They steadied me as I staggered toward the house.
“You were waiting to be sure I’d stick around to tell me you were werewolves?” Rachel asked.
“Shifters,” I clarified. The two shifters dropped me in a leather armchair while Rachel ran for a towel to mop up the blood. It had pretty much stopped now, but I was covered in it.
Cord stood, his eyes assessing. The doctor in him was in control now, but there wasn’t anything he could do for me that my body couldn’t do better. I had to suffer through this time until my body expelled the bullets. Since they weren’t silver, or laced with it, they weren’t going to kill me. Chester was a shit shot, and I was thankful he’d been so close to me when he’d pulled the trigger. Crazy, yeah, but it meant he didn’t get lucky and put a bullet in my brain. That wasn’t survivable.
I looked up at Harlan as I took as deep breaths as I could. I set a hand over my chest, trying to ease the pain. “Thanks,” I told him.
He nodded and remained silent, yet he was watchful. Like Rachel was.
He was concerned for me. Even though he knew I’d be fine, he looked worried.
“You saved my mate,” I said.
Harlan nodded.
“Thank you. Where’s Chester?”
“Dead.”
“I called Holt, the Sheriff, to deal with it,” Cord said. “He’s a shifter,” he explained. “He’ll make sure it looks like a car accident killed Chester.”
“Why were you here?” I asked Harlan. Most of my anger from earlier had dissipated the moment he’d returned with my mate intact. Whatever he’d done in the past, he’d just protected the most precious thing to me in this world. I owed him for that.
He scratched his stubbled chin. “I came because I need to explain what happened with your mom, just… just so you know.”
“You should listen, Nash,” Cord said.
Fuck. “I’m sorry. I owe you more than an apology. I owe you a chance to explain.”
Rachel came back and knelt beside the chair, although she wasn’t sure where to set the towel. I took it from her and pressed it against the worst wound.
“Sit, please,” Cord told Harlan, holding his arm out and pointing to another chair.
Harlan dropped into it as if the weight of the world pushed him down.
I braced myself for his story.
“Noble and I became scent matches when he turned fifteen,” he said. “We knew it, and found out one full moon run. I was older by years. I thought I didn’t have one.”
I glanced at Cord, who hadn’t found his scent match until he was over thirty.
A bullet came to the surface, and I hissed as my body rejected it.
Rachel gasped and took it, stared at it and then up at me. I stroked her hair, not caring that I was streaking it with blood.
“I’m okay,” I told her.
She smiled and a tear slid down her cheek. Somehow that bullet appearing eased her, and she took my hand in hers and turned to face Harlan. To listen to his story.
I didn’t have a choice but to wait for the rest of the bullets to emerge. And listen.
Harlan sensed I was ready to hear more, so he continued. “We didn’t go to school together, or live nearby on pack land. Our families weren’t close. The only thing we had in common was the scent match. After we discovered it, I didn’t see him for years. Not until we went to the pack games.”
The games were a week of organized outdoor events meant to bring packs together from all over the country, for the purpose of shifters finding their true mates. Some even from Canada. They happened every July, and were hosted by different packs. I’d been to a few.
Harlan ran a hand over his face. I knew now what I was going to look like in thirty-some years, but I had to hope the outdoors wouldn’t age me as quickly.
“By then, I was seeing the signs of moon madness,” he added. “Aggression. The desire to stay in wolf form for longer and longer periods. Difficulty changing back to human form. I figured if I didn’t find my mate that summer, I could succumb to the madness and they’d have to put me down. But Fate was on my side. Or at least, I thought so, because I picked up Cathryn’s scent. I found Noble, who was also there. The attraction was powerful. We all felt the pull.”
He sighed and looked out a window, but was seeing into the past, not the forest.
“That first day of finding my mate. Fuck, I remember how intense and sweet it was. She was mine.”
“And Noble?” Cord asked.
Harlan looked at him. “He agreed. It was potent. Good. Cathryn and Noble were close in age. They bonded quickly, not that I didn’t. But my wolf rode me hard. Pushed me to claim her. She was receptive. Open to the claiming.”