Page 130 of Piece You Saved

“I’d say that was between Saige and me,” he says softly with a stubborn tilt to his head.

“Wrong.” I nod at the boarded window which faces the back garden, where Saige and Aden are out there shooting. “Anything to do with Saige is something to do with me.”

“Because you’re together?” he asks.

I don’t have the same relationship with Saige as she does with Kade and Aden. A note in his voice makes me wonder if he knows it.

If I hadn’t fucked things up so badly, I would. “Because she’s pack.”

At least until I fix my issues with my wolf or get away before I can kill her the way I nearly did last night.

“You think I’ll hurt her.” His expression doesn’t appear to change. And yet thereisa change. A flicker of anger mixed with hurt.

“That’s a concern.” Though I have no right to be snarling at Harley when I’m the one who's hurt her. “But that’s what an Alpha does. He protects his pack. That’s what I intend to do.”

He says nothing.

“You don’t have a pack,” I press. “So maybe you didn’t know how one works.”

I watch him closely, trying to read him. He’s in his early thirties, well-educated, and a respected surgeon if I believe what he was saying in the hospital. And I do. Yet, he’s a shifter with no pack. Abornshifter, if I had to guess, and they are rarely packless.

What the fuck happened to the one he had before?

“I don’t see how this is relevant to planning what’s going to happen on the bridge,” he counters, gesturing at the map between us.

“So, it’s none of my damn business, in other words?” I ask, lifting my eyebrow. His response isn’t an unexpected reaction to my probing, so I don’t take offense to it. Neither does my wolf, who isn’t viewing him as a threat to Saige or to us.

Right now, he’s an ally. His interest in Saige and his refusal to let Kade chase him away suggests he wants more than that. He’s formed a connection with Saige. Aden wasn’t wrong about that. For him to stay—to be pack—he needs to form a connection with us too. He would have to be a Hound.

Harley doesn’t deny my assumption.

“It’s relevant,” I say, shifting my focus from him to the map of the Lancaster Bridge spread out on our table. “Because if you want to be with Saige, you’d have to become a member of my pack.”

Silence.

I study the map, observing him out of the corner of my eye as I wait for his response.

“How frequently do you accept new members?” he eventually asks in a voice so perfectly controlled I know my answer is important to him.

“Rarely,” I say as I scan the map. Unnecessarily because nothing has changed.

I’m still looking for an opportunity on a busy public bridge to lay out an ambush for Rylan at a time people are heading home from work. If there was a peak time on that bridge, 7 p.m. would be it. Since an opportunity is unlikely to present itself the longer I study the map, I focus more of my attention on Harley instead.

I’m going to have to make a choice later.

The second Saige walks over to Rylan, he’s going to take her, stuff her in his car, and we’ll never see her again. He’ll probably break Sam’s neck beforehand. After everything we’ve cost him—an expensive piece of land, Saige, and most of his pack—he’ll be looking for revenge.

If I don’t act fast, Kade won’t hesitate to shift in full view of everyone on that bridge to save her, exposing a secret that could, and most likely would, mean the end of all of us.

“How rare is rarely?” Harley leans forward in his seat.

His eyes are on the map, but I feel his focus heavily skewed toward me.

Aden is too new to act out if I order him to stay in the car. Detective Morgan won’t blindly start shooting, so he’s not a problem. Then there’s Harley. I don’t know what lengths he’ll go to for Saige. My gut says he could wind up causing as much of a mess on that bridge as Kade.

“Rare as in never.” I’m still watching him closely, and because I am, I catch the moment he completely freezes before he flashes me a smile.

“Then I’d say it was about time you did,” he says. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

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