You’d think he and Ruger had been gone for weeks with the way excitement and relief shoots through me. My new wolfy instincts are making me way too obsessive for my liking.
On a scale of one to stalker, I usually prefer to hang around a four. But with all the shit that’s been happening, I’m hovering between eight and nine. I’m fully giving into this need to cling with zero shame.
I push the door to the guest room open and am immediately inundated with the scents of fear and anguish. The sharp bite of pained longing is so overwhelming that it burns my nostrils. The hair on the nape of my neck lifts with ominous warning, and a pitiful whimper greets me as I step in.
My eyes land on two large shifters as I enter the room—a tall blond with shoulder-length hair who looks like he could easily be a Hemsworth, and a guy with worried hazel eyes and caramel brown hair that’s been pulled into a knot at the back of his head.
I don’t spot the third guy in the space until I follow the sound of a menacing growl to the shifter that’s sitting on the bed underneath the comforter, baring his teeth at Ellery. He has black curly hair that’s all over the place, and his cinnamon-colored eyes are lit with warning while his large arms gently hold a limp woman like she’s the most important thing in the world to him.
She has a light gray sheet wrapped around her, but it’s dappled with large patches of sweat. Pale ginger hair is tangled around her face, and there’s an ominous blue tint to her lips and eyelids.
I gasp as cold recognition washes over me, my stomach dropping with realization and horror.
“I know her,” I whisper, completely stunned.
Everyone’s eyes snap in my direction, everyone’s except for hers, because her gaze is trapped behind closed lids and her face is contorted in pain.
“From the diner, right?” Ellery asks, his gaze jumping from the woman to my dumbfounded face.
“Yeah, Zara. I met her at Droolies.” My shocked stare meets his as I recall how happy and bubbly she was.
Oh god. She mentioned the Hunt to me. I didn’t understand then what she was talking about, but she was so excited, and nervous.
Fuck.
She must have run in it…and now she’s here.
Now, she’s pale as death.
A weak, fluttering scent hits my nostrils, one that smells like sickness. It’s a scent that’s accompanied by a sharp taste, like biting into a clove of raw garlic, and it turns my stomach.
My shifter senses overwhelm me, and I wish for the first time since they grew stronger that I could turn them off. Especially when all of this forces me to recall how my mom had that same hollowed out look to her cheeks and blue-tinged pallor. That same smell just before—
I shut down my thoughts and clap my hand over my mouth, trying to hide the intensity of the distress amassing beneath my ribcage. But it swells until it feels like there’s no more room for my ribs, the misery causing swift jabs of pain with every breath.
I’m eleven years old again, tiptoeing silently into my mother’s room. I’ve had a nightmare, the kind only her presence can chase away. Carefully I scoot into bed next to her. She hasn’t been feeling good lately, always tired and drained. So I make sure I’m gentle and don’t wake her up. When I rest my cheek on her arm, I’m surprised by how cold it is, and that’s when I realize she’s breathing funny. Each inhale and exhale is accompanied by a scary rattling sound, and then, all of a sudden, the sound just stops.
My eyes sting as I blink the memory away.
Is she going to die?
I didn’t mean to project my thoughts, but I know that’s exactly what I’ve done when Perth strides across the room and pulls me into his chest.
Ellery tugs off his jacket and hands it to Ruger before he moves toward Zara, announcing, “Not if I can help it.”
32
NOAH
“Don’t look at her like that,” the guy from the bed snaps, his cinnamon gaze fixed angrily on me. “Don’t you dare look at her like she’s already lost. She isn’t going to die. That’s not going to happen. Don’t come in here with that fucking negativity, do you hear me?”
I drop my gaze and bite my tongue, knowing all too well how delicate and difficult it is to traverse loss or the threat of it. I don’t know if this guy is an asshole by nature or if all the stress and fear is bringing it out in him. Either way, it’s not the time or place to take anything personal. Grief can make monsters out of the best of us.
“Brice, I get that you’re losing your shit with worry, but we’re here to help. Watch how you talk to my mate. Do you hear me?” Ellery bites back, and I don’t know if I feel bad or grateful for his words.
Maybe I shouldn’t have come in here.
Perth told me to wait for them. I didn’t and now I feel like some intruder, unworthy of seeing this other den’s panic, pain, and vulnerability when I can’t do anything to help. Their emotions are as potent as smoke from a wildfire, and I try to breathe through the thick cloying sensation. I school my features as best I can and hope that the scent of my own emotions doesn’t cause more trouble.
Brice is still pissed, but he doesn’t say anything else. He simply turns and refocuses all of his intense energy on the pale woman in his arms.
Ellery steps closer to Zara, and a deep growl reverberates out of the Hemsworth brother in the corner.
“Cut it out, Reid,” the man I haven’t met yet orders. “You know he’s going to have to get closer to her, so stop.”
Perth releases my side and moves deeper into the room. He looks casual and calm, but I notice that he positions himself so he can intercept Reid if necessary.
Shit. Will it be necessary?
Glancing around the room, I realize that not all of the strain rolling off these men is solely agonized worry. There’s a fair amount of aggression here too, and my heart speeds up in response to it.
“This is harder than I thought it would be,” a large man with tan skin, a shaved head, and a thick black beard growls. “I know he’s the celestial, but he’s also unmated and too close to Zara. It’s fucking with me.”
“If you can’t keep it together, Milo, you need to leave. Same goes for you, Reid,” the man with the caramel brown hair orders, looking first at the bald guy and then the blond in the corner.
Ruger is suddenly at my back, guiding me over to a wall opposite the bed where we’re out of the way. The adjustment places me at the center of what I instinctually recognize as a triangle of defense. Ellery and Ruger are farther away from me now, but there’s no one between us. If things escalate, they could be by my side in a few strides.
While the other den doesn’t group around Zara, I can see from their stiff postures and the wary way they watch us that they’re fighting the instinct to encircle her and keep us as far from their mate as possible.
It makes me hesitant to breathe too deeply or make any noise and risk accidentally setting off this powder keg of a room.
“It’s okay, Noah. We’ve got you. We won’t let anything happen,” Ruger mindspeaks, and I lean back into him in need of some physical reassurance. “It’s hard for male shifters to let anyone near their mate when the claim is tenuous,” he explains, and I nod even though that confuses me a little.