“I can put out word with the packs,” he offered, stroking her hair. “They might be able to track him down.”
“No.” She sighed. “I can’t keep bailing Thomas out. As much as I worry about him, he’s going to have to start taking care of himself. I’m not his keeper anymore and I have other people to think about.”
His hand stilled as he realized even though he was blocking her link to the pack and lessening the full impact of their loss, she was well aware of it using her telepathy. Her heart was heavy, her mind attuned to him, seeking to remove the ache in his chest and replace it with the promise of something better.
“Ava…” He attempted to extend her comfort but couldn’t find the words, unable to say exactly how he felt.
She turned to him, offered a small smile and leaned across the tub to place the note on top of the file he’d plopped onto the floor. She brushed her lips against his, prepared to ease his pain. A knock came from the bedroom and she pulled away, gazing up at him with eyes full of desire and love.
“It’s going to be fine,” she said softly, reading his thoughts with ease, and rose from the water like Venus, beads of water trickling along her fair skin, traveling down the valleys of her breast and abdomen. She reached for him, wrapping her arms around his bare torso and pressed her wet chest to his.
“D,” Nathan called through the door.
Ava kissed him quickly, unwound her arms and reached for a towel. “Go ahead,” she said as she lifted her foot, placed it on the rim of the tub and started fluffing and drying her leg, revealing fleeting flashes of the smooth, pink mound at the apex of her thighs. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Diskant turned from the temptation and strode from the bathroom. He could sense agitation radiating through door, could feel his pack mate’s worry long before he grasped the handle and stood before Nathan.
The Beta didn’t waste any time. “If you still want Ava to see that asshole we brought in with the Shepherd, bring her to the basement—now. The bastard is running off at the mouth and Trey is eventually going to lose it and kill his worthless ass.”
“Why didn’t you gag him?”
Nathan lifted his hand. There was a large, gaping wound in the fleshy portion between his index finger and thumb. The injury had started to mend but it was apparent by the missing flap of skin that a massive chunk had been removed.
“He bit you?”
Nathan nodded and lowered his hand. “He’s been an absolute cockbite since he came around. His eye is swollen shut, and I’d guess more than one of his ribs is broken since he’s having a hard time breathing. But he’s still not willing to back down.”
“Stupid fuck,” Diskant snapped.
“Nathan?” Ava spoke from just behind Diskant and then he felt her hand against his back. He turned slightly and she came around, dressed in one of his T-shirts, which fell to her knee. “Is everything okay?”
Diskant wondered if she was attuning to Nathan, listening in to his thoughts, but realized she wasn’t when her concerned gaze returned to him.
“We need to go downstairs,” Diskant answered before Nathan could. “We need you to get any information you can from the men we brought back with us. Can you do that?”
When she nodded, Nathan’s shoulders relaxed. “You’d better hurry. Doc said the Shepherd doesn’t have a lot of time left with the blood loss he’s sustained.”
Ava paled. “Blood loss?”
“It’s going to be okay.” Diskant wrapped an arm around her waist. “You won’t face them alone, baby.”
“As much as I hate to rush you, you’d better hurry.” Nathan interrupted and spun toward the staircase. “If Trey can’t kill one of them, he’s bound to take out a wall or two. I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be able to hold out.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Where are they?” Trey sneered into the bloodied face of the man, who didn’t flinch or give an inch. “You will tell me what you know or I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
The masochistic asshole smiled, spat in his face and taunted, “Fuck you.”
Trey had brought his hand back, prepared to deliver a blow that would crush the eye on the unmarred side of the bastard’s face, when a hand wound around his wrist.
“Stop, brother,” Emory said evenly though his voice was rough. “The Shepherds are long gone. I think everyone knows they never intended to stay.”
Emory nodded to his former friend and pack mate, Brian. “Shut him up.”
Brian stepped behind the man strapped to the chair in the center of the room and lifted the kitchen towel they’d been forced to use as a gag. The man struggled as Brian forced the material into his mouth like a cloth bridle.
Trey snarled his outrage. There wasn’t much left intact in the basement now. In an effort to curb his temper, Trey had attacked any object in the room that could take the edge off his anger and lessen the sting of the vast ache in his chest. Like Diskant, he felt the loss of his pack mates, was aware of the precise moment when their lives had been snuffed from existence.
Gazing around the room, he studied the pensive faces of those who had lost loved ones. Some were fortunate, having lost only close friends and acquaintances as their immediate families chose to remain outside the city, in more rural, less-populated areas. Others, however, were in the grip of grief.
His attention drifted to two of the mated males who’d lost their females in the explosion.
One was newly mated to a wolf female, which meant he might survive the loss. There was no bloodbond to complicate things.
The same couldn’t be said for the other.
Trey ripped his gaze from Zach, who was now a virtual dead-shifter-walking, detached from everything around him. He sat unmoving, staring blindly across the room. Although he’d only been in the second stage of the bond with Katie, it was enough that he probably wouldn’t survive the loss.
Fuck if it didn’t make him furious. So goddamn angry he wanted to tear the Shepherd from throat to asshole and feast on his heart. The void was bad enough without what could occur as a consequence in the aftermath. If Zach didn’t improve, the humane thing would be to put him out of his misery.
A fucking kindness that Trey would be expected to deliver as an Alpha.
Shuffling diverted his focus and he turned in time to see Kinsley descend the stairs with Nathan on his heels. The expression on his face spoke volumes, reminding the pack that while he wasn’t one of their own, his loyalty was as strong and unshakable.
“It took a lot of ass-kissing but the prides have agreed to take turns monitoring the city if you decide to track down the Shepherds responsible.”
“You’re sure we can trust them?” Nathan asked as he strode past Trey.
“They know that this isn’t something they can turn their backs on,” Kinsley answered. “Once Shepherds decide to make a statement like this it’s only a matter of time before they return. The prides won’t risk their own. They’ll band together now. They won’t stand alone when the shit hits the fan.”
“I want their fucking blood.” Trey rotated in a circle until he located Emory. He stared his brother in the eye, wanting to be clear. “Retrieving your mate is only the beginning.”
Emory’s irises flared, shifting from caramel to amber, and he nodded.
“You can’t go to war with the Shepherds,” Kinsley said, reading between the lines. “As Alpha, you’ll bring danger to the packs.”