by Paige Tyler
“Any idea what they’re talking about?” Brooks asked as they ran across the parking lot toward the building Selena’s classroom was in.
Ruben shook his head. “Those two muscle heads are parked in the hallway right outside her door, so I can’t get anywhere close to the classroom. And listening at the windows doesn’t work. But I think I heard him say something about her leaving with him.”
Brooks bit back a growl and moved faster. What the fuck? Ernesto thought Selena would go on the run with him? Was the man that frigging stupid?
“If you plan on storming in through the front door, don’t you think we should have a plan to deal with the guards Ernesto set in the hallway?” Zane asked. “If he hears us coming, it might provoke him into doing something stupid.”
Brooks slowed, knowing his friend was right. He needed to stop thinking like a freaked-out werewolf and start thinking like a SWAT cop.
“Can you distract them?” He glanced at Zane. “Get them out of the hallway? I’ll come in the far door of the building and go for the classroom while you deal with them.”
Zane looked at him dubiously. “The moment they see me in this uniform, they’re going to warn Ernesto or shoot, neither of which is really what we’re looking for.”
“I could distract them,” Ruben said. “Get them outside so you can deal with them.”
That was a horrible idea, and Brooks opened his mouth to tell him so, but then he heard a shout from inside the building. Selena screaming for Ernesto to stop lying. The raw anger and rage in her voice were enough to decide the matter.
“Go,” Brooks said. “Get those two gangbangers out of that hallway now.”
Then he was off and running for the far side of the building, his head imagining all kinds of horrible shit. Selena would never voluntarily go anywhere with Ernesto, even if he was a longtime friend. But if he had a gun…
Brooks heard the sounds of fighting on the other end of the building as he reached the door on his side. True to his word, Ruben had gotten the gangbangers out of the hallway. Brooks only hoped Zane was up to the challenge of quickly and silently dealing with two armed men.
But as he shoved open the door and raced for Selena’s classroom, he heard something that made him stop worrying about Zane and refocus on the more serious issue of stopping the woman he loved from doing something she’d regret for the rest of her life.
“I should just kill you. And do the world a favor.”
Cursing, Brooks opened the door and found Selena a foot away from Ernesto, her eyes vivid blue, her claws and fangs out, murder in her gaze.
“I really don’t think you want to do that, Selena,” Brooks whispered softly. He needed to pull her back from the edge—fast. “And I don’t want you to do it, either.”
Brooks ignored the terrified look Ernesto gave him, walking over to her even as she snarled at him. Like she was warning him away from her intended prey. He ignored that, too, only stopping once he was beside her.
“I’m here now, Selena,” he said softly. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
She didn’t even look his way, her gaze locked on the rapidly beating pulse throbbing visibly in Ernesto’s neck. Her fingers flexed, claws retracting and extending. No doubt, she was picturing what it would be like to rip out the man’s throat.
Brooks didn’t give a damn if she shredded Ernesto to pieces. After what he’d done to Ray, the guy was officially scum. But Selena would be devastated if the omega inside her ever killed someone, even if that someone deserved it. She simply wasn’t the kind of person who could deal with doing something like that.
“He killed my brother,” she whispered, still not looking away from Ernesto. “Because Geraldo wouldn’t let him bang his little sister. Ernesto shot him, then used his death to take over the gangs and turn them into his custom car empire.”
Ernesto shook his head, like he thought Brooks wasn’t going to believe what Selena said. This asshole was a grade A piece of shit. Brooks had never really liked the man from the moment he’d met him. But you don’t get to pick other people’s friends. You just have to deal with them.
Brooks ignored Ernesto and gently put a hand on Selena’s arm, making a soothing, shushing sound. “You need to let him go, Selena. He needs to be punished for what he’s done, but you don’t need to do it. He killed your brother, and he’ll pay for that. I promise. But killing him isn’t the answer.”
She continued to glare at her brother’s killer for so long, Brooks was afraid she hadn’t even heard him. But then she turned her gaze on him, blinking until the blue began to fade. The second she stepped back from Ernesto, the son of a bitch crawled away like the piece of crap he was.
Brooks pulled Selena into his arms, hugging her as she buried her face in his chest and cried. He wished he’d heard the entire story Ernesto had given her, because maybe that would have helped. But even without the full story, he knew Selena was going to need a lot of time to deal with it. She was completely wrecked.
Because he couldn’t do a damn thing about what was making her cry, he turned his attention to the problem he was going to have to fix, namely explaining what the hell had happened here. A broken window, a crying teacher, and a gangbanger ranting about monsters. This was going to be damn tough to cover up, but he was sure as hell going to try.
Brooks was so focused on Selena, he didn’t realize how far Ernesto had crawled until he heard a slight creaking sound and looked up in time to see the man pointing an automatic at them, already squeezing the trigger.
Brooks didn’t think. He just slung Selena around in a circle and tossed her behind him, then lunged toward Ernesto. The automatic went off before he got there, and he felt a punch as the first round took him in the shoulder and the second one got him in the gut.
It said something about how bad the hunter bullets had felt when he realized traditional 9mm ball rounds didn’t even feel like a bee sting in comparison. But still, getting shot and having another uniform messed up by the man who’d killed Selena’s brother was enough to piss anyone off.
He hit Ernesto hard, knocking the gun out of his hand and slamming him to the floor. On the way down, they toppled over one of those industrial metal trash cans, which made a shit ton of noise as pieces of glass large and small flew out.
They landed in the glass and fought for a dominant position. It should have been laughably easy for Brooks to slam the asshole through the floor, but it had been a shitty past few days, and he’d just been shot twice. Not to mention the fact that Ernesto was a big guy raised on the street and taught to fight since the day he was born.
They rolled back and forth in the broken glass, cutting the shit out of themselves, punching and shoving. Brooks could have finished this quickly if he’d wanted to, but he was still trying to take Ernesto down alive. For Selena’s sake.
He just about had the man pinned until Selena landed on top of them, growling, clawing, and biting like the out-of-control omega she was.
Brooks was trying to shove Selena aside without hurting her when Ernesto’s hand came up in a blur. That’s all he saw before a long shard of glass slammed into his throat and snapped off. The pain was intense, and blood went everywhere. But the worst part was that Selena completely lost her mind. She let out a snarl, not caring Ernesto had another piece of glass in his hands and was aiming for her neck this time.
Brooks forgot the pain and the blood pouring down his windpipe, which was choking the hell out of him, as he threw himself forward to protect Selena, lashing out with his claws and ripping out Ernesto’s throat.
Brooks turned and looked at Selena to see her growling and snarling as she stared down in blue-eyed rage at the man dying on the floor. Then a movement caught his eye, and Brooks glanced over to see a stunned and silent Ruben standing in the doorway, staring at a scene he couldn’t understand.
It didn’t help when Brooks stood up, a glass s
hard in his neck and bleeding like a stuck pig as he moved over to Selena to pull her into his arms and calm her down all over again. She continued to stare at Ernesto’s body but didn’t resist the comfort Brooks gave her while she sobbed like crazy.
Brooks looked past her to Ruben, who still stood there gawking like this was the most extreme thing he’d ever seen in his life, which it probably was. Damn, this was going to be difficult to explain.
Zane walked up behind Ruben a few seconds later. He looked like he’d been in a pretty good fight. He was holding his injured arm stiffly, like it was hurting him, but he had a satisfied look on his face that Brooks hadn’t seen in a long time. Maybe that fight with the two gangbangers had finally proved something to him.
His friend took one look at the scene and winced, then put a hand on Ruben’s shoulder.
“Come on, kid,” he said. “Let’s go talk about this.”
Brooks thanked him with a nod, then went back to comforting his mate. He tried to make the same shushing sounds as before, but his throat wouldn’t work. He pulled back a little from Selena, hoping she wouldn’t notice, and tried to get a grip on the piece of glass still sticking out of his throat.
He couldn’t do it without being able to see what he was doing. He tensed, knowing the wound would heal while the glass was still in there. He wondered if he needed to go get Zane when Selena realized what was going on. Reaching up, she gently tugged the shard out.
Brooks sighed in relief the moment it was out, wrapping his arm around her and urging her into the hallway where he hugged her to his chest again and let his body have time to heal itself.
After a moment, Selena pulled back to look up at him, her brown eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, because it was all he could do at the moment, asking her the same question with his eyes.
She glanced back at her classroom, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. But I’m not sure if I’m processing everything that happened. I just found out my brother didn’t die because he was in a gang. He died because he was trying to protect me from someone he thought wasn’t good enough for me. I also found out my best friend, the man I spent years leaning on, was the person who killed him. And now that Ernesto is dead, I don’t feel anything but relief.”
Brooks tried to say something, but the words still wouldn’t come out. Dammit. So instead, he hugged her again, trying to say everything he felt with nothing more than his touch.
“I love you,” she said against his chest. “I’ve known since we first met but couldn’t seem to find the time to tell you. It’s probably not the best time to say it now, but you came and saved my life…again. The least I can do is muster the courage to tell you how I feel.”
Brooks swallowed experimentally, relieved it didn’t feel nearly as painful now. “I’ll always be there to save you,” he whispered in a rough voice. “I love you, too.”
Selena leaned against him, squeezing him tightly. “I know, and it feels really good.”
They stood there like that until Brooks heard the sounds of approaching sirens. No doubt Selena heard them, too.
“We need to figure out what we’re going to say to them,” he whispered. “But once this is over and we’re home, I’m going to tell you about the werewolf legend of The One. Okay?”
She smiled up at him. “You get me home before midnight, and you can tell me any legend you want.”
Chapter 21
“You sure you don’t need some help with the cooking?” Jayden asked, even though Selena knew it was a waste of time. She’d only known Zane for two weeks, but she’d already picked up on the fact that he was one stubborn Brit.
“No, I don’t need help,” Zane growled, managing the thirty or so burgers on the grill with only his right arm, the other still a little sore from the fight he’d gotten in last Sunday. “The food is almost ready, so go play volleyball with the others. Or go pet Tuffie and Kat if you want. Just go away and stop distracting me.”
Jayden looked like he was about to insist, so Selena hooked her arm in his and dragged him away from the line of grills and tables groaning under the weight of all the food that had already been set out and closer to the volleyball courts and the people playing and laughing over there. Jayden had said it himself the other day. Zane was doing a lot better now. His arm still wasn’t working, but he’d had some kind of epiphany during the fight at the high school. It was like he’d concluded his injury wasn’t going to define him. It was one of the reasons he’d volunteered to cook today.
They stopped by the sand-filled volleyball pit, watching the combination of kids, teens, and adults run around trying to smash a poor little ball that had never done a thing to them. Ruben and Marguerite were out there giggling their heads off with a bunch of younger kids as the adult members of the Pack let them play the game any way they wanted, even if that meant kicking the ball, which Selena was pretty sure wasn’t in the formal rule book.
Scott, Becca, and Marguerite’s parents were chatting with a small pack of beta werewolves on the sideline of the game. Becca had spent a good portion of the day looking around curiously, no doubt trying to figure out which people were werewolves and which ones weren’t. Every once in a while, her friend would subtly point in someone’s direction, silently lifting an eyebrow. Selena would only laugh and refuse to indicate one way or the other.
While the weather was chilly today, the SWAT compound was packed with people having an incredibly good time, even though it wasn’t hard at all to find signs of the recent battle there. New bricks had been laid along the front of the armory, and nearly all the various bullet holes in the admin building had been patched. But there were still a lot of scorch marks all over the place, because it was apparently too cold right now to paint. Nobody seemed to care about any of that, though. If she had to guess, she’d say it was because the damage was a reminder to everyone that they’d won. It hadn’t been a pretty win, with everything tied up in a nice pretty bow, but everyone was safe and unharmed. They’d confirmed the wolfsbane vaccination worked, there were a lot less hunters in the world than there had been before, and while no one had found Curtis yet, they would soon. His face was plastered over every news outlet and social media platform in the world.
Even Jayden’s friend, Ray, was doing fantastic. He’d wanted to come to the cookout, but his doctor shut that idea down. Now that Deputy Chief Mason was acting chief of police, Ray wouldn’t be retiring anytime soon, something that pleased Jayden immensely.
“Food’s ready, people!” Zane called out.
The game ceased immediately, and everyone ran for the tables to grab something to eat. Plates piled high, they disappeared inside the training building where tables and chairs had been set up. Selena waved and hugged people as they passed, still working hard to learn everyone’s name. She and Jayden ended up at a table with Gage, Mac, Zane, and some of the other Pack werewolves.
“Is everything getting back to normal in your classroom?” Mac asked as she loaded her fork with barbecue chicken.
“Pretty much.” Selena had been planning to go with a single cheeseburger, but when she’d seen the fish and chips—Zane’s specialty—she couldn’t help grabbing those, too. Her appetite was crazy since she’d become a werewolf. “Some of the kids are still having a hard time walking into a classroom where there’s been a shooting, but the counselors are helping with that.”
She didn’t mention the part about how some things were much easier now than they’d been before. Gang activity was at an all-time low at the school, now that so many gangbangers were dead or in prison. Then there was the matter of her reputation. After word had gotten out about her beating up those gangbangers at that party and how she’d faced down Ernesto, classroom management wasn’t an issue for her anymore. Nobody wanted to get on her bad side.
“How about with you?” Gage’s dark-haired wife prompted gently. “You doing okay walking
into that room?”
A big, strong arm slipped around her, and she looked over at Jayden to see him regarding her warmly. They’d had this same talk earlier in the week when she’d stayed over at his place, which she did every night now. He’d been worried about how she was handling Ernesto’s death.
“That’s a work in progress, too, but it’s going well,” she admitted. “Cooper introduced me to a friend of his—Dr. Delacroix—and I’ve been talking it over with her. I guess I had a lot of anger issues tied up along with my brother’s death. Finding out how he died and that the person responsible for it is dead, too, seems to have helped me. As hard as that is to understand.”
Mac shook her head. “It’s not that hard to understand at all.”
In a way, letting go of all that anger was helping her control the omega wolf, too. Her eyes had even glowed green for the first time last night when she and Jayden had made love.
“Did anyone have a problem with the story you gave about how Ernesto died?” Diego asked from the end of the table, his voice soft so no one around them would hear. Well, no one who wasn’t a werewolf at least.
“I said his throat got slashed with some broken glass during the fight,” Jayden said. “I’m not sure the ME bought it, but no one tried to second-guess us.”
As they ate, the conversation centered around more family-friendly topics, like how well Tuffie and Kat got along, or how cool it had been for the Ritz to offer Lana and Max a free suite there this weekend since their previous plans had been ruined by the hunters. The newlyweds were headed there right after the cookout.
“Still no word on where the hell Curtis disappeared to?” Jayden asked. “It’s hard to believe no one has seen him yet. The guy isn’t that good at blending into a crowd. I thought they’d catch him by now.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Gage said, grabbing a handful of fries from his plate. “I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want to get any hopes up, but in addition to cloning the SIM card on Curtis’s cell, Becker also installed a parental snooping app. We hadn’t gotten anything out of it since Curtis disappeared, but it popped up this morning long enough for our former chief to send and receive a text message. The phone disappeared again immediately after that, but Becker was able to grab the phone’s location and the two texts. Curtis was arranging a meeting location.”