fine, Eli. She made it out of there that same day, and she wasn’t...they didn’t hurt her.”
“Eric mentioned that the Runners were having trouble with the Whiteclaw, but said he’d go into more detail when I got in touch with him. What exactly did the Claymores want with her?”
“It’s a long story, and not one for someplace this crowded. She was scared, but she wasn’t harmed. I made sure to give them a hard enough time that it kept them busy.”
“You were with her?” he asked sharply, while the mother of all headaches started pounding in his temples.
“I was taken as well,” she murmured, clearly not wanting to make a big deal out of it. “They were able to sneak up on us, and we were taken back to Hawkley together.”
They’d taken his woman and his sister to Hawkley, the Whiteclaw pack’s hometown? A place where they would have been surrounded by those bastards?
Oh, hell, those sons of bitches are gonna die.
There were about a million questions he wanted answers to, but Eli scraped out the most important one first: “Did they touch you?”
The idea of her in danger—a danger he hadn’t been able to sense because of the weakness of their bond—was too much for him, making his inner beast seethe for release. His gums ached from the heavy weight of his fangs, the tips of his fingers burning as his claws prickled beneath his skin. He couldn’t believe he was a fraction away from shifting in the middle of a goddamn human bar, but that’s how this woman had always affected him, making him do things he’d never thought he would otherwise do.
Instead of tensing up and getting riled by his demanding tone, her posture had relaxed, one lightly muscled arm hooked over the back of her chair. “That isn’t something that should concern you.”
“Did they touch you?” he asked again, his voice now little more than a snarl.
Cocking her head a bit to the side, she studied him through her lashes. After a heavy silence, she finally said, “I would have been raped if I hadn’t managed to get free. As it was, I just got knocked around a bit.”
He wanted to roar at how casual she sounded about that, when it made him want to go for the blood of every Lycan who’d hit her, gleefully ripping them apart, one painful piece at a time. “How did you get away?”
“I knew that when the Runners realized we were missing, Wyatt would—” She paused suddenly, giving him a strange look. “Uh, when Eric left you messages, did he happen to mention that Elise and Wyatt Pallaton are bonded now?”
“I didn’t know it’d happened, but Eric thought it was headed that way.”
He could tell she was trying to figure out how he felt about his sister permanently attaching herself to the male who was Carla’s Bloodrunning partner, but he didn’t know. Until he saw the two of them together, he wasn’t forming an opinion. If Pallaton treated his sister right and made her happy, he’d have no issue with him. If he didn’t, Eli was going to kick his ass. It was as simple as that.
Reaching for her glass again, she said, “Anyway, I knew Wyatt and the others were coming, but there was no way they would get to her if I didn’t create a distraction. So that’s what I did.”
“And afterward?” he pressed, sensing that she was leaving out a hell of a lot. He had a strong suspicion her distraction had required her to put her own life at even greater risk to save his sister’s, and it made him both grateful and viciously angry.
She downed the last of her drink, and set the glass back on the table. “While I was making my escape, I heard some things that compelled me to steal some money and a car and come after you.”
“To drag me back home. For the pack.”
She gave him a look that would have wilted a lesser man. “It sure as hell isn’t because I want you there.”
“What did you hear?” he demanded, noticing the discoloration on her cheekbone as she turned her head and the light caught it. It was a healing bruise, and based on how many days since she’d gotten it, he knew it must have initially been brutal. Lycans had accelerated healing abilities, and though she was only half wolf, her body healed much faster than a human’s. Given the look of her face now, Eli imagined she’d been more than knocked around a little, and he was looking forward to paying back the ones who were responsible. In blood and pain and death.
“Before I left Hawkley,” she finally replied, bringing that dark gaze back to his, “I overheard some of the Whiteclaw soldiers talking about their plans for the Silvercrest. They haven’t managed to secure the number of soldiers they were hoping for from other packs, so they’ve come up with a new plan. One even deadlier than we’d feared. Since you said Eric didn’t go into a lot of detail in his messages, it sounds like there’s a lot you need to be brought up to speed on. But you can believe me when I say we need a miracle, Eli. Unfortunately, the only thing we’ve got on our side, other than my guys, is you.”
He knew who she meant by her “guys.” There were five men who made up the Silvercrest’s Bloodrunning team: Mason Dillinger, Jeremy Burns, Brody Carter, Wyatt Pallaton, and Cian Hennessey. Actually, he needed to make that six men, since his brother Eric was now working as a Runner, though the last Eli had heard, his brother wasn’t partnered up yet the way the others were.
At his silence, she added, “You were always rumored to be the most ruthless wolf the pack had ever seen. Jeremy told us you tore the male who attacked Elise into pieces. That’s the kind of man we need.”
For a moment, he was surprised that Jeremy knew what had happened, since his father had purposefully kept the Runners ignorant of Elise’s attack. The only reason Carla had known was because Eli had told her. She wouldn’t have been able to share that confidence with any of her fellow Bloodrunners without giving away their secret relationship, but that didn’t mean that the truth hadn’t eventually been leaked by someone else. For all he knew, Elise herself had been the one to finally share the horrific story. Or perhaps Eric, since he was now one of them.
Not that it mattered. Regardless of how Jeremy had learned what he’d done, what she’d said was true. Eli had ripped that bastard to pieces, and he didn’t regret it. But it bothered him that Carla might think of him as some kind of monster, and he couldn’t stop himself from asking her if that’s what she’d meant.
“Are you calling me a monster?”
“No.” She slowly arched her brows. “I’d only use that term if I was talking about your personality.”
He let that slide, knowing she was willing to say anything to make the canyon between them even deeper.
“So how did you find me?”
She shifted a little uncomfortably in the chair, but she didn’t refuse to explain. “It was like the thing with the Whiteclaw jolted me out of a fog, and I suddenly knew that it would work. That if I wanted to, I’d be able to pinpoint your location. So instead of making my way back home with the others, I stole a car. Grabbed a map from the glove box. Called Wyatt and told him I was coming after you.”
Staring at her beautiful face, Eli felt a confusing wave of emotion sweep through him, piercing and sharp. He’d heard that in times of danger, a bonded mate could use the connection that created the bond to locate their other half. And if the distance was too great, they could
