Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
My entire body was vibrating with fury. It took every ounce of control I had not to shift and hunt the intruder down myself. The only thing keeping me here was the girl in my arms.
I made the mistake of looking down at her. Blood was matted in her hair, and it made something cold settle in my chest. A wolf had attacked a human on campus. Actually, it was worse than that. A werewolf had attacked a half-breed on my pack’s territory.
What would have happened if I’d been a minute later?
“Come on,” Em said. “I’ll drive you guys.”
I followed her to the car, scanning the area for any sign of movement. I didn’t think the wolf would come back, but I needed to be sure. My responsibility was simple: to keep my pack safe.
Em opened the back door, and I carefully set Laney inside. Her breathing had steadied, but she wasn’t fully conscious.
“Her eyes are still closed,” I said. “Should we take her to the hospital?”
“She’s a half-breed,” Em said, getting into the driver’s seat. “You know the rules. No doctors. Besides, her wolf blood should take care of it.”
I shut the door and got in the front seat. The car was quiet as Em drove to my place.
When she pulled up to the curb and put the car into park, she peered at me and said, “You seem tense.”
“A lone wolf crosses into our territory and attacks someone under our protection and disappears?” I exhaled sharply.
“Can’t imagine why I’d be tense.” My hands were still shaking from holding myself back.
If Laney hadn’t been in my arms, I would’ve been out there with Danny, already hunting him down.
Em frowned. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Most people don’t.”
She hesitated. “She’s a half-breed. That’s…illegal. Any lone wolf would see it as justified.”
A low growl built in my chest before I could stop it. She had a point. But something about this didn’t sit right. A lone wolf wouldn’t be stupid enough to cross marked territory just to do it. There was another explanation I didn’t want to think about.
“Do you want help getting her inside?” Em asked.
I looked at the house. Bringing Laney in meant exposing her to everyone.
“She’ll be safest in your room.” Em got out of the car, fidgeting with her keys.
I opened my door and stood.
“There’s something else,” Em said.
My head snapped back to her. “What?”
“I think we saw that wolf at the gas station. He may have followed us here.”
Dread hit first. Then rage. This was my pack’s territory. My fingers curled and my arms shook as I fought the shift rising under my skin. I could still track him and end this.
Em came around the car, placing a hand on my arm, grounding me. “Not many wolves have that kind of ability.”
That was exactly what I didn’t want to think about.
“If he’s an enforcer,” Em said carefully, “he’ll come back.”
I nodded once. “That’s why I sent Danny to confirm it.”
“Danny won’t be able to stop an enforcer.”
“I know.” If it was an enforcer, Danny was just a test, not a solution.
“If he knows what Laney is, he’ll be back.”
Of course he would. It was his job.
“That’s why she’s safest here.”
“She doesn’t have a pack,” I said slowly. “She needs protection.”
Em nodded. “We’ll take care of her.”
That should’ve felt simple. It didn’t. I looked at the house again. Something about Laney didn’t fit any of this. She shouldn’t exist in our world, yet she did.
“I’m surprised you care about her at all,” I said.
“She’s nice,” Em replied. “I like her. It’s not her fault she’s a half-breed.” There was a long pause before she added, “We don’t have to like the rules to keep people safe.”
I didn’t answer. Because the truth was, it wasn’t just rules I was thinking about anymore. It was her. Laney. And how I wanted to keep her close.
Em watched me for a second. “Ro, you’re acting strange.”
“I know.”
“We’ll talk later,” she said finally. “Just get inside the house.” She got back in the car.
The front door opened, and Riley stepped out. “Danny is on his way back.”
“Good,” I said absently. I reached into the car and picked Laney up, cradling her as I carried her into the house.
Her eyes blinked open. “What’s going on?” she mumbled. “Where am I?”
“I’ve got you,” I whispered, wanting to reassure her.
She snuggled against my chest, her eyes closing again. She no longer smelled like fear and pain. Holding her felt right.
Riley trailed me. “Where are you putting her?” he asked when I bypassed the TV room and headed up the staircase.
“My room. She might have a concussion.” As if that explained everything. “I’ll be down once she’s settled. Tell Danny we’ll talk in the kitchen.”
“I’ll let the others know.”
The main floor had a kitchen, dining room, game room, and a huge TV room.
There were five small bedrooms on the second level.
Since I was the alpha, I had the master to myself.
The best part was the attached bathroom.
There were two guys in a room and one bathroom for all of them to share.
Thank fuck I didn’t have to deal with that mess.
While the house wasn’t anything fancy, it was ours for the duration of our time at Stonemore.
I shouldered my door open, then kicked it closed. After gently laying Laney on my bed, I turned the light on. When I faced her, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. My heart thumped in my chest so hard I was afraid she’d hear it.
“Why am I here?” she asked, glancing around my room.
“You hit your head.” I went to my bathroom and got a washcloth, wetting it. I came and sat next to her on the bed. “You could have a concussion. Em said your roommate isn’t there tonight.”
She reached up, gently touching the side of her head. Her fingers came away sticky with blood.
“Let me clean you up so we can get a better look.”
As I reached up and carefully pushed her hair to the side, exposing the side of her face, she kept her eyes downcast, as if afraid to look me in the eyes. Most wolves couldn’t since I was an alpha.
I dabbed the washcloth against her skin. “I need to put something on this cut so it doesn’t get infected.” She’d hit her head hard enough to split the skin open, but it didn’t look too deep.
She folded her hands together. “I should go to the campus police and report this.”
“That you tripped over a dog and banged your head?” I hoped she didn’t remember too much about what happened. While I’d managed not to shift, I had fought a wolf with my bare hands right in front of her. I’d even growled to make sure he knew who he was dealing with.
“You don’t need to help me.” She scooted to the edge of the bed, away from me. “I can take care of myself. I mean, if I did trip on a dog, then it’s my fault this happened to me.”
I caught the word if in there. Which meant she was probably questioning my version of what happened.
I heard the back door open and close, then Danny’s voice as he spoke with some of my packmates. I needed to get Laney settled so I could head down to find out what he’d learned.
“Laney.”
She froze, still not looking at me.
“Let me get you cleaned up.”
“Why?”
Because I wanted to make sure she was okay. “Em asked me to.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Okay.”
I wondered about that. She was willing to accept my help since Em knew about it. Did that mean she felt the same thing for me that I felt for her? That having Em involved made it okay for me to help her? I had so many questions for her, but now was not the time.
I scooted closer to her and finished cleaning off the blood coating her forehead.
With there being so much of it, I was able to get a good whiff.
I could smell a trace of wolf in her blood along with another smell that shouldn’t be there.
The wolf part was so faint that I wondered if maybe she wasn’t even a half-breed.
Maybe one of her parents was a half-breed so that would make her…
a quarter breed? Was that even a thing? This was the reason my kind didn’t allow her kind.
What if she went on to have a kid and that kid shifted?
It would scare the shit out of everyone, then humans would know of our existence.
After putting some antiseptic on the area, I used liquid glue to close the wound, then bandaged it.
The unusual scent in her blood clung to the washcloth. I swore it smelled like wolfsbane, which made absolutely no sense.
“I’m sorry I smell so bad,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I was dancing at a country bar and sweating my ass off.”
I chuckled, realizing she thought I was averse to her smell.
Quite the opposite. “It’s not you that’s bothering me.
It’s the smell of antiseptic that I don’t like.
” The lie rolled off my tongue, because I couldn’t tell her I smelled wolfsbane in her blood.
If I told her that, she’d go running out of here.
Needing to steer the conversation elsewhere, I reached for her hand and asked, “Did you get hurt anywhere else?” I examined her palms for scrapes.
“What happened to your knuckles?” she asked, tracing her finger over the mud caked on my skin.
A ripple of pleasure coursed through me at her touch.
I didn’t answer, unable to tell her that I’d fought with a wolf.
Or that it even was a wolf. I hated to lie, and the lies seemed to be piling up.
“When I picked you up, I must have scraped my knuckles in the mud.” My gaze traveled along her arm, over her torso, and down to her long legs. Her right knee had a scratch.
Automatically, I reached down, pulling her legs up onto the bed so I could clean her knee. Now that I was able to get a better look at her injuries, I realized they weren’t as bad as I thought.
“That’s nothing,” she said. “I’ll just go back to my dorm and shower. That’ll be enough to clean that out.”