Page 74 of Piece You Saved

All shifters have a pack, so he must have one too. There’s a lot I don’t know about shifters, but this is one thing I know courtesy of Rylan. He liked to threaten me by saying if I ran, any pack that found me would drag me right back to him. Maybe any pack would have, but the Hounds didn’t. They saved me.

Harley’s expression doesn’t change. “Simon was my pack.”

And Rylan killed him. How many lives has he destroyed? “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Wasn’t your fault, Jane.”

Aden squeezes my hand, drawing my attention. “Jane?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”

Just a nickname that should be meaningless but isn’t.

Aden eyes me curiously before he turns his focus to Harley. “Saige said the doctor who helped her was human. Or wasn’t he?”

Harley nods. “He was. But he was family.”

Aden turns to me. “And he was the same doctor who helped you?”

I smile bitterly at yet another reminder that I shouldn’t have let Simon help me, and I shouldn’t have stayed with Aden. “You see why I wanted to run now, Aden? You see what he does to the people who try to help me?”

CHAPTER 20

ADEN

I’m me again. Or, as myself as I can be with a wolf in my head.

If I’ll ever be the same Aden Shaw I was before is another matter entirely. An impossible one. Yet I still find myself clinging to the belief I’ll go to sleep, wake up, and find this was all a nightmare.

Ignoring the animal presence in my head is easier to do with Saige’s chilled hand in mine. I close my other palm around hers, wanting to warm her, but I never stop observing her out of the corner of my eye.

Her touch dulls the need to drop into a crouch and let my wolf out. The urge is still there, if only at a lower volume. I’m not so distracted by the wolf in my head that I miss the way she’s focused onnotlooking at the dark-haired man in the scrubs.

I heard snatches of their conversation after a shrieking alarm, a scream, and a mourning wolf howl ripped me from sleep.

Not all of it made sense, but some of it did. The doctor’s name. Mention of a body.Leandro’sbody in the backyard. The rest I lost between the snarls and growls filling my head and the painful need to drop to my knees, rip off my sweats, and shift.

It’s easier to focus now, so I focus on the strange tension in the room, and why it smells like Kade and Saige had sex on this dining table when we have more than enough beds upstairs.

My gaze bounces from Saige, who’s staring at Kade’s laptop screen, to Harley, then back again. He’s watching her, a hint of a smile turning up one side of his mouth and interest stirring in his eyes.

“I’m Aden,” I say.

Why am I getting the impression you’re not going away any time soon?

His blue-green stare settles on me, and his smile fades. “I know. I’m Harley.”

“Have we met?” I frown.

“I was your surgeon.” His eyes dip to the left side of my chest. “I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough.”

And Dariel made the call to take me from the hospital and save me another way.

A burst of anger surprises me. Being angry at Dariel is new, since Kade is usually the one to frustrate not just Dariel, but me as well. I understand why he would do it, but it doesn’t take away from the fact he gave me a life I never wanted, and one I can never change.

“There’s a lot I don’t remember,” I admit and shake my head, letting go of my anger at the same time. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. “I heard you talking about a body. Leandro. I’m going to assume Kade and Dariel are out there dealing with trouble.”

“Rylan killed Leo.” Saige swallows hard. “I thought… I thought it was Dariel when I went out there. Rylan killed him and tossed his body in the garden.”

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