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“We had to sew it,” Adela says. “He would have bled out otherwise.”

They must have done it soon after I’d left because if I’d known just how bad the wound was, I’m not sure I would have left.

Chris had claw marks lacerating his chest. When I pull the sheets down, there are scabbed over and healing scars, a sign they are well on their way to healing, but it’s clear what had caused those scars.

A wolf.

Human skin does not stand a chance against wolf claws.

“He shoved me out of the way.” Zoe’s voice is still quiet and her fingers spasm around Chris’s slack hand. “I don’t know how he heard them before me, but he was so focused on protecting me, he didn’t protect himself.”

My eyes return to Chris’s chest.

For a shifter to bleed out from a wound is rare. If Helena and Adela hadn’t thought to sew his throat wound closed to give his natural shifter healing ability time to work, he would have died.

“Why do this?” Clary’s voice comes from behind me.

I don’t turn to him as I speak. “Set enough small fires and they form a big enough distraction that you can grab the thing you came here to grab. They came here for Aerin, but Aerin was never alone, so they had to remove as many obstacles blocking them from her as possible.”

Half the pack was dealing with the wolf at the hotel. I don’t believe the scratches we’d found there were a wolf trying to claim my territory the way I’d thought before. The scratches were an attempt to throw us off the scent.

When we were at the hotel, they attacked Zoe and Chris, which they knew would mean more of the pack would need to get to them. And the fire in the den. Another distraction so Shane could get Aerin away with less chance of being immediately followed.

“When are you going after her?” Adela asks quietly.

“As soon as I know where to look.”

“Good.” Adela nods. “And Mack?”

“Yes?”

Her gaze sharpens. “Try not to leave too many alive, hmm?”

It’s easy to forget sometimes that Adela is a shifter. She was a nurse. She’s maternal, a carer and a protector. But someone just attacked and nearly killed Chris. She has as much of a predator in her as the rest of us do.

“I won’t.”

3

AERIN

My dad used to tell me Michigan was famous for two things: the Great Lakes, which I’d always wanted to see, and the Raleigh Pack slaughter, which is why I never wanted to visit.

Regular humans might view the place differently, but to a shifter, I feel a cold chill of foreboding to be in a place where so many shifters died.

And it seems like that is exactly where we are going.

Karson, a small town in Michigan, has been coming up with increasing regularity on highway turnings. Every time Shane has changed lanes, it’s been towards it. I can’t imagine why he would want to take me to a place where a pack literally tore itself apart, but it’s apparent that’s exactly where we’re headed.

I need the bathroom.

Again.

Because when Thumper isn’t kicking my insides with increasing regularity, she’s stamping on my bladder. I’ve kept quiet about those urges as much as I could. Asking Shane for anything is like pulling teeth, but this constant need to use the bathroom is something I can’t ignore for long as desperately as I wish it was.

“I need the bathroom,” I reluctantly say.

Instantly, he slows the car down and glances at me. “You don’t have to be afraid to tell me what you need, Aerin.”

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