Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Louis
The calls finally slowed around one in the morning.
Solstice shifts were the worst, but I was glad it was done for at least another six months. Ilyas and I stepped from the elevator, and I immediately knew something was wrong. The air smelled bitter with sadness and anger, and it was overlaid with something more.
Blood.
Hailey’s blood.
“Hailey!” I shouted, running farther into the common room, only to be stopped by Otis.
His huge arm blocked me more thoroughly than a mountain. “Louis, wait. She’s asleep, don’t wake her. We can talk out here, and then you can go in there without scaring the shit out of her.”
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to see if Hailey was okay with my own eyes, but Otis stood in the way. I wanted to rip his arm off and make him move.
I sucked in a deep breath and calmed the screaming voice in my head that demanded I protect my mate. Protect, protect, protect.
“Tell me,” I growled, holding back the shift. I wouldn’t be able to do it for long though.
He told me about Nextra first, and now my wolf thought perhaps we should bring her his head before she woke.
When Otis explained about the human in the alley, Syke finding her, and the cuts on her throat and face, I almost lost it.
The wolf slammed against my control, and I clenched my fists to hold it back.
Sucking in air, I forced myself to be calm. “Okay. I’m going to see my mate now.” I was impressed with how nonchalant I sounded. It was a big fucking lie, but I could fake it until Hailey was in my arms.
“Eric is with her. Syke is hunting.” I hoped he found the human who injured our mate and then called me. I was going to take a pound of his flesh for every drop of blood she’d shed.
I felt Ilyas behind me, but I didn’t look back as I shifted into a wolf. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I nudged the door open, and Eric’s eyes all but glowed purple in the darkness. He didn’t seem worried by the sight of a wolf in the bedroom, like he knew it was me.
“She’s sleeping,” he murmured so softly, it was barely audible. “Come lie with her. She’ll be comforted by your presence.” He paused. “We both will be.”
Eric’s turmoil burned my nose, and I whined softly. I wanted to make them both better. I climbed gently onto the bed and lay beside her like a giant, moving, fluffy rug. I moved my head, my snout finding the bandages on her face, smelling her blood beneath them, and I growled.
I hushed my wolf inside my mind. She needed rest to heal the wounds someone had the audacity to put on her. On the face of my mate. Fuck, thank God Otis stopped me before I’d stumbled in here and saw her injured with no other information.
I shuddered. I would have freaked out and scared her.
Her arms came around me, and she cracked her eyes open. Would she be scared? She’d only seen the wolf once.
Her lips tilted up, and she sighed, burying her face in my fur. “Louie,” she mumbled quietly, and then she fell back to sleep. Everything in me relaxed. She was okay. And I loved her. I loved her so fucking much. How was it even possible to love someone this quickly?
She’s our mate, the wolf answered me, then he let me shift back to human form. I looked over at Eric. “Are you okay?” I asked him softly.
“No,” he mumbled. “The bond. She could have died.” He choked on the words, and I reached over Hailey’s body to rest a hand on his side too. I could feel his tension like a vibration under his skin. It was a wonder that Hailey had even been able to sleep in his arms.
“We’ll find who did this, and we’ll make them pay, Eric. I swear it on our pack.”
* * *
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but it had been a long day, and eventually, exhaustion pulled me under. I woke up to Hailey on my chest and Eric cuddled close to my side, either for warmth or because he didn’t want to be even an inch farther from Hailey than necessary.
Her hair was in my mouth, and her chest was sweaty where it pressed against mine. It was everything I wanted and more. She nuzzled my chest, and I wondered if that was what had woken me. Finally, she stretched and peeled her cheek from my chest. That had to be uncomfortable.
Those big blue eyes looked up at me. “Good morning,” she whispered, and despite the sweatiness of our bodies, morning breath, and everything else, I dragged her up my body and kissed her.
I kissed her and kissed her and kissed her until I didn’t think I could breathe without her.
She pulled away, and I got a better look at the bandages on her face.
Blood had seeped through and dampened the bandages, and that made me irrationally angry.
I didn’t realize I was growling until Hailey sighed. She stroked my hair back from my face.
“Come on. We should get out of bed and make breakfast. There are still two more days left on shift, but I kind of hope everyone has an epic hangover from yesterday, and we have a quiet one today.”
I made a noncommittal noise. She rolled off my body in the opposite direction but leaned down to kiss me. “Go start breakfast. I’m going to pee and find Otis to change my bandages.”
“Why Otis? I can change your dressings.”
She leaned down and kissed me again. “I mean this in the most loving way possible, Louie, but if you see what’s beneath this, you’re going to flip out, and then I’ll cry again. Just let everything calm down a bit first, okay?”
I hated that she was right. I hated that she’d been crying and hurt and I was nowhere to be found.
I couldn’t put all that on her shoulders though, she had enough to deal with, so I just nodded and watched as she wandered out the door to the bathrooms. Eric was still sleeping, so I left him beneath the covers.
Climbing from the bed, I looked for my pants. I’d lost yesterday’s jeans in the common room when I shifted. I walked out, my hand hiding my dick, and strode down to my bunk. I pulled out fresh boxers and a pair of sweats. I’d shower once Hailey was done.
Back in the kitchen, I grabbed the ingredients for pancakes. It felt like a pancakes kind of day, and it would keep me busy, so I wouldn’t think about what hid under those bandages on her face.
Syke appeared, and his shadows seemed more dense than usual. He sat on the counter, but I didn’t hand him anything to do like I normally would.
“I’m moving in with them,” he stated like it was a foregone conclusion.
“Good idea,” I mumbled, cracking eggs into the giant mixing bowl. “Did you find who it was?”
He shook his head. “No, but I will, and then they’ll beg for death.”
I nodded and started to mix the pancake batter. “I’m going to see if I can move in too. I don’t like the idea of them being out there alone without us. Maybe they could stay at the center when we’re on shift?”
Syke nodded again, and that was that. We were a pack.
I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even hear Otis behind us.
“I think we should all move into their new place, if it’s approved by Hailey and Eric, at least until this is over.
I find the idea of them being hurt and so far away again to be… uncomfortable.”
Hailey thought Otis was calm about what happened, but that was just due to years of training.
Beneath that stoic shell, I could see his monster writhing with rage.
He wouldn’t admit it to himself yet, but we knew.
He wanted them, and he didn’t know how to deal with that urge.
He was a loner by nature, so being in a pack wouldn’t come easy to him, but if anyone could do it, it was Otis.
Pouring the pancake batter into the cast-iron skillet, I nodded. “Then it’s settled. We’ll convince them that it would be best if we all lived together until we find the perpetrators and they are neutralized.”
“Otis?” Hailey called from down the hall, and the big minotaur moved faster than I’d ever seen him move.
I was so focused on Hailey that I didn’t realize the first pancake was burning until Syke lifted it from the pan with his shadows and flipped it.
It was beyond saving, but that was the way pancakes went.
You fucked it up the first time, but you learned from your mistakes, and the second one would be perfect.
When it came to Hailey, I was never making another mistake again.