Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I took a life.”
“You saved a life. Yours. Mine. Your son’s.” He lifted my chin and stroked my cheek with his fingers. “I’ve never known such a fierce heart to be caged inside a woman. Your mother deserved to have her death avenged. Now that her name is cleared, you will never be blackened by Fox’s wickedness and lies.”
Lorenzo rose to his feet and helped me to stand before walking away. When he returned, he washed the blood from my body with a wet towel and then dressed me in his red flannel shirt. After carefully securing each button, he tucked my loose hair behind my ears. “The battle is over. Go look after your pack. Some are injured and need your care.”
He trudged toward Jericho’s injured wolf and knelt down, coaxing him to shift by summoning his alpha voice.
Austin shifted back and called me over to help. He found a rag and wiped the beads of sweat forming on his brow. “Stay with April,” he said, panting and out of breath. The muscles on his torso flexed as he lifted one of the dead bodies and dragged it toward the center of the room.
I moved around the bar, stepping over the pieces of broken glass. April had a cut on her arm, so I found a shirt lying near the bar and wrapped her wound to staunch the bleeding.
“Holy smokes. I’ve never seen anything like that before,” she said, out of breath. “My hands were shaking when I fired the gun. I was so scared I’d hit the wrong person, so I dropped it and ran. Everyone was moving so fast and—”
“It’s fine,” I said, smoothing her blond hair away from her face. “You’re just a human; this isn’t something you expect to see every day. You did good, April. All the bottles you threw covered the floor in broken glass and not only kept you safe, but also the pack. Fox’s men shifted too early and their paws were cut up, so it gave us an advantage. You need to see a healer and get your arm fixed up.”
“Where’s Reno? Is he okay?”
“Right here, princess,” he said, leaning over the bar. “How’s my girl doing?”
I turned back to look up at him. “She needs a Relic.”
He shook his head while looking at the streaks of blood on her arm. “We’re not about to sit around wasting time when the hospital is just up the street.”
“Humans ask lots of questions in the emergency room,” I said. “Be sure to come up with a good lie about how she got the cut or else they’ll think you had something to do with it. You should go with her, but clean up in the bathroom first. Get a change of clothes for April; her jeans are soaked in alcohol.”
“On it,” he said, disappearing.
“Are you cut anywhere else, April? Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head. “I guess I’m just not as badass as you.”
I smiled. “Nobody expects you to be. Reno is all the badass a woman could ask for.”
She laughed and wiped her bloody hand on her jeans. “That’s for sure. He takes good care of me, but sometimes I wish I could be more like you. Maybe he wants a strong woman who can shoot a gun.”
I tightened the shirt on her arm. I admired how devoted April was to her mate. “A woman can be strong in many ways. Sometimes a strong heart is all a good wolf needs, and you are one of the most compassionate souls in our pack. You’ll teach these men good lessons in the years to come, and you’ll be a good example for the children who will grow up in our house.”
“But I’m not their mom. I don’t have any influence.”
I moved a few unbroken bottles out of the way. “You’re not living in the human world anymore. A pack raises a child just as much as the parents do. You’re mortal, and you left the comforts of a safe room in the back of the club to stand by our side. That says everything.”
I gripped the bar to pull myself up and almost lost my balance until she caught me.
“Where’s your cane?” she asked, looking around.
“Hopefully up someone’s backside,” I said with a short laugh.
Reno came around, jingling a set of keys in his hands. Without a word, he lifted April into his arms so she wouldn’t tread over broken glass. He carried her like that all the way to the front door. Then, after watching a few intimate kisses and soft whispers between them, I turned away from the blinding light as they left the building.
Wheeler slid up to the bar and patted his hand on the surface. Like most of the other men, he was shirtless. Probably didn’t have his pants on either, but I couldn’t see over the bar. “Got anything strong back there?”
I turned around and handed him a bottle of whiskey.
“Yeah, that’ll do.”
Jericho sat in the chair next to him and lit up a cigarette from a pack on the bar. It was slightly bent and hanging down. Tendrils of smoke rose from the end and thickened the air with a musty smell.