Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
—there was a fucking dart sticking out of her flank. Already the tranquilizer was working and she was close to limp in his arms.
Swerving his head to the direction that the dart had to have come from, Dante found a sight he wouldn’t have expected. There in the trees was Shaya, sobbing, with a tranquilizer gun in her hand.
“Shaya, what the fuck?”
“It’s not like I wanted to do it,” she cried as she cautiously approached. “She made me promise.”
“Huh?”
“Jaime came to me one night after she’d decided that she was going to challenge Glory. She was worried that when it happened she might have to shift. She said that there was a chance her wolf wouldn’t let her come back, and that if it looked as though she might attack someone I had to shoot her with one of these.”
Dante felt himself blanch. “Christ, Shaya, she could have been lying to you! It could have been fatal!”
She rolled her tear-filled eyes. “I’d already thought of that. I made her shoot me with one of them to prove they weren’t. When I looked out of the window and saw what was happening, I grabbed the gun and came down. And I brought this.” She opened a bag that he hadn’t even realized she was holding and handed him something he never would have guessed was in there.
“No way. No fucking way.”
“It wasn’t my idea. She made me promise to give it to you. She wanted to be sure that her wolf couldn’t bite you.”
“I am not putting a muzzle on my mate.” He continued stroking a hand down the short, coarse fur of her graceful neck.
“She said you’d say that. She also said to tell you that you can take it off again once you’ve put her in the cage.”
Dante shook his head, setting his jaw. “I’m not putting a muzzle on—Wait, what cage?”
“Well, she calls it a crate, but it’s a cage. Apparently, it’s from the sanctuary. The workers use them to transport any animals they rescue to the sanctuary”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“But don’t you see that this is a good thing?”
He looked at her disbelievingly. “How could this possibly be a good thing?”
“It means she doesn’t intend to give up, she intends to fight her wolf. But she won’t have much luck with that until her wolf has calmed down a little. Jaime wanted you to have somewhere that you could put her while her wolf calmed.”
On one level, Dante could acknowledge that Shaya was right. Still, how was he supposed to put her through this? It seemed cruel. Her wolf wasn’t acting out of a wish to cause pain, she was frightened. She was traumatized enough, and he didn’t want to add to that.
Gabe stepped forward and lightly stroked her between her ears. She didn’t move at all.
“Dante, I don’t like this any more than you do. But it’s move her and confine her so that she has a chance to calm down, or risk her hurting someone or running off. Unless her wolf calms, Jaime will fade until eventually she’s gone, and her wolf will turn rogue.”
“He’s right,” said Trey, his voice uncharacteristically sensitive. “The tranquilizer will wear off soon. If we’re going to move her, it has to be now. I know you don’t want to do this, Dante, but you have to. Do it for Jaime. Give her an opportunity to come back from this.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It had only taken an hour for the tranquilizer to wear off. Now—looking angrier than before—the black wolf paced in her crate, which was only twice as long and wide as her body. Several times she’d attacked it, looking for a weakness in the metal, and Dante had cringed every time her slender, graceful body smashed against it. Never had he felt more helpless or more like a bastard. For the past four years, her wolf had been caged, and now that she had finally surfaced again, she was back in a cage. And he’d been the one to put her in there.
She looked out at him with accusing, judgmental eyes. Guilt twisted his insides. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, although he knew she wouldn’t understand the words. Her response was a snarl that swore revenge. He heard as the door to the examination room opened behind him, but he only gave the visitor a sideways glance.
“Did she eat the meat?” asked Grace.
He shook his head. The wolf had snuffed at it.
“Does she recognize you?”
He was getting real sick of people speaking of his mate as though she was unbalanced. “Yes. I keep telling everyone—it’s not that she’s feral. She’s just scared and confused.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I heard she tried to attack you.”
“She smelled Laurie on me.”
“And why would she smell Laurie on you?” snapped Grace, giving him an accusatory look that was quite similar to the one his mate was wearing.