I’d seen his radio in the bag and took it out to call the station. I only had the approximate coordinates of our location, but they could trace the call to be more precise in finding us. With so many victims, it would take time to get enough ambulances out there.

I thought about walking outside to shift and see where our clan was. But my own pain was too great. I needed a rest myself.

“If you don’t mind,” Gabby said as she pulled her shirt off, “I’d rather not have to look at him.”

I wasn’t sure what she intended, exactly. She continued to undress and shifted into her wolf form. The other women were still feeling the effects of the drugs they’d been given and barely seemed to notice. Nothing seemed to phase them anymore. Hell, maybe they already knew. Gabby grabbed the man’s pant leg in her wolf teeth and pulled hard to drag him across the living room floor. I shakily made my way to my feet again and held the door open so she could drag him outside.

When she was finished, she slashed her claws across his face and snarled at him before clamping down on his head with her lupine jaw, shaking it violently. She ran over to the first man and did the same thing, taking out her aggression, getting her revenge. She returned to the porch and shifted back to her human form, wiping her bloody mouth with the back of her hand before walking past me.

“That’s better,” she said with a smile as she redressed.

I made a mental note to watch Gabby carefully for a few weeks. I thought she was pretty close to losing her mind in that moment. She would need a lot of care and attention, probably a lot of serious therapy, to handle her ordeal. In fact, all these women would need a lot of help to recover.

I sat and talked to the others. “Help is on the way. Ambulances are coming and so are the police. Both attackers are dead and outside of the cabin. You’re all safe now. We’ll get you cleaned up, checked out and you’ll be home with your families just as soon as possible.”

The woman who had been bound next to Gabby hugged me as she cried. The woman on the bed was still handcuffed, though. Jace had never gotten her free before he was shot, so I found the tool in his bag.

I tried to push myself up, but the pain was so intense that I shook and only got to my knees. Gabby reached down and took the tool from my hand, walked to the bed and released the handcuffs.

The woman shook her wrists and blinked at Gabby, then they embraced. Both women cried.

I had to get up eventually, so I kept at it. I took a moment while on my knees, then lifted one leg so my foot was on the floor.

Gabby was by my side. She put her arm around my shoulders and helped me get to my feet.

“Thanks, hun,” I said.

She grabbed me into a rib-crushing hug. “No, thank you. You saved me. You saved us all.”

“I had some help.” I gestured to Jace, who was still on the ground, but sitting up, watching for the ambulance.

“I know.” She smiled and released me. “I love you guys.”

“We love you, too, Gabs. How are you holding up, Jace?” I wanted to kneel down beside him, to be closer to him, but there was no way I was going to get back to the ground when it was so difficult to move.

He let out a sigh of frustration. “I’m just glad we got them.”

“Me, too. Thank you for coming after me. You always seem to be there to save me.”

“Yeah,” he uttered with heavy sarcasm.

I wasn’t about to get into anything with him now; not while he was bleeding from a gunshot wound. But at some point, we would have to talk. The whole thing was ridiculous. If he would just apologize to me and admit that he loves another woman but couldn’t resist me. If he would tell me he was just stupid and made a mistake. Anything. He hadn’t even told me himself what was going on. Cooper had. That alone was weak, and after everything we’d been through, he owed me more.

The sirens sounded in the distance, so I went outside to wave them in. I knew the crew, of course, so when they saw me, they rushed over.

I recognized our friend, Todd, a bald eagle shifter, as one of the EMTs. “Are you injured?”

“No, but Jace is,” I replied.

The ambulance crew blew past me and I heard their exclamations of shock as they took in the situation. That wasn’t what we were used to seeing. We dealt with animal attacks, whether against a human or another animal. Sometimes people got lost or stuck. The most gruesome thing I’d ever heard of one of us coming across on the job was a person who’d been gored by moose antlers. As horrific at that was, it didn’t hold a candle to seeing all of those terrified women being held against their will—and another who was brutally slain—in such an appalling place.

There wasn’t much for me to do by then, so I watched. I moved closer to Jace, and when they lifted him onto the stretcher, I followed them. They wheeled him into the ambulance and then Todd looked at me.

“You coming for a ride?” he asked.

I thought briefly of the other woman in Jace’s life; how, if he loved her, he would have wanted her to be waiting for him at the hospital, to comfort him and be there for him. I had no idea who she was, so there was no way I could have contacted her. I didn’t want him to go alone, and he had been one of my best friends for fifteen years. I still had the right to be there for him.

I nodded and Todd helped pull me up into the vehicle. My head swam with pain as I sat. I begged for a few Tylenol from the crew, but I’d have to get to my pain pills and get home to sleep and rest soon. I had no idea what time it was, but it had been late when I first walked out of the Ranger station—and that was hours ago.

I grabbed Jace’s hand and he looked over at me, terrified.

“You’re okay,” I told him. “It’s really not that bad.”

Todd spoke up. “No, man. You could have managed to get a decent wound. A shot to the gut, now that’s something to get upset about.”

Jace shakily lifted his middle finger at him. Todd laughed.

“She’s right, though,” Todd agreed. “It’s a clean wound; the bullet went right through. Recovery won’t be fun, but you’ll be okay.”

“See,” I teased. “Todd’s smart. He knows when to listen to me.”

Jace didn’t laugh, which was not a good sign.