14. Kane
He stumbles over the threshold, his face drained of color. Trez is shirtless, missing his shoes. His jeans ride low on his wide hips, unbuttoned like he barely had them on before having to run for his life if his ragged breaths are an indicator.
His brown eyes lock with mine, the whites of his eyes bloodshot.
I step forward, something inside urging me to reach him. Jagger growls from my right, but I ignore my beta, prepared to deal with him later.
“My sis…” Trez starts, but his eyes roll back into his head as his knees give out. His head tips back while his body falls forward. Even with supernatural speed, I’m not close enough to the entrance to catch him.
My father is, though. He catches Trez under his arms. I take another step, intent on taking him, when my dad jerks around, yanking Trez away from me. My eyes flash, the alpha in me wanting to make my father submit, but before I do anything, I see the darts. One is lodged in Trez’s right shoulder, another lower on his back, closer to his waist.
“What the fuck?” Jagger spits before the exact words fall from my lips.
I close my distance, yanking them from his body, and suddenly, I’m angrier than I was earlier. It’s not lost on me that I’d never be able to make good on my threat to Kate. I could never hurt either of them. He’s my friend, and… fuck if I know what she is because there isn’t a word for how deep she’s embedded under my skin. Especially now.
But what if I have no choice?
I bring the tips of the darts to my nose and sniff. A rumble so loud leaves my throat that there isn’t any doubt the entire pack heard my anger.
“Kane?” my father says, his hold around Trez growing tighter.
“Wolfsbane,” I answer, disgusted and pissed the fuck off at the same time. Whoever dared to trespass on my land and use poison on another shifter will pay with their life before the end of tonight once I find out who did this.
Silver is more lethal, but Wolfsbane hurts far worse. A shifter wouldn’t keep something like this on their person. At least one that didn’t intend to harm another of our kind.
“Trez,” I bark out through gritted teeth as I step toward him, needing to know who did this.
Jagger sidesteps me, then twists around, blocking my direct line of sight.
“Back up, Kane.” Jag’s teeth smash together at the same time his head twitches, and I know it’s because his wolf wants to be released, but he pushes his beast back.
“I only want to know who shot him,” I force past my lips as my blood boils.
“So the fuck do I,” he snarls, and when Jagger blows air from his nostrils, steam follows.
“They’re mine,” I clarify. I’m alpha. It’s my responsibility to protect everyone, shifters and other, on this land.
“No, brother. They’re motherfucking mine.”
“He isn’t your mate,” I say so slowly I wonder if it’s more for me than him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what yours smells like because I haven’t.”
I comb my hand through the loose strands of my hair.
“Look,” I start again, knowing from the way his eyes soften that he does remember, “we have shit to figure out with Trez. For starters, who thought it was okay to pump him full of poison. We deal with that tonight. Tomorrow, we find our wolves once and for all, even if we have to tear apart an entire providence to do so. I need you with me. I need your wolf with me, Jagger. Can you give me that?”
His canines extend behind his lips, but without agreeing, he turns his back to me, facing Trez and my dad.
“Give him to me,” Jag bites out, his emotions all over the place and on full display.
“I can help if you’ll allow me,” Storm says quietly from behind me, reminding me of her presence. She’s always been too silent for my liking, mouse-like, and it doesn’t suit her. Not when I can sense all the power residing inside her.
“How?” I ask, twisting around to face her. Her backside sits against the arm of the couch, her right hand squeezing the dangling necklace at her chest.
“I can draw the poison out using this.” She unwraps her fingers, showing me the blue crystal. “Bring him over here.”
Looking over my shoulder, I nod to my father.
“Dante,” Jagger says, a clear warning in his tone, “give him to me. Please.”
I can’t blame Jag for the way he’s acting. He gave into his attraction sooner than I did. I don’t think my beta has fucked anyone else since Trez left months ago. His possessiveness started long before whatever it is he and Trez started over a year ago. Like my feelings toward Kate, his started the first winter they showed up too.
Dad presses Trez’s back to Jagger’s chest and releases him, but it’s evident in his stare that he doesn’t want to. My beta wraps his arms around him more securely as Dad bends, gripping Trez by his ankles.
“I’ll help you carry him to the couch.”
Why my father is reluctant to let Trez out of his care, I’m not sure. They were never close when Trez would visit, but then my father is the one who taught Trez how to properly track and hunt prey in wolf form. Perhaps he cares more than he’s ever let on.
Back when my father and Elijah were our leaders, they quickly realized the Marked Crest pack hadn’t taught Kate or Trez shit. I’m not sure how they survived the trek from their pack to ours that first time. By the time they left, they were deadly creatures in animal form and human, thanks to our fathers.
Recalling that memory does nothing to help me solve the turmoil in my head. Maybe Richard did send them and kept sending them, but then perhaps they learned from us and realized we weren’t the enemy they’d been taught. Maybe they kept returning year after year because they enjoyed it here and have been our friends this whole time.
I don’t fucking know, and I hate that I’m questioning shit I stopped asking myself a long time ago. Either way, I don’t see a good outcome where we can remain friends. Not if Dad is right about Anna and Trey.
“Lay him with his back,” Storm tells them as her backside comes off the arm of the couch. She turns, rounding the sofa.
I move out of Dad and Jag’s way as they hoist him over. When Jagger’s back is next to one end of the couch and Dad’s is at the other end, they lie him down. Dad steps back, stopping beside me while Jag slides in behind Trez’s head.
Since becoming my beta, Jagger’s protective instinct has matured. Mine did too when I accepted the alpha role, but this is different. It’s more with Jag and Kate’s brother to the point the night before they left, Trez was bitching about Jagger to me.
Trez may yield to Kate easily, but like me, his temper flairs when anyone else tries to tell him what he should or shouldn’t do. It makes me wonder how their alpha dealt with their insubordination because, knowing them both, there’s no way in hell either were obedient.
Dad crosses his arms, his eyes fixated on Trez. I’m about to open my mouth when Storm beats me to it. “Is everything all right, Dante?”
“Yes.” He nods. “Do whatever it is you need to do to pull that shit out of him. We need him awake to find out who’s responsible.”
“It had to have happened close by,” I say to no one in particular as I stare at Trez, his eyes closed. Sweat beads against brows that are drawn tight. The pain is evident even though he’s passed out. “He wouldn’t have made it to the lodge with two tranqs still lodged in his back otherwise.”
Storm lowers herself, kneeling on the floor next to the couch by Trez’s side. “I need a towel. The thicker, the better.”
Dad steps behind me before I can move to retrieve one from the bathroom. Storm pulls the necklace over her head as he disappears down the hall. She places the crystal on Trez’s stomach, above his belly button, and then lets the chain go.
“Jagger, will you put your hand on top of the stone? Make sure it touches,” she instructs.
Jag’s brows turn inward, then his eyes flick to mine, but he complies without question.
Dad stops behind the couch, handing Storm the folded towel, then he places a second on top of the middle cushion. “An extra, just in case.”
“Thank you, Dante.” She nods, then proceeds to close her eyes as she drapes the folded towel over Jagger’s hand. A breath later, she flattens both palms on the Terry cloth and presses down.
Her lips move, but even with my keen hearing, I can’t hear the words that leave her mouth.
I feel Jagger’s unease before his mouth opens and snap my eyes back to his.
“What the hell is happening?” His back straightens, and then his free hand wraps around Trez’s shoulder in an unmistakable form of protection and possession. His upper lip starts to curl.
Dad steps next to me again. I feel his eyes on me in question, but my stare remains on Jagger and Trez, wondering what alarm bells are going off with my beta when it’s Trez she’s supposed to be helping.
“Storm?” Jag questions, his voice firm.
She glances at me first, then at Jagger. “Anger is a toxin too. Your wolf is filled to the brim with it toward your alpha. I thought it might be best for the pack to draw it out before…” She leaves her words hanging in thin air, but we all know where she is headed.
Before he and I come to blows over how I treated Kate and the threat I vowed.
“It feels weird,” Jagger admits, his eyes on the towel now darkening in color as the substances Storm is pulling out soak the cloth. “Is this what it feels like for him?”
“I’d imagine the pain is so great for him that either his wolf forced him to black out, or they both did. If Wolfsbane is anything like Hemlock, then it’s the latter. For witches, Hemlock can be both paralyzing to us and painful at the same time,” Storm informs us.
“I’m sorry about your mother. I should have said so earlier when…” Jag’s eyes flick to mine as Storm reaches for the other towel.
“When you were mad at Kane,” she finishes for him while replacing the Terry cloth with the clean one.
“I’m still mad at him.”
“But now your head isn’t as clouded with rage, is it?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.
“It’s not. I feel lighter.” He relaxes back against the armrest of the couch.
“You can remove your hand now. I think you’re good,” she tells him.
“Thank you. I am sorry that I didn’t consider your loss. If there is anything we can do, all you have to do is tell us,” he ensures her.
“He’s right,” I add. “Whatever you need, we are here for you. This is your home as much as it is ours. We’re your friends, Storm.”
“Thank you.” She nods, and after a deep breath, she closes her eyes again, murmuring words my supernatural ears can’t pick up.
“Why is this towel getting wetter?” Jag’s nose wrinkles. “And that smell. Jesus.”
“I drew your toxins out first. I could have done you both at the same time, but then your hand would have come in contact with the poison. I didn’t want to chance hurting you.”
“Thank you,” he says, breathing his relief at the thought. “How long will it take to get it all out of Trez?”
Storm doesn’t answer right away, but there’s no doubt she heard his question. Instead, she pulls the saturated towel away and grabs the one she discarded on the floor, putting it back on Trez’s stomach where liquid was pooling around the glowing crystal.
“Storm?” I call out when her brows pinch together.
Her stare immediately finds mine, and what I see in her eyes is alarming.
“I’m going to need another towel. Quickly,” she adds.
Without waiting for my Dad to retrieve one, I step toward the bathroom. Grabbing the one hanging from the towel rack, I take it back to the living room and hand it over.
“What’s wrong?” Dad asks before I voice the same thought while I remain standing behind the couch.
“There are more toxins in his system than the amount that would have been in the two tranquilizers he was shot with,” she tells me, her eyes flicking up to find mine. “Remember when I said magic wasn’t at play with Jagger?”
“Yes,” I growl as a slow prickling effect dances down my spine while foreboding twists my gut.
“That doesn’t apply to Trez.”