CHAPTER 2

ANTON

I was fucking pissed at my situation and exhausted from fighting my animal. He wasn’t happy that our injured, fragile mate was over two hours away. Hannah was still struggling, and I knew she’d be finding it hard to sleep tonight without me with her.

It had been a month since we’d found her. And while her injuries had healed, it was her mental state I worried about. Hannah hardly slept because of the nightmares that plagued her, and she woke up screaming three or four times a night. She thought she didn’t dream when she slept in my arms, but she did; I just happened to be able to soothe and settle her before she woke fully. Her scars were a permanent reminder of her captivity. I hated how they made her feel ashamed, so much so that she refused to look in the mirror. To me, they were a badge of honour showing her strong will to survive.

Unless either Julie or I reminded her to eat or drink, she forgot. And she was still too thin for my liking. Annie had said she was in a type of mourning and to give her time. She had faith that all would be fine in time. Since her captivity and torture, Hannah couldn’t feel her tiger anymore, and it was hitting her hard. As shifters, we all understood where she was coming from. It would be like missing a limb to suddenly not have the other part of your soul there to communicate with.

If I could, I’d go back in time and punish and kill them all over again.

I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

For now, I had this clusterfuck to sort out, thanks to Reggie’s sister Jaq. And I wasn’t happy. The three males who had arrived with her seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t in the mood to be sociable, so I’d locked myself in the office to call our contacts and get police checks done on the three of them.

I’d left them in Luca’s care as he’d known I wasn’t in the right place to entertain. I don’t know what I would have done without my brother this last month. I’d left running the ranch and security business solely to him. We had always been close, but this had brought us closer, and I knew that he would continue being there for both Hannah and me. He’d already started changing the house and had moved from the room next to mine into rooms on the other side of the house, so we’d have more privacy when Hannah was ready to move here to our home.

Sighing, I rubbed the tiredness from my face and picked up the phone to continue with the checks. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, but we had rules in place for a reason, especially where humans were concerned.

It was going to be a long night, but the sooner I got finished, the quicker I could head back to Joel and Julie’s place.