"Can I trust you, Fury?"
"No," he answered honestly. "I'm a wolf and I'm always going to do what's best for me. Why?"
Vane hesitated, but in the end, he had no choice except to make a pact with the wolf. "Because I need help for the next couple of weeks. I can't be in two places at once."
"Wow," Fury breathed in disbelief. "I never thought I'd live to see the day Vane Kattalakis ever asked another living soul for help."
He ignored the sarcasm. "If you help me until Bride is either free or fully mated to me, I'll make sure you never have to hunt for another pack again."
Fury didn't say anything.
"I know what it's like to be alone, Fury," Vane said, his voice betraying his own pain at being left to his own defenses. "You help me and I'll swear brotherhood to you."
That wasn't something ever taken lightly. To take a blood oath of loyalty was almost as major a commitment as mating. It was an unbreakable oath. Fury had no one else on this earth. His family were all dead and he had come to them as a scared, callow youth.
Fury glanced away before he nodded. "All right, Vane. I'll do it."
Vane let out a slow breath as he held his hand out to Fury. For some reason, he felt as if he had just made a bargain with Lucifer.
Fury hesitated, then shook his hand. "So what do you need me to do?"
Vane saw that Bride was headed back toward them. "For now, I need you to pretend to be me as a wolf. I've been posing as Bride's pet to guard her, and now that I'm in human form, I could really use a wolf around so as not to raise her suspicions." Especially since he didn't dare tell her the truth about himself until he found some way to throw the hunters off his trail.
Fury laughed at that. "Damn good thing we're both white timbers, huh?"
"Yeah. Now could you take your wolf form?"
Fury stepped out of Bride's line of view and flashed into the wolf. Two seconds later, he lifted his leg near Vane's foot.
"Do it, Fury, and I'll neuter your rank ass."
He could hear Fury laughing in his head. "Oh," Fury said in his head. "By the way, I forgot to tell you that the others know Fang is at Sanctuary."
Vane went cold all over again. "What?"
"Yeah. Your father told them to not attack him so long as the bears were present. But the minute he's alone"
"Watch Bride."
"Wha"
Vane flashed instantly to Sanctuary.
Fury sat on the street, completely confused by what he should do.
"Vane?"
He didn't answer.
Aw shit. As a wolf he had no way to tell Bride where Vane had gone, and the last thing he wanted to deal with was a distraught human female who couldn't find her mate.
This wasn't right.
Flashing to human form, Fury quickly picked his clothes up off the street and dressed. Unlike Vane, his strength was physical, not magical. He could wield magic, but nowhere near as precisely as Vane. If he tried to put his clothes on with his powers, he'd have about a fifty-fifty shot at them ending up on him in the right order and in the right place. So rather than have his sock end up as a shirt, he pulled them on while praying no one happened by to catch him bare-assed on the street corner.
By the time Bride came around the corner, he had everything on except his shoes.She drew up short as she caught sight of him pulling on his boot.
"Pebble in my shoe," he explained lamely. Lying wasn't his forte, either.