The basement door swung open, allowing light from the upstairs hallway to spill down the steps. I rushed to Eli’s side, not knowing what else to do. We were screwed. I could only imagine the amount of money Drew would get when he presented not one young female werewolf but two, along with a young male, to his boss.

“I need you to take Violet and get out of here,” Eli whispered. He secured the blanket he’d wrapped around Violet tighter and motioned for me to take her from him. His gaze flicked to the stairs, and even in the darkness, I could make out the heavy sense of determination rippling through the bright green of his eyes. “No matter what, that’s all you’re supposed to do. Got it?”

“What? No,” I insisted. “We’re in this together, Eli. Whatever you’re planning to do, you need to count me in.”

“I can’t. Violet needs to get out of here, and so do you,” he insisted in a harsh whisper seconds before the sound of a gun cocking echoed through the basement. “I mean it, Mina. Get yourself and Violet out of here.”

I shook my head. There was no way I would leave him. Not with Drew and his gun. “Eli…”

“Promise me.”

I couldn’t. He was asking me to leave him behind. There was no way I could do that. Eli would never leave me behind.

“Mina, promise me,” Eli insisted again. Drew was nearly halfway down the stairs. His heavy footfalls echoed through the basement, becoming an intense soundtrack to the conversation Eli and I were having. My mouth went dry. “Damn it, promise me!” He gripped my shoulders tight.

“I…I promise,” I muttered, hating myself the second the words pushed past my lips.

Eli’s mouth crushed against mine. He pulled me as close to him as he possibly could and worked his mouth across mine. The slight brush of his tongue touched my closed lips, but the instant I realized what was happening, he pulled away. He grabbed the ax from my hands, and started toward the stairs.

I didn’t waste time staring after him. Instead I dove into action. I knew if I could get Violet out of the house and to a safe location I’d be able to come back and help him with Drew.

While my plan might not be Eli approved, I didn’t give a damn.

Violet was starting to come to. She wasn’t fully awake, but her eyes fluttered and she was moaning. Whatever she’d been given was either wearing off, or she was one hell of a fighter.

I lifted one of her arms and wedged my shoulder beneath it. She was nearly as tall as me, and we weighed about the same, so carrying her was out of the question. She needed to wake up. I pressed my feet firmly into the ground and lifted her, helping to get her to her feet. All the times I dragged my drunk dad from one place to another now came in handy.

Mumbles and murmurs left her lips, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Instead of trying to decipher her words, I chose to ignore her. I shifted her to lean on me so she wouldn’t put weight on her ankle. I had no idea how I was going to get her up the stairs. Then again, I didn’t know how we would get past Drew either.

I was leaving that detail up to Eli.

A loud grunt captured my attention followed by banging. Drew was tumbling down the stairs. My gaze shifted to where Eli stood. From where he was, it looked as though he tripped Drew with the handle of the rusty ax he’d taken from me. I glanced back at Drew. He didn’t seem to be moving. Was he knocked out from the fall?

I continued dragging Violet toward the stairs, hoping we’d make it up them without falling like Drew. Also, it would be nice to do it before he came to. My stomach knotted as I cast a quick glance at him.

He seemed to already be stirring. I could hardly breathe.

I bit back a scream when he forced himself into a sitting position. He rubbed his head and groaned. I froze, watching to see what he would do next. Would he shoot us? Wait. Where was the gun he had?

“What the hell?” Drew grumbled once he spotted Violet and me. “That’s my paycheck you’re taken, little girl. Where do you think you’re goin’ with her?”

I flinched at his horrible words. Rage burned within me from how he viewed Violet. A paycheck? What an asshole. I opened my mouth to say so, but Violet moaned. Was she in pain? How could she not be? Her ankle had to hurt like a mother. A noise I couldn’t distinguish captured my attention. A gun went sliding across the floor.

Eli had kicked Drew’s gun out of his reach.

Thank goodness.

“Go! Get out of here,” Eli insisted. He stepped between Drew and the stairs, blocking his path to us and creating a safe exit for us to squeeze through.

I took it, knowing I needed to get Violet up those stairs and out of this house so I could come back and make sure Eli was okay. Adrenaline spiked through my body, causing my limbs to tingle.

It took everything I had to get Violet up the stairs, but somehow I managed. She helped as best she could, but she was still out of it. Her head kept lulling to the side. It was a wonder she could support herself at all.

Once we made it to the hall, I paused and listened to the house, searching for anyone who might’ve entered while we were focused on Drew downstairs. When no one else seemed to be inside, I started forward. Noises from the basement made their way to my ears, but I tuned them out. There was nothing I could do to help Eli until I got Violet to safety first. Besides, Eli was more than capable of handling Drew himself. Right?

“Come on. We need to hurry,” I insisted as I adjusted Violet’s weight on my shoulder. Pain sliced through my shoulder blade but I ignored it.

We were down the hall, through the living room, and out the screen door faster than I thought possible. Fear Eli might be hurt—or killed—was a powerful motivator. It had me almost dragging Violet.

Once we were outside, I deposited her at the edge of the woods, hidden behind a thicket. My hands went to my hips as I buckled over, struggling to catch my breath. Thoughts raced through my mind. What was my next move? Run straight to the basement and see what I could do to help get Eli out alive? Violet moaned, drawing my attention back to her. Her eyes stayed closed. Relief trickled through me because there was no way I had time to explain what happened to her or what I was doing here.

I needed to get back to Eli.

A manly growl spurred from the basement of the house. It floated along the humid night air straight to my ears, making the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It wasn’t Eli. It was Drew. And from the sounds of it, he seemed victorious about something.

Shit!

My feet were moving before I could form a plan of action. I darted up the steps to the porch and bolted through the screen door. The bedroom filled with guns was the only thing on my mind. I opened the cabinet nearest me and reached in for one. The shotgun was heavier than I thought it would be, but at least I had a decent weapon. I popped the chamber open the way I’d seen done on TV and spotted two large bullets crammed inside. A long breath exhaled from my lungs as another loud noise rolled through the house, stemming from the basement.

Drew and Eli had gone to war.

I launched myself out of the room, cut through the living room, and dashed down the hall. Once I reached the top of the basement steps, I paused to take in the sounds drifting up from below. The fight was still taking place, but it was hard to tell who was winning from listening.

I descended the stairs, gripping the shotgun tightly, knowing I’d use it if it meant saving Eli’s life or my own.

When Eli and Drew came into view, I aimed the gun at them, but I knew with as much as they were rolling around I’d never get a clear shot. I wasn’t a great shot to begin with. In fact, this was only my second time holding a gun in my life.

Drew mounted Eli and wrapped his meaty hands around his throat. Gargles and gasps for breath passed from Eli’s lips. I had to do something. Being frozen in the background wasn’t doing Eli any good. Now that Violet was safe, he was my priority.

I jogged down the remaining stairs and smashed the butt of the shotgun into the back of Drew’s head. He tumbled forward, landing on Eli.

“What the hell are you doing back here?” Eli choked out as he struggled to get Drew off him and to catch his breath. “You shouldn’t have come back. I told you to get Violet out of the house and yourself.”

“I did get Violet out,” I insisted. “And, I believe a thank you is in order. I just saved your ass,” I said with more attitude than I felt. My insides were still quivering as the sight of Eli being choked to death flashed through my mind on repeat.

He could have died.

Eli slipped out from under Drew and forced himself into a standing position. “Thank you, I guess,” he muttered as he rubbed his throat while tossing a pissed off glare Drew’s way.

I scanned the length of Eli, making sure he was truly okay. Blood trickled from above his right eye. His lip was busted, and there were a few bruises forming across the left side of his face. When he brought his hand up to wipe away the blood from his eye, I noticed his knuckles were bloodied too.

It must have been one hell of a fight.

“Are you okay?” I asked, all attitude and teasing aside. I erased the small distance between us and reached out to touch the cut above his eye. He didn’t shrink away from my touch, but instead seemed to melt toward it. “That cut is pretty deep.”

For a human, it was probably deep enough to warrant stitches, but because Eli wasn’t human, I doubted he’d need any. In a day or two, it would heal on its own thanks to being moon kissed and the healing abilities that came along with it. It would still need to be cleaned, though. Werewolves might be able to heal cuts and broken bones, to a certain extent, but that didn’t mean infections couldn’t set in and cause severe damage.

“We really should clean that up. Do you have a first aid kit in your truck?” I asked. Eli didn’t answer. My gaze drifted from his cut to his eyes. He was staring at my lips. I licked them nervously. The air around us crackled with pent-up energy, and I knew he was going to kiss me again. This time I would be ready. This time I’d move my lips beneath his and respond the way I was supposed to, the way I wanted each time he surprised me with a kiss.

Movement behind him captured my attention. My eyes shifted from Eli to Drew a heartbeat before Eli pressed his lips against mine. I couldn’t respond the way I wanted to. Not with Drew getting to his feet behind Eli. Drew lifted a tightly closed fist, ready to smash it into the back of Eli’s head. My eyes widened, and I shoved Eli out of the way. He stumbled to my left as Drew’s fist connected with my nose. Blood sprayed from it on contact, saturating Eli’s black shirt with its sticky wetness. The edges of my vision speckled with darkness and blurred all at once. I stumbled backward, my hands cupping my nose as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. The coppery taste of blood trickled down the back of my throat and filled my mouth.

“What did you do with my paycheck? Did you set her free?” Drew grumbled. His words were still slurred, but I couldn’t be sure whether it was from the alcohol in his system or the concussion he most likely had from the blow I’d given him to the back of the head with the shotgun. “I’ll take you in her place if you did, little bitch.” He grabbed my arm and jerked me toward him.

I dug my feet into the ground and jerked wildly to get free from his grasp, but it did me no good.

Drew was ten times my size.

“Hey, you,” Eli shouted. He’d snuck up behind Drew. When Drew glanced at him from over his shoulder, Eli gripped the sides of his head and twisted. The sound of bone crunching against bone echoed through the basement as his neck snapped. My mouth fell open. Drew’s grip on my arm loosened, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap.

I blinked. Nothing in front of me changed. Drew still remained motionless at my feet, his head twisted at an odd angle.

“You killed him,” I whispered unable to take my eyes off Drew. “You snapped his neck.”

Killing Drew had crossed my mind, but I didn’t think it was something I’d go through with unless the situation called for it. Had this situation called for it?

“I had to. He was going to take you. He’d already taken Violet. He played a big hand in Glenn’s disappearance. Who knows what all he’s done, or what he had planned to do in the future?” Eli insisted. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me what he’d done was justified, or if he was attempting to convince himself. “You would’ve done the same thing if he’d been coming after me. It had to be done, Mina.”

I swallowed hard. “I know.”

I’d brought a shotgun downstairs with me for that very reason. I knew Drew had to be stopped at any cost. Even so, the sight of him dead shook me up. It shouldn’t. He’d called Violet a paycheck and had intended to sell me in her place.

Why was I so worked up over this, then?

Maybe it wasn’t that Drew was lying at my feet dead, but that I’d seen him killed. Right in front of me.

“What do we do now?” I asked in a shaky voice. I needed to pull myself together to somehow make it through this moment and the next.

My gaze drifted around the basement, opting to look anywhere besides at Drew.

Warmth tickled across my upper lip, making me remember my bloody nose. I wiped at it with the back of my hand. Deep red streaked across my skin. I pinched the bridge of my nose and tipped my head back to stop the flow.

“We need to clean this place up. Get rid of any evidence that might point to us being here.”

Okay, that sounded like a good idea. It didn’t answer the question pressing against me from all sides, though.

“What do we do with him?” I kicked my foot toward Drew but couldn’t look at him.

“We need to get him to the bottom of those stairs and make it look like he fell,” Eli insisted. I released my nose and sniffled. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. “He was a heavy drinker. If we can stage the scene right, anyone would believe he’d been drinking and tripped coming down the stairs. People fall down stairs all the time, especially when they’ve been drinking heavily. Hell, people even die from internal bleeding after falling down the stairs. It’s as good a cover story as any. We have to make it look legit, though. We don’t need anyone coming after us in connection with his death later on down the road.”

I sniffled again and fought the urge to wipe my nose, knowing it would only cause it to start bleeding all over again. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

Directions. Instructions. Being told what to do and how. It was the only thing that was going to get me through this mess.

“Let’s get him to the bottom of the stairs,” Eli said. He bent at the waist and grabbed Drew by his arms.

My hands shook as I reached for his feet. A heavy sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t believe I was helping to move a dead body. This was not how I’d thought the night would go.

“What else?” I asked once Drew was laid at the bottom of the steps. I licked my lips and swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth. Nausea pulsed through me. Along with a strong desire to shower and then curl into the fetal position.

“We need to clean up any blood. Even Violet’s in the cage. Anything we touched has to be wiped down too. We don’t want to leave anything behind that could be traced back to the pack.” Eli’s voice was calm and steady as though he’d given out orders like this a million times. While it sort of unnerved me because I was on the verge of having a breakdown and he wasn’t, it also had me realizing he was going to be one hell of a pack leader when the time came.

“Okay.” I searched for cleaner and a rag.

“Check near the washer for some bleach. It’s the only thing that’ll kill the blood and make it as close to untraceable as it can be to the naked eye.”

“How do you know this?” I asked as I reached for the gallon jug of bleach beside the washer.

“Trust me, you don’t want to now.”

I inhaled a sharp breath as I scratched out a mental note to never piss off Eli.

With the jug of bleach in hand and one of Drew’s crusty T-shirts from a pile near the washer, I scrubbed the floor where he’d smashed in my nose. Eli brought a rag over and poured some bleach on it before moving to clean the area where he and Drew had fought. We moved to the cage Violet had been held in next. Afterward, we cleaned the other two cages. The cage to the left of Violet’s was horrible.

“God, this one is a mess,” I said as I paused to glance around the cage. “Looks like it was used to store an animal, not a human.”

“Ummm, that’s because it was,” Eli insisted.

My stomach somersaulted as my chest tightened. He was right.

Once the basement was clean, the only thing I could smell was bleach. I hoped the sharp scent wouldn’t linger around too long. It might seem suspicious if it did. Drew didn’t seem like the type to go on a cleaning binge. Ever.

“Okay, I wiped off the cage doors, the screwdriver, and everything else I can think of we’ve touched down here. The last thing we need to do is change the padlock on the basement door, wipe the door down, and then put the gun you brought down back upstairs once we wipe it off,” Eli insisted as he ran his rag along the ladder I’d set out. He slipped it back between the shelving unit and the dryer, and then reached for a cardboard box. “Here’s a new lock.”

He handed me a new padlock. I didn’t ask how he’d known it was there, figuring he’d found it while searching for something to pick the lock to Violet’s cage with earlier.

Violet. I hoped she was still where I’d left her. Anxiety and shock had managed to freeze time, making it hard for me to gauge how long ago it had been since I’d left her.

Eli picked up the shotgun and wiped it off. The movement pulled me out of my thoughts.

“What about his gun?” I nodded to the gun kicked into the corner.

Eli glanced at it but didn’t move to pick it up. Instead he reached for his bolt cutters. “I think it’s fine where it’s at. Makes the scene look more authentic. It could have slid out of his holster when he fell.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. My skin was starting to crawl. I was ready to get the hell out of here.

“Where did you leave Violet?”

“At the edge of the woods,” I said. “I hope she’s still there.”

“With the way her ankle was and how doped up she seemed to be, I highly doubt she went anywhere. We need to take her to your gran. I’m sure Violet’s ankle will have to be broken again so it can be set right.”

A chill ran up my spine at the thought as I started toward the stairs with my bleach rag in hand. “Yeah. All right, let’s switch out this lock and get the heck out of here. I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to be.”

“Agreed,” Eli said as he followed up the steps behind me. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” I paused and glanced over my shoulder at him. He was heading back down the stairs.

“Forgot something.”

I watched him as he went to the dryer and climbed on top. He reached toward one of the shelves lined with mason jars of moonshine and grabbed a jar. Eli tucked it underneath his arm and then grabbed another before hopping down and jogging back up the stairs to where I was.

“Didn’t want to leave without one of these…or two.” He winked.

I rolled my eyes and continued up the stairs.

Him and his damn moonshine.

Once we switched out the busted padlock for a new one and wiped everything down, we returned the shotgun I’d taken to its cabinet and made our way outside, cleaning as we went. Fresh air had never felt better.

I led Eli to where I’d left Violet. She was still lying on the ground at the edge of the woods, folded in on herself. I couldn’t get over how fragile and young she looked. There were two years between us, but from the way she looked right now, it could have easily been ten.

Eli shined the flashlight on her ankle. It looked even worse. The swelling had intensified. I attributed it to having her walk on it so I could get her out of the house. Guilt swam through me. She’d probably damaged it more because I made her walk on it. I hadn’t had a choice, though.

I sent a prayer to the moon goddess, asking that Gran be able to fix Violet’s ankle. If not, there was a good chance she might be like my father—forever a wolf inside but never able to shift.

If that ended up being the case, Drew deserved what he’d got.

“Here, you carry this and I’ll carry her,” Eli insisted as he held out the two jars of moonshine, the flashlight, and his bleach rag. I took everything he held out and watched as he bent to lift Violet up as though she weighed nothing. He cradled her against his chest and started down the driveway. “Let’s go.”

“Right behind you.” I started walking. My grip on all I was carrying intensified as I reflected on everything that had happened in the span of a few hours. When my mind drifted to Drew, I tried to think about how we’d rescued Violet instead. How Eli and I were a good team.

Were we a team, or were we starting to become something more? Could I allow that to happen? Did I even have a choice at this point? And where did that leave things between Alec and me?

“How’s your nose?” Eli asked, pulling me from my thoughts as he shifted Violet in his arms. “That asshole really popped you good.”

Instinctively, my fingers lifted to press against my nose. It was tender, and I was positive it was swollen, probably even broken, but I was okay. “Sore, but I don’t think it isn’t anything a little moonshine won’t help,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. For me, at least. I needed this night to be over.

“Damn right.” Eli chuckled. Violet moaned in his arms. “Shh. You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Jealousy slipped through me at the sound of his soft words to her. That blow to the nose must’ve really done a number on me.

Once we reached Eli’s truck, he laid Violet down on the passenger seat.

“Sorry, but you’re going to have to go in through the driver side door and scoot across to sit in the middle,” Eli insisted as he closed the door. “I don’t want to lay her in the back.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

I climbed in the driver’s side and scooted across the bench seat to sit in the middle. My fingers smoothed through Violet’s damp hair. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake fully. I wished whatever Drew had given her would wear off.

Eli climbed behind the steering wheel and cranked the engine of his truck. He flicked on his headlights and shifted into reverse. Seconds later, we were cruising down Wilmont Avenue, heading home, and I felt like I could finally breathe again.