blurred from off the ground in front of Wes and disappeared. No, not disappeared. Leif still stood there holding a gun while Sam stood behind him with the devil’s smile on his face. And simple as you like, Sam reached up, gripped Leif’s chin, and snapped his neck.
Shock washed over Leif’s face as he fell to his knees and then to the pavement.
Sam lifted his chin higher, legs splayed, rain pelting down, staring down his nose at Wes as he stood over the still body of his maker. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember who I was sooner.”
Chapter Twelve
The scarred-up white wolf pushed off her chest and bolted into the woods with the three surviving Wichita Pack.
Wolf turned around fast, desperate to see if Wes was okay. Sam was standing near Wes, the body of the Wichita Alpha laying on the wet concrete between them. Such potent relief flooded her body. Wes seemed to be okay.
She bolted for him. Sam wasn’t right. His eyes were too empty, his voice too hollow, his dominance too dark. She didn’t like him around Wes. Slowing, she trotted up beside Wes and ran her face up his side, inhaling the scent of her mate. Fur and war.
“Sam?” a hitching voice asked from behind them. It was Hunter’s voice.
Summer looked behind her, but froze at the emotional expression on Hunter’s face. He was in his human form again. The blond-haired Kaid took a few steps closer but stopped, his foot lined up on a painted white dash that indicated the middle of the road. “That ain’t Sam.” He said it like a question, though. After looking from Wes to Wolf to the grizzly, he said it again. “That ain’t Sam.” But now his eyes were filling with tears.
Wolf wasn’t good at tears. She was good at hurting and hunting and protecting, but tears? She let Summer have the body back and, beside her, Wes had Changed back, too.
Hunter took a few more steps forward, head angled to the side in submission, eyes intent on Sam.
Wes slid his hand down Summer’s wrist and held her hand, squeezed it reassuringly. “Hunter,” he murmured to his brother. “Sam was alive, but he ain’t the same as he was.”
“Sam’s not alive.” Hunter’s voice came out so soft. “We… I think I need to call Sadey.” He nodded frantically and jammed his finger at the man. “You don’t feel like Sam. You look like him, but you don’t feel like him, and I need to call Sadey.” He turned around and headed for Wes’s truck.
Wes’s eyes were full now, too, and it wasn’t from the rain. “Hunter—”
“No!” Hunter turned. “I would’ve felt him. I would’ve known he was alive. We watched him die, Wes! You held him while he died.” He jammed a finger at Sam. “I want you to be my brother. I need to talk to Sadey. I want you to be him so my heart doesn’t have a hole in it anymore, but I heard your last breath. I heard it!” A sob left him, and his shoulders tensed as he shook his head. “Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine,” he chanted as he headed for the truck again. “Sadey will talk to me. She will make sense of it.”
Wes turned to Sam. “It’s okay. He needs to process his feelings.”
“Feelings,” Sam said in a monotone.
Wes frowned at his older brother. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I…” Sam swallowed hard and shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned and looked off into the woods. “I was Wichita, but I killed… I killed…”
“Your maker. My maker. Hunter’s maker.” Wes squeezed his shoulder, but Sam flinched back. “Don’t like touch.” His voice had lowered and was scratchy.
And Summer saw it—the tears that rimmed his eyes.
This moment was surreal. All of the Kaids were here. Her Kaids. And a bonus bear. Sam, tough-as-leather Sam, was matching tears with Wes. And hell, she couldn’t let them break like this.
Summer stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Sam. She whispered what she’d wished she’d heard all those years ago. “You’re safe.”
And she could feel it—his body trembling with emotion he refused to let out. He stood there, tense as a stone statue, but she didn’t let go. Instead, she rested her cheek against his arm and held out her hand to Wes, dragged him toward her the second his palm touched hers. Wes hugged him roughly, and Sam allowed it.
She didn’t know how long they stood like that, the rain pelting