Page 110 of A Wolf's Wound
“Ryder insisted that I call them,” Lori explains.“He thought you could use your parents right now.”
“He was right,” I say, finally pulling away from my mother.My stepdad immediately wraps me up in a huge hug.
“Thank you for calling us,” my mom tells Lori.
“You’re welcome, but the credit belongs to my son,” Lori says as Ryder returns to the area.“Ryder, these are Hannah’s parents.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you, even under these circumstances,” Ryder says as he shakes my stepdad’s hand.When he extends his hand to my mother, she laughs and gives him a hug.
“Anything we can do to help out, please let us know,” my stepfather tells Ryder and Lori.
“I could use more help with the medical side of things, actually,” I say.“Sam’s been super helpful, but another pair of hands would be even better.”
“Say no more,” my mother tells me.“Honey, make yourself useful somewhere else.I’m sure Ryder could use help with cleanup.”
“That’s an understatement,” Gavin says as he joins our group.He shakes my stepdad’s hand, too.
“This is quite a mess,” Gavin adds, surveying the scene.“At some point I’m going to need you two to tell me exactly what happened.”
“Later,” Ryder says quietly.
“There is one thing I need to know right now, I’m afraid,” Gavin says.“That scent.”
Ryder nods.“Yeah.Brian created it.”
“Why?And is it gone?”
“There’s no more here, but we’ll need to check his apartment,” Ryder says.“But explaining ‘why’ is a lot more difficult.”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever have a good answer,” I murmur in agreement.
“Okay, but he unleashed the scent and it drew the shifters here,” Gavin says.
“Right.He created a scent that would drive shifters to bite humans and try to turn them into wolves,” Ryder says.
“Oh my,” Lori says quietly, her face pale.“That’s incredibly dangerous.”
“I know.”Ryder sighs.“The bodies we found?Those were essentially test subjects.He was tinkering with the formula, and to find out if it would work he’d unleash the scent and see what happened.Either shifters clawed themselves to death or humans were broken by a failed shift, all because Brian wanted to ‘help’ us no longer be oppressed by humanity.”I shake my head.I never expected he’d become so obsessed with me that it would turn into this.
“So you smelled it too,” Gavin says to Ryder.
“Several times,” Ryder tells him.
Gavin furrows his brow.“But Hannah’s okay.Right?You didn’t bite her?”
“No,” Ryder says, looking at me.
“He fought it off.It was really intense, though.I didn’t know you were that strong,” I say to Ryder, and he blushes slightly.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Ryder says, and now I’m the one blushing.
My mother watches this exchange with amusement, but Gavin’s looking at both me and Ryder with a serious expression.I can’t figure out why.
“Really, I’m okay,” I say to Gavin.“No bites or anything.”
“But how did you…” Gavin begins but then trails off.“Ryder, I don’t think any shifter could have summoned up that kind of resistance, given how strong the scent was and how close it was to you.”
“It was bad,” Ryder allows.“But then I became aware of another scent and it, I don’t know, it cleared my mind.It made me unable to hurt Hannah.”
