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The bullet had channeled even deeper into his flesh. I knew I risked tearing through major blood vessels. Alone, he would heal. I just had no idea how much damage the Dragonsteel had done.
“There!” I declared in triumph. I closed my claws around the hard metal plug.
Anson’s eyes snapped open. For a split second, he was X again. He roared, reared up, and tried to unseat me.
“Hold still!” I growled, shoving him back with my free arm.
I had no time for precision or finesse. I had to get that damn bullet out. So I did. Tearing through his flesh, I pulled out the slug and held it up to the light.
Intact. Thank God. It would leave an ugly scar to join with the others he bore. But with any luck, he’d be good as new by morning.
Except for one thing.
Anson met me with his intense stare. He was bleeding still. But I could feel most of his strength returning. Only he couldn’t fully heal unless he was free of all the Dragonsteel. Including the collar around his neck.
“Tempest,” Pat said. I turned. She’d managed to persuade my father to get into the four-wheeler. He kept the gun trained on Anson’s head. I turned back to him.
“You’ve got nowhere else to go,” I said. “You know that, right? You’ll die if I don’t take your collar off.”
No answer. He just stared at me.
“If I take it off,” I said. “Swear to me you won’t try anything. You’ll stay in the barn and rest until I come back for you.”
Still, no answer.
Then, finally, he gave me a single nod. “You have my word.”
I took fate into my hands once more. Reaching down, I broke the clasp on his collar and freed him.
“He’s lying to you,” my father said. He sat at Pat’s kitchen table, still holding on to the gun. Jarred sat in the chair beside him, leaning it back so his head rested on the wall.
“I know he is,” I said. “His whole existence was a lie. Only I’m not sure he was aware of it.”
“He came here for sanctuary,” Pat said. “Have you two forgotten that? Have you forgotten the pact that was made when my grandfather agreed to let the packs live here?”
My father looked at Pat. “You can’t be serious, Pat. That…thing out there infiltrated our home. Your home. Under false pretenses. In the middle of a war.”
“The war was over when he showed up,” Pat said.
“He raped my daughter!”
“No,” I said. “X has never…Anson has never taken me against my will. Not in that way.”
“He kidnapped you,” Jarred said, letting the legs of his chair slam to the floor.
“It’s…it’s complicated,” I said. “And I’m not making excuses for him. I’m simply telling you that we need him for the time being.”
“I saw what he is,” Jarred said. “What he did to Lissa.”
“She was a liar too,” I said. “She used you, Jarred. To get to Anson. To me. She knew whatever cursed Anson was fae in origin. She was hoping to find the source of it so she could crawl back into whatever hell portal she came from. She used all of us. Including Anson. Especially Anson.”
“He’s an abomination,” my father said. “A subversion of everything we stand for here at Wild Lake. If your mother were well enough to weigh in, believe me, she’d tell you the same.”
“Maybe you’re right. But more than anyone, Neve McGraw understood shades of gray when it comes to wolf shifters and mating, Dad.”
He growled at me. Long ago, my mother had taken another mate when she thought my father was dead. She’d done it for the good of the pack. To save herself. Though she only spoke of it to me once, I knew a part of her loved that Alpha too.
“Mom knows sometimes you have to make hard choices. Ones that aren’t always what the people who love you want.”
