34. Harley

THIRTY-FOUR

HARLEY

The night before had been pretty mind blowing. I had a pleasant ache all over, almost like I'd had a work out. I could even feel the bite marks on my back where Tate had bitten me in the throes of passion. It had been the most animalistic and intense sex we'd ever had, but something had been a little off. Tate had been fighting, struggling with something the entire time. He never said what was going through his mind, and I didn't know what to do about it. If he couldn't tell me before or after the amazing night we'd had, there was no way he'd tell me now.

Before I could go deeper into those thoughts, a bang sounded at the door. Freezing with the coffee pot in my hand, I stared at the door, scared of who might be out there. Another three loud bangs rang out. It wasn't the gentle tap-tap-tap of a friendly neighbor dropping off a Bundt cake. This was loud, aggressive pounding. Tate was still upstairs finishing his shower, but he had super-duper shifter hearing or whatever. He surely had heard the knocking. He'd be down in a few seconds. It would be safe to at least check the camera, see who was out there.

Putting the coffee pot aside, I stepped over the control panel and punched the icon for the doorbell camera. My jaw dropped, and fear flooded my body. Miles was outside. It was Miles, but not quite the down-to-earth and immaculately dressed man I'd come to think of as a friend. Instead, Miles was barely holding himself up against the wall beside the door. His hair was hanging limp against his face, smeared with blood. Not only his face, but both of his hands were bright red with blood, as though they'd both been dipped in a tub of red paint. His right hand held him up, while the other was pressed to his side, where more blood was oozing out, dripping onto my welcome mat.

I was screaming Tate's name even as I was disarming the security system. I could hear his feet slamming against the floor. I got the door unlocked and swung it open. Miles looked even worse in person than on the camera. He looked at me through a haze of pain and exhaustion. I grabbed his arm and helped him into the house. He collapsed to one knee inside the foyer as Tate leaped the twelve steps from the upper floor. Like a gymnast, he landed almost silently on his feet, wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts. His hair was still wet, and his body gleamed with water. Tate's eyes went wide with panic when he saw Miles.

"No." Tate gasped as he fell down on his knees next to his friend.

Miles was already sinking lower to the floor, grunting in pain and rolling onto his back on the tile. Tate took one of Miles's bloody hands and clenched it in his. I'd taken several steps back, not sure what to do. All I was able to manage was to look on in horror, unable to take my eyes away from the blood spreading out beneath him.

"Harley?" Tate bellowed. "My phone."

The strength of his voice snapped me out of my daze, and I ran to the kitchen counter where he'd left it before going to take his shower. I walked toward him with it, but he shook his head.

"You do it. My contacts, there's one labeled Doc . Dial it, give him the address. Now."

Quickly scrolling through his contacts, I found the one he said and dialed. It rang twice before a voice answered.

"Yes, Tate?"

A stream of words vomited out of my mouth. I hadn't realized how freaked out I was until I started talking. The man on the other end of the line said, "Whoa, whoa, who the hell is this? Where's Tate? What's going on?"

Taking a breath, I composed myself and said, "Tate is here, but Miles is hurt. He's hurt badly. There's blood everywhere."

Tate was trying to keep pressure on the wound at Miles's side, but he turned and yelled, "Tell him it's silver. Silver."

"He says to tell you that it's silver," I said, not sure what that meant. Silver bullets? Was that really a thing? Like in the really-real world?

The voice on the line murmured, "Shit, I got it. Where are you? Lilly Valley?"

I rattled off the address. He hung up. I called Steff and Blayne without being told, knowing they'd want to know as soon as possible. Then I put the phone down and grabbed kitchen towels to help put pressure on the wound.

I applied pressure, and blood immediately soaked through the towel. This was not good. It was a lot of blood. Who knew what a shifter could survive, but he needed help as soon as possible. The fact that Tate had a secret doctor on speed dial told me that they must not use regular hospitals. Maybe there was something about their physiology that would tip off humans? But wasn't that better than death?

Miles was gasping for air, like he'd run a marathon. He put a hand on Tate's shoulder and murmured, "Tate, man, I don't wanna die."

Tate looked at him, his eyes full of rage. "You aren't gonna die. You're too fucking stubborn to die, dammit. Now shut up."

Miles laughed weakly, then went serious. Tears spilled over his cheeks, mixing with the smears of blood. "I'm… I'm really scared, brother."

I felt like I was intruding on something intimate, so I kept my head down. My own eyes were burning, tears threatening. Everything was moving incredibly fast, and I was helpless.

Tate's voice grew calm. "I know, Miles. I know. Doc will be here soon."

Five minutes later, I heard the thump as a car door slammed, and a man burst through my front door. He moved so fast that I barely saw his face. He and Tate lifted Miles and ran him upstairs to my bedroom, slamming the door behind them. I stood in my kitchen, staring at the blood on my hands for several long seconds before I ran to the sink and vomited. After I cleaned my face, I rinsed the sink out and spent a full three minutes washing my hands, trying to get the blood out from under my nails.

I'd just turned off the water when Blayne and Steff ran inside. Both of them slid to a stop and gaped at the puddle of blood on the floor. Their faces went ghostly white. Steff looked at me, and for a second, he didn't look like the big badass who had intimidated Luis in the grocery store parking lot. He looked like a little boy, desperate to hear that the worst hadn't happened.

I gestured weakly toward the stairs. "They're in my room. He's… he's still alive… I think."

Before they could move, the most bloodcurdling scream erupted from the top of the stairs. It was like nothing I'd ever heard in my life. If someone died and went to hell to be eternally tormented, that was the sound I could imagine them making. Gooseflesh erupted across my arms and back. Without another word, the two men pounded up the stairs and disappeared. Again, I was left alone. I thanked God the girls were at school.

I grabbed a roll of paper towels and attempted to clean the blood off the floor. I was half way through an entire roll when another scream echoed from upstairs. I tensed. The scream was inhuman, excruciating, and soul-rending. Then, almost seamlessly, it changed from the scream of a man to the howl of a wolf. The baby was kicking like crazy, no doubt he could hear the sound as well.

Just as quickly as it came, the sound cut off. It didn't slowly fade out, it stopped completely, leaving me in silence. Dread filled me. I sat there, my hands once again bloody, the mess on the floor only half cleaned, and stared at the dark hallway at the top of the stairs.

When no one came out, I busied myself with cleaning. It seemed so silly and unimportant. A man I knew and was becoming friends with was upstairs in my bedroom. He was bleeding out and possibly dying. Cleaning was trivial, but I had to keep my mind off whatever was happening up there.

Once the main puddle of blood was cleaned up, everything else was easy. Five minutes later, the tile floor in front of the door looked like nothing had happened. There was some staining in the grout, but I would worry about that later. I was washing my hands again when the bedroom door opened. I dried my hands and walked to the foot of the stairs, dreading the worst.

Tate was walking down the stairs, slow and almost shambling. He looked like he was in a daze, and his eyes gazed out, unfocused and almost dead. His hands were covered in blood. The way he looked gave me the impression that things had gone badly. I put a hand to my mouth and breathed in a gasp.

Tate's eyes moved to me, and he saw the look on my face and shook his head slightly. "He's asleep. He's not dead."

‘Oh, Jesus," I said, breathing out in relief.

"Uh, Doc got the silver bullets out. Blayne and Steff held his arms, I held his legs. It was… it was bad."

"I heard," I murmured.

"He gave him a drug that will stop the silver from spreading through his body, but he'll be in pretty excruciating pain until what's already in him works its way out."

Tate stepped down and looked at the stains in the grout. He really was like a zombie. I wasn't sure how to interact with him. Would he fly off the handle and start screaming? Break down in tears? I didn't know. Cautiously, I stepped forward and took his hand. He wrapped his fingers around mine absently, then followed as I led him toward the guest bathroom.

He let me undress him and help him into the shower. I cleaned his hands and arms, washed the blood from his face, and then helped him get out and dried off. The whole time he didn't say anything. He was in shock. Once he was dry, I wrapped my arms around him and held him, not sure what else to do. After a few seconds, he hugged me back, squeezing me tight.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"For what?" I asked.

"Men bleeding out on your floor, magic curses, shifter babies? I know this isn't what you signed up for. I've turned your entire life upside down. I should have just paid for your drink that night in New York and let you be. You'd be better off without me. I'll have to buy a new mattress, by the way."

I kissed his chest and looked into his eyes. "Tate, none of that matters. Even now, after everything, I'd choose you."

He looked at me for a long moment. The look on his face slowly faded from surprise to something softer. "I love you so much, Harley. I promise you, I'm going to put an end to this."

Not long after Tate got redressed, Miles called out for him from upstairs. Doc came down while Tate was in and spoke with Blayne and Steff before leaving. The man was as much of a mystery as he'd been when he arrived. I wondered who he was and whether he was also a shifter.

Tate came down twenty minutes later and sat with me, across from Blayne and Steff to finally relay what had happened.

"Miles was on watch duty today. He said he was doing a patrol around Harley's place. Totally normal as far as he could tell. He was in his wolf form to cover more ground faster. He was about a hundred yards from the back porch, out in the woods, when he got shot. The hunters saw him and jumped him. He never knew they were there."

Blayne sat forward, frowning. "But he would have smelled them. If they were within a half mile, he would have smelled them."

Tate nodded. "Yeah, that's what he thought. Miles said that even when they were right there on top of him, he couldn't catch their scent. They've figured out some way to mask it. The way deer hunters stand over campfire smoke to cover their scent. I have no idea how they did it. He'd be dead if he hadn't already been shifted. There were three of them, and they pumped two more bullets into him before he ripped off one of their arms with his teeth."

Ripped his arm off? I felt my gorge rise and swallowed hard. The thought of it was horrible. The other horrible thing was that the hunters had been so close to my house––right out there in the backyard.

"We need a plan of attack. We have to go after these fucks right now. As soon as possible," Tate said.

He sounded off kilter. Probably from the shock of seeing Miles almost die. I didn't want him to go off halfcocked and end up with a silver bullet between his eyes. Blayne and Steff looked like they were thinking the same thing I was.

I put a hand on Tate's arm. "Tate, you haven't been yourself lately. I don't want you guys running off and getting killed because you weren't being careful."

He glared at me. "I know what I'm doing. Don't tell me my business," he snapped.

I jabbed my finger into his chest. "Right there. You just made my point for me. You've been on edge for days."

Steff stood. "Bro, she's right. What the hell's going on with you? I don't even live with you, and I can see you're wound so tight you're about to pop."

Blayne nodded. "Yeah, man. You've always been the most chill out of all of us. This?" He gestured toward Tate. "This isn't you."

Tate huffed a breath out his nose, like a bull. At first, he looked like he was going to argue, but his face fell after a few seconds. His shoulders slumped, and he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.

After a moment, he looked back at us. "It's you, Harley. I'm starting to go feral. I need to claim you, and I'm holding back. It's starting to break me."

Steff and Blayne both looked uncomfortable with the admission. I was surprised. I hadn't realized he'd been struggling so much with it. Then my mind went back to the hickeys he'd left on my body over the last few weeks. The bite on my shoulder the last time we'd had sex. It started to make sense. He'd been forcing himself not to claim me all this time, and it was damn near driving him mad.

"I don't want to hurt you. I'm not sure what might happen if I do it. Something could happen to the baby or you. I don't know anyone who's ever claimed someone while they were pregnant." He sighed. "We haven't even talked about the fact that Emily's curse is going to change you into a shifter when I claim you, and what the hell might happen with that. It's too much to even consider doing it. Not until the baby is born at the very least."

With everything that had happened over the last week or so, I hadn't even had much time to think about that part of it. Being turned into a magical creature? It was kind of appealing in an idealistic-teenage-fantasy sort of way. But it was also terrifying. Like standing on a cliff and staring out into the void.

"Tate," I said, "I don't think you have until December. Look at yourself."

He sliced his hand through the air like a knife. "No. This is non-negotiable."

Heat rose in my cheeks. He was making decisions that included me, but wasn't taking my thoughts into account. Nothing pissed me off more than that.

"Listen, this isn't just about what you want. I get to have a say in my life, too," I said. "Plus, I don't want to see you in pain. I don't want you putting yourself or anyone else in danger because you're going feral and can't think straight. It's for the best, and I'm ready. You need to claim me."

Steff still looked uncomfortable. "I think she's right."

"Me, too," Blayne added.

Tate looked beyond angry at all three of us. "What are you talking about? Harley, what if I claim you and something bad happens to the baby? How can you… shit, how can I live with myself if that happened?"

"I have the necklace Emily gave me. I won't take it off. I know she meant it to protect me. I'm sure it will protect the baby."

Tate, unmoved, shook his head. "No, not happening. I'm not giving you my bite. Too much could go wrong."

I couldn't be there anymore. He wasn't listening to reason, and I needed to get out of the room to cool off. I stood, but before I walked away, I pinned him with my gaze. "You're being selfish. You need to think about your pack and your family. If you aren't at your best, if you're too stressed or preoccupied with the desire to claim me, then you're putting all of us at risk. Miles almost died. What if Steff dies next time because you were too slow? What if…" My breath caught in my throat, but I pushed forward. "What if the hunters kill Mariah or Jordyn because you've gone feral and can't do anything to help them? You need to think long and hard about whether that is something you can live with?" Without waiting for his answer, I stomped out of the room.