Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,93

the corner and snapped orders at everyone else as I stared in horror.

Dodge whirled and snapped at Evershaw, and my eyes locked on the madness in the wolf’s eyes. There was no hint of humanity left in the beast. No flicker of Dodge’s humor or flirtation. Just rage and blood-lust. I choked on a scream. How could someone who’d been so gentle with me turn into such a terrifying beast? He lost control until he could have hurt anyone, might have tried to attack or kill anyone who got in his way. He bit Evershaw and blood splattered on the floor, but the man just tackled Dodge and more bodies piled on.

Shouting and snarling deafened me and I sank lower in the bed, trying to bunch the pillow up around my ears. More of the wounds I’d almost forgotten about pulled and tore, and I whimpered.

The snarling ceased immediately and I found a wolf’s golden eyes fixed on me. He went completely motionless as he stared at me, and I saw a flicker of recognition. I opened my mouth to say something but choked on air and the words that needed to be said. Then Deirdre said something strange that I didn’t quite hear, and three men trussed up Dodge and hauled him out of the room. The moment he was in the hall he started fighting again and more shouting started, mixed in with copious amounts of cursing. But by then the doctors and nurses filled the room and surrounded the bed, dragging it away from the corner where Evershaw had shoved me. The chaos swallowed me up.

Even with the voices asking me questions and dozens of hands doing things and adjusting tubes and changing sensors, the only thing I saw and heard was Dodge’s fierce fight against all of his friends. People he lived with, people he worked for, people he cared about. If he attacked them when he became a wolf, what did that mean for me? Would he lose his mind and attack me at some point when I made him mad? He barely knew me and I’d already gotten him shot. It grew harder to breathe. How could I trust him to stay sane? He was the second shifter I’d seen lose total control. If it happened that often... how would I ever be safe around him?

Chapter 44

Dodge

They chained him in the cellar where they’d kept Silas. Dodge could hardly move from the restraints, at least until he was almost in his right mind and Evershaw forced him back to human. The moments after Persephone woke up and Dodge ended up in the cellar flickered and blurred until he wasn’t sure what had really happened. But Persephone was awake. He survived. He hadn’t been able to smell her to know whether she’d turned, but there would be time for that.

If Evershaw ever let him out of the fucking cellar.

He was losing his mind. Dodge felt sanity slip further and further out of reach with every passing minute that they kept Persephone away from him. He felt her far away from him, somewhere in the city, and the pain radiated from his heart and soul and every bone in his body. It turned into a physical ache, like a deep bruise, that throbbed as his heart beat.

Silas stayed underground with him, although the other wolf remained stuck but wasn’t chained. Whatever Deirdre had done with her magic shifted Silas back to his full wolf form, the human fully in control, but he couldn’t do anything else. He just lazed around and kept Dodge company. Dodge told Silas everything – every fear and hope, every wonderful memory of Persephone and all the things he planned to say to her the moment he saw her again.

Dodge nearly freed himself a couple of times before Evershaw grew fed up and stalked down to the cellar to stand over him. The alpha’s fury radiated from every inch of his body. “Look, asshole. You need to calm the fuck down. I don’t want to keep you away from your mate, but you’re in no condition to be around her.”

Dodge growled even in his human throat. He managed to rasp, “She’s mine. Mine.”

“Yeah, and she’s fucking terrified of you.”

The comment left him cold all the way to his core. Persephone feared him? He’d blamed the alpha for keeping him away from his mate, but what if... what if she didn’t want to see him? Dodge shook his head to try and jostle