What Travis couldn’t understand was why they hadn’t given Kat more time to get the money together. It made no sense to think that anyone could pull together that kind of cash on a Sunday. Only the truly wealthy or maybe someone who owns a business would have that kind of cash stashed away and easily accessible on a weekend.
After all was said and done, Travis had sent two of his pack brothers to take Mike back to his place and asked them to keep an eye on him until the next day. He’d get someone to rotate them off in the morning and then go in tomorrow after work to have a little talk with Mike himself.
The rest of the pack had stayed behind and cleaned up the mess. The SUVs were packed with the bodies they left behind and pushed into the large lake that sat to one side of the cabins. They wouldn’t stay hidden there forever. The Diamondbacks would find them eventually. Still, it bought them some time. How much depended on who all knew about this little operation and who would miss those sitting on the bottom of the lake.
“Let’s get you undressed and see where that blood is coming from,” Kat said once they were inside the room.
Travis felt a little lightheaded. His legs faltered as she helped him over to the chair that sat on one side of the room. He held on to it while she helped him undress, a gasp escaping her lips once she could see the source of the blood. There was a large gash across his side where one of the bears had clipped him with its claw.
“I need to get something on that,” she told him. “Sit down in the chair.”
Travis half sat, half fell into the chair. Everything was fuzzy as she disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a towel.
“Come on. Let’s get you to the bed before you pass out on me. I won’t be able to lift you,” Kat told him.
Her voice sounded like it was coming from a million miles away and through a tunnel. He put his arm around her shoulder as she struggled to get him over to the bed and help him get stretched out. All the while, she held the towel against the wound on his side.
“You need to shift before you pass out,” she told him. “You need to shift so this will heal before you bleed out.”
Travis was dimly aware of what she was saying, but he finally grasped the words and did as she told him. Imagine that, a big badass Alpha wolf taking orders from a fragile little Omega. He chuckled as he began to morph back into wolf form. It hurt like a son of a bitch as his body broke apart and reformed.
He was dimly aware that Kat had laid down beside him and was still holding the towel against his wound, staunching the flow of blood until his wolf metabolism healed the gash in his side. Then it all went black, and he was in the darkness. There were no thoughts, no dreams, just an endless sea of black. At first, there was pain, but then, that also subsided, and he was just nowhere.
It wasn’t until much later when he finally opened his eyes again that he realized she was still there beside him. The towel was no longer on his side, but she had laid her head against his chest. Her blonde hair rose and fell with his breathing as she slept. It was okay. It was all going to be okay. He closed his eyes and let himself sleep again.
This time, there was a dream and, as is often the case with dreams, he had a revelation. He knew why the Diamondbacks had thought the family could get the money on a Sunday. Mike had told them they could. Their doctor was a vet, with his own office, and Travis would bet any payments made the prior week were in a safe there, waiting to be taken to the bank the following Monday.
Did a vet have that much cash on hand? It seemed like a lot to him, but it made him wonder if Mike knew something he didn’t and that, perhaps, Kat didn’t know either. There was something fishy about the whole situation, and once he had a chance, he was going to find out what it was.
His side burned and itched, but that was part of the healing. He pushed it away and tried to get what sleep he could manage. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.CHAPTER TWENTYKat
Kat tried not to toss and turn. The hotel room was nice, extremely nice, but she was worried about Travis. She was worried about Mike. She was worried about how she was going to get her hands on the money she needed to put this behind them. For that matter, she was worried about whether that was even an option anymore.