by Sadie Moss
I took everything he offered, giving back as good as I got. The fear and nausea that had assaulted me moments before faded away, as though Rhys was my anchor, my shield from all the horrors in the world. As long as our lips were connected like this, our breath mingling and our hands twined in each other’s hair, nothing could hurt me.
When Rhys finally pulled back, we were both gasping for breath.
“Holy shit.” Jackson whistled from beside us. “That was hot.”
A laugh bubbled out of my mouth as my head spun. Rhys’s gaze met mine again, and the tears were gone from his mesmerizing blue eyes. In their place was adoration, devotion, and determination.
“Thank you, Alexis,” he whispered roughly. His thumbs swiped over my cheeks, brushing away the tears I hadn’t even known were still falling. “Fucking thank you.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead, holding them there for a moment. I had a feeling he didn’t want to stop touching me, and I certainly didn’t want him to. I could happily live in this space for the rest of my life, surrounded by my four bonded mates, sandwiched between Jackson and Noah while Rhys worshipped me with his body and soul.
I bit my lip when he leaned back. “Of course, Rhys. I wish I’d remembered it sooner. But don’t thank me yet. I just know what city she’s in. I don’t know where the facility is, I definitely don’t know how we’re going to get her out.”
“We’ll figure that part out. But knowing where she is makes it fucking possible.” He rose to his feet, a manic energy growing inside him as he did. I could feel it radiating out from him, as though the very atoms of his body had started moving faster. He shifted his gaze to the other men in the room. “We need to move soon. Find out where the complex is. Figure out a better plan for getting in and out. Gather weapons, gear—”
“Woah, woah!” Noah put his hands up in a T shape. “Hang on a second. We can’t go right now.”
“We have to! There’s no fucking time! We can’t wait. What if they move her again? What if—”
The blond shifter stood, standing in front of Rhys to stop his wild pacing. “I know. You don’t want to lose her again. I get that, Rhys, I do. We can start doing recon and making a plan right away. But we can’t go anywhere until Scrubs is in better shape. She still needs to heal—she can barely walk.”
“And I want to help,” I insisted.
I meant it. I wanted to be a part of this. Not just because it meant something to Rhys, but because I was determined not to be the weak link in the team anymore.
Still, a small part of me wondered if the guys would even want my help. I didn’t have nearly the same weapons or combat training they did, and although my wolf had single-handedly taken on four people in a speeding vehicle, she was also a total wildcard. I hadn’t meant to shift and had barely been able to shift back.
Rhys’s expression hardened, his fear at missing his last chance to save Sariah making anger rise in his features. His lips pulled back in a snarl, and he shook his head, shooting a glance my way.
I braced myself for what I had seen in his face so many times before: resentment and anger, frustration that I was holding them back.
But instead, the hard lines of his face softened when his gaze fell on me. He took a deep breath and blew it out, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, they were a little calmer. His clenched fists uncurled, and he slipped his hands into his pockets, dipping his chin in a small nod as he turned back to Noah.
“You’re right. We need to take care of Alexis. We’ll start planning now and be ready to go as soon as we know she’s okay.”
Warmth exploded in my chest, making it ache in the best way possible. I knew Rhys was one hundred percent devoted to those he loved. I’d seen it in him since the first day I met him, and even when the grumpy fucker had driven me up the wall, I had always loved how much he cared about the people in his inner circle.
And what he’d just told me, in not so many words, was that I was now a part of that circle. He would do whatever he could, even putting aside his own goals and plans, to make sure I was taken care of.
I tugged my bottom lip into my mouth, feeling new tears run down my face as I processed the enormity of that.
But worry niggled at my heart too, like a sharp spike driven into a tire, deflating my joy slightly.
If he lost Sariah again because we waited too long to act, I would never forgive myself.
Please, Sariah. Please be okay. We’re coming.
If I’d been antsy and impatient with my healing before, now that I knew all the men were waiting on me to go after Sariah, I was a positive wreck. The next several weeks were a constant battle between always wanting to do more and having to hold myself in check so I didn’t push too hard and set back the healing process.
Rest and time.
Molly reminded me over and over that those were the two things required for a complete recovery. That it was non-negotiable.
But we didn’t have time.
And the more I thought about how little time we had, the harder it was for me to rest.
The guys continued to be the best nurses I could’ve asked for, but the ban they’d instituted on taking things further physically seemed to still be in effect—not counting Rhys’s soul-stealing kiss. And although I knew it was probably for the best, my wolf didn’t seem to give a shit about that. Every time I was around any of the men, I could practically feel her scratching at the walls of my ribcage, whining for me to seal the connection with my four bond mates.
Despite her constant presence inside me, she didn’t truly feel like a part of me. More like an unruly guest who had set up camp in my soul and refused to respond to any of my commands, requests, or cajoling.
It made me feel nervous. As if I wasn’t truly a shifter—not the way the guys were. And I wasn’t sure how I could help them in a fight if I wasn’t able to shift on cue.
After two weeks, my stitches came out. And another month after that, Molly told me I was clear to get my cast off. She had a massive medical supply kit—she’d mentioned that she used her nurse training to treat friends of Carl’s who were injured in the line of work, and apparently it happened often enough that she kept her supplies well stocked.
I sat propped up in the bed in the guest room as Molly used a small cutting tool to remove the cast. It made a loud buzzing noise that grated on my ears, and I closed my eyes, turning my head away.
The hard pieces finally fell away from my arm, and I peeked at the newly exposed limb. It looked pale and thin.
Molly set aside the cast and started taking my arm through the series of gentle stretches and movements. As she worked, she shot me a look out of the corner of her eye, curiosity burning in her gaze.
“Okay, I gotta ask. I’ve tried to be good and mind my own business, but what can I say? I’m a nosy bitch at heart. What’s going on with you and the four horsemen?”
My muscles tensed involuntarily, and she almost lost her grip on my arm. I glanced at her, wishing I could push down the blood coloring my cheeks.
But I couldn’t, of course, and it totally gave me away.
Her eyebrows shot up. “So I’m not crazy! You and… all four of them?”
I chewed on my lower lip. “It’s—it’s complicated.”
She laughed, the sweet sound filling the quiet room. “You can say that again. Shit, I can barely handle one. Four?”
My flush deepened, and I looked away, examining the bedspread beneath me with a sudden intense interest. Jesus. She probably thought I was some kind of nymphomaniac when the honest truth was, I was still a fucking virgin.
A virgin who just happened to be part wolf and was mate bonded to four men.
But I couldn’t tell her any of that. I couldn’t explain any of this.
“Oh, hey.” Her cool fingers tipped my chin to make me look at her. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Alexis. I’ve had enough people judge my relationship, I’d never do that to someone else. Hell, half my friends stopped talking to me when I got serio
She laughed softly, sadness reflecting in her kind blue-green eyes, before continuing.
“But you know what? Love doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about who or how many. It just is. And when you love someone with your whole heart, and they love you back the same way… that makes you perfect for each other, no matter what anyone else thinks. Because you’d do anything for each other, and that makes you both better.”
Tears pricked my eyes as I thought about the four pack mates I’d fallen in love with. What they’d already done for me, and what I would do for them without question or thought.
“I didn’t see it coming,” I admitted. “It happened slowly, and then all at once. But they mean more to me than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“I’d say the feeling is certainly mutual.” She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears and resuming her manipulation of my arm. “I’ve known the four horsemen for years, and I’ve never seen any of them look at a woman the way they look at you.”
“Really?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “One hundred percent.” Then she sighed. “Sorry. I really shouldn’t have pried. It’s just, sometimes, being in a room with all five of you—good lord, the sexual tension is so thick you could slice it up and serve it on toast.”
I blushed. Shit. We were that obvious?
“It’s okay,” I assured her, trying to keep my voice from squeaking. “You’re not wrong about any of it. It’s just new to me. I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
A chuckle fell from her lips as she pressed her palm to mine, exerting gentle pressure to make me push back. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. I never would’ve chosen to love Carl—on paper, we make no sense. But I do love him. I love the fuck out of him, and now that I know what my life is like with him in it? I wouldn’t go back and change a single damn thing, even if I could.”
We lapsed into a comfortable silence, but her words played over and over in my head.
I hadn’t planned on any of this. And if someone had given me a choice at the beginning, I probably would’ve said no to all of it. But now that I found myself here, mated to four men, I realized Molly was right.
Even if I could go back and change things, I wouldn’t want to.
If I’d woken up that first day in her house, and my wolf had mate bonded to just one of the guys, I would’ve been devastated. Because as complicated as things felt right now, the truth was, I didn’t want to choose between them.
I couldn’t choose.
Molly did a few more stretches on my arm, nodding in satisfaction. “This is looking great. Considering the severity of the break, you healed up insanely quickly. You’re lucky.”
Did that have something to do with my altered DNA? Did my shifter abilities speed up the healing process somehow? I wished I could ask her, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to my unnaturally fast recovery.
And as memories of how I’d sustained my injuries flashed through my head, I shivered. “Lucky? I don’t know about that.”
She arched a brow. “Well, lucky is relative. It was unlucky this happened to you at all, but given that it did, your recovery has been stellar.”
“So I’ll be good to go soon?” I asked hopefully.
Rhys had been amazingly patient over the past several weeks—on the outside, at least. But I could feel the tension radiating from him no matter how much he tried to hide it. The guys had spent every minute they weren’t with me searching for information about the Strand complex in Salt Lake City, but so far, they hadn’t found anything. The organization was so clandestine that there was no record of any such facility in Salt Lake.
“Yeah. Should be.”
She massaged my arm gently, making the unused muscles tingle. It felt a little uncomfortable, and my limb prickled as if it’d been asleep. As she worked, she hummed softly under her breath. It was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it at first, but the sound slowly filtered into my ears.
When it did, my heart skipped a beat.
I knew this tune. It was the same lullaby the woman pretending to be my mother had sung to me whenever I felt low. It was a popular song; I’d heard it once or twice in movies or TV shows.
But I’d never heard anyone but my mother sing it in person.
It was our song.
A flood of emotions washed over me as Molly’s voice strengthened, growing a little louder.
Guilt. Regret. Anger.
My wolf howled in my mind, pacing and whining inside me like a wild thing. She sensed danger, a threat, but she didn’t know where it was coming from.
Molly stood up from the bed, pulling on my arm to bring me with her. I tugged back, resisting the pull out of instinct.
No! I can’t let her take me. I can’t let her kill me.
Jumbled, terrified thoughts raced through my mind, my breath coming faster as reason abandoned me. My body began to shake, and I stared into Molly’s wide eyes without really seeing her.
All I could see was my mother.
And red.
With a loud crack, my bones began to break, sending pain tearing through my body. Molly gasped and fell back as my muscles rippled under my skin, my terrified wolf forcing her way out. Fur sprouted all over me, and the world took on a strange appearance through my new eyes. Everything was in too-clear focus, the sights and sounds too intense.
I crouched on my haunches, my huge form dominating the bed as a warning growl fell from my throat.
The woman in front of me screamed.
The sound was pure shock and terror, and it pricked my ears and made my fur stand on end. I couldn’t remember any longer if she was friend or foe, but I knew prey when I saw it.
Leaping off the bed, I prowled toward her, the low growl still rumbling through my body. She screamed again and threw herself backward, almost tripping in her haste before slamming into the wall and pressing her back up against it, as if she could somehow pass right through it.
“Molly? Molly!”
A man with slicked-back black hair burst into the room, panic in his voice. My mates followed him, stopping dead when they took in the scene before them.
“Oh shit,” Jackson muttered.
“What the fuck?” The man’s eyes went wide.
The woman’s gaze darted to him. “Carl!”
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
He started toward me, a fierce, protective look in his eyes.
Without even thinking, I swung around to face the new threat, my legs tensing as I prepared to lunge for his throat.
Chapter Ten
“Alexis, no!”
West’s shout was a booming command, and I hesitated for a second, adrenaline and a predator’s instincts urging me on. Urging me to attack. To strike first.
I bared my teeth again, but before I could strike, Noah and Jackson shifted. Their clothes ripped away from their bodies as they changed, and two large white wolves appeared, leaping forward to block my way.
Mine.
The recognition of my mates was even stronger in this form, and my wolf stilled, cocking her head to stare at them. Their presence comforted me, made it possible for the human side of my brain to rise to the surface and fight back the dominating presence of the wolf.
“What the ever-loving fuck?”
The man—Carl—tried to lunge forward again, but Rhys and West grabbed his arms, holding him back while Jackson and Noah approached me. Behind me, I could hear the woman—Molly—sucking in shaky breaths.
My wolf mates circled around me, nuzzling their noses into my fur, sniffing and huffing. I could smell them too, far better than I ever had in human form; their scents were comforting and distinctive, calming me further. My ears still twitched back and forth, searching for threats, but my hackles went down as the panic that had driven me to attack faded.
Jackson whined, licking my face. I was a full head taller than him in this form, a reversal that would’ve struck me as funny if I wasn’t so terrified.
“Lexi.” Rhys’s gruff voice was steady, his bright blue eyes trained on me. “You need to shift back. Can you do that?”
My wolf tensed, hackles going up again. She didn’t want to relinquish control.
“Fuck. She’s too far gone.” West shook his head. “We need to help her shift before she gets lost completely.”
They both kept an iron grip on Carl’s shoulders. The sharp-faced man had stopped yelling, but fear and distrust coated his features as his gaze darted between us.
“What… the hell… is going on?” Molly’s words were halting and soft, and when I swung my head back to look at her, she sucked in a breath and pressed herself harder against the wall.
Like I was a monster.
A beast.
I growled, a sick feeling churning my stomach. The human side of me wrestled for control with my wolf, but it felt almost exactly like it would if we fought in real life. My wolf was huge and powerful, and I was small and puny; I could feel myself losing ground with each breath. I wasn’t strong enough.
“Lexi. Look at Noah. Look into his eyes,” Rhys said, as Noah’s white wolf came stand in front of me.
His lupine eyes were the same soft gray-blue as they were when he was human, and the sight of them soothed me. Intelligence and kindness sparked in their depths, and I could feel the human looking out at me. I latched onto that, using his humanity to help me dredge up my own.
“That’s good. That’s very good. Stay with him. He’s your mate, and he’s here with you. We all are.” Rhys kept talking, his deep voice pouring into my ears. “He’s going to shift back. Follow him. Come with him.”
“Come back to us, Scrubs,” West whispered, so low I almost didn’t hear him.
Keeping his gaze trained on mine, Noah began to shift back. I could sense Jackson doing the same, although I kept my eyes locked firmly on Noah, letting myself be drawn into his cloud-gray irises. His shape and visage changed as the shift worked its way through his body. I pushed to stay with him, allowing myself to feel the full force of the connection that existed between us.
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