If she wasn’t watching, I’d rip them apart until nobody could recognize the pieces.
When all three are dead, which takes barely a minute to accomplish, I pause to breathe in the metallic, bloody scent that clings to the interior of the barn. Annoyance rattles through me. How did Alina not notice? Was she not paying attention at all?
I grunt, pawing at the hay to wipe the blood off my paws.
There are no more Blackburns. At least, none within the next mile or so. That doesn’t mean more aren’t coming.
I turn to Alina. She’s still on the ground, staring up at me with those beautiful brown eyes. She looks awed and horrified all at the same time, and there’s a cut on her brow that’s bleeding a little.
Yet, when Alina’s gaze locks with mine, she offers me a breathless smile.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she whispers.
And then, much to my horror, she faints.
Alina
I feel a little delirious.
Not because I got hit in the head by one of those Blackburn oafs, nor because another one of them threw me into the wall once Rowan entered attack mode…but because I’m currently cradled in his arms as he carries me through the front door of my house.
He’s vibrating with fury, jaw clenched tight. His arms feel like iron wrapped around my waist and under my legs because of how tense he is. There’s also a fair amount of blood all over him, and in different circumstances, I might be disgusted, but this strange, out-of-body sensation prevents that.
In truth, I feel weirdly relaxed. Or maybe relaxed isn’t the right word. Maybe this is just the aftereffects of the adrenaline that rushed through me as soon as I realized that I was surrounded by Blackburns, the same shifters who are responsible for the death of my parents.
Maybe it’s just pure, unadulterated relief because I don’t know what I would have done if Rowan didn’t show up.
But Rowan did show up.
He kicks the door shut behind him, then carries me into the living room. He’s never been in here before, but he strides confidently across to the threadbare sofa and deposits me gently onto the couch.
I already texted Zahra to confirm that she could pick up Noah from school today. There are still a few hours until he’s done, but I have a feeling that the day is not going to go back to normal at this point.
We left Tim’s truck at the farm. Rowan muttered something about how Tim is the one who set me up for this attempted murder-or kidnapping, or whatever it was supposed to be-and even though that makes almost no sense to me, there’s no arguing with an Alpha when he’s in this state of mind.
Rowan kneels down beside the couch. He’s covered in blood. It’s all over his face and smeared down his jaw and neck, spattered across the bare skin of his arms. I can smell it on his breath, and it’s clotted in his hair in places, too. His shirt is torn at the collar from where he yanked it off too quickly to shift, and now the leftover blood that lingered on his wolf form has soaked into the cotton.
He leans toward me, hands moving toward my head. I cringe back, wrinkling my nose.
“Rowan, you’re covered in blood.”
“Let me check your head.”
I huff. “It’s fine.”
Still, I let him move his palms around the back of my skull, trying not to flinch when he presses against the lump forming from where one of the Blackburns initially struck me down.
He ripped them to pieces. It was glorious and horrifying at the same time. Disgusting, yet sexy. The human me and the wolf me can’t seem to agree on it.
Rowan’s hands move around my head to cup my face. My heart thumps at his proximity, my skin tingling with heat at the simple touch. He peers into my eyes as if he can see right through to my brain. “Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?”
“No, Rowan, I’m f-“
“Any memory loss? Do you remember your name? The date?”
He’s so concerned about me that he can’t even see that I’m perfectly fine.
“For goodness’ sake, it’s not-“
His blood-caked hands move down to my shoulders. “Did they hurt you anywhere else? Did you hurt yourself when you hit back?”
“Rowan,” I say more firmly. There’s enough sharpness and command in my voice that it reaches through to him. He blinks, meeting my gaze.
“I thought you…” He pauses, swallows hard. “When I went to The Diner, and you weren’t there, and then that asshole said the things he did…”
“I still can’t believe it…I really don’t understand.”
Except, even as I say it, some small bits of old information click into place. Tim’s younger brother is one of Henry Whiterose’s Betas, a man not much older than me named Jay. I remember Zahra once mentioned that, when Jay first shifted, a lot of people in the pack got the sense that he was more than just a particularly strong Beta, but a potential Alpha. I never thought much about it past that, and Zahra made it seem like it was a non-issue. Henry’s nephew is going to become Alpha, and that’s the end of the story.
But maybe that’s not the end. Maybe that’s not it at all.
My head spins, and I open my mouth to tell Rowan my burgeoning theory, but then a wave of dizziness washes through me.
“Alina?”
“M’fine. Really. I just didn’t have much to eat this morning.”
“Let me make you some food.”
“While you’re still covered in blood?”
For the first time since he hauled me into his truck and booked it back here from the farm, he looks down at himself. He frowns, as if he didn’t even realize the gore from his vicious fight is still all over him.
“Forgot about that,” he murmurs.
“Your clothes are pretty much ruined.”
He swipes at a speck of dried blood on his forearm. “It’s all right. All in a hard day’s work. I have a fresh set in my truck.”
“Shifter essentials.” I gently place my hand over his, the one that’s still resting on my shoulder, and squeeze it. “You can go upstairs and shower. I’ll be fine down here on my own while you do.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.