She drove to the main house and waited while Burke hustled into his truck. As promised, he followed her home. She waved at him and watched him drive away, knowing she had a small window of time to do what needed to be done. Burke would have someone sit outside the house for her protection. Not that she needed it, but because he’d promised Monty to protect her.
She hurried into her basement and retrieved the duffel she hadn’t looked at since Theo had brought her to Cougar Falls.
Taking a deep breath, she called on her courage and made the call that would end her life in Cougar Falls. A half an hour later, a knock sounded at the door. She glanced at the bag on the table and knew the time had come.
She rose and answered it. Axel and Rafe entered. Alone.
“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly.
Axel nodded and glanced around. “You by yourself?”
“I think one of the pride is watching the house.”
“Melissa’s out front,” Rafe added. “A few of my wolves are distracting her while we discuss what the hell you’re up to.”
She blinked away useless tears. God, she hadn’t cried so much since she’d left the frickin’ homestead with Theo years ago. “I know how to get Monty and the others back.”
Axel and Rafe exchanged a glance before Rafe said, “No.”
“I’m worth more to the Hunters than you know.”
Axel frowned, but Rafe’s expression didn’t change. “I know more than you think. And the answer is still no,” he denied softly.
“Rafe?” Axel asked.
“I’m Ted Norris’s niece,” she said out loud. “The big bad Hunter killing Ac-taw? I’m his blood. Call and ask Theo. He’ll tell you.”
Axel swore.
Rafe shrugged. “He already told me years ago. I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself to that monster to rescue anyone.”
“I’m not going to sacrifice myself. I’m going in as bait while you and your wolves get ready to take his Hunters out for good. I’ll distract him for you.”
“Sophie—”
She approached him, ignoring Axel’s tension. “Rafe, I have to. Monty’s my mate. We bonded.” She started to cry again. Damn it. “I spent my entire life growing up under my uncle’s thumb. I didn’t do enough before.”
“Theo said you did plenty.” Rafe shook his head. “You saved his life.”
“But I should have saved a lot more.” She didn’t look away from her alpha, even when his powerful glare ordered her to submit. “I can do this, Rafe. Please. I have to do this or I won’t survive.” Not without Monty, not without doing what I should have done so long ago.
He softened. She could see it. Apparently so could Axel.
“Hell, no, Rafe. You can’t let her go in there. Not around those fuckers.”
“And you can’t tell me what to do,” Rafe growled in a low rumble.
Axel glanced down but didn’t relent. “She shouldn’t go.” He looked up at her. “Even if she is part of this mess. She’s breeding.”
Sophie started. “I’m not pregnant.”
Rafe blinked at her. “She’s not—is she?”
Axel nodded. “It’s really subtle, but it’s there. Happened recently.”
She colored.
Axel’s grin widened. “Yeah.” He touched his nose. “This thing never lies. You’re going to be having a pup in nine months.” His smile died. “So no way you can be anywhere near Norris. He’ll kill you, or worse. Think about your mate, Sophie. Your baby.”
Now more than ever, she had to help Monty. “I am.” She turned a pleading gaze back to Rafe. “When I left my uncle, it was after years of living with him, knowing he was bad but not how bad. He hunted and he killed. But they were just wild animals stealing our chickens or cows. So I told myself. But I think I always knew.”
“Sophie, don’t.” Rafe tried to stop her.
“I saw him kill one of us. A man who’d been so nice to me. My uncle shot him right between the eyes in the middle of his change. And then I knew what he’d been doing all those years. To all those people.” She blinked back her tears, using her pain to bolster her resolve. “Theo helped me escape as much as I helped him. And now my uncle is doing it again, hurting Ac-taw. But this time it’s because of me.”
“No, it’s because he’s a sick fuck,” Axel interrupted. “Honey, you can’t go up against him. From everything we’ve heard, he’s not right in the head.”
“He’s Ac-taw,” she whispered, suddenly putting the pieces together.
“What?” Rafe stared at her, hard.
“He has to be. Monty said he never seems to change, and when I thought about it, I realized he never has, not in twenty-six years. He’s the same man he’s always been. Strong, and he can see, hear and smell things normal humans can’t. He’s like me, and he doesn’t shift. Ever.”
“Well, that would make him a nutjob of the first order.” Axel nodded. “Never feeling his wolf, all that anger and ferocity balled up in a human body? Bound to make him psycho.”
Rafe studied her. “Tell me everything you know about your uncle. Everything. Axel, get on the horn. I want eyes on the last known location we had for him.”
“I think I know where he might be going.” She hoped. It was a long shot, but she remembered the many places her uncle had traveled to, often because she’d handled the logistics for his trips while her cousins, who’d been supposed to organize them, had been too busy having fun in the barn, doing thing she hadn’t wanted to know about.
She told Axel what she knew, and he quickly relayed the information over his cell phone. Then she told Rafe about her uncle.
The telling took a good hour, and she felt mentally exhausted at the end. “So, you see, I have to go. I can’t live with myself if I don’t do what I can for my mate. I have to.” Then she let her wolf come to the fore. “And I’m going to rescue him.”
Rafe just watched her, then smiled. “I knew you had the wolf in you, Sophie. You just needed an excuse to let her out.” He sighed. “You know Monty is going to be pissed as hell when this is all over.”
“If he wants anything to do with me anymore.”
Rafe shook his head. “Honey, if GrayClaw is so big an asshole that he can’t see what a gem you truly are, you have a place in the order. Don’t you worry.”
But she did worry. Because she now had not only a mate worth saving, but a tiny baby needing the protection of a mother and father—an Ac-taw not so screwed up that he couldn’t teach her baby how to live with the wolf instead of struggling against it for so many years.
Lost in contemplation, she didn’t hear Rafe until he repeated himself. “Oh, and Sophie?” She glanced up to see Axel standing over her with a resigned look on his face.
He sighed. “Rafe, do I have to?”
Rafe snarled. “Do it.”
“But—”
“Do it.” Rafe turned to her. “You’ll thank me when it’s over.”
Before she could question him, Axel’s large fist struck her cheek. Then she saw black.
She woke minutes later, spurred by her wolf. Rafe’s and Axel’s voices faded as the front door creaked closed. The wolf whined and snapped at her to shake it off and wake the hell up. Sophie moaned and rubbed her throbbing jaw.
I cannot believe he struck a pregnant woman! She was so telling Monty about this when she saw him next. If she saw him alive again, and if he would care. She sat up in her bed and pushed her covers aside. The idiot wolves had knocked her out and then tucked her in bed. She stopped moving when she heard movement and quickly lay back down and feigned sleep again.
She smelled cat and wolf.
“Monty is going to be unhappy when he hears about this.” She recognized Melissa’s voice.