Chapter 24

TWENTY-FOUR

CARVER

" C arver, answer the damn door!" Lila demanded from my front porch. She rattled the knob hard enough to tear it off. "Since when do you keep your front door locked?"

My attention zoned in on Lila's pregnant silhouette falling over the blinds.

If it was anyone else at my door, I wouldn't open it. But this was Lila.

"Fuck," I muttered beneath my breath as I approached. If she scented Ruth, shit would hit the fan. But I couldn't keep Lila locked out. She lost Case too.

I opened the door to find my twin's mate on my porch, her eyes swollen and bloodshot from crying, looking like a different woman than she'd been last night.

"Carv…" Her voice shook and threatened to crack. "Oh, Carver. I'm so sorry."

"Don't apologize, Lil. You didn't do anything wrong."

Her brows gnashed. "Like hell! I let that bitch get away! I should have gone after her."

My chest tightened with a complicated mess of emotions. "You did the right thing for the baby. Casey wouldn't have wanted either of you hurt."

"Yeah… Yeah, you're right. I keep trying to tell myself that." Her voice was raw and scratchy. Fresh tears started to spill down her cheeks before she quickly wiped them away with a swipe of her hand. "Anyway, I brought your truck back."

She held out the keys, and I took them with a weighted sigh. "You didn't have to do that. You should be back at the pack house, resting."

"I can't just sit around. Not when I know she's still out there."

Lila flicked her gaze toward the tree line, and I wished like hell the horrible feeling in my chest would go away. "Last night, you said you would join the Hunt." She whipped her attention back to me. "What happened to that?"

"I… I lost the girl's scent."

Lila's eyes narrowed, and the ache in my chest spread. "You're the best tracker in the pack."

"I'm the best hunter ," I corrected. "Give me a gun, and I can feed the pack all year round. But you know I'm not the most potent in my wolf form. My wolf doesn't… Uh…" My hand rubbed the back of my skull. "My instincts don't really work thesame way everyone else's does."

Lila frowned. "Yeah. Casey mentioned something about that before. Says your beast doesn't talk to you."

"It did last night."

"Oh?" It seemed like she wanted to follow that up with a congratulations but bit her tongue. Lila probably assumed my wolf spoke to me because of Casey's death. I didn't correct her—it was less complicated than the truth.

"Look. It's okay. We'll find her."

"Y–yeah."

"Lie better, or she'll know you're full of shit."

The wolf had awoken.

"I'll get my claws in her, Lil. I can promise you that." At least that wasn't a lie. "For now, you should go back to the pack house and get some sleep."

She nodded in agreement, and the next thing I knew, she was flinging herself into my arms.

Every muscle in my body tightened as she buried her face into my chest. I resisted the instinct to push her away before she picked up on Ruth's scent. Instead, I held her as she cried and waited patiently for her tears to subside.

After a few minutes, she pulled back, her nose wrinkling. "You smell weird."

My heart stalled out.

"It's probably just the pregnancy nose." She dismissed that with a sigh. Her attention flicked to the fresh dirt mound in my yard. "So, you buried his head?"

"Just like you asked."

"Thanks." Lila chewed her lip in thought. "Look. I should leave you alone to grieve and shit... But…I feel like this can't wait. Case was always on your ass about getting a mate and fitting in with the pack… And let's face it, none of the wolves in our pack are meant to be your mate. Maybe the one you're meant to be bonded with is in a different pack. I always got the feeling that the only reason you stuck around here was because of your brother."

It was true.

I fucking hated it here. I always had, even when our father was still alive.

"What are you getting at, Lil?"

"I don't want you to stay just because of me and the baby, alright?"

"Are you saying I should just abandon you and my nephew? You're my family."

"You aren't abandoning us. We'll still be family even if you leave, and you can always come back and visit."

She wouldn't feel that way if she knew what sins I'd committed last night. And this morning.

Guilt threaded through my system like poison, making me ache all over as Lila said her goodbyes, then shifted into her wolf form and disappeared into the woods.

I turned and headed back into the cabin, calling to my bunny. "You can come out now, Ruthless."

When there was no answer, I knew something was wrong.

I entered the bedroom and froze. Ruth's scent was faint, swept away by the breeze that flowed through the open window.

She left. Climbed out the window.

"No." My fists clenched into balls at my sides as rage built inside me.

I shouldn't have been surprised. This was what we'd agreed on, after all. Fuck like rabbits, create a mating bond to cover her scent and end her heat cycle. Never see each other again. But the moment I'd marked her, priorities had changed. She felt like mine.

"She is mine."

This time, I had no urge to resist the monster inside me. There was no fighting it anyway, not this time. Now I wanted what the beast did—her.

The shift came on without me even thinking about it. This pain was like an adrenaline shot, slamming through my system, heightening my excitement and making my heart pound. It was time to hunt, and the next time I caught her, she wouldn't escape me again.

Not ever.