“Know what?” asked Amber.
Great, thought Nick. Taking a preparatory breath, he once again explained the situation.
“You’re not healed?” echoed Amber, stunned and panicked. “That can’t be possible. I healed you. I healed you; I did.”
“It hasn’t worked,” Shaya told her gently. It was hard not to be gentle when Amber looked genuinely distraught. “His cognitive functions are degenerating again.”
Amber shook her head in denial. “No, I healed him.”
“You tried, but it hasn’t worked.”
Tears now swirling in her eyes, Amber turned back to him. “Nick, I’m so sorry. I know I warned you the improvements could be temporary, but I was pretty sure you were totally healed. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he assured her, not being good with crying females. “It is what it is.”
“Let me try again. It’ll work this time, I’ll make sure it does.”
He held a hand up. “Amber, if it didn’t work the first time—”
“Just let me try.”
“Taryn’s going to try,” announced Shaya, which made hope enter both Roni’s and Kathy’s expression.
“She’s not more powerful than me,” maintained Amber.
“You better hope she is, or Nick’s in shit street.”
Shaking her head in denial again, Amber quickly scampered. A concerned Kathy went after her.
“If Taryn can’t heal you,” began Roni, “we’ll find someone else. You can’t give up, Nick.”
“I won’t,” he vowed. Satisfied yet still understandably anxious, Roni nodded and walked away.
Shaya jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “They better not be empty words. You’ve made that promise to both me and Roni, and we intend to make you keep it.” Her wolf was in full agreement.
Nick cupped her face. “I have never given you empty words. Ever.”
“Just sayin’.” As he cuddled her close, his cell began to ring. After a brief conversation, he returned the phone to his pocket with a sigh. “Everything okay?”
“That was Jesse. There are humans watching us closely from a house farther down the street; he recognizes them as extremists. They’ll either follow us or report back to Logan that we’ve left.”
“Do you really think the plan to divide the group and get to Logan will work?”
“Yes, I do. Let’s find out for sure.”
After a very long journey to Phoenix Pack territory in a vehicle full of talking people, Nick had wanted nothing more than to take Shaya somewhere inside the caves where they could be alone. But that hadn’t been possible. First the pack had wanted to make a huge fuss of Shaya while at the same time scowling at him for originally failing to claim her. Defensive on his behalf, Shaya had told them all about how his wolf had surfaced early and what was happening to his cognitive functions as a result. At that point, the scowling stopped, and now Jaime was following him everywhere, claiming she was able to empathize with him as she knew how hard it was to have a scarred wolf. That was nice and all, but Nick wasn’t the type to need empathy. He liked privacy, peace, quiet—and he soon learned that none of these things could be found in this territory.
The meal that had awaited them went a long way to improving his mood. Their packmate, Grace, was a good cook. As they ate, Trey and Taryn had explained the entire situation surrounding the human extremists. Rhett, who was the ultimate geek and also Grace’s mate, planned to try to uncover what he could about the game preserve with his hacking skills, but Nick wasn’t optimistic that Rhett would uncover much—if Donovan couldn’t, no one could. As Nick had expected, two of the extremists had followed them to Phoenix Pack territory and would undoubtedly tell Logan their location So far, everything was going to plan.
That would have pleased him if it wasn’t for the fact that now that the wolves all knew a little about his time in juvie, Nick was receiving nods of respect and pats on his back—particularly from the enforcers and also a mated pair, Cam and Lydia, whose old friend hadn’t made it out of juvie alive. Also, Jaime’s brother, Gabe, and his mate, Hope, were apparently as empathetic as Jaime. Great. Further annoying him, Jaime’s ugly, chunky cat kept charging at Bruce. Even more annoying, the damn dog wasn’t standing his ground.
Probably more irritating than all of that, however, was that Marcus kept trying to flirt with Roni. Where Dominic was sleazy-flirty, Marcus was smooth-flirty. The only thing stopping Nick from growling at the a**hole was that Roni was simply looking at the guy blankly, totally bamboozling him. Given how uncomfortable she was around all these strangers, Nick wouldn’t be surprised if she returned to her wolf form sometime soon. He had hoped that she would go home to the Ryland Pack with his mom and Amber. Unfortunately, she had refused. Even more unfortunate, so had his mom and Amber. And now—to top it all off—his beautiful mate beside him was totally pissed off because Amber was sitting on his other side. Not even the fact that Kent was throwing fries at Amber was cheering Shaya up.
Wanting to soothe her and reassure her that she was the only one who mattered, Nick lifted Shaya and sat her in his lap. After a moment, she melted against him, and he locked both arms around her. “Please tell me your bedroom is on a completely different floor than everyone else.”
Hearing the frustration in his voice, Shaya couldn’t help but smile. Her mate was in hell with all this attention and offers of friendship. “Sorry to disappoint, but it’s only a few doors away from Jaime, your new best friend.” His growl made her chuckle. “They’re just all feeling bad for their behavior toward you when it’s clear you had your reasons for not claiming me in the beginning. They’ll stop smiling at you within the hour.”
He bit her ear for teasing him. “I can’t believe we’ve only been here an hour and already all the females have our mating ceremony totally covered and have scheduled it for tonight.” It was tradition that the other females of the pack organized the ceremony, but he’d never heard of one being so swiftly planned. “Maybe they just want it over with quickly because they don’t trust me not to abandon you again.”
“You didn’t truly abandon me. And the reason they want us to have it quickly is so that the humans don’t interrupt it with an attack. Dante and Jaime’s ceremony was spoiled by Glory and her relatives infiltrating the territory and attacking everyone. You do want to have a ceremony, right?”
“Of course I do, dumbass.”
She spoke against his mouth. “Good. Because if you don’t turn up at that ceremony out of some misguided attempt to protect me from what’s happening to you, I’ll hunt you down and beat the shit out of you with my bat.”
He smiled. “Feisty.”
“Besides, I asked Taryn if she would try healing you. She said she would.”
“It might not work, Shay,” he told her gently.
“I know, but you promised you wouldn’t give up.”
“And I won’t; I’m willing to let Taryn try. Although, I have the feeling that Taryn would sooner cut my throat than heal me.”
“I think she’s warming to you.”
He snorted at that and was about to comment when Derren, who had popped out of the room to take a call, suddenly barged inside the kitchen.
“Nick, I just got off the phone with Donovan. He said to turn on the TV.”
“Why?”
“He found the location of the preserve. And he called it in.”
Everybody quickly piled into the living area, but no one spoke as the news of the preserve was aired live. Nick had encountered much evil in his life, known cruelty and violence, but he had never seen anything like this. It was worse than even Lee-Roy had described. Dead bodies of shifters ranging from the age of seven—fucking seven—had been dumped on the land, all maimed, brutalized, and decaying. Some of the bodies were even frozen mid-shift while others were missing their eyes or limbs. Even the human reporter, the same reporter who had days ago portrayed shifters as animals, was horrified and close to tears at the sight of the bodies—particularly those of the children.
Nick understood why Donovan hadn’t notified him before contacting the police; he’d known that when Nick saw how bad it was, he wouldn’t have been happy to let the police deal with it and that he’d have wanted to go after Logan and those other bastards himself. As such, Donovan was right not to have told Nick first. This was about more than just them. This was about shifters worldwide.
Although many had been arrested in connection with it, Logan’s name hadn’t been mentioned, and there had been no mention of a shifter being involved either. Nick knew, however, that Lee-Roy had been telling the truth when he said the person running the preserve was a shifter. That meant the bastard was still out there, free as a bird.
Feeling Shaya’s desolation and realizing she was crying, Nick moved her from her spot beside him on the giant sofa to his lap. He cradled her against him, rocking her. Most of the other females were crying too. The sickening sight of the preserve almost brought tears to his own eyes. The more the reporter revealed, the more nauseous he felt. Until they worked out who the shifter responsible was, they couldn’t be sure another preserve wouldn’t be set up somewhere else…and they couldn’t make sure the prick paid for what he’d done.
“Nick,” croaked Shaya. “After seeing this…I don’t know if I can—”
She cut herself off, but Nick knew what she was thinking: She didn’t know if she could go through with a mating ceremony and throw a celebration when this was on her mind. He was feeling the same way. The images were stuck in his head, and he couldn’t get them out and didn’t think he would anytime soon. It didn’t seem right to throw a party on the heels of something like this. “Me neither, baby. We’ll do it after this is all over, okay?” Nodding, she snuggled even more into him.
Kent brought his hand to his mouth. “I honestly think I might be sick.”
Derren looked at him, his expression grim. “You know what this means.”
Nick nodded. “It means the extremists’ case will be dismissed on Thursday morning. And it means they’ll be here Thursday night for sure—they’ll take this into their own hands, just as Logan planned in the meeting.”
“That’s okay,” growled Trey, “because we’ll be waiting. I can’t wait to get my hands on those motherfuckers. They deserve whatever happens to them.”
“I have a feeling the shifter behind all this will come with them,” said Ryan. Nick was surprised to hear him speak.
“Me too,” said Trick. “He hates shifters anyway, and now that he’s no longer making money from charging humans to kill our kind, I’d say he’ll be pissed enough to join Logan in the attack.”
“Let’s hope so,” growled Taryn. She rose from her armchair and approached Nick. “It’s time. We need you at top strength. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to heal you, but I can certainly do my best.” She then turned to her pack. “Grace, you know what I need. Ryan, the window.” While the short brunette nodded and left the room, the grumpy-looking enforcer opened the window wide.
Determined to only think positive thoughts, Shaya rose from his lap. “Lie down on the floor, flat on your back.”
“That’s usually my order,” rumbled Nick, smiling at her blush. Hoping against hope that the Alpha female would be successful where Amber wasn’t, Nick did as Shaya asked.
“Everyone other than Shaya step back,” ordered Taryn, all business. The depth of authority and seriousness in her voice had everyone immediately backing up, giving her plenty of space. As she knelt on his left side, Shaya knelt on his right and took his hand in hers. She exchanged a reassuring look with him, knowing he felt a little awkward.
Shaya watched as Taryn placed her hand on his forehead; just like that, patches of luminous lights were gleaming through Nick’s scalp, indicating where the damage was. Taryn then leaned over and placed her mouth to his like she would give him the kiss of life. Although the sight of another female’s mouth touching his made a part of Shaya balk, her concern for his well-being was far stronger than that.
Taryn inhaled deeply, then lifted her head, turned it toward the window, and blew out a heavy breath; a whoosh of black particles escaped from her mouth and zoomed out of the window. She repeated the move again and again, not stopping until the luminous patches of Nick’s scalp had completely faded.
“Done.” Puffing out a breath, she toppled backward, and would have landed on the carpet if Trey hadn’t been in position, waiting to catch her. He pulled her so that she was sitting between his legs, her back to his chest. She was pale and a little tired, but otherwise fine.
“As usual,” said Trey, “you now look like shit.”
Her voice hoarse, Taryn snapped, “Ass.” As a cough seemed to burst out of her, Grace gave Taryn a bottle of water and an energy bar. “Thank you.”
“How do you feel?” Shaya anxiously asked Nick as he slowly sat upright.
Rubbing his head, he considered lying to Shaya, but their bond would allow her to pick up on it. “Honestly…I don’t feel any different.”
“That’s because you weren’t in pain or feeling dizzy or weak,” Derren pointed out.
Good point, thought Nick. He looked at Taryn. “So you’ve healed my cognitive functions?”
Taryn pursed her lips. “That’s not quite how it works with me. All that foul crap I took out of you…that was, like, the badness. It’s hard to explain. If you take away the negativity that pollutes a positive situation, the situation is then no longer polluted—it’s pure again. The same thing applies here. Your cognitive functions are no longer ‘polluted.’ Hopefully, it stays that way. If this was the first time you had been healed, I wouldn’t even question whether or not the effect would be permanent. But as you’ve had a number of healing sessions before now and the problem still came back, I can’t guarantee it won’t come back again.”