Page 36 of Orion: Galaxy Huntress

“What the fuck happened?” I wrapped bandages across his torso, securing them with a knot, tearing the ends. I repeated this on his scratched, bitten, and torn neck. Disinfection, stitching, and better wound care could be performed by my mother. “Did you cross over their border?”

“I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid.” Benji’s jaw tightened as another spasm of pain ripped through his body. “Did nothing to provoke them. Three Lithgow bastards trespassed and pursued me for a quarter of a mile. Trapped me by the stream. Attacked me and I fended them off for as long as I could, but they got the upper hand.” He gestured to the slashes and bites along his torso and his throat.

Lowlife scum. Three taking on one. Benji’s courage was admirable.

Our enemies had no right to enter our territory. To do so was breaking the rules agreed upon between my father and their Alpha. Pissed at their brazen attack, I tightened another bandage across Benji’s torso to tourniquet it and stop the bleeding.

“Fuck, they’re getting bolder.” I had to convince my brother to act fast. Our pack had to retaliate. Darius couldn’t take this lying down. He’d show weakness and let the Lithgow mutts get a better grip on our territory.

I threaded an arm beneath Benji’s, hefting him to his feet, steadying him as he wobbled. He hissed, baring teeth. Fuck, he was pale. Too pale. Weak. Heavy. Trekking back to the car would be long and arduous. I didn’t know if he’d make it to the clubhouse alive.

Two hours later, I’d gotten him to my brother’s SUV, then we hightailed it back to the packhouse where my mom instantly got to work assessing his wounds, disinfecting him, applying healing balms and stitching up the deep cuts.

I took my brother aside. “You going to do something now? This can’t happen again. More wolves could get hurt.”

I stared him down, sigma to Alpha, and he sighed, scrubbing his face. “I’ll drive over to speak to their leader now.”

“Speak?” I growled, growing hotter by the minute. “They attacked unprovoked. You should fucking challenge the dick.”

“They’ll kill me before I get the chance, and you know it, Ace.” All hope for a peaceful resolution faded from my brother’s light eyes. “I’m going to propose a merger.”

Merging the packs. Over my damn dead body. They wouldn’t honor that. The Lithgow mutts had broken the agreement between or fathers. Fuck that. I wasn’t sitting around waiting for us to be slaughtered. Wordless, I shook my head and left my brother behind. Burning, screeching tires of my pickup carried me straight to the demon’s door.

I busted into his tavern, marching right to him, catching him on the phone.

“Find her, I need her!” When he saw me, he clipped the hang up button and pocketed his phone.

“I need the demon army. Now.”

“Ace, good to see you.” The demon fidgeted, twitched, and I didn’t like it. Something was wrong. They weren’t fucking coming. He’d fucked me. I knew it.

My fists curled at my side, ready to throw punches. “So, help me God, Vice, if you screwed me, say goodbye to your maker, now.

“I can’t get them to you until two days from now, on the blood moon.” Glasses clinked harshly as Vice nervously stacked them.

Two damn days. Anything could happen before then. A raid on our packhouse.

“I need them now.” My growl made the glasses on the counter shake.

“And I need a fucking miracle,” the demon snapped. “Orion’s missing. Taken by a vampire.”

What the actual fuck? More shit dropped on my doorstep. Heat flooded my body, sparking me up like a comet chasing across the night sky. I pinned the demon up against the wall of his bar with my elbow while patrons gasped and stared at my outburst. Not only had he bound me to Orion, he’d made me care about her. Biggest fuck up. Screwed with my damn head knowing that she was in trouble. Kidnapped by a damn vampire.

“You lost her?” Fierce, protective urges overwhelmed me, and I crunched his tail in my palm as he jolted, trying to tear away. I really didn’t need to deal with this on top of my pack worries.

“I was temporarily knocked out.” I didn’t buy the demon’s excuse and put more pressure on his throat, making his golden skin flush red from lack of air.

“You lost my fucking mate!” I crushed his tail harder, and he grunted. Stress I needed to take out on someone, and he’d fucked up and deserved it. “Put her in fucking danger. Why didn’t you tell me that a vampire was after her?”

He slowly, carefully tried to extricate himself from my grasp, but I tightened it. “Get your fucking hands off me, Ace, or I’ll fuck you up.”

Pissed off by his threat, I crushed three bones in his tail, satisfied by the dark crunch accompanying each one.

Growing a spine for once, he followed through on his threat. Bones in my wrists ground as they broke, searing pain ricocheting along my forearm.

“Let’s have a drink out the back and discuss this.” Vice brushed me off and patted my chest like we were all good.

“Discuss what?” I bit out over the intense ache in my hands, wrists, and arms. “That you messed up? That you drew her here because of me? That she’d be safe if it wasn’t for you?”

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