I shook my head, trying to clear it of the slow, heavy thud of my thickened blood in my temples.
“Wait. Before that, we need to talk to Gibson,” I realized with a sickening jolt. “This situation seriously affects the whole pack.”
“Fuck,” Theo swore, pushing up to sitting, then pressing his hand to his chest as he winced. “Fuck!” His shout carried on the air.
“Save your strength for healing,” I muttered, even though I shared his despair.
“Healing?” he countered. “Our mate shot us. What the hell do you think Gibson’s going to do to us when he finds out a human knows about shifters and she’s not claimed? And she’s the fucking enemy?”
“Fine,” I snipped, knowing we were fucked. “We shift. Heal up some. Then run straight to the alpha.”
“Agreed.”
I closed my eyes and let my wolf take over, forcing an instant shift so I could heal.
I heard a scuffle, rip, and whine beside me, and knew that Theo had shifted into wolf form as well. We lay there and let the healing happen.
After some time with the sky and the stars spinning, my panting slowed. I started to feel the earth beneath my heaving flank. Felt… better. Not completely healed, but I didn’t have a gaping wound any longer. Dragging myself up to my four paws, I found Theo and bumped him with my nose.
He stood, and we headed for the hills. It wasn’t our fastest pace, but we made good time. I wasn’t sure if it was our anger or the need to update our alpha that pushed us.
When we’d run up to the house, we stopped and howled. Waited. I was too fucking exhausted to do more to announce our presence.
Within a minute, the front door was thrown open and the alpha stood on the threshold with his hands on his hips. It wasn’t often he was disturbed in the middle of the night, but his role gave him no time off. And he knew a call for help from his pack when he heard one. No doubt Ben and Shelby were roused by it as well. Shifters didn’t need to use doorbells.
We shifted, collapsing onto his front lawn. The moment he saw our condition, he cursed and jogged forward, Ben on his heels. He pulled my arm across his shoulders to support me, and Ben did the same for Theo.
When Shelby saw us, her eyes went wide but she didn’t comment, she simply disappeared, returning with towels for the fresh blood and to wrap around our nakedness.
Gibson and Ben dumped us into kitchen chairs and we pressed the balled up towels to our wounds.
“Who did this?” Gib demanded.
I hesitated. Why even now would I want to protect Ali after what she’d just done to us?
Oh yeah. Biology.
Fucking fate and biology.
“Ali did,” Theo said in a low, defeated tone. His head was down, his shoulders slumped. Fucking defeated. I knew how he felt. “She’s in on it, with Hollaroy and her dad. The meth, everything. She seduced us to find out what we knew about the case.”
Shelby gasped, standing in a sleepshirt. She’d filled two large glasses with water, which she handed to each of us. It was all a shifter really needed to heal. Fluids would help the regeneration of new blood. “Are you sure?”
I looked to Theo and we nodded. “Yeah, we’re fucking sure. She basically laid it all out. Like she was proud of it,” I said bitterly. “Then she shot us.”
Gibson crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me everything.”
I explained about Ali coming to see us, seemingly distraught about the trailer she’d found out in the middle of nowhere, and the conversation she’d overheard. Then about her text tonight asking us to meet her there, where we found her, her father, Hollaroy, and his goons waiting to kill us.
“Let me get this straight. The meth investigation led you to the Jenkins property. Hollaroy’s the ring leader but Alison Jenkins, your mate, is involved?”
“Lured us to our deaths,” I clarified.
“Shot us point blank,” Theo added.
“And she knows you’re shifters?” Gibson asked.
“Yes.” I took a deep breath and winced, knowing this was the worst of it. We could accept the consequences of being misled by our mate, but how our actions were dangerous to the pack? It was the worst thing that Theo and I could ever do. “And she’s not claimed.”
The roar that came from him shook the walls. The alpha power was so strong, the force of it threw us back against our chairs.
15
THEO
Shelby let out an involuntary whimper of surrender, even though Gibson’s roar wasn’t directed at her. He immediately tucked her under his arm and kissed the top of her head.
“They all know about shifters?” Ben asked. “Hollaroy and her dad? Who else was there?”
I hesitated, reviewing what had happened. Had Ali mentioned anything to them about us being wolves?