My throat felt thick with emotion I couldn’t shed as I took in the bloodbath, handled the loss.

“How you slept through that I don’t know.”

“I didn’t sleep through anything, Ethan,” I snapped. “I passed out.” And I was damn lucky I hadn’t had my throat torn out.

When I looked at the wolves littering the space around me, I knew why though. The naturals had protected me and Daniel.

Fuck.

Guilt hit me with the power of Thor’s hammer to my goddamn head, and my head was already a mess.

He grunted, but his repeated stance made me want to smack him. Sure, he was dealing with the same grief as me, handling the same sense of loss, all while being in pain and having the memories of the battle to deal with, but I hadn’t done it on purpose.

On the brink of snapping at him, I heard a gentle, “Thank God you’re awake.”

Her relief hit me the second I processed it, and though I’d known she was okay because of our links, it was still a joyous moment to look out and see her wending her way through the trees toward us.

She came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the battlefield however, and shook her head, tears forming as she registered the bloodbath. More than that, I knew she registered how many families would be broken wide open. Mates torn apart until they passed over, children left without parents—

My jaw hardened, and I rasped, “Why did they attack?”

“We had a couple of betas drag the hyenas that were still alive to the house,” Ethan told me stiffly. “Can you manage to enforce the law on them, or is that too much?”

Anger hit me with the strength of a car T-boning another, but before I could say a word, snap at him, punch him, Sabina murmured, “Ethan, my love, there’s no point in taking this out on Austin.”

His lips tightened, and he turned his head away, but the lack of reply told me where his head was at, even if his inability to let shit go made it clear too.

“I’ll deal with them, figure out why they came and started this—” I started to say.

“I think I know,” Sabina muttered, tears in her eyes, in her voice, as she stepped around the bodies of pack brothers and sisters who’d died in the line of duty—to protect the pack.

Ethan was right. They’d done that all while I’d been snoozing.

Shame hit me, shame and guilt and regret, but I hadn’t done it on purpose. I’d just, well, fuck… wrong place. Wrong time.

“How would you know?” Eli asked, and that he didn’t get up and go over to her told me how badly he was aching, how much he was hurting.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you everything.” With sorrow in her eyes, she whispered, “My sister was the reason for it.”

“Your sister? Lara?” I rumbled, shaking my head. “That’s not possible.”

“No, not Lara. Jana.”

“She’s dead,” Ethan countered.

“Apparently she wasn’t. But she is now.”

“How?”

“Choi tore her throat out.” She cleared her throat. “H-He’s badly injured.”

“Will he live?” Eli rasped, his shoulders straightening at her news.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where he is. Or where Lara is for that matter.”

I squinted at her. “Huh?”

“They kind of, well, they sort of disappeared.”

All of us gaped at her.

“Don’t look at me like that! I told you you wouldn’t believe me.” Then, she muttered under her breath, “That’s not even the half of it.”

“Explain why she was here,” Eli ordered, his tone more of a bark than anything, and though she narrowed her eyes at him in warning, she was reasonable enough to spell it out.

“She used to be able to catch small glimpses of the future. For some reason, she had it in her head that we were going to bring about her death.”

“Well, she is dead,” I pointed out.

“Only because she came here and caused all this!” she argued with a huff, one that Knight compounded by squawking his outrage at my stupidity. “She said she was the mate of a hyena. That she led them.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how much of that is bullshit or not.”

“They’re matriarchal,” Ethan confirmed.

She twisted around and stared at the massacre, before she whispered, “These are the Lindowiczs.”

“The family you were supposed to marry into?” Eli asked.

At her nod, I blinked, but somehow, it fit. “That makes sense.”

“It does? Why? It doesn’t to me,” she grumbled.

“Hyenas are rich. They’re from the southwestern states, where they took advantage of the oil fields. But they’re shady fuckers too. Built on legitimate money, they took things illegitimate back when Rockefeller was a billionaire,” Ethan explained wearily. “They’re the only shifters who are heavily involved with humans. Their clans routinely mingle with human society to gain more social standing and to increase their wealth.”

“From what you told us of your father,” I clarified, “it makes sense that he’d go to someone like them for money.”

“Father was such a duplicitous piece of shit. Wouldn’t let me have a cat but was quite willing to marry us off to hyenas!”

“More than that,” I rumbled. “After what we talked about the other night, it makes sense that they’d be willing to take your mother as partial payment for debts outstanding.”

My brothers stiffened at that, and that was because neither of us had shared that particular discussion we’d had with them, but Sabina’s down-turned head was confirmation enough.

“You need to speak with them. Figure out why they were here. It can’t just be because Sabina’s sister had a vision. They’re stupid but they’re not that stupid.”

I nodded at Eli’s order, then muttered, “Will do.”

When I got to my feet, groaning all the while as my head started banging, I moved over to her and pressed a kiss to her head. “Be safe, sweetheart. If you have to stay out here, go to the circle.”

“He’s right,” Eli concurred, “and we need to start building the funeral pyres.” So saying, he got to his feet and hissed under his breath the second he was standing.

I winced when I saw him, his body torn up, flesh wide open in some parts—it was a wonder he didn’t fall back on his ass. It was a testament to who he was that he hadn’t passed out too.

Sabina gasped at the sight of him, then rushed over and stuck herself under his arm as she tried to prop him up. Eli just blinked at her, and asked, “Mate, what are you doing?”

“Supporting you!” she grumbled, and though he peered back at us, a little owlishly, he let her.

Which said everything.

“Well, you can support me into the circle,” he muttered. “Least you’ll be safe there.”

She didn’t argue, and together they crossed the totem circle which, amidst all the blood and gore, was as clean and protected as ever.

Eli, however, released a sharp cry as the totem’s power sank into him, but when he was allowed through, my eyes widened as the rips and shreds where flesh had parted to reveal torn muscle, were woven together once more.