Page 58 of In Your Eyes
Incredibly, Dirk solved my problem by returning. I scented two other males with him.
“He’s over here,” he said. “Goodwin’s son is there too. He’s in his wolf skin and he’s huge, so you better shift.”
If I had been able to do it in that form, I would have laughed at Dirk’s stupidity. Instead, I licked Korban’s neck one more time and then rose to my feet and stood over him.
Two brown wolves trotted between the trees and approached me, their lips curled, teeth bared. I didn’t know who they were, but I recognized their scents. They had been two of Dirk’s witnesses during the challenge against my father. I wondered how deeply the conspiracy to kill him had been.
These two shifters had followed Dirk’s direction without question, come onto Yafenack land uninvited, and knowingly approached the Alpha with malicious intent. If they were willing to violate our customs and rules with such ease, I strongly suspected they been involved in or at least aware of Dirk’s plan to poison my father. Killing them would be a joy.
Wanting to make sure I had all my targets in one place, I waited until I caught sight of Dirk, still in his human form. Then I aimed for the nearest wolf, landed on his back and buried my canines in his neck. A sharp turn of my head was all it took to snap his neck.
His death was so fast, the other wolf didn’t realize it had happened until I was inches from him. He jumped, possibly trying to tackle me, but I swiped my claws at him, dug them into his belly and yanked down until his guts spilled out. With three enemies defeated, I had only one more shifter to kill.
Raising my head, I landed my gaze on Dirk Keller. He stood rooted to the ground a dozen feet away from me, his face pale, mouth hanging open, and eyes wide. I stalked him, careful to watch for any twitch of his muscles that would indicate an intent to run in a certain direction. But he didn’t move, didn’t speak, and looked almost like he wasn’t breathing. The scent of urine hit my nose, and I saw wetness seep into his pants.
In the end, it was disappointingly anticlimactic, like killing a sheep who was too petrified to run from a predator. I jumped, landed both front legs on his chest, and pushed him to the ground. Then I buried my teeth in his throat and shook my head, sending blood splattering along the brush, trees, and soil. When all the life had seeped from his body, I released him and trotted over to my mate.
Korban was still unconscious, so I shifted into my human form, squatted next to him, and scooped him into my arms. He shifted too.
“Samuel?” he said weakly.
“Yes, it’s me.” I held him close to my chest as I stood up. “Don’t worry. Nobody will hurt you now. You’re safe.”
He crinkled his nose. “I smell blood.” His eyes flew open, the blue gaze immediately washing peace over me. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s not mine.” Which was something he normally would have known based on scent alone, so the question worried me.
I dipped my face and bussed my lips over the deep purple mark on his forehead. “That bruise looks really bad. I’ll get you home and then call the pack healer.”
Without argument, he snuggled into my arms and tucked his head under my chin. “You were right about my father. It was exactly like you said—he was waiting for my body to be delivered so there would be no one left with a claim to be Alpha. He honestly thought the pack members would be so relieved he was healed they’d turn a blind eye to him leading the pack under his brother’s name.”
“And when he realized that wasn’t going to happen, he came to take you?”
“He didn’t want me speaking to the pack tomorrow night and exercising my claim. So he sent my uncle to your front door.” Korban sighed. “I was so stupid. Dennis said he wanted to talk to be me about what we told him. I invited him in, but he said he couldn’t enter another Alpha’s home without his permission. I didn’t want to argue about the fact that he wasn’t an Alpha and that, as your mate, I hadevery right to invite him in, so instead, I let him have his way and stepped outside to talk.”
“But instead of talking, he attacked you?”
“Yes. He hit me in the head with something.” He paused and knitted his eyebrows together. “A rock, I think. Everything went black, and the next thing I knew, we were in the forest and my father was there. I called for you in my head and tried to talk sense into them. When that didn’t work, I shifted into my wolf, called you again, and did my best to fight him off. I think I got a few good bites on his leg, but I wasn’t steady on my feet, and then Dennis hit my head again.”
“They can’t hurt you anymore.” I curled my arms, holding him tighter. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner,” I said regretfully. “You must have been so scared.”
“I was a little, but I knew you’d come for me. I even told my father and my uncle I’d called for you through our mental link, but they thought I was lying.” Korban raised his blue-eyed gaze to meet mine. “They refused to believe we could be true mates, and in the end that killed them.”
Though I was glad to hear his senses were still sharp enough to have identified his father’s and uncle’s blood, I was worried how he’d feel about their deaths and my role in them.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help,” he said as he patted my chest. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
Did that mean he understood? “I killed them,” I confessed. “Dirk and Dennis both. And two other Miancarem shifters.” I swallowed hard. I wouldn’t say I was sorry, because that wasn’t true. My only regret was that what I’d done would upset Korban. “I know they were your family, your pack, but—”
“No.” He nuzzled my throat. “You’re my family. Not them, not the Miancarem pack.” He lifted his head and licked my lips. “You.”
Chapter 18
WHILETHEhealer examined my mate in the family room, I washed off the dirt and blood from the fight and then closed myself in the study and contacted the interpack council. Though their role in day-to-day pack dealings was normally rare, I was close to putting them on speed dial. But it couldn’t be avoided.
The bodies of four Miancarem pack members, one of them the former Alpha and the other the man who claimed to be replacing him, were on my pack lands. They had come in uninvited, invaded my territory, and taken my mate against his will. I would have been well within my rights to kill them for any of those violations, let alone the lot of them. But having the right to do it didn’t change the potential unrest it could cause to the Miancarem pack, especially on the tail end of all the other drama Dirk had initiated. So I called the council yet again and filled them in on what had happened.
“Alpha,” Joy Griffin, the pack healer, said as she knocked on the study door.
