Link lifted his lip in a snarl and, for an instant, his face looked unrecognizable. He looked completely feral—half human, half monster. He jerked his white gaze away from Vera and nodded once.
Nicole padded over to him and lifted up on her tiptoes. Hesitating only a moment when a soft snarl emanated from his throat, she kissed him softly on the cheek. “Vera will take good care of me.”
He huffed a breath, as if he’d been holding it in, then lifted her palm to his lips and kissed her there. He looked at her seeping arm. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. I heard the gunshots, I heard you scream my name and beg for help, and I thought I was going to be too late. Now you’ll be scarred because of me.”
“So I’ll be scarred. Because of you, it’s not worse. You saved my life.” She lifted her chin proudly. “My mate. You blew through two wolves like they were nothing defending me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You did good.”
Link rolled his eyes closed and rested his forehead against hers. “So did you.”
****
“Let me get this straight,” Tobias said, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms over his chest, looking grumpy. “Vera told you to stay away from the McCalls, and you became their alpha instead.”
Elyse cut the excess thread off Nicole’s last stitch and said, “That’ll do you.” She huffed a sigh and gave her a lopsided smile, her scarred cheek lifting with it. “Welcome to the club.”
Nicole snorted and swallowed down the pain meds Vera had handed her with a bottle of water.
“Isn’t anyone else concerned that Link looks like he’s about to murder all of us?” Tobias asked in a baffled voice.
Indeed, Link was sitting in a chair by the door staring at them like they were medium rare prime rib. He blinked slowly, then wrote something down on a pad of paper.
Ian stood over the pan of leftover cherry pie, eating it with a fork and looking unconcerned, and Lena, Elyse, and Vera were sitting at the table cleaning up first aid supplies. Only Jenner was absent because he’d left for his job as an outdoor guide this morning.
Shrugging his shoulders, Tobias asked, “Just me then? I’m the only one worried that we’ve just taken a huge step back in Link’s recovery.”
“I need you to fly me out near Kodiak,” Link said.
“Running away again isn’t going to solve this one,” Ian said around a bite. “You have to fix this shit. I don’t want to put you down and, right now, you feel like a fucking kill order waiting to happen.”
“You won’t have to put me down.”
Vera stood and leaned on the table, eyes sparking like gold flames. “Lincoln Finkledink McCall, I’m not burying you like I did Eustice, so if your plan is to off yourself—”
“My middle name is still Asher, and I’m not going to off myself. I need a ride out to Silver Summit Outfitters.”
“Jenner can’t fix this,” Lena said softly.
“I’m not going to see Jenner.”
Ian dropped the fork loudly into the glass pan, but other than that, the room went silent.
“That could work, right?” Tobias asked Ian.
“Fuck if I know. I’m not a wolf.”
“What could work?” Nicole asked.
“They’re going to be pissed,” Tobias said, a building smile in his voice.
“I don’t give a shit,” Link said, leaning back in his chair with his cold eyes challenging Tobias. “It’s them or the McCalls.”
“Who’s going to be pissed?” Nicole asked, utterly confused now.
Vera’s face went slack, and she huffed a single loud laugh. “The Dawsons. Chance and Dalton will be super-pissed.”
“Who are the Dawsons?”
“The Dawsons are a couple of not-psychotic werewolves without an alpha,” Vera said through a spreading smile.
Link stood slowly. “Ian, while I’m doing this, you need to secure kill orders from Clayton for these wolves.” He handed Ian the pad of paper he’d been scribbling on. “They were the ones who also went after Elyse but managed to get away. Two man-hunts on two human women, and I’d say they earned their fucking kill orders.”
All Nicole could read from here was the first name on the list. The one Link had written the biggest and darkest, as if he had stabbed the paper with the pen with each damning letter. Braydon McCall. That was the man Link had slammed against the truck. He’d threatened Link and called him a traitor. That asshole had deemed him Weak Link, but he’d been so wrong. Link was better, bigger, and stronger than all of them.
Ian stared at the names scribbled line after line. “This is us going to war with the rest of your family, Link. If we do this, most of the McCall lineage will be wiped out.”