Page 46 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)

“Del Hughes?” I didn’t mind his interruption; he always asked what he called ‘clarifying questions,’ and his son did the same. They were practically the same person.

“Yes. We’ve been friends for a few years now. Anyway, I was out with her, and when I pulled onto my street on the way back, I saw Ryder snarling at Lisa—in his human form. He turned to leave, and she shoved herself between him and the living room, then threw herself at him and kissed her. I managed to hold my wolf back long enough to pull into my driveway and park before she attacked Lisa. Oscar—Ryder’s wolf—tried to help my wolf when he realized she wanted Lisa dead, but she pushed him away and claimed the kill herself. It was…” I shook my head, at a loss for words.

There wasn’t a way to describe the horror of the situation well enough. The blood, the sounds, the death… just thinking about it made me shudder.

And then feeling horny too just made me feel like absolute shit.

The main alpha dipped his head once. “Your neighbors give the same story, and so do the nearby security cameras. Lisa has been a werewolf for long enough that as far as I’m concerned, she knew exactly what she was doing when she cornered him like that. Any werewolf knows the potential outcome of attempting to claim someone else’s mate.”

I nodded. “And her parents?”

“I’ve been trying to track them down for the last two weeks, to see if we need to act like this is a human case or if we can proceed as we would with full werewolves.” He glanced at the cops on either side of the hall, though—the one who had opened my door, and one who had been standing near Ryder’s a few minutes earlier. “Though I have to apologize for the mistreatment you’ve received. I wasn’t aware they’d left you in the wolf cells in your human forms—or that you were in the middle of the climax.”

I jerked my head in a nod.

“How do you intend to compensate them for the stress of the past two weeks?” Vi pressed, speaking up and wearing her mama-bear expression. “They’ve been treated like fucking animals, just because the beasts within them followed their instincts in a shitty situation.”

The main alpha nodded at her. “It should’ve been dealt with differently, and I’ve already spoken to the head of the police to figure out what happened. It sounds like one of the men from Char’s old pack is a part of the force, and he thought the gesture would teach both her and her new mate a lesson. He’s been fired, and will be fined heavily. And as far as compensation goes, my mate and the other members of our pack are currently cleaning out Ryder’s home that had been signed over to Lisa. They’ll get it cleaned and repaired in any way necessary, and then they’ll make sure it sells for top dollar unless Ryder wants to move back into it.”

My eyebrows lifted.

I would definitely take that compensation.

As far as I knew, Ryder and Lisa had lived in that house for the entirety of the year he had been hunting her, so I would be shocked if he wanted to move back there. Hell, I’d be pissed too. And after her last possessive action, I didn’t want to know how my wolf would react to that.

“Sounds good,” I agreed, rather than voicing my overactive thoughts aloud.

EIGHTEEN

“Now, let’s free your mate.”The alpha turned, looking at one of the officers and gesturing toward the locked cell door. Ryder stepped back, and though his eyes were still red, no one commented on it. The cop unlocked the door, and as soon as he had stepped out of the way, Ryder crossed the distance between us in two massive steps and hauled me up off the bench, into his arms.

My legs wrapped around his back as his arms wrapped around my ass and lower back, holding me so tightly to his chest that I could barely breathe.

My eyes watered; I hadn’t realized how much I had missed him until my face was buried in his wild hair, and I was inhaling the scent of Ryder mixed with sweat and tinged with blood.

He was mine.

Fully.

Completely.

No fucking questions asked.

My wolf had proved that she would kill for him already, and I had absolutely no doubt that his would kill for me and her too.

Emotional closeness was probably a really damned long way off, but as far as commitment went, I had zero doubts.

“I can drive you home,” the main alpha told me.

He wouldn’t have offered that to many other people, but in his eyes, I was still his son’s pack member. And Zack wasn’t in Henry’s pack—Henry was the cop who had gotten me tossed in the wolf cell, and Zack was the alpha’s son.

“Their pack already brought Ryder’s motorcycle,” Vi said, without hesitation. She had no problem facing off against the main alpha, apparently.

“Elliot and Ford’s pack?” The alpha checked.

“You know they claimed Ryder as theirs ages ago, alpha,” Vi shot back.

Ryder started moving, but my legs were still around him and my face buried in his hair. When I started to lift it, to look around, he growled at me and pulled it back down. I was pretty sure he had wrapped one of his hands in my hair or something too; there was some kind of tension when I tilted my head.

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