Ryder’s mate must have insisted on tagging along. I wouldn’t put it past him to have asked her to stay in the car. Knowing that Bri was watching, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I recalled how close we’d been the other night before he’d disappeared.
Had he really been about to kiss me? It’d seemed like it at the time, but now I questioned my entire thought process. Ryder had a mate. He wouldn’t go around kissing other women. The times that he’d tried to kiss me while drunk on faery wine had been a fluke caused by intoxication.
“Don’t go in there,” Ryder said. “You don’t have to do this.”
I swallowed. The intervention made me think something bad would happen on the other side of that house. I shuddered, thinking about how Connor had nearly died and how, not long after that, I’d been trapped in the basement. Every time I came here, my situation grew more and more dire.
We all knew it.
Catriona’s words returned to me. Janessa had night terrors. Haylee and Kelsey were being hurt. If I didn’t show up tonight, then Alvin might take his anger out on them. I felt as though I’d failed them as it was. I couldn’t run away tonight.
I already owed them for how much they’d suffered because of me. Alvin had a point. If I could keep my head down and stop lashing out, then maybe no one would have to get hurt.
“For fuck’s sake,” Ryder growled. “I can already tell what you’re thinking. Knock it off. You are not a martyr. No one is going to give you sainthood if you let Alvin kill you.”
His voice cracked. I heard it. Had the others heard it?
I stared at Ryder’s distraught expression. His hands were clenched into tight balls at his sides. He stared me down like his attention alone could force me to change my mind. As badly as I wanted to curl into the safety of his arms, the pack couldn’t afford my cowardice.
But I didn’t have to do this alone right now. I looked to Ryder and saw Bri still in the SUV behind him. That left Connor. While he’d betrayed me in the past, he’d also risked his neck to save me.
I swallowed and turned my attention on Connor. “Will you do this with me?”
Connor looked as though he might argue with me. I tried to give him my best puppy-eyes. If he still loved me, like Harvey had suggested, then maybe this would work. I shouldn’t have tried to manipulate Connor into helping me. It was cruel to ask him to stand beside me when Alvin’s wrath was hovering over my head.
“You’re not alone,” Ryder said with more conviction than I expected.
His words surprised me, drawing my attention. While I stared at Ryder, Connor used that moment to tuck one of my curls behind my ear. I could barely feel Connor’s touch while I held Ryder’s gaze.
The sky rumbled, sounding very much like a dragon’s growl. I could have reminded Ryder that this would end quickly if he challenged Alvin, but I bit my tongue. I needed to stop using the people around me. Connor and Ryder weren’t tools that I could use to my advantage.
They were people who deserved my love and respect.
My stomach churned. Self-loathing tried to slip in and turn my gut sour. It would help nothing now, so I had to push it away and try to focus on surviving the night.
Ryder stepped forward and placed a hand on my lower back. While his touch allowed me to breathe again, I quickly remembered that Bri was watching. I shrugged off his hand and tried to look anywhere but at him. My chest ached at the loss of his touch, but I knew it was for the best.
My hound panted inside me. At first, I thought she was afraid. Why wouldn’t she be when nothing but horror waited for me on the other side of that house? But that wasn’t it. The hound panted and whimpered for the man beside me. She wanted him.
She had claimed him.
That couldn’t be possible, though. A shifter couldn’t have two mates. Shifters had one chance at true love. If my hound had claimed Ryder, then I knew I would never find the kind of love I wanted. Ryder would always put his mate first.
Shuddering, I pushed my hound’s soft whimpers aside. Now wasn’t the time to think about what I’d just lost. There was still more to lose tonight.