SWNOVELS Chapter 54
Chapter 54
Holy sh it, you can hear a pine straw drop in this clearing.
Not a single wolf moves. I’m not even sure anyone breathes.
Then the huge, surly wolf near Karolina starts laughing. It’s a big, rumbling laugh, that has him doubling over and holding his
belly.
Which is when I see he’s na ked.
And I see everything.
My eyes je rk back up and while no one seems to be concerned-there are dozens of na ked people surrounding me at the
moment-being that I don’t have a wolf, I don’t shift and run and feel quite so comfortable clothes-less.
It’s like I’m standing in the middle of a fri ggin’ nudist colony.
Aaron growls. He lunges toward the wolf with the brownish-red hair. That only makes that male laugh harder.
Karolina tugs me away from all of them. “We’ll escort you,” she says easily.
“Get your hands off my wife.”
It’s the voice of an enraged Alpha. Karolina smiles. Her back is
still to him, but she turns slowly.
“Alpha Rathborn, do we have a problem? Leah Roberts has
requested to go home. As the Alpha of Pack Roberts, that is her right.”
“Leah Roberts Rathborn is my wife and she isn’t going anywhere without me,” he says.
He’s practically threatening her, and I fight old habits to try and calm him. Making an enemy of a Council member would be the
worst thing for him.
But I remain silent.
It is because of Aaron that my father is dead.
There is no way to come back from that.
“My wife stays with me,” Aaron reiterates.
“I say otherwise,” Karolina taunts him. “Unless you were thinking of challenging me?”
James slams a hand on Aaron’s shoulder.
That new wolf, with the reddish brown hair, he chuckles even as he shoulders himself in front of Aaron, blocking him from me.
And from Karolina.
I take in all these wolves. Strangers, some familiar from Council events, and Aaron’s packmates who fought to save me.
“Thank you,” I tell them. “All of you. Thank you for coming to my aid and for protecting me.”
And not killing me in these last few hours while I was
immobile and fighting to absorb whatever this is that my father bequeathed to me.
“Leah...”
I take off my wedding band and hand it to Aaron. “It’s over,” I
tell him.
He catches my hand and doesn’t let me go. “Think it through,” he warns me. “Think of where you’re going. Who will be there.” He
lets his gaze slide over to Karolina. “I saved you. I protected you. Who are you going to trust, honey? Your husband whom you’ve
known since you were a kid-or these other wolves?”
Who, indeed?