Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,85

sorry about Dodge. It’s all my fault. He’d still be alive if I – if I...”

She trailed off and a small sob escaped. He studied her, nosing her cheek until she forced her eyes open, and his whole world fell apart. She thought he’d been killed. Thought he was dead. She cried for him, blamed herself... He wished he could have killed the bastards who’d hurt her a few extra times, just to make it count. He’d tell her as soon as he could.

He kept his attention on the tiger and hoped that Silas ran like the fucking wind. He didn’t want to kill the tiger, but he’d fight to his last breath to keep her safe.

Chapter 38

Percy

I felt really cold. Cold and numb, although it was a relief to not feel quite so much pain. The giant wolf who lay next to me radiated heat like a furnace; his fur was rough and thick against my unbroken fingers. For a second I’d thought his hazel eyes looked like Dodge’s, but that didn’t make sense. I’d seen the man shoot Dodge, and Dodge fell to the ground in a puddle of blood. He hadn’t moved. Just laid there in silence.

He was dead. I was just making things up to try and feel better.

I saw the wolf fly over the chain-link fence to get into the tiger enclosure, so maybe he really was a hallucination. I was pretty sure even shapeshifter wolves didn’t fly.

It was probably just wishful thinking as I hoped the pack wanted to save me. I’d even thought I recognized another wolf running around the outside of the enclosure as the one who’d chased me that very first morning when I met Deirdre and Evershaw. Silas. The crazy one who had been cursed by the evil sorcerer and was stuck somewhere between a man and a wolf. I snorted a laugh, though it made my head ache, at the absurdity of the previous few days. Evil sorcerers and men who changed into wolves.

The one next to me grumbled and tried to edge closer, but he froze when I grunted with pain. The tiger grew closer, slinking low to the ground like he meant to charge and attack. The wolf tensed, too, and I whispered again that it wasn’t the tiger’s fault. I felt awful knowing they’d starved the poor cat for days before they dragged me in there. The tiger had already suffered enough in a circus and a roadside zoo. It wasn’t his fault.

It felt like I blinked and then everything was lit up in a blaze of white and gold. I tried to lift my head as a grinding sound sent sparks flying, and the tiger fled to the other side of the enclosure, where a bunch of people tried to keep his attention. People?

Shouts muddled into indistinguishable noise, though I was pretty sure they were trying to tell me what to do. The wolf next to me didn’t move, and instead started to growl and bare his teeth as the people managed to cut through the chain and lock on the door. I couldn’t breathe and my vision blurred. They’d actually come to find me. I hadn’t really believed they would...

Someone said, “Persephone, we’re going to get you somewhere safe. We just need Dodge to move away. Hold still.”

Dodge? I struggled to sit up, using the wolf for leverage, and swayed as I went lightheaded and wobbly. “Don’t hurt the tiger.”

The words slurred together until even I couldn’t understand them. The voice, a deep masculine rumble that made the wolf beside me tense, reached me again through a revving engine. “What was that, Persephone? Say it again.”

“Don’t. Hurt. Tiger,” I managed, though the effort left me breathless. I leaned against the fence so I wouldn’t get blood all over the wolf, and struggled to re-inflate my lungs.

A long pause reached me, then the man said, “Sure. Okay. We won’t hurt the tiger. Dodge, get the fuck out of the way.”

The wolf snarled, bracing against me. But he didn’t move.

I knew I needed help. I needed an ambulance and a hospital, and oxygen, and something for pain. Anything for the pain. But the wolf refused to leave, guarding me against the help I needed. I sighed and worked my unbroken fingers into his fur. “It’s okay.”

He went still. I cleared my throat a few times to make speaking easier, though it didn’t really help. “They have to get in. You need to move away. I’ll be