Page 3 of An Unending Claim

“I have no idea. Lincoln and Sabrina kept tracking her, and we called Ephraim off perimeter duty to help us search. I wanted to update you before I join them again.”

A wave of anger rushed through me, but I pushed it back. There had to be a damn good reason. If there wasn’t, Peyton was in for an eye-opening experience when I finally locked her in a cage.

The SUV pulled up to the house, and I tossed my phone to Jase before hopping out. I discarded my clothes as I ran toward the woods behind my cabin. When I was naked, my bones popped, and muscles ripped as my cells rearranged into a different shape and body structure. Hair sprouted and grew, my fangs elongated, and claws broke through the skin of my hands and feet. Despite the complicated process, it only took seconds for it to be completed, putting my wolf in charge.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out from somewhere in the thick mass of trees, and my heart stopped beating. I could still feel Peyton but she was devastated and hurting. My wolf headed straight for the sound, and when we heard the crack of another shot, he pushed even harder as worst-case scenarios ran through my mind.

CHAPTERTWO

PEYTON

Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.

Can this get worse?

Because I really don’t think it can.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?” Ephraim roared. His dark eyes were trained on me and the amount of rage burning in them practically singed my skin.

My panther hissed and growled, furious at the way he was talking to me, but I pushed her back, keeping her anger inside so I didn’t make things worse.

Ephraim had run into the small clearing in the woods just in time to watch me kill a shifter—whom he clearly knew, since he’d called him Geoff as soon as he spotted the big, gray wolf. My heart sank even lower as the name registered. Geoff had been a member of our pack. It had been the worst timing ever because all he’d seen was the Alpha female he didn’t trust and was highly suspicious of standing over his packmate and putting a bullet between his eyes. How much more cliché could it be? I was literally holding a smoking gun.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I exclaimed.

But Ephraim wasn’t listening. His feet crunched on the twigs and dry leaves as he stomped over to disarm me—not that he needed to. I eagerly handed him the weapon.

“Don’t move,” he snarled. “Or you’ll find a bullet in your skull, too.”

I nodded and stood still. It was either that or collapse on the ground because I was holding my foot—the one Geoff had almost ripped off—up to keep my weight off it.

Ephraim ran over to the shifter and knelt to check his pulse.

The sound of paws hitting the ground grew close, and a lean, honey-colored wolf skidded into the clearing. It was Lincoln, the other bodyguard who’d been with me on my run before I’d bolted to search for the source of the blood I’d scented. Actually, my panther had been the one to go running after it. I’d been too busy having flashbacks from the night a serial killer almost ripped me to shreds.

Lincoln shifted, and his eyes whipped between Ephraim and me. Then they landed on Geoff, and his mouth dropped open, his eyes going wide with horror. “Did she…?”

“She killed Geoff. I watched her pull the trigger.” Ephraim jumped to his feet and began stalking toward me, but Sabrina’s slim, almond-colored wolf burst through the foliage right at that moment and put herself between the perpetually angry enforcer and me.

“Get out of my way,” he growled at her. She bared her teeth and growled right back.

“Sabrina, look what she did!” Lincoln exclaimed. “Don’t protect her from him!”

I figured the wisest thing for me to do was keep my mouth shut.

Sabrina shifted and stood up. “We don’t know what happened,” she insisted.

“Yes! I do!” Ephraim bellowed, the veins in his forehead popping from the strain.

“Peyton wouldn’t have killed Geoff without a good reason,” Sabrina defended, slashing her hand through the air in an agitated gesture.

“You don’t even know her. How can you stick up for this bitch when—” Ephraim suddenly stopped and bent over, holding his head.

Sabrina and Lincoln both winced, but whatever had affected Ephraim wasn’t bothering them as much.

After a minute, he let out a long breath and straightened, the pain still lingering in his dark eyes. “I’m just saying, you don’t know her well enough to trust her, and I saw—”

“You don’t know what you saw,” I finally piped up. I was tired of standing there frozen like a frightened rabbit.