Chapter 233

The door on Carrie’s side of the car springs open first, and Beau, in human form, grabs her by the arm and yanks her out of her seat. She topples down into the dirt of the construction site. Archer hops off the hood of the car. Through the windows, I can see Neil and Steven, also in wolf form, circling around her.

My door is still locked, so I tug myself over the center console and exit through the driver’s side door. Beau is immediately there, taking me by the arm and helping to right me against the side of the car. His worried gaze trails down the length of me, as if looking for injuries.

“I’m okay,” I say. “Well, except my arm.” It’s dangling at a weird angle.

Beau looks at it. Without warning, he grabs it and shifts it hard back into place. I yelp! But, a moment later, it does feel better.

“Thanks,” I grumble. “But a warning might be nice.”

“You’d lock up if I told you,” Beau says. “It doesn’t hurt as much if you are relaxed.”

I am not about to thank him a second time, so I just frown at him. He grins in response, arrogant asshole. Both our expressions harden when we hear Carrie talk.

“You have no right interfering!” she shouts.

While with Beau, I didn’t notice him shift. He stands fully human now, glaring down at Carrie with no sympathy or compassion. Only fury burns behind those eyes.

“You will explain yourself now,” Archer growls. “Or I will stop asking questions.”

Neil and Steven, still in wolf form, prowl behind Carrie, circling each other, blocking off any chance of escape. It’s strange to see those two as the muscle of the group. They must have been furious beyond reason as well, to let Archer be the one to do the talking.

Archer doesn’t have the best reputation for keeping a level head.

“Chloe’s mostly unharmed,” Beau announces, and that at least, takes a modicum of tension out of Archer’s shoulders. His angry glare never shifts away from Carrie, however.

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Carrie says. “She was my leverage.”

“With my father, you have no leverage,” Archer snaps.

Carrie isn’t cowed, however. She lifts her chin in defiance. It’s almost inspiring, if her plans didn’t involve throwing my life into jeopardy. It’s proving difficult to forgive her of that.

“I will do anything for my daughter,” Carrie says, another inspiring thing. Good mothers are hard to come by. But again, I just wish my life hadn’t been in the trade there.

“Our father has no intention of holding up his end of any bargain you made. You are an idiot for thinking otherwise,” Archer says.

“It’s a chance I had to take,” Carrie says.

“A chance you made with Chloe’s life. A girl who has done nothing but try to support you. Someone who has been sympathetic of your cause. This is the person that you were willing to have die just so you could return to your life as it was.”

For the first time since Archer’s interrogation began, Carrie falters somewhat. She glances at me sideways, a touch of sheepishness lowering her head. She doesn’t look at me for long, almost like she can’t.

Maybe out of guilt. I can’t pretend to know for sure.

I thought I knew Carrie, but the person I thought I knew would have never done this.

“Mia isn’t in danger,” Archer growls. “She’s safe with us and ours. Do not pretend your actions here were anything but selfish.”

“It was me or her,” Carrie says. She lowers her chin down to her chest. “It still is.”

“He set you up,” Archer says.

Carrie lifts her head, surprised.

“He gambled if we would fight to protect Chloe. If we didn’t save her, and you managed to get her there, our father would have killed her and then you. If we stopped you along the way and killed you to protect Chloe, you would still be dead. He never intended you to survive either way.”

She tries lifting her head with the same pride she had a moment ago, but her bottom lip shakes this time. No one would believe her a brave woman now.

She must have been able to see the truth in Archer’s words. After all, she knows the Alpha King as well, having been his lover, willing or unwilling. She knows his cruelty as well as anyone. Better than most, probably.

Carrie drops down onto her knees. Tears burst from her eyes and she wails like a woman drowning in grief.

My heart lurches, and I kind of want to reach out to her. Beau stops me by looking at me like I’ve grown a second head.

Neil chuffs, and he and Steven come closer to me. Archer does too, totally disregarding Carrie now.

“We need to get you to a doctor,” Beau says to me. “You could have head trauma.”

Carrie could too, though they don’t seem to consider that. Or maybe they just don’t care.

They likely don’t care.

“Let’s go,” Archer says. He grabs my uninjured arm none-too-gentle and starts pulling me away.

“Hey!” I shout, struggling against him. I look over my shoulder to where Carrie has collapsed in the dirt. “We can’t just leave her there!”

Now it’s Archer’s turn to look at me like I’ve lost my marbles.

“She’s hurting and vulnerable. She loves Mia so much,” I say.

“She tried to kill you today,” Archer says through gritted teeth.

“She’ll die if we leave her here! If what you said is true, your father will send goons and kill her off,” I say, pleading now. I grab his wrist with both my hands, and force all the sincerity I feel into my eyes.

“I don’t care,” Archer says flatly.

“She wouldn’t have given you this same consideration,” Beau argues. “She would leave you here to get what she wants.”

I look at Beau. “I’m not like her. And neither are you. We don’t play around with people’s lives like your father does.”

“She tried to take what is ours,” Archer argues. I know he means me. They never did quite get over that hurdle, of seeing me as their property.

“Fine,” I say, fired up now. I am my own person with my own beliefs, and if they won’t help her, then I’ll help her alone. “Then she can stay with me at the penthouse until this gets sorted.”

Alarm chokes Beau’s voice, “What?”

Archer’s brow lowers further, dangerous and deadly. I’ve learned a long time ago to stop being scared of him though. He clearly doesn’t want me hurt or dead. He’s all bite at this point.

“I mean it, Archer. If you guys don’t help her, then I will.”

Archer starts to growl. Admittedly, it does send a shiver through me, both in fear and something far more pleasant, but I push all those feelings down now. This is serious. I need to stay focused.

Carrie’s life is on the line.

I know what they are saying is true. If our roles were reversed, Carrie would leave me here. But this is Mia’s mother. And I’m speaking truth as well. We are not our counterparts. I am not Carrie, and the brothers are not their father.

We do not leave people to die.

“Bring Carrie, too,” Neil says from behind me. I turn to find him shifted into human form. His eyes are hard though, where I might have expected softness seeing him again so soon after our time together.

He’s clearly not happy with me.

From all their frowning faces, none of them are.