Diskant looked at Ava, torn for the first time in his life.
If he weren’t newly mated, the decision would be as simple as breathing. Despite his status, he would arrange something that would save his brethren and force the threat from the city. Shepherds took the supernatural creatures they captured to special holding places where they could be “exorcised” of the demon within before their soul was given safe passage to the hell they viewed as heaven. Knowing that, he could have safely handed Emory over, trailed the sadistic zealots and put an end to this outside of his territory.
Now, however, there was so much more at stake.
He couldn’t leave Ava behind. Following a second mark she’d need the closeness and mating more than before. Without it, she would become crazed. Not a pretty sight, especially when a newly mated shifter was killed and left his or her mate behind. Usually the most humane thing to do was to put them down.
Of all the fucking irony.
Ava went tense beside him and he started to lean over to ask her what was wrong when Trey braced his elbows on the table and a loud growl rent the air.
“I’m not handing my brother to them.” The wolf under Trey’s skin was barely contained. His eyes changed color as his canines lengthened, causing his vowels to slur. “If they want him, they’ll have to fight for him.”
Diskant had to force his own wolf to quiet as it rose to greet a fellow pack mate’s fury. He understood Trey’s outburst, as Diskant was the one who had brought the pack together after Trey and Emory faced off, nearly killing each other in the process. Their rivalry put an enormous wedge between the wolves in the pack. It was the only reason Emory had decided to leave. Two roosters in a henhouse wasn’t a good idea, and no matter how much the men loved each other, their wolves were too dominant to stomach the other existing inside their territory.
Ava lifted her hand and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, caressing his knuckles with flicks of her thumb while leaning against him. The effect was staggering. The wolf went quiet, was forced aside, and he heard the cat within purr as it took control, brushed against the inside of his skin and attempted to get closer to the woman stroking him.
“Trey.” Nathan spoke quietly and clasped his Alpha’s arm. “Don’t amp up the room. They’re already primed.”
“Goddamn it,” Trey snapped as he struggled with his beast and attempted to take control. After a moment, when he was back in charge, Nathan released him. The strain was evident in the Beta’s posture, his hand visibly trembling as he pulled it beneath the table.
“Did you contact all of the Alphas about the missing shifters?” Diskant asked, hoping like hell that he didn’t sound like the pussycat Pinkie had brought to the surface of his skin.
Trey took a deep breath and sat back, shaking his head. “I left as soon as we made the discovery and came here.”
“I can’t put shifter lives in danger for the sake of one of my own, which means we need time to formulate a plan. As soon as the Alphas find out what’s happening, you know what they’re going to want.” Diskant made sure he had Trey’s full attention when he said, “We have to know what we’re going to do when we’re forced to hand Emory over. Do you want to take this across state lines? Do you want to risk placing their wrath on the heads of another pack?”
It was a fucked-up situation none of them wanted to be a part of. No matter what they did, they sacrificed one of their own. By choosing to follow and rescue they’d tread into the territories of other packs along the way. Shepherds were known for making their messages loud and clear by annihilating the populations in small towns, and there were bound to be plenty of them between New York and Colorado.
“We have to end this here.” Trey rubbed his hands together and gazed blindly across the room. “If we follow them, we’ll have to kill everyone we find.”
“Can you live with that?” Diskant asked, unable to force the rest of the question from his mouth. Could any of them live with killing women and children? Because that is what it would come down to. Shepherds steeped their children in their warped beliefs at a young age, ensuring that their demented “purpose” was ingrained from the moment they could understand the spoken word.
“You have to give me to them. It’s the only way,” Emory interrupted, his eyes wild and glowing. “When will you tell the rest of the packs why they’re here?”
Diskant felt Ava tremble beside him and he tightened his hold and bowed over slightly, giving the illusion that she was sheltered under his shoulder. “I should tell them tonight,” he responded without hesitation, relieved when she settled beside him. “They have a right to know. If it had been wolves that were skinned alive, we’d be out for blood.”
“We need to know more about the Shepherds’ enclave,” Trey said, turning to Emory. “If their numbers are small the pack can challenge them directly.”
“You’re asking the wrong person.” Emory laughed but there was no humor in the gesture. If anything, the Alpha seemed on the brink of a breakdown. “Mary didn’t tell me anything. She wasn’t even aware of the importance of her surname.”
“I can tell you.”
There was a moment of silence as everyone turned to the source of the interruption—the little bundle under his arm.
Ava.
She smiled at their curious stares and continued stroking his skin, the motion of her thumb calm and soothing, as if she gleaned just how much it affected him.
“You can tell us what?” Diskant asked, aware that the others at the table wouldn’t dare address his mate to ask the question.
She turned her head, smiled at him and answered, “Everything.”
Chapter Eleven
“You’d best repent, lest you find yourself bedded amongst the wolves.”
Mary tried not to wince as her newest captor stood over her at his place at the pulpit, legs shoulder’s width apart, expression unreadable. This time it was John Shepherd with a bible in one hand and a cross in the other—one of eleven Shepherds who lived on the sacred family land in northern Colorado that had been passed down through the generations.
It had been like this since the night she’d discovered the man who brought excitement and joy to her life wasn’t a man at all but something else. A beast, she’d been told, who was cursed with half the soul of an animal. She’d have argued the fact if she hadn’t seen it for herself. The lupine features that had distorted his jaw, lengthened his canines, and changed the hue of the iris were impossible to discredit.
Foolishly, she’d fled, unable to see past the terrifying shape of the beast to the man.
That was the tragedy of trusting illusion—you couldn’t always perceive what you should. Even those who appeared normal could be cursed with something far worse than a wolf beneath the skin.
Far, far worse…
“I don’t hear you, Mary.”
The warning was enough for her to start the prayer over, mumbling into her clasped hands as she balanced herself on bruised knees until she reached the portion of the passage that gave her pause.
“Behold, I send you forth as a sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.”
She continued to recite the passage that was once foreign and strange but was now memorized to perfection, allowing her mind to drift.
How had her life come to this? How could the man she knew as a father have belonged to a group of people that manipulated and twisted the passages of the bible to suit their purposes?