Page 171 of Secret Shifters Next Door

The man couldn’t be allowed to live. It was something I’d come to terms with days ago. Now that the moment had come, I was surprised that I felt no hesitation, no qualms about it. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” I asked.

Ryland struggled to his feet. His hand hung limply, almost totally severed by Blayne’s jaws. Blood spurted onto his shirt. He shook his head. “Even in death, another is already on his way. Where I failed, another will succeed.”

The look of conviction on his face, the lack of regret or empathy toward the ones he’d killed, was all that I needed. I screamed, bellowing a call of retribution and justice as I swung my arm toward his chest. Allowing my arm to shift, I slammed the massive grizzly paw and claws into Ryland’s torso. The claws pierced his body, and the power of the swing shattered his ribs and sent him flying into the cinderblock wall behind him.

He hit the wall, cracking it and sliding to the ground. The look of surprise on his face would have made me laugh if it hadn’t been so awful. Ryland lay in a broken bloody heap on the floor. He somehow still had the strength to look up at me and smile. He actually smiled through the agony of death. Blood poured from his lips as he spoke his last words. “Mark… your days… they… are your… last.” Without another word, his head slumped to the side, and he gazed at me with cold, lifeless eyes.

I didn’t take the time to contemplate what I’d done. I left his body lying there and ran to April. She was on her knees, crying and hugging herself. I scooped her up and began to run. Blayne jogged behind me. We sprinted back toward the truck, and Tateflew above us, landing and shifting in the parking lot where we’d left the vehicle.

Tate held up the box. “Now?”

I nodded. “The other hunters? Are they still in there?”

He shook his head. “I flew over and it looked like they all came to and got the hell out of dodge.”

Blayne said. “Even if not, some people are too dangerous to be left alive.”

I nodded at Tate. He clicked the button on top of the box. A half-second later, the night was ripped apart by the explosion. A mushroom cloud of fire and smoke rose into the air where the warehouse had been seconds before.

“Holy shit,” Blayne said. “Overkill much? That were enough explosives to blow a building three times that size.”

“Steff, oh, God.” April was gripping and yanking on my shirt. “Kellan. Ryland blackmailed him. Made him help the hunters. Ryland was going to kill Aiden if he didn’t help.” She buried her face in my chest and sobbed.

I ran my fingers through her hair. “I know. I know. Kellan told me.”

Her head jerked up, and she looked at me in surprise. “What do you mean? He’s dead, Steff.” Her face crumpled into tears again. “My brother is dead. When did he tell you?”

“He’s not dead. At least, he wasn’t when the ambulance took him. We found the van and got him help. All he cared about was keeping you safe. He told us about the watch. That’s how we found you so fast.”

She looked at me, her face frozen in disbelief. When she saw that I was telling the truth, the relief on her face was like nothing I’d seen before. She collapsed against me. This time the sobs were of comfort and happiness instead of sadness and terror. In the distance, the first siren wails were audible. I nodded to Tateand Blayne, and without speaking, we all climbed into the truck and headed back to Lilly Valley.

THIRTY-FIVE

APRIL

He was alive. Kellan was alive. That was all that mattered to me. It had been three days since Steff and the others rescued me, and Kellan was still alive. The doctors let us know that things had been touch and go the first few hours. They hadn’t been confident enough to give us any promises. He’d lost so much blood that he’d flatlined three times in the ER.

He was stable now after three transfusions, and it looked like he might pull through. Even three days later, he continued to slip in and out of consciousness. The third time he came around, Aiden had been there. Mom and Dad and I had basically been living at the hospital. When Kellan saw his son, even in his drugged and broken state, his eyes filled with tears. Aiden slipped his hand into his father’s palm, and Kellan took a deep breath and fell back asleep without ever uttering a word. But a contented smile stayed on his lips as he slept. His boy was safe. That was all that seemed to matter to him.

The story that the cops and the media were running with was that Ryland had been a stalker. He’d killed Heathrow Burns and maimed Luca as some twisted way of trying to get me to love him. Miles got the shifter file out of the safe, but had left behind a ton of other stuff he’d found. The cops had gone back in andretrieved that. There’d been tons of evidence linking him to the two crimes, including videos of the murder and Luca’s torture.

It was reported that he’d tried to kidnap me, and Kellan had been shot attempting to protect me. The media painted Ryland as a monster. Too bad they’d never know how much of a monster he really was. Larry did multiple interviews, informing the world that the distressing events of the past several weeks had pushed me to enter into early retirement. He let everyone know that I was going to live a quiet life surrounded by family and friends and to please give me time to recover and heal. We all hoped it was believable. So far it looked like everyone bought the whole story. It helped that Ryland actually had done 99 percent of the things he’d been accused of.

On the fourth day Kellan was in the hospital, I woke up to Dad shaking me awake. I’d fallen asleep in the little recliner they had in Kellan’s room. He gave me a worried look. I must have looked exhausted.

“Baby, you need to go home and rest.Reallyrest. Get a good night’s sleep in your own bed.”

I brushed the idea off, but he insisted. He went so far as to use his dad-voice, which somehow still seemed to work on me even though I was an adult. Once my mother came in and got involved, I finally agreed. Steff was there when I made it home, and I collapsed into his arms. He’d given me the space to be with Kellan and helped watch Aiden while the rest of the family took shifts at the hospital. He’d done a great job, and I wasn’t sure I could ever thank him enough.

Even when I got home and climbed into bed, it took a while to drift off. Every time I closed my eyes, my brain was flooded with nightmares of all the awful things that had happened. Heathrow Burns’ dead body, Luca’s severed tongue, the bloodied body of my brother. Every night I woke up in cold sweats. When the dreams came, Steff was always there,wrapping me in a comforting embrace and ensuring me that everything would be all right.

The seventh day Kellan was in the hospital, he woke up and stayed fully awake. Kris called to tell me Kellan was asking for me, and I’d practically dragged Steff to the truck for him to take me. We made it to the hospital in record time. Kris was out in the hall when we walked up.

“He asked to speak to you guys alone once you got here,” Kris said. “I’m going to go to the hospital cafeteria to grab a bite.”

Steff took my hand as we walked in. Kellan looked drawn and almost emaciated. He’d been fed through a feeding tube the whole time, and I could tell he’d lost weight over the last week. When he saw us, he smiled.

“Hey. I guess I’m alive,” he said.

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