Taming The Shifter. Lisa Childs

nodded.

      “His scent is old, his trail cold,” the old man remarked. “But you’re still here. Why?” That steely-gray gaze narrowed as Uncle totally focused on Warrick.

      “He’ll come back,” he claimed. But he wasn’t sure. He had only the vampire bartender’s word that Reagan hadn’t left the city. And why should he trust a vampire who didn’t trust him, either?

      “You thought he would come back home, too,” Uncle Stefan reminded him.

      “For her...”

      “But he left his mate alone,” Uncle remarked, watching him closely—probably for that flash of jealousy and rage that Warrick had always exhibited when it came to her. “And he keeps running.”

      “Because he knows I’m chasing him.”

      “You’re not chasing him,” Uncle said with a disparaging snort. “You’re chasing your honor.”

      “My honor or vengeance?” Warrick wondered now. And his hunger for vengeance wasn’t as overwhelming as it had once been. Probably because his hunger for Kate was greater. He shouldn’t have left her...

      “Both, in this case,” the old man asserted. “You cannot lead the pack if you cannot claim justice for crimes committed against it.”

      “I’m not leading the pack,” Warrick pointed out. “You are.”

      Stefan shrugged as if the leadership role meant nothing to him. “It was always your father’s wish that one of his sons take over for him when he was no longer able to fill the role of leader.”

      Warrick flinched, remembering how he’d found his father. All that blood spilling from his wounded heart, leaving nothing but the corpse of an old werewolf as, even dead, he turned at midnight. None of his power or intimidation had remained—nothing of the spirit of the fearsome leader and father.

      But now another memory haunted Warrick more, of Kate lying alone in that alley in a pool of her own blood.

      “Perhaps you are the right one to lead the pack, Uncle,” Warrick said of the role he, himself, had wanted to fill since he was just a pup. But as the younger son, he had never been groomed for the role—had never really been considered a possible candidate by anyone but his uncle.

      Uncle Stefan shook his head. “I am an old man,” he said. “I have no sons now. No one to carry on when I grow too weak to lead. You are the future, Warrick.”

      “Only if I can reclaim my honor.”

      “You set off on this quest for justice,” Uncle reminded him, his brow furrowing with confusion. “Your belly burned with the desire for it.”

      Warrick remembered when the heat and hunger of his rage had consumed him. Rage had ruled his life, had blinded him to anything but vengeance. Blinded him so much that he hadn’t even noticed the woman in the alley until she’d fired those shots into his shoulder.

      It ached still, all these months after the shooting, just as his body ached for hers days after they had touched skin to skin—lips to lips. Now the desire burning in his belly was to possess Kate Wever in every way. She was so beautiful—all silky skin over sleek muscle. As he had once tried to haunt her, she haunted him now.

      “What has changed for you?” Uncle asked. “Did he get to you?”

      He had tried, that night in the alley—had tried to spew his lies and manipulations. That was when Warrick had threatened to rip out his throat, so that he wouldn’t have to listen. He shook his head. “Not him.”

      “But someone has?”

      He shook his head again, unwilling to tell his uncle about Kate for fear of sounding like a fickle boy instead of the decisive man necessary to lead a pack. It wasn’t as if he and Kate had a future anyway. She wanted to arrest him now for assault. What would she do once he’d committed murder?

      He sighed. “Perhaps I am just wearying of the chase.”

      Maybe Warrick had finally realized that his quest had been more about vengeance and pride than justice. But now, after finding Kate bleeding in the alley those few nights ago, it was less about vengeance and more about Kate.

      How could he leave Zantrax when she was in danger, especially when he might be the reason she was in danger?

      * * *

      Blood stained the cement floor of the secret surgical room. Was some of that Kate’s blood? Paige shuddered to consider it, to remember that her friend had been that badly hurt. That strong, fierce Kate had been lying unconscious and vulnerable in an alley.

      “Are you sure she’s all right?” she asked her husband. “She didn’t come to happy hour again.”

      Ben nodded, but there was concern in his dark eyes. “As long as she doesn’t remember being here, she should be all right.” He poured a bottle of something onto the floor that dissolved the blood and cleaned the cement, but it couldn’t remove every trace of the horrors that happened in that room. It was as if screams of pain hung in the air with the pungent scent of the cleanser.

      “She doesn’t remember,” Paige said. “She didn’t even mention getting hurt when I called her.” And Paige hadn’t been able to bring it up for fear that Kate would remember who had treated her injury and where.

      “She has to know she was hurt,” Ben said. “She has stitches and a bandage.”

      “Then why didn’t she mention it?” Maybe Kate had remembered more than she was willing to admit to Paige.

      “Because she’s Kate,” Ben replied. “She’s proud and independent. And she wouldn’t want you to worry. And she especially wouldn’t want you to fuss over her.”

      “Or she didn’t want me to know what she remembered and warn you,” Paige said.

      Ben glanced at the security monitor that showed the video feed from the cameras outside both reinforced steel doors. One led to the hallway to the club; the other to the sewer. Both had been reinforced so that vampires—or other creatures—couldn’t get inside unless Ben let them in. It wasn’t just for his protection but for the protection of whatever patient he was treating. She looked at the monitor, too, and breathed a sigh of relief that both the hallway and the sewer were empty.

      “She’s not out there,” Ben said. “And she would be if she had any suspicions about this place.”

      “She has suspicions,” Paige reminded him. Kate had wanted inside this room back when somebody had been stalking Paige. But Sebastian had convinced her that the entrance to the sewer had been sealed off and the door led to nowhere.

      If Kate ever found this room, Paige would lose her best friend. The society would order the human’s death.

      As if he’d read her mind, Ben reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. But because he knew her so well he offered her no false assurances. He only offered his love as he held her closely.

      “I don’t want to lose her,” Paige said.

      “Maybe we can talk to the society,” Ben said.

      She looked up at him and arched a brow. As if the society would listen to her. She had no way to negotiate—not the way the society’s special surgeon could.

      “Maybe I can,” he amended his comment, his sexy mouth curving into a slight grin.

      “But the society isn’t the only danger she’s in,” Paige said. “What about this other creature or creatures? You’ve said there are two of them.”

      Ben groaned. “I shouldn’t have told you about them.”

      “We promised,” she reminded him. “No more secrets.” At least not between the two of them. But they kept secrets—the secrets of the society—from all their human friends. “Are they a danger