Page 109 of Wolf's Endgame

“I’m right here,” I snapped. Drawing a breath, I looked at him. “Sorry.” He said nothing but continued to crush his herbs. I watched him in silence. I’d never asked him why he had let them go. He had given them a potion to mask their scent, and while I was grateful they had been undetected, I was still pissed that he hadn’t given them a potion to knock them on their asses and keep them in the safety of my pack.

“Your anger towards me is justified.”

My head jerked up and I looked at him. Had I spoken aloud?

“I can sense it,” he told me with a small smile. “I am Luna’s vessel.” He gave a sigh, placing his tools down. “As I have done with so many things, I followed the signs and never questioned. The belt buckle. The need to protect two young wolf cubs. Teaching a young wolf how to be an alpha in a pack that had a weak ruler. Leaving a potion for two strong-headed females who could cause trouble in an empty den.”

“You did it for Luna?”

If he could have, he would have rolled his eyes. “Everything I do, I do for the Goddess.”

“Why?”

He pointed at himself with a smirk. “Shaman.”

I actually chuckled at his attempt at a joke. “Why would Luna want them there? They were safe here.”

“Were they?” He shrugged. “Kris tells me not all of the Anterrio Pack have been recovered.” He picked his tools back up again. “Where are the others? The fighters? Only women and children remain in the pack we called home. Where are the soldiers, Alpha?”

I studied him for a long time. “How is Kris?”

“He healed quickly. Cass is more delicate. She maintains her own bedside vigil.”

I pressed my lips together to stop my sneer. Landon still suffered the ill effects of the silver. He was still unable to shift to heal. Kris had tried to will him to shift, but as he was not his recognized alpha, it hadn’t worked. Kris had tried to force him, but Landon had made such a fuss that Cass had begged her mate to stop. Even when he was incapacitated, Landon was an ungrateful prick.

Tapping my fingers off the armchair, I shook my head in defeat. “A vessel of Luna you may be, old one,” I said as I got to my feet. “You’re still a sneaky meddler.”

The shaman smiled widely. “I serve the packs.”

At the door, I hesitated. “If she…”

“When Kezia is ready, she will wake,” he told me solemnly.

“Will she?” I heard my doubt and I hated it.

“We have to believe that she will.”

Right. I left him to sit with her and walked down the hall, rapping my knuckles briefly against the door before opening it and seeing Kris and Cass both turn to look at me. Landon lay in a deep sleep; the shaman kept him drugged as his human form healed slowly.

“Kezia?” Kris was on his feet.

“No.” I glanced at Cass, but it was hard to look at her and not want to shake her. “Got a minute?”

Kris looked at his mate, dropped a kiss to her temple, and left the room with me. In the hallway, he looked at me with something akin to relief.

“Hard going?” I asked him quietly as we went downstairs.

Looking over his shoulder, he checked we were alone, and as the doors of the study closed, he let out a loud sigh. “I swear the fucker’s milking it.”

His frustration echoed my own, and it made me smile properly for the first time in weeks. “He’s a deceptive asshole. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Slumping into a chair, Kris looked up at me. “What do you need?”

“My mate awake and shooting off her smart mouth?”

He nodded sagely. “Never thought I’d want one of her eye rolls.”

We mulled in silence until I remembered what I’d dragged him away from the twins for. “The shaman tells me we’re missing some of the Anterrio Pack?”

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