He took a deep breath. “I was helping to patch them up, and suddenly, there he was. Covered in gore, not a stitch of clothing on him. He limped in and sat on a cot, and I began to clean him up. The moment I touched him, I knew.”
“You fell for him that fast?” Talk about love at first . . . touch?
“I sensed the attraction immediately, it was powerful. Chris took a while to figure it out. He kept showing up at my dad’s clinic, dropping by just to visit. My dad was not amused.” He stopped talking and busied himself with closing up the dishwasher and pushing buttons.
“Well, I, for one, am glad you guys made it to Canada.” I pushed away from the counter. “I’m off to do my evening torture on the bars.”
Josh nodded. “I’ll be down in two hours to lock up.” He glanced over to where a small monitor showed the barn aisle and cage. “I’ll watch for you. Do you think you can manage to stay human for an hour? I’d love a bubble bath.”
I refrained from laughing at the image of a scary wulfan taking a bubble bath. Of course, I had a hard time thinking of Josh as scary. “Knock yourself out,” I said, bending to give Keen a full body tickle. “I’ll be grunting my way to a new muscle or two.”
12
I dreamed of wolves. They snapped at my heels, and I could feel the heat of their breath on my back. I ran until the ground vanished beneath my toes and I teetered on the edge of oblivion.
“Liam, wake up!” Hands on my shoulders, shaking me. I awoke with a roar, my teeth bursting from my gums.
“It’s me, Josh. Cut it out!” A sharp slap, and I snarled, but my eyes made out Josh’s form in the dim light.
“Josh?”
“Yeah. Come on. Peter’s hurt. Chris said to take you to him.”
Peter? A surge of raw panic, with anger hot on its heels. I fought it but the wulf pushed back. Not now. Peter needs me. I visualized the teeth and claws being returned to their human sheaths and gasped when it worked, and pain pulsed along the abused nerves.
“Okay?” Josh asked. “You good?”
I nodded as he pulled me to my feet. I yanked on clothes as we jogged through the barn and out into the crisp night air.
“Keen’s locked in the house,” he said, anticipating my next question. “Let’s go.”
We ran for their second vehicle, a compact car. The cool air hit my sweat-soaked body like a fist, and I shivered.
“What happened?”
Josh slid into the driver’s seat. His face looked strained in the darkness and the vinyl creaked beneath his hands as though he would break the steering wheel in two. “Dillon,” he said through gritted teeth.
My heart stopped and then accelerated like a racehorse. “Chloe?”
“I don’t know. Peter called Chris. He’s on his way, but Brandon is three hours from here. Someone Matt knows has a helicopter, and if it’s rigged for night flight, he might get here sooner. But it’s a long shot.”
Dillon’s finally snapped and Chris is too far away to help. My hands fisted against my thighs and I knew the fingers had grown claws. But it’s not enough. Not against Dillon.
“How bad is Peter?”
“I don’t know. Chris said he could barely speak. I’ve called our wulfan doctor, but he’s coming from Winnipeg. We’re closer.” Josh twisted his fingers on the wheel, and his foot stepped hard on the gas. We flew along the highway.
Even at this speed, we were twenty minutes away.
Peter’s tough. He can hold on. But there was one thing I knew as a vet—life is fragile. Too many things could kill almost instantly. I cursed myself for not being there. And part of me cursed Chloe for being so goddamned blind. This should never have happened. Peter had her back. Who had his?
The seconds felt like hours as we hurtled down the highway. I wrestled with an inner demon that didn’t care that the full moon dangled six nights away. My teeth kept shoving through my gums, making blood drip from the corners of my mouth. I fought them with every breath. If he was hurt, Peter didn’t need the wulf, he needed me human.
Beausejour appeared and disappeared in a flash of streetlights and darkened houses. We turned onto the mile road. It seemed like an eternity until the headlights fell on the plank fence. The new boards, not yet painted, looked stark in the harsh light.
I don’t remember the car skidding to a halt. I leaped out and raced to my SUV.
“What are you doing?” Josh stared at me.
“Need my kit,” I said, yanking it from the back. I didn’t even bother to shut the door, but followed Josh around the house.
The shotgun lay abandoned on the deck. Whatever had gone down, it hadn’t been good. Blood sprayed over the boards and spread in a huge puddle that started on the deck and dragged through the door into the kitchen.
We followed the gruesome trail inside and my heart stopped. Peter stretched naked on the floor near the table, surrounded by a crimson pool. His phone lay inches from an outstretched hand. As I fell to my knees beside him, a low growl rumbled in my chest.
“Liam. Focus. He needs the human, not the wulf.” Josh crouched on Peter’s other side, and I latched onto the words. The human. Dammit.
Five parallel slashes, almost a foot across, had opened him up, revealing torn muscle and, in one place, the slick gleam of bone. But that was not the main source of the blood. “Help me roll him,” I snapped, the pain of holding back the tide making me terse.
Josh peeled off his shirt to spread it out beside Peter and we rolled him
