they healed. Unlike the blood that had slicked from the wound the librarian had inflicted on me, her silver knife nullifying shifter healing.
I wrestled for control before my wolf made matters worse. Still in shifter form, I finally managed to push my wolf to the back, gaining a foothold in our shared consciousness and putting a stop to the pacing and growling.
The shift had torn the stitches in my stomach. Shit.
My rational thinking had come back, but my wolf was still battling tooth and claw with me. She was frantic about Ridge being gone and in grave danger. The hunters wouldn’t hold back or take it easy on him. He was an alpha, a prime target in their eyes—a trophy to be hung on the wall. They’d work him until he broke, and then the real torture would begin.
I shuddered. I couldn’t stand by and let it happen.
Ever since I’d discovered what I was, I’d believed that all shifters were monsters, that I was a monster. But I was wrong. Sure, some shifters were monsters. Some weren’t. Ridge wasn’t. But hunters who couldn’t just live and let live were the things that went bump in the night. Anyone who justified using torture against another was a true beast.
Slowly, I shifted back to my human form. The change took an inordinate amount of time without Ridge there to help me. I was weak, and changing forms hurt, especially with a fresh knife wound with torn-out stitches.
As I came back into myself, I fell against the bed, gasping for breath. I fumbled for the sheet to cover my naked body. My hospital gown had been turned into confetti when I’d shifted.
Clawson hesitated, waiting to be certain I had complete control before he shifted and grabbed a sheet to cover himself.
Cautiously, he watched me, eventually sighing as he scrubbed his hand up and down his face. “Lie down. You need to get that laceration looked at and restitched.”
He made to leave, but I couldn’t let him go yet. Channeling my best approximation of Christie Greenthorne’s entitled attitude, I called out, “Sheriff, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you’re doing to find my fiancé.”
Using the title amped up my desperation and, I hoped, provided justification for my intense behavior, which I couldn’t fully understand myself.
Stiffening, Clawson straightened and slowly turned to shoot a full-on glare at me. I finally got a proper look at him. The adrenaline from shifting had burned a lot of the drug out of my system, and I didn’t feel its effects as potently anymore. Now, I felt weaker than before. The pain from the aftermath of shifting and re-opening my wound was staggering.
Now that I was really looking at him, the stress and the worry Clawson had for his friend and alpha were all over his face. His eyes were heavy, his typical good-natured smile nowhere to be seen. But no matter how fatigued he was, he wasn’t the kind of man who would let me walk over him or tell him how to do his job.
His voice was even and stern as he said, “If anyone gets to ask questions, it’s going to be me.”
I nodded because I didn’t have another choice in the matter, and he cocked his head to one side. “Why the fuck did you or Ridge fail to tell me how close to feral you are?”
I was about to defend Ridge, to say he hadn’t known and that this had nothing to do with the matter at hand—Ridge’s kidnapping. But before I could speak, Clawson held up his hand. “Don’t give me any fucking bullshit. Ridge has to know, because right now, it’s as obvious as the stab wound in your gut.”
“Birch…” I didn’t know what I could say to calm this situation, especially while bleeding through my sheet.
But Clawson wasn’t finished. “He should have told me, especially since a feral wolf poses a significant risk to other people. People in my damn town, the one I’m charged with serving and protecting.” His nostrils flared as he fumed and stared at me. “And I’m warning you”—his warning sounded an awful lot like the prelude to a threat—“don’t bother trying to deny that you’re halfway to feral. I’ve seen it before with Ridge’s aunt, and I was just unlucky enough to have an up-close-and-personal moment with your wolf when she tried to rip my throat out. And nearly succeeded, I might add.”
He seemed like the kind of guy who planned to hold a grudge.
As I eyed his face, it took everything in me not to fight against him. Being stubborn was in my nature, but Birch was right. He’d just gotten a front-row seat to my wolf losing her shit. Also, he wasn’t wrong about me being a danger to others. It had taken so much time to get control of my wolf; she was capable of wreaking unspeakable havoc. That didn’t mean I had to take everything he said lying down, though.
Anger flowed hotly through my veins. Until I had Ridge back, I wasn’t going to take any crap from anybody. Not in this form or as a wolf.
“The only people I pose a threat to are the hunters who took my fiancé.” I matched the darkness in Clawson’s low tone with a steel of my own. “We can hash out the rest later, but I demand to know what happened and what you’re doing to look for your mayor, your alpha, your friend.”
I needed him to remember how important Ridge was and stir him into action. Until I healed, there wasn’t a lot I could do on my own, so Birch would have to figure it out. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to get Ridge back.
“Birch, these hunters are skilled,” I continued when he didn’t respond. “There’s no way they scoped out this town and left with only one shifter, even if they did capture the alpha. You need to find out if anyone else was hurt or taken.”
So much of this was my fault, and the guilt was a heavy weight on my heart. It was my brother who’d come here, my father’s crew. They’d hunted me for years, and I’d led them straight to the one place they never should have found.
I could imagine their glee when they fucking discovered it was a shifter town. My father and brother were charming men. It probably hadn’t taken much convincing to get Mrs. Marrow to cooperate with them. I’d overstayed my welcome in this wonderful town, and as a result, I’d inadvertently made every shifter in this town a target.
Clawson clenched and unclenched his fists a few times, probably trying to flex his irritation away. He stood there, gaze locked on mine. I didn’t know what he thought, if he was worried I was about to snap. He certainly wasn’t convinced I was safe to be left alone in a hospital I’d already tried to escape from. Plus, I’d shifted here, in a place where there were people who couldn’t fight back.
There was no question in my mind that as soon as Ridge was safe, Birch would let his displeasure at being kept in the dark be known in very certain terms. But there was comfort in knowing it was a conversation that was going to happen because, one way or another, I was bringing Ridge home.
