Wolf Bite (The Blue Mountain Wolf Pack #5) - Emma Dean Page 0,46

in critical care. Zoe held onto her fork and didn’t dare blink as the both of them approached the dining table.

Behind them was another pair. They didn’t feel quite as intense as the first two, but they both were frowning. Zoe had no idea who these people were. She couldn’t stick names to faces yet but if she had to guess she’d say the redhead was Amelia, who made the man next to her Liam’s Alpha, Kai.

Olivia and Noah came downstairs while Alexander and Lily came through the door in the family room that led to the balcony. Another couple came in right behind them and based on the way they felt she’d say they were probably Sage and Jacob since Liam had mentioned Sage was pretty submissive.

The muscles in her shoulders tightened as she deduced that the dark-haired couple were Bonnie and Shane.

“I want to know what you were thinking taking a brand-new wolf into the woods last night,” Kai said, staring at Liam and only Liam. “That goes against protocol and could have put you in danger as well as her.”

Liam looked down at his plate and didn’t say anything.

Instantly she stiffened, sensing that Liam had no plans to try and explain anything. He’d been given orders and had chosen to go against them because of her – because she had insisted. Liam had never once tried to make the excuse that Kai had specifically said she wasn’t supposed to go with them.

He’d trusted her when she’d said she could handle it.

“I’m going to have to put you back on patrol,” Kai said when Liam didn’t say anything.

Zoe pushed back from the table and stood slowly, ignoring the way everyone’s eyes went to her. Liam tried to hold onto her hand, but she pulled away and he reluctantly let her go.

She hadn’t felt this kind of rage in a long time. Everything was crystal clear as she walked around the dining table and placed her body between Kai and Liam, so the Alpha was forced to shift his attention to her and off the sweet wolf behind her.

“It’s not your choice whether I went with him or not.” Despite the power she could see in Kai’s eyes, Zoe didn’t feel the urge to look away. “I’m a trauma nurse. If you want people to have the highest chance of surviving, then putting me out there as a human or a newly bitten wolf is the smartest decision.”

Tension rose in the room when Kai’s eyes turned silver and she still didn’t look away. Shane took a step forward at the same time Amelia did. Both saw her as some kind of threat.

“You’re the boss of them, right?” Zoe asked, waving her hand at the others in the room. “Do you see how tired they? Do you see how much they’re all trying to keep it together? Olivia needed to rest. Liam and Noah needed support. You take advantage of them, and then have the gall to try to lecture them when I offered help.”

The shock was so thick she could practically taste it, but Zoe wasn’t done. She was still fuming, remembering every time someone had let all the work fall on her because she was the only one capable, and then never fixed the issue because she’d managed.

Her father couldn’t afford to hire help, so she didn’t blame him, only her mother for leaving and putting them in that position to begin with. But Zoe couldn’t count how many places she’d worked where the managers had purposefully kept them understaffed.

It was the kind of thing that created small fractures in a person until eventually those fractures widened into cracks and they broke, leaving a massive hole in the group that left them all drowning.

Kai’s eyes flashed but he didn’t argue with her. “There is only so much we can do with the numbers we have.”

Zoe narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t magically make their stamina endless. You never asked if I offered to go. You came in here on the offensive, assuming you had all the answers. I’m not going to let anyone treat him like shit because they’re having a bad day.”

Still, she hadn’t looked away from the Alpha. It was probably a mistake based on how tense everyone else was, but she didn’t feel the urge to drop her gaze either.

“Stop taking advantage of Liam and Noah. Find a different solution. That’s your job as the boss, right? Make it work without shattering what you’ve all worked