asked, “What are you two doing outside of Albuquerque?”
“Wes was hunting Leif.”
“No, Summer,” Hunter murmured. “I think Leif is hunting Wes. Me and Bryson keep getting flashes of Leif’s face over and over. Can you bring him home? Leif has the entire Wichita Pack behind him now. He’s been buildin’. I’ve kept track on his numbers. I don’t know none of the pack, but he has at least eight. Probably turned them all himself, too.”
Eight weapons. Eight weapons including a loaded mother-freaking missile launcher in Sam. Hunter might’ve been right. She’d only looked for Sam and Leif. She hadn’t been able to find out much about the Wichita pack either, so she’d perhaps handed the chore of annihilation over to Wes too soon. She hadn’t hunted them well enough. Hadn’t done enough reconnaissance. And look where that had gotten them.
“Hey, Summer?”
“Yeah, Hunter?”
“It’s real good to hear your voice. I miss you, girl. My brother does, too. You ain’t never left his heart.”
“I didn’t realize Wes had grown one of those.”
“He kept it hidden for a long time, but I think you kept that little ol’ thing beating. I’m real sorry we left.”
Her eyes burned, and she blinked hard. “It’s okay, Hunter.” It’s okay. She drew up straighter in the heated seat of Wes’s truck. It really was okay. Over the last few years, she’d never thought she would feel at peace with his leaving, but she did now.
Stunned, she stared out the rain-smattered window at the hotel where Wes recovered inside.
“I’m gonna bring him back to you,” she promised him. “Keep that bond open. Let’s get him healed and up and moving, and I’ll bring him back. Even if I have to drag him back to the ranch, I’ll pull him off the hunt and get him back safe.”
“Okay, Summer. I can’t lose him. Call me lots. And text me. I need updates.” There was a murmur in the background, some more static, and then Hunter asked, “Hey, can you take a picture of him while he looks all injured and pitiful so we can blackmail him later? Bryson asked that.”
Summer snorted. “Sure.”
More murmuring, more static. “Oh, and can you draw a dick on his face before you take the picture?”
Summer pursed her lips when she caught a reflection of her smile in the window. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay, bye, Summer, pick up my calls. I’ve been worried.”
“Okay, hey, Hunter?” she asked before he could hang up.
“Yeah?”
“I missed you, too.”
“Oh, I know you did, Summer. I’m fun.” Hunter hung up, and the line went dead.
Summer laughed and chewed on her thumbnail, then traced the trail of a water drop as it zigzagged its way down the window. Closing her eyes, she reached for Wes’s bond, but it was so very thin right now it was hard to get a feeling for him at all. How was he holding it open to Hunter and Bryson and their mates, but choking the bond to her? All while he was unconscious? His wolf was very, very strong.
And very cunning, Wolf pointed out.
Sam’s bond was even thinner and felt so dark. That one scared her. What would he do now? He’d taken off running, disappeared into the woods, but she’d seen it, the confusion in his silver eyes. The hurt. Hurt animals were volatile, and Sam was more animal than man now.
A sudden urgency overcame her to get food and return to Wes as fast as possible. She searched the parking lot as she left, but Wolf stayed quiet and watchful, not on red-alert. Wherever Sam was, it wasn’t here. And whatever he would do, she hadn’t a guess.
She just needed to follow through on her promise to Hunter and get Wes home to the safety of his pack.
Chapter Ten
The door to the hotel room beeped as she pulled out the key card. Hands full of food bags from Barney’s Steakhouse down the street, she shouldered the door open and stumbled inside to find the lights on and Wes sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, wet hair draping down in front of his face, no shirt covering his chiseled body, and a white towel wrapped around his waist.
His eyes were too bright blue when he looked up at her. Pushing his hair back with his fingers, he gave her a lopsided grin. “I used all the hot water.”
She didn’t know why that was so funny to her. Perhaps it was the relief surging through her body