Page 25 of Wolf Claimed
Gallagher pushed her torso upright. Sweat-soaked hair clung to her face and her skin had gained a grayish tint. Alyssa looked exhausted. “Woodrow Jackson Monroe,” he repeated with a smug look on his face.
“Move,” Kingsley demanded as he made his way to the door.
Rafe’s wolf never faltered. He didn’t care who Alyssa’s father was. He only knew she was important to him, to them. A growl ripped from Rafe’s throat. “You’re not touching her.”
Kingsley’s eyes flared yellow, a sign that he was ready to shift. “Half my pack died from that virus. She deserves to pay.”
“We don’t blame innocents,” Rafe replied, glad to see Maddox and Tiernan flanked him, backing him up. The rest of the shifters in the room, however, moved to back Kingsley.
Three against eighteen, in a relatively cramped space yet. It would be a bloodbath, and Rafe would lose. Then there’d be no one to protect Alyssa, because four agents with guns down the hall certainly wouldn’t last against that many shifters.
“Her father’s a mass murderer. My entire pack became infected,” Brock said. “Only a few males survived. I agreed to this program so the DSA would send me out and give me a chance to get revenge. Now I have that chance sitting right here.”
From the other shifters’ expressions, revenge was the only reason they were here, too. Or if it wasn’t before, it was now. The daughter of Woodrow Monroe himself was here. Fuck!
“Give me proof she’s involved with the WSSO, that she helped her father in any way, and I’ll lead the charge against her,” Rafe said. He gambled, making that type of statement, but there was no other option.
“She killed Graves,” Jason said.
“Is that how your justice works, human? Convict a person based on circumstantial evidence? Anyone could have found her knife in the woods and used it to kill Graves. Including you. You were there when she lost it, after all.
Jason opened his mouth and then shut it. Good.
“As for the rest of you, she may be Woodrow Monroe’s daughter, but she’s here to fight against the anti-shifters like the rest of us. She’s never said or done one hateful thing against any of you. You can’t convict her for the sins of her father. A female yet. That’s not how any of you were raised.”
“Then we use her to get to him,” Nolan, a shifter from up north, said.
“She’s one of us,” Rafe reiterated.
“She’s human,” Barret, an enforcer for his pack in Wyoming, countered as muscles began to move beneath his skin. Growls erupted throughout the room. Rafe wasn’t going to be able to contain them for long.
“Make one fucking move toward this door and I’ll shred every one of you,” Maddox threatened. “And for those of you who don’t think I can do it, my name is Maddox Novak.”
A whisper moved through the room. Feet shuffled, bones moved, but no one dared to shift.
“Yes,thatpack. And yes, I’m related to Logan and Drake Novak. And if you think crazy runs in the Novak line, it does. Just try me.”
A few shifters forced their wolves down, but not Kingsley’s or Barrett’s teams. Rafe knew Barrett personally. Had nothing good to say about the shifter; he was a determined bastard, and he had a following in the room.
“Tiernan’s going feral, and Alyssa agreed to blood-bond him to stabilize his wolf,” Rafe confessed, giving them a reason to back down.
Maddox sucked in a breath. He knew Alyssa had never agreed to that, but Rafe was gambling they wouldn’t hurt Alyssa if she was needed to save a shifter. It was a desperate tactic, but one that could work.
“You’re lying,” Barrett said. He had put down his brother recently, so he wouldn’t be eager to put down another shifter.
“It’s the truth,” Tiernan said.
Barrett’s muscles stopped rippling as he forced his wolf down. “We won’t touch her. For now.”
Another glance at the screen showed Alyssa had passed out in the chair. Rafe had missed the rest of the interrogation. He had no idea what else Gallagher had asked, or worse, what she’d said. Either way, he had to get her away from Gallagher and secure her before any of the other shifters changed their minds and decided to go after her.
* * *
ALYSSA
Alyssa wokein the interrogation room, her ankles still chained to the chair legs and her hands bound behind her.
“Awake finally, Ms. Monroe,” Gallagher said.
