Garrett swung to face me. “I’m going to run with them. Can you jog back?”
I nodded. “I’ll bring the dogs.”
“And I’m staying with Liam,” Sam said.
Garrett turned and moved into the bushes, I assumed to shift. Chris shot me a look—I noticed deep lines of strain around his eyes and mouth—before firing up Beast, turning it on the narrow path with inches to spare, and moving at a good clip down the trail.
I had to grab Havoc’s collar to keep him from pursuing. I looked at Sam, my eyes involuntarily dropping. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, a movement that didn’t assist with my distraction. I raised my eyes in time to see her flush a brilliant shade of scarlet. She didn’t offer to rearrange my body parts; rather, she seemed bereft of speech as her brows lowered and her eyes sparked silver.
My own skin heated as I released Havoc and forced myself to turn away, walking in Beast’s wake. I began to jog, my senses hyper alert to her presence, and a moment later, I caught the occasional flash of russet hair pacing me. The wulf within me clamored for release, hammering at my will, desiring to burst free and run with her through the cool forest shadows. Shoulder to shoulder, stride for stride. Heart to heart.
But the virus stood between us. I jogged on.
24
Even taking a shortcut off the trail, it took us over an hour to get back to Chris’s. By that time, Peter, or rather, his wulf, had come out of the tranq mad as hell.
As we ran clear of the bush and onto the sandy path behind the house, snarling, roaring, pounding noises exploded from the barn. From the cage, I realized. Sam raced to her clothes on the back patio, and I let the nervous dogs into the house before heading to the barn.
Garrett stood in the aisle, out of reach of the silver-haired limbs that flailed through the bars, long claws scissoring through the air. Foam flecked the lips that pulled back from the huge canines, and as I approached, the creature lunged again, snarling and snapping. I couldn’t find my old friend in the wulf’s crazed eyes.
I wanted to speak, although if Peter was in there, he was buried so deep I doubted I could ever reach him. He slammed against the door, long claws scrabbling against the metal. He crashed around all four walls, ripping and shredding at the wood covering the metal of the lower wall, making the cage tremble with the force of his rage.
“My God,” Garrett said, his voice constricted. “Is this what Dillon was like?”
“No.” I struggled to grasp the fine details of what I’d seen that night with Dillon, which now seemed a lifetime ago. “Even at the end, Dillon could speak. His eyes were . . . intense, not human, but not like this.”
Garrett frowned. “Dillon was wulfleng.”
Something about the enforcer made me do a double take, and I realized he looked . . . rumpled. His hair stood on end like he’d run frantic fingers through it, and he’d redressed in his gym gear, but it hung from his frame as though he’d tugged his clothes on in a hurry. I could barely hear him and moved closer. “Peter was wulfan. The virus must affect us differently.”
“Peter is wulfan,” I corrected, my heart aching for the man who I regarded as a father. “He can beat this.”
Garrett looked at me, incredulity on his face. But he made the effort for my sake, and that surprised me. “Perhaps the doc will have answers.”
“The doc says to drug him.” A familiar voice came from the barn entrance, and Chris appeared. Sam jogged in on his heels, now clothed. She noticed the red box Chris held, and her face went white.
“Can you sit with Josh?” Chris asked her. “He’s taking a shower, but he needs someone with him. I’ll be in soon.”
Sam nodded and shot me an unreadable glance before turning and jogging back out of the barn.
The dart gun dangled from Chris’s hands as he put the small red box on the table near the cage. I noticed Garrett’s brows rise when he saw it.
“Is the doc sure that’s necessary?”
The red box opened to reveal darts, but very different ones from those Chris used before. These were larger, wider, and colored red to match the container.
Red. For danger?
“What are those?” I asked. Judging by Sam and Garrett’s reaction, they weren’t good. Like being hit with a dart is ever good.
Chris loaded the gun and glanced at me. “Some old tales have a hint of truth in them. This is a sedative laced with silver; it puts the wulfan virus into a tailspin and will make him sicker than a dog for the next day. By delaying his natural ability to heal, it enables the drug to keep him under.”
“Silver won’t kill him, though, will it?” I couldn’t help the quiver of tension in my voice, and I was relieved when the last part got drowned in another crashing frenzy from the cage.
“It shouldn’t. But there is a risk.” Chris’s expression was bleak. “If there were another way, I’d take it, believe me. But he’ll injure and, eventually, kill himself trying to get free. That cage might not yield, but his body will.”
I winced as Peter’s long arms scrabbled through the narrow bar openings toward us. I met Chris’s eyes and saw the pain in them. His bond with Josh had talked the younger wulfan back from the brink, but it would be a temporary reprieve. Days or hours from this moment, it could be Josh in that cage. Peter might be a close friend, but Josh was Chris’s
