Probably more irritating than all of that, however, was that Marcus kept trying to flirt with Roni. Where Dominic was sleazy-flirty, Marcus was smooth-flirty. The only thing stopping Nick from growling at the ass**le was that Roni was simply looking at the guy blankly, totally bamboozling him. Given how uncomfortable she was around all these strangers, Nick wouldn’t be surprised if she returned to her wolf form sometime soon. He had hoped that she would go home to the Ryland Pack with his mom and Amber. Unfortunately, she had refused. Even more unfortunate, so had his mom and Amber. And now—to top it all off—his beautiful mate beside him was totally pissed off because Amber was sitting on his other side. Not even the fact that Kent was throwing fries at Amber was cheering Shaya up.

Wanting to soothe her and reassure her that she was the only one who mattered, Nick lifted Shaya and sat her in his lap. After a moment, she melted against him, and he locked both arms around her. “Please tell me your bedroom is on a completely different floor than everyone else.”

Hearing the frustration in his voice, Shaya couldn’t help but smile. Her mate was in hell with all this attention and offers of friendship. “Sorry to disappoint, but it’s only a few doors away from Jaime, your new best friend.” His growl made her chuckle. “They’re just all feeling bad for their behavior toward you when it’s clear you had your reasons for not claiming me in the beginning. They’ll stop smiling at you within the hour.”

He bit her ear for teasing him. “I can’t believe we’ve only been here an hour and already all the females have our mating ceremony totally covered and have scheduled it for tonight.” It was tradition that the other females of the pack organized the ceremony, but he’d never heard of one being so swiftly planned. “Maybe they just want it over with quickly because they don’t trust me not to abandon you again.”

“You didn’t truly abandon me. And the reason they want us to have it quickly is so that the humans don’t interrupt it with an attack. Dante and Jaime’s ceremony was spoiled by Glory and her relatives infiltrating the territory and attacking everyone. You do want to have a ceremony, right?”

“Of course I do, dumbass.”

She spoke against his mouth. “Good. Because if you don’t turn up at that ceremony out of some misguided attempt to protect me from what’s happening to you, I’ll hunt you down and beat the shit out of you with my bat.”

He smiled. “Feisty.”

“Besides, I asked Taryn if she would try healing you. She said she would.”

“It might not work, Shay,” he told her gently.

“I know, but you promised you wouldn’t give up.”

“And I won’t; I’m willing to let Taryn try. Although, I have the feeling that Taryn would sooner cut my throat than heal me.”

“I think she’s warming to you.”

He snorted at that and was about to comment when Derren, who had popped out of the room to take a call, suddenly barged inside the kitchen.

“Nick, I just got off the phone with Donovan. He said to turn on the TV.”

“Why?”

“He found the location of the preserve. And he called it in.”

Everybody quickly piled into the living area, but no one spoke as the news of the preserve was aired live. Nick had encountered much evil in his life, known cruelty and violence, but he had never seen anything like this. It was worse than even Lee-Roy had described. Dead bodies of shifters ranging from the age of seven—fucking seven—had been dumped on the land, all maimed, brutalized, and decaying. Some of the bodies were even frozen mid-shift while others were missing their eyes or limbs. Even the human reporter, the same reporter who had days ago portrayed shifters as animals, was horrified and close to tears at the sight of the bodies—particularly those of the children.

Nick understood why Donovan hadn’t notified him before contacting the police; he’d known that when Nick saw how bad it was, he wouldn’t have been happy to let the police deal with it and that he’d have wanted to go after Logan and those other bastards himself. As such, Donovan was right not to have told Nick first. This was about more than just them. This was about shifters worldwide.

Although many had been arrested in connection with it, Logan’s name hadn’t been mentioned, and there had been no mention of a shifter being involved either. Nick knew, however, that Lee-Roy had been telling the truth when he said the person running the preserve was a shifter. That meant the bastard was still out there, free as a bird.

Feeling Shaya’s desolation and realizing she was crying, Nick moved her from her spot beside him on the giant sofa to his lap. He cradled her against him, rocking her. Most of the other females were crying too. The sickening sight of the preserve almost brought tears to his own eyes. The more the reporter revealed, the more nauseous he felt. Until they worked out who the shifter responsible was, they couldn’t be sure another preserve wouldn’t be set up somewhere else…and they couldn’t make sure the prick paid for what he’d done.

“Nick,” croaked Shaya. “After seeing this…I don’t know if I can—”

She cut herself off, but Nick knew what she was thinking: She didn’t know if she could go through with a mating ceremony and throw a celebration when this was on her mind. He was feeling the same way. The images were stuck in his head, and he couldn’t get them out and didn’t think he would anytime soon. It didn’t seem right to throw a party on the heels of something like this. “Me neither, baby. We’ll do it after this is all over, okay?” Nodding, she snuggled even more into him.

Kent brought his hand to his mouth. “I honestly think I might be sick.”

Derren looked at him, his expression grim. “You know what this means.”

Nick nodded. “It means the extremists’ case will be dismissed on Thursday morning. And it means they’ll be here Thursday night for sure—they’ll take this into their own hands, just as Logan planned in the meeting.”

“That’s okay,” growled Trey, “because we’ll be waiting. I can’t wait to get my hands on those motherfuckers. They deserve whatever happens to them.”

“I have a feeling the shifter behind all this will come with them,” said Ryan. Nick was surprised to hear him speak.

“Me too,” said Trick. “He hates shifters anyway, and now that he’s no longer making money from charging humans to kill our kind, I’d say he’ll be pissed enough to join Logan in the attack.”