“Then we can talk about what comes next,” Gideon, his brother, the Alpha, put in. Gideon had been on the sidelines for most of the encounter, watching with a careful eye as Ryder had done his best to calm and comfort Leah.
“I’ve got her,” Ryder said without thinking. He should have let Walker take her and walk away, but he couldn’t. Instead, he got curious looks from both of his brothers and a knowing gleam, as well.
He ignored them and used the wall to help him stand with Leah in his arms. He could have done it easily just by using the strength in his thighs, but he hadn’t wanted to jostle her too much. She was already in enough pain as it was.
He couldn’t imagine her agony.
Ryder set her down on the bed and kept ahold of her hand, even though he knew he should let her go. Walker got to work on her gunshot wound while Gideon stood silently by, his arms crossed over his chest.
Ryder slowly let her hand go and took a step back. His wolf immediately revolted, ramming into him and scraping its claws on the underside of his skin. Ryder took a deep breath, taking control back from his wolf. Despite the fact that his claws threatened to break through the skin of his fingertips, he forced himself to be calm.
He didn’t understand his reaction to this woman—or perhaps he just didn’t want to.
“We need a family meeting to talk about what happened,” Gideon uttered into the quiet. “We might need a Pack circle, as well, but a family meeting for now.”
Ryder nodded. “I’ll round up the troops.” With that, he left his brothers behind so he could go find the others.
His sister Brynn would be close, he knew. She and her mate, Finn, the Heir of the Redwood Pack, had been the ones to find Leah and her brother. They’d wanted to stay and see the outcome, but neither of them had slept much. They’d been on a hunt with the Redwoods and had heard the gunshots outside the wards. Though the two dens weren’t too close distance-wise, they now shared a border with a tiny strip of neutral land between them at certain points. The gunshots had happened there.
So, Finn and Brynn had run to the closest Healer.
That happened to be the Talons.
It was odd to think that two Packs could work so closely together, but after over thirty years of finding ways to work as one without creating a single Pack, the Talons and Redwoods were finding their way. It had all started when Ryder’s father, the former Alpha, had died by Gideon’s hand. Ryder would have killed the bastard himself, but it had been Gideon’s right to do it.
The Brentwood family had been born in agony and honed in fire. They’d suffered at the hands of their father and uncles more than anyone knew. But they were strong now. Or, at least, that’s what they told themselves.
What Ryder told himself.
While that had been happening, the Redwoods had been fighting a war themselves. Only instead of fighting within, they’d been dealing with another Pack that had gone dark. Way dark. Ryder and his brothers had battled alongside the Redwoods in the end and had formed a truce, and, eventually, friendship.
It had taken another fifteen years for members to start feeling as if they could trust freely, and another fifteen years after that for their Packs to become as close to a single unit as possible. Gideon had married a Redwood Pack princess, and now, Ryder’s Alpha female was a young, submissive wolf with Redwood parents and the softest smile he’d ever seen.
They were growing, settling, healing.
Of course, the world had gone to shit yet again when the humans found out about the existence of wolves. Ryder had known it would only be a matter of time before technology became too great for non-humans like him to hide anymore. Magic could only do so much, but he hadn’t been prepared for the death and blood that came with the world uncovering the truth of what lay beneath the surface of their truth.
Their losses had been small so far, but he knew it wouldn’t last.
It had been a year since his people were revealed, and just recently, human hate groups had begun to kill those they were afraid of. Now, politicians in Washington were debating his Pack’s future without consulting them.
There was even a politician named McMaster who had called out the wolves as not being part of the human population. He hadn’t called for war, but it had been damn close.
Ryder’s Pack, as well as the Redwoods, were trying to figure out what to do about it. They not only needed to keep their people safe, they needed to protect the other Packs in the world, as well. The problem was much bigger than them, and at times, it seemed insurmountable.
Ryder ran a hand over his face as he made his way through the den, nodding at the few members he passed along the way. Now, they had Leah and whatever problems she’d brought with her to add to the pile. Finn and Brynn had a feeling that Leah and her brother had been running to the Pack for protection, or at least running for something. His family wouldn’t turn away a person in need, even if she wasn’t Pack. They weren’t callous, but they would protect their Pack with everything they had.
Only he didn’t know how he was going to do that.