Shadow sat back in his chair, arms crossed while staring at me. The fucker could read minds, same as Wraith, and without doubt heard what I’d planned to bring before the table. “It’s a yes from me.”
Wraith’s enforcer, Slash, rolled his eyes. “Cut the silent suspense and share that shit in your head, Big Bry,” he muttered.
I leaned forward, elbows on the table and took my time looking around at each of my brothers. “It’s time we let our cats take those fuckers down once and for all. Wipe them off the face of the goddamn earth so we don’t have to worry about our women—our future children.”
“Agreed,” Rooster said without pause.
Holliday dipped his head while Stonewall muttered agreement with a few, choice curse words.
I turned toward Wraith. “You’ve always given us equal voices—but you’re the alpha. This one is up to you because lives will be lost no matter how we go about doing this shit.”
He tapped a finger on the table while studying me—reading every goddamn thought in my head, knowing rage fueled them. “You never shift to fight,” he said, “but what makes you think you’ll be able to control yourself this time?”
Fucker called me out, the only one besides Killer who had ever been able to do so without receiving a bloody nose for it.
A muscle ticked in my jaw before I pried it open. “My ability to move around unseen will get me inside their compound. I can take out their guards and get the gate open. Otherwise, it’ll be like storming a fucking medieval castle.”
“I believe in you.”
Shadow’s low words jerked my head toward my right. “Your self-control over that beast has always been shaky from all the stories Killer told through the years, but I can sense your determination. Your strength.”
“It’s all Ashlyn,” I admitted without hesitation. “She’s my fucking peace. My reason. With her near, I shifted back without hesitation, without an ounce of hesitancy from my cat.”
Wraith nodded as though in complete understanding of what ran through my head. “But in here—away from her, even this short distance—your emotions falter.”
I grit my teeth again.
“She goes along, then,” Rooster piped up.
“The fuck she will,” I growled. “She’s a woman.”
“So.”
“She’s not going.”
“Teach her to shift—she goes in cat form with instincts and agility few wolves can match, she’ll hold her own, beside you where you’ll keep control.”
“Shifting doesn’t come that easy,” I said, fighting the urge to clench my jaw.
“I think Rooster has it right, but we don’t need to take them out tomorrow, Big Bry,” Wraith said, pulling my focus off our VP. “We take a few days. Make a solid plan. Should have done it a long fucking time ago while we were ripping those cocksuckers’ throats out over Shyla’s sister.”
She’d been an innocent sixteen-year-old girl, but Shyla had tracked her down, tracked down the fuckers who’d intended to sell her off as a sex slave or some shit. Shyla, Shadow, and his brother, Demon, had rescued her while the rest of the Dark Leopards had their back.
If only we’d made sure to clean every goddamn drop of wolf shifting blood off the face of the earth. Ashlyn wouldn’t have been attacked.
“But you might not have met her,” Shadow suggested to the thoughts running through my mind.
I dipped my head in agreement, hating he spoke the truth.
“I’ll hit the gun range with those who’d rather go in human form,” Holliday said, tapping the gun in his shoulder holster, and bringing me back to the present—making a plan. The fucker could sling like a cowboy from the Wild West, and I’d trust him to have my six over his cat any day of the goddamn week.
“Your old ladies going?” I asked Wraith and Shadow—but both had already been shaking their heads when I turned toward them.
Fucking telepathic fucks.
Shadow chuckled. “Jealous cocksucker.”
“Angel kicked my ass when she shifted the first time,” Stonewall reminded us with a grin. “I think ya’ll needta reconsider allowing the old ladies to go if’n they want. They got their own revenge to exact, and fuck knows they’re ballsy enough to just follow us no matter what the hell ya’ll command them to do.”
Wraith and Shadow glanced at one another again, gazes locked while they shared thoughts. Eventually, our president shrugged. “Fine. The old ladies can go if they’re hell bent on exacting their own revenge even though we won’t need their help. We outnumber the fuckers almost two-to-one.”
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
“Ashlyn is one of our own, now. We’ll keep her safe, too,” Wraith said, his stare pinning me in my chair even though I had a few inches and more than a few pounds of muscle over him. “You’re new to this table, but you’re no less important to this club than Killer had been.”
My fucking throat clogged.
“We want you with us—in your ugly ass human form for as long as possible. Your cat takes over in a fit of rage, and you’ll lose your home. Your brothers. Your old lady.”
I considered his words, considered the thought Ashlyn had in mere days given my existence meaning. Last thing I wanted to do was lose out on a future worth living.
“What if she can’t shift?” I asked, grasping at goddamn straws to keep her away from the fight.
“You can hear her inner cat,” Shadow said, and I cursed him again for getting in my head, “so you know her strength. You’ve no doubt, do you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know the first thing about teaching someone to shift. You all know how my first time came about—and I’m sure as fuck not going to allow something traumatic like that to happen to my mate.”
“You’ve bonded.”
I nodded even though Rooster hadn’t asked a question.
“Then let your leopard talk to hers,” he said with a shrug. “He can teach
