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Gunner’s ensuing silence was oppressive, but I had more important matters on my mind than a glowering alpha’s injured pride. Matters like Kira, whose facade of spunky indifference faded the instant the last police officer rolled away in his patrol car, leaving us alone with one painfully silent alpha and the three pack mates who’d chosen self-imposed exile over returning to the heart of their clan.
“Let’s go home,” I suggested, taking in the way my sister’s lower lip was beginning to quiver while the arm I’d slung around her waist did most of the work of holding the girl upright. Kira sagged in silent acceptance of my game plan, and I hugged her tighter in lieu of wrapping the shivering child in the jacket I no longer possessed.
Meanwhile, I glanced over Kira’s shoulder at the boarded-up theater. The owner had finally arrived to lock the doors and cover broken windows, so there was no slipping inside now to grab the possessions I’d left on the catwalk. Plus, the officer in charge had warned us to get moving, the glint in his eye suggesting he’d be driving back around in a few short minutes to make sure everyone had dispersed.
So—back to our apartment, where Kira could snuggle up under the covers and I could change into non-magical garb. Unfortunately, my companions weren’t impressed by my proposed retreat.
“Not a good idea,” Crow offered before kneeling down to assess Allen’s injuries. The accountant perching on the curb below us hadn’t been one of the two males who’d died in wolf form this evening, but he hadn’t come through the battle unscathed either. Instead, he hissed as Crow rolled up his left pant leg, the swelling and mottling above Allen’s knee suggested he’d either broken a bone or pulled something serious on the inside.
“Yeah, stupid to go back where Kira’s kidnapper can find her so easily,” Tank agreed, glowering at me from under lowered brows as he joined his pack mates in the snow. Then, turning his attention to Allen, he added, “This is going to hurt” one second before wrenching the accountant’s swollen leg back into place.
So, a displaced bone rather than a broken one. I pressed Kira’s nose into my neck, covering her ears with my hands in an effort to cut off Allen’s agonizing scream. “You could have at least offered him a sip of whiskey,” I growled at the lawyer-turned-medic, surprising myself with how much Allen’s pain had cut into my gut.
But werewolves were resilient. Allen offered me a reassuring smile at the same time Gunner finally reentered the conversation, stalking over to join us after seeing the last of his brother’s men off. “Mai and Kira will come home with us,” the alpha stated, proving that he hadn’t missed our conversation even though he’d been talking to someone else a dozen yards away. With the effortless grace of a predator, he pulled Allen upright, draped a jacket around Kira’s shoulders, then turned in the direction of the SUV without bothering to wait for our reply.
And I should have argued. Should have asserted my independence. But I was bone weary, any confidence that I could protect Kira on my own thoroughly shaken by recent events.
So we went. Accepted two bedrooms on the second story of the mansion—although the wrinkling of Kira’s brow foreshadowed the moment five minutes later when she snuck back down the hall to bunk with me. The two of us listened to computerized gunfire emanating from the far end of the hallway where the guys were winding down to the tune of a highly violent video game, then we allowed our eyelids to gradually lower into sleep.
When I woke, five minutes or five hours later, the mansion was silent around us, my skin cold against the late-night air. Kira had rolled sideways and pulled the blankets along with her, but it wasn’t just lack of bedding that sent goosebumps shivering across my skin.
The laptop. In the relief of surviving a pitched battle and police standoff, I’d forgotten the serial killer’s MO. Had assumed that whoever initially wanted my sister was now gone without a trace, a few hours of shuteye making no difference to our own search.
But our opponent was a cat-like predator, one who enjoyed playing with his prey. Why else dangle Kira so theatrically when he could have simply tortured any secrets out of her? Why lure me in with a note on my door rather than snatching me off the street?
And what would a cat do when partially successful but cheated of the full prize he thought he deserved? He’d wait and hope the mouse would crawl back into the trap so he could snap the jaws the rest of the way shut.
I wasn’t a mouse, though. I was a fox. And if I got to that laptop while the killer was still connected, perhaps I could use his own cockiness to figure out exactly who he was.