Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
ANGEL
Garrett looks at me, a wild look in his eyes, even as the howls increase in the distance. My wolf claws me to go somewhere warm. She’s so damn tired, we both are, but she’s the one working overtime to keep me warm.
I squeeze his hand, hoping he understands how thankful I am. “Catch up to your alpha, Garrett. He needs you right now. Be safe, okay?”
Bright teal eyes lock with mine a second longer before he shifts and bounds in the direction of the other males.
There’s just a handful of people left now. Minutes ago, it looked like every shifter from camp had shown up to save us.
I suck in a breath when Pryce, the pack’s medic, presses along my shoulder. The spot where Garrett’s wolf bit me stings.
“Hopefully, your wolf will have the energy to heal that in time. If not, it might scar.”
I wouldn’t mind having Garrett’s mark on my shoulder. It’s not a practice most shifters engage in anymore, even during mating, but I’d have something to always remind me of him.
“I’ll be fine. I think I want to head back to my cabin, sleep for a few months.”
He chuckles. “Sounds about right. I’ll check in on you later, after I get this little one home.” Pryce wraps another blanket around Alex, this time covering his wet hair. “You, my little wolf, need to take a warm bath, get into some jammies, and drink plenty of hot chocolate.”
“Mama doesn’t allow me to have hot chocolate before dinner.”
“I’ll tell her it’s okay, just this once.”
“Bye, Sadie Lynn. Bye, Angel.”
“Bye, Alex,” we say in unison. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I add.
“I’m sorry I bit your wolf’s arm.”
He bit me? I look down at my arm. The tiny flat impression of baby teeth probably from when he tried to escape my hold.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out any sooner.”
“It’s okay. I get to have hot chocolate. Before dinner!”
“Hot chocolate makes everything better,” I say to Sadie Lynn as Pryce carries our brave little wolf home.
“Do you think I should offer some to Damien tomorrow?”
“Only if you spike it with something that will mellow him. How much whisky can you add to hot chocolate without it being obvious?”
“You’re not seriously suggesting I drug our alpha.”
“Of course not.” Well… maybe. “I should go with you. This was all my fault.”
“No. Damien’s right. I’m in charge and I should have told you that Alex likes the water. It never occurred to me he might walk out onto the ice. And then I was standing there gossiping with you…” Tears form in her eyes.
I hug her. “We both made mistakes. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right, female,” Tiberius, the border guard who gave me and Garrett a hassle when we entered the pack’s territory, is standing behind me. Sadie Lynn backs away, but I freeze, as always. Why didn’t my wolf warn me he was approaching?
“Damien’s going to kick your ass out of here this time.”
“Excuse me?” I say.
He takes a huge step closer, using his immense size to intimidate me. Schneider used to do the same thing, before punishing me with a cattle prod.
I hold my head high, but already I’m starting to shake.
“Get out of here, Tiberius,” Sadie Lynn mouths back. “I’m doing the best I can while Tanner is laid up.”
“Not you, Sadie Lynn. The honey trap.” He grips my left forearm, and I swing at him with my right… which he catches in his palm. Stupid! He’s a guard!
“I never chose to lure them,” I shout at him, my fist still trapped by his hand.
“You still did it. And they’re all gone, moved to another location that we can’t find. No chance of rescue thanks to you. Garrett might not be the smartest shifter in the pack, but he was loyal, before you shook your pretty ass at him, luring him, corrupting him”
“I haven’t corrupted him!”
“Sure you have. And now you think because you’re sleeping with our retrieval expert you have what it takes to stay here, but you don’t, female. You can’t even watch a bunch of kids. You’re putting them at risk, luring them into dangerous situations just like the shifters you lured for the WSSO.”
“That’s enough, Tiberius,” Hayden says from where he’s talking to two other shifters.
As Tiberius releases me, he leans over me. “Get a job where you won’t be a danger to us or find another pack.”
“Enough!” Hayden again. “Clearly you missed what happened here. She saved the boy.”
“That kid nearly died because of her. She failed to watch him. She’s more human than shifter.”
“Tiberius Parker,” Sadie Lynn scolds.
“Ask her why her wolf didn’t walk across the ice to get him.”
“The ice was too thin,” Sadie Lynn defends me. I should be defending myself, but I don’t have it in me… because he’s right. She’s in charge of the kids, but I was responsible for that child.
“This pathetic excuse for a shifter doesn’t belong anywhere near those kids and she doesn’t belong in our pack.”
Hayden steps between Sadie Lynn and Tiberius, very much an alpha in this moment. “You don’t get to say who stays or leaves, and if you have an issue with that, then maybe you need a few weeks on the southern border to think it through.”
“That’s the border we share with the white wolves, Hayden’s birth pack,” Sadie Lynn whispers while she wraps another blanket around me. “None of the guards want that border, and Hayden doesn’t bluff. He’ll send him down there.”
“Little Alex nearly died because of me…” I mumble, the reality of what almost happened like a metal ball in my stomach.
“You saved him, Lina. Got him out of the water.”
“Water he never should have been near. I took my eyes off him for a second.”
She doesn’t say anything, because we both know I’m precisely what Tiberius said, a danger to the pack.