of the road under a halo of streetlight, watching him leave. Watching him leave her. Again.
But it wasn’t like before. This time, his leaving was temporary…he hoped. And it was for her own good.
He opened the bond just enough to tell her, “I love you. I’m not leaving you. Give me two days, and I’ll be back here for you if I can. You have to be okay, Summer. You just have to now.”
And just as Wolf faded out of view in the distance behind him, she lifted her nose in the night air and let off the most beautiful, most lonely, howl he’d ever heard. The note lifted higher and higher, then faded to nothing as he lost sight of her.
She etched that wolf song onto his heart, and for the rest of his breaths, he would never get it out of his head.
Fuck, what was he doing?
We’re keeping her safe, the wolf inside of him whispered.
Leif had set up the Wichita Pack somewhere outside of Albuquerque. His territory was massive, a big reason Wes hadn’t gone after him before now. Oh, he was always going to have his moment with his maker, but over the last few years, he’d been fulfilling a promise to Sam. He’d been making sure Hunter was okay. He couldn’t go after an entire pack on his own and guarantee he could come back to Hunter whole. If something had happened to him, Hunter wouldn’t have anything left. Now? He did. He had a mate. He had Bryson. He had the ranch. If Wes went down now, at least he went down trying to put his family back together, and he was good with an end like that.
Don’t think like that, his wolf whispered. We have to get back to Summer. She’s waiting.
Wes snorted. Waiting to slit him from sternum to cock and dance on his entrails. He had a feeling she-wolf didn’t have much room for forgiveness when she was pissed. And the way he’d left her tonight? Oh, she was gonna be burnin’ mad. He did agree with his animal, though. Wes had always been good at three things—running, ranching, and fighting. He won fights because he never believed he could lose. So he didn’t.
Fighting Sam had shaken his confidence, but that wasn’t because he hadn’t believed he would win. It was because he’d focused on the safety of someone else. Of Summer. Put him in a forest with an entire pack and no one to protect, and then see the bodies pile up.
The stretch of his ready smile felt good on his face.
His phone lit up from the cup holder. It was a message from Hunter. Wes didn’t read it, just let the glow fade.
Hunter texted again.
He shouldn’t read it, but as the pavement blurred under his tires, the screen seemed to stay lit up forever. When the light faded, he huffed a sigh of relief.
The phone rang, and he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Yeah,” he said, answering Hunter’s call.
“You aren’t alone,” his brother said.
Wes didn’t know why it sounded so damn good to hear him right now. Or why it choked him up a little. He swallowed once. Twice.
“Did you hear me?” Hunter asked.
The first drops of rain hit the windshield and peppered the high beams in front of the truck. “You aren’t either, little brother.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on. You open something to me and then close it, open it and close it. But you should know, whatever you’re going through? We’re here.”
“We’re?”
“Kaid Pack.”
Fuck, it felt so good to think of them. Wes laughed thickly. “Buncha pains in my ass, can’t even let me take a couple days off. You’ve called and messaged me at least a hundred times. You need to work on your chill, Hunter.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds boring. Look, when Sadey has a bad day, I just buy her flowers, but Bryson said I can’t buy you flowers because you’ll piss on ’em or eat ’em and never let me live it down. I guess I care about you making fun of me, so I bought you a bunch of beef jerky sticks instead. Beef jerky always makes me feel better. I tied them together like a man bouquet. Bryson said I’m a dipshit, but then he looked a little mushy like he wanted one too—”
“No, I didn’t. I think it’s the dumbest idea in the world,” Bryson chimed in from the background.
“Then why’d you eat two of them when I