“And you don’t know why some bites fail? There’s no way to prevent this?” I ask. Perth said they weren’t sure, but I wonder if there’s a pattern or factors they suspect might contribute.
“Shifters think that the power to facilitate our other forms is passed down from parent to offspring, kinda like DNA. But sometimes that magic mutates or dilutes. There’s no way to know if there’s a variant in a shifter’s magic until something like this happens, and then it’s a scramble to try to fight the Fade and kickstart the transition.”
I stare at Zara and hope for her sake, and her new den’s, that this works.
Ellery looks over at Perth and then back at Ruger before his gaze settles on me. “Do you think you can help me?”
My brow furrows and my eyes widen with surprise.
Me? I look behind me to be sure there isn’t someone else he could be looking at, but there isn’t. I turn back, not sure what the hell he thinks I can do.
“Zara isn’t…uh…dressed, and I think it would be safer if you’re able to move the sheets and blankets around so I can see her bite.”
Understanding crashes over me like unforgiving waves at the beach. She’s still nude from the Hunt. Immediately, I nod and step away from Ruger. I expect some sort of snarl or growl of objection like before, but the other den stays quiet while they watch our every move with intimidating focus. It makes the very air around me so thick that I practically have to wade through it as I step over to the side of the bed.
I waste no time pushing the heavy duvet at Zara’s feet down further, grabbing the gray sheet and pulling it until the bottom untucks. Careful to keep as much of her covered as possible, I expose just her left leg.
I find red, angry-looking puncture marks just above Zara’s knee, the skin around the bite swollen and pink. I’d bet anything it’s hot to the touch.
Sorrow settles heavy in my chest, and I reach up and brush strands of sweaty hair from Zara’s brow. Gone is the bright, vivacious woman I met. Her once lovely hair is dull, her pallor sickly, her beautiful face contorted in pain. She was so quick to offer me a friendly smile, but now her lips are chapped, her complexion sallow.
She’d been so excited for the Hunt. I had no idea what she was talking about at the time, but now that I do, it makes what’s happened to her feel all the more like a tragedy. She went out that night hoping to find her future. She expected to wake up celebrating, adored and showered with attention from her mates.
Instead, doom is nipping at her, and if Ellery can’t stop it, death is going to clamp down its jaws and drag her away.
A surge of anger hits me—harder than it should because I hardly know her. It might be shifter hormones or the heightened emotions of everyone in the room, but I’m mad that this is happening to her, that it’s happened to others. Maybe it’s the fact that Zara has one of those sunshine souls, the kind that touches you even if only in passing.
Whatever it is, I don’t want her to go.
Ellery and I trade places and he studies the bite while I move to the opposite side of the bed. I find Zara’s hand under the sheet and hold it, offering her a quick squeeze of silent support.
“Hey, it’s Noah,” I tell her softly, using the sleeve of my hoodie to blot some sweat from her forehead. “We’re going to get you all fixed up and feeling better in no time. And, girl, when that happens, do I have a story for you.”
I smile, my attempt at girl talk a little rusty.
“I could use a woman’s perspective on all this craziness, so I’m going to need you to fight. Your guys are right here fighting alongside you. So do what you’ve gotta do to wake up.”
Ellery starts to pull off his shirt, the unexpected action cutting off my prattling. Concern and confusion trickle through me, but when he reaches for the ties of his sweatpants, I go into a full panic.
“What are you doing?” I demand, my eyes flitting nervously around the room. These guys were ready to tear his throat out for standing too close to their mate—and now he’s stripping?
Three of the other shifters have glowing eyes, one of them visibly clawing at the wall like that’s going to keep him from leaping for Ellery.
Has the sheriff lost it?
“I have to shift to bite her, Noah,” he tells me gently, and I immediately feel like a complete dumbass.
Of course he does. What did I think was going to happen? He was going to go at her thigh like it’s corn on the cob?
Ellery calls his wolf and starts to shift.
There’s an uneasy edge in the air that cuts in and out of my lungs with each jittery breath, and my spine stiffens in expectation. His shift is fast and fluid, which is good because I’m fully expecting one or several members of the Hudson den to lose their shit at any moment.
I’m so prepared for an act of aggression to come from behind me, so convinced that a brawl is about to break out at my back, that I give absolutely zero thought to my own reaction when Ellery’s massive white and gray wolf fits his open mouth around Zara’s thigh.
A feral snarl rips through the room as Ellery lines up his fangs as close as he can to the first bite pattern on her leg.
One second, everything is normal—strained as shit, but normal.
The next second, all I see is red.
Overwhelming rage detonates through my body. Ice burns a path across my skin and—before I can think twice about what I’m doing—I leap for Ellery.
I swipe at the huge wolf with claw-tipped fingers, missing him by centimeters because strong arms band around me from behind and pull me back at the last second.
“Mine!” I half growl, half bellow like some possessed demon from the depths of hell. The circumstances of why we’re here, what we’re doing, who’s with us—all of that vaporizes, vanishes, evaporates in the blazing heat of my fury.
Outrage overwhelms everything else, and all I know is that Ellery’s fangs and his bite don’t belong on anyone but me.
Not unless he’s killing them.
“Ruger, get her out of here before she sets them off!” Ellery orders, but that just blasts my rage into the stratosphere.
I fight Ruger’s efforts to pull me away, my claws digging into the backs of his hands, legs kicking out at him as I snap my blunt teeth at the unconscious waitress, no longer seeing the friend I was hoping for, but an enemy, a usurper who’s trying to claim what’s mine.
“My mate!”
My mate?
Shock ricochets through me at the thought—the word somehow penetrating through the haze of my all-consuming instincts and tapping into sense and reason.
Holy fuck, what’s wrong with me?
I shake my head, trying to untangle some form of logic and separate it from my unhinged and irrational reaction. I go limp in Ruger’s arms as I blink and find reality and control slowly filtering back in.
And that’s when I realize that all hell has broken loose in the room.
Brice and Reid are surging forward, black veins bulging in their foreheads as they swipe out with clawed hands at Perth and Ezra—who’ve both moved to block them.