Ruthless (Wolf Ranch #6) - Renee Rose Page 0,67

mainly because I didn’t want her to witness the ugliness that might go down in dealing with Nathan Brown.

Rob called an emergency meeting of the pack elders. I wasn’t one, but his actions affected my mate. He’d burned her fucking house down.

Levi was to bring Nathan Brown from the jail in town to answer for his crimes. Trying him through the human legal system wouldn’t work well.

Human law didn’t fit shifters. While he might have kept him there overnight, no one could keep a shifter in a cell or hold them captive for long. They’d easily overpower guards or other inmates in a prison. Shifters almost always escaped law enforcement and went into hiding when they’d committed a crime.

It was why we had a shifter council. My brother Clint used to be a council enforcer, carrying out their form of justice, which often was death. He’d retired when he mated Becky, but if anyone had seen what happened when a shifter committed a crime, it was he.

I didn’t know whether Rob would take Nathan to the shifter council or deal with him here in the pack. There weren’t strict laws governing these things. Most packs dealt with their own, and the council only got involved if they couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Levi’s sheriff car was already parked out front, and Nathan Brown sat in the back seat behind the cage. Again, it wasn’t the handcuffs or cage that held him, but Levi’s presence. He leaned against the car, guarding his prisoner.

I had to shove down the rage that flared in my gut toward the fucker. He’d nearly killed my mate. I wanted to tear his fucking head off and pitch it like a bowling ball off the side of the mountain.

But Rob was in charge, and we were dealing with this thing formally. Pack law would take care of Nathan.

Rob and Willow stood at the doorway, and Rob lifted his hand when I climbed out of my truck. I walked over and shook his. He pulled me in for a man-hug, thumping my back. “You look a helluva lot better than you did last night.”

“Much better,” Willow agreed.

I let out a shaky laugh. Yesterday had been harrowing for me, but it wasn’t because of my own burns. It was thinking Natalie had been in the burning house.

“You gave us all a little scare,” Rob said.

I shook my head. “You weren’t worried about me, were you?”

“Well, not entirely, but I was the one holding your screaming mate back from running in to find you, so some of her fears got under my skin, I have to admit. And then when the place collapsed, and you still didn’t come out…” He shook his head.

I blinked, my eyes burning a bit, my love for both my mate and my packmates overwhelming me. This time I pulled Rob in for a man-hug-shoulder-thump. Willow embraced me when we were done.

“She yours now?” Willow asked. I’d showered since claiming her this morning, and my scent was embedded in her instead of the other way around, but it had been pretty fucking clear how things stood between us. Everyone who’d been at the fire knew.

I nodded.

“Go on in, most everyone is here,” Willow said, a brilliant smile on her face.

I stepped inside where a semicircle of chairs had been set up. My parents and brother were there, along with all thirty or so other pack elders—mostly shifters my parents age or older. Nathan’s mate was there, along with his grown daughter, who was mated to another pack member.

My mother got up and hugged me tight. “I heard everything,” she said in a teary voice. “I’m so glad your mate wasn’t hurt.”

“What about me?” I teased. But of course, they knew I’d be all right.

She cupped my face. “The house is gone, but that’s not what’s important, is it?”

It wasn’t. I hadn’t even thought to ask Rob after it, just assuming it was gone. I had what was important from that place. We’d rebuild, make it a home again.

“Have a seat. Levi’s bringing in the accused,” Rob rumbled from the door, stepping in and taking his seat at the front, facing the semi-circle.

I sat down and Clint and Colton flanked me. I had to guess they’d positioned themselves to hold me back if I insisted on exacting my own justice. I didn’t plan to, but I wasn’t ruling it out either. Especially after Nathan Brown stepped in, handcuffed, but holding his head up proudly, as if he had nothing to