Page 3 of Pack Rage
For a moment, nobody said anything. Leroy and Bo were ahead of us, Glen behind, but everyone went still when I let out a screech. “Brand Becker, youdidn’t.”
He refused to look down at me. I kicked him in the shin.
“Ow!”
Dean let out a laugh. “Good. I was gonna have to kick his ass if you didn’t.”
“I didn’t kick hisass.”
Glen snorted. “You would have if your leg went that high,” he teased, then ducked out of the way as I aimed a donkey kick at his balls. I didn’t need to be tall to take down a male.
“He needs his ass kicked if he did what I think Dean’s saying.” I turned my attention back to Dean. “Please tell me he had a parachute.”
He shrugged. “You’d smell the lie.”
I rubbed my forehead, a headache coming on fast. “How many bones did you break when you jumped out of a moving airplane, Bearman? How are you even alive?”
“I had to get to you, my love. I couldn’t wait.” His reply was immediate and raw. Filled with stark emotions that took me back to where I’d been the day before. Terrified that I would never see him again. Wishing I’d been able to tell him, one more time, what he meant to me.
I sighed, and finally said, “You healed up pretty fast.” I took his hand in mine and squeezed once, sending my love through the bond.
He squeezed back, gently. “I’m the Alpha.”
“A hell of an Alpha,” Dean said as we approached the fence. “Even his dad would have taken at least a week to hea… What in thehell?” He stopped, staring in disgust at the pink piles of guts and body parts on the ground just inside the fence. Bo and Leroy held the hole in the fence open, and Glen, Brand, and I stepped through. Dean followed hesitantly behind, tiptoeing around the piles of magically preserved entrails.“What are they?” he muttered, as he took in the scene.
“Ah, they’re my courting gifts,” I began, but Bo and Leroy cut me off, practically falling over themselves to explain.
“It’s the work of the Flower Arranger, see? He took all of Miss Florida’s enemies?—”
“Not us, we was kids when we hunted her, right? We never meant her no harm, we weren’t even gonna mate her, all we wanted was the prize, the food rations for bein’ a mated pair?—”
Leroy shoved his friend over. “Shut up, Bo! Like I was saying, the Flower Arranger hunted down ever’ one of her enemies, and made flowers out of their guts, and even fingers, see?” He’d fallen over the pile that had Lyndal’s fingers spelling my name. The fingers hadn’t moved, and Leroy ran his own hand over them, sounding it out. “Flor, right? That’s the kind of courtin’ a woman like her needs.”
“That better have been a compliment,” I snarled, my face burning as Dean stared at me like I was some sort of space alien.
“Oh, it was. Any female like you, a bona fide homicidal ninja, who can get shot a thousand times and walk away?—”
Bo gasped. “Who’s fireproof! And faster than lightning. I heard from the girls that Miss Florida can move faster than any shifter born?—”
Leroy cut him off. “Andshe’s an Alpha Mate seven times over.”
“Seven times? Something you want to tell us?” Glen managed to ask through a clenched jaw. Shooting him a death glare, I swiped out at him with a fist. He tripped over one of the arrangements and fell on his ass in the middle of what used to be Lyndal Fentress.
“You idiots better shut them up before I do. Permanently,” I growled at the three fully-grown shifters, two of whom were red-faced and wheezing with laughter. Only Brand had managed not to lose it completely, but I could feel his humor in the bond.
None of them said a word. Well, Leroy and Bo did, but in whispers. They went on and on, making up wild stories about me under their breath, and the others kept on listening, breaking out into quiet chuckles.
“I give up. I’ll see you fuckers at the dining hall.”I broke into a jog and went in the back door to the kitchens, steeling myself for the flood of memories I thought might overwhelm me. But the kitchen was buzzing, filled with men and women, working together to cook what looked like a massive dinner. The scent of garlic, simmering meat, and melted cheese filled the air.
One of the women I’d helped escape the dorms, Deb, stood in the middle of it all with her back to me, wearing a white apron and holding a wooden spoon that was as much a threat as any knife. “Stop tasting the sauce, William Robert Spinnaker. None of the rest of us want your spit in our dinner.”
“Yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef,” a narrow-shouldered man called back, his cheese-sauce-splattered face turning even redder when he saw me. “Chef. Chef, it’s her.”
Deb turned. “Flor!”
The kitchen went silent, except for the bubble of cooking sauce, the sound of a mixer running on a counter, and the breathing of a half-dozen shifters. Well, a couple of them were holding their breath. Rogue males, looking like they might freak out and shift. Or… holy shit,surroundme. Were they going to attack?
Deb moved up alongside one and laid her hand on the back of his arm. “It’s okay, Caleb. She’s a friend.” She offered me a half smile, which I returned shakily. “She’s pack. She’s our pack protector.”
