Small Town Love

Chapter 13

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.

Washington Irving

"You bit a human?"

That snapped the carefully maintained control he had tried to keep for the last few hours. Ever since he had left Daphne's side he had been off-kilter. He didn't want to leave her alone. He had no wish for that. But she needed time. Time to come to a decision without him lurking around and he could give her that.

Or so he had thought.

He had tried to keep calm when the pack came together for the meeting but the exclamation of Joseph Newton, one of the older members of the pack...that broke something inside him wide, wide open.

"If I didn't, then she would be dead!" He roared, his father laying a hand on his should trying to hold him back as tremors ran through him.

He needed to force the wolf back down in a way he didn't need to do often at all, forcibly calming the waves of tremors wrecking through him.

He remembered Daphne's red blood on the white snowy ground, remembered the white of her bone sticking out of her leg, the way her breathing had been harsh and punctuated with whimpers.

"My son did what he had to save his mate. Did you expect him to do something else?" His father asked icily. "Did you expect him to let his mate die in front of him from injuries that a bite would heal?"

She had been in so much pain. She wouldn't have survived it if he wouldn't have bitten her.

And that...that was just not acceptable.

She should have a long and happy life, be able to get married and have children and...and he could just hope that he would be the husband and father to theses eventual cubs that she would give birth to.

"No," Newton shook his head. "He did what he had to. It should never have come to this, however."

There Luke was in total agreement.

"What did you do Kyle Wilder?" Another member of the pack piped up.

"It's an interesting conundrum. He as human hurt another human, but he also interfered with a mate bond," Newton commented. "And the mate of the future alpha at that."

"I took care of it," his father said calmly. "He will attend a military academy in Washington State. Maybe they will straighten him out."

That's all?

Luke wanted revenge. Luke wanted to taste Kyle's blood, wanted to put the fear of God into him and to rip him apart. He had hurt Luke's mate. He deserved to suffer.

"That's all?" Kiana asked unbelievingly and Luke balled his hands into fists. Oh, how he would love to...

"I have learned that while revenge tastes good for a while, it's the protection of our families that's the most important." His father gained murmurs of agreements with that. "He will never set a foot into our territory again. If he does...he will regret it."

"Other packs could see this as weakness," Andrew, Luke's uncle cautioned his father softly but Stephen Schuyler just snorted.

"He's a 17-year-old boy. Yes, he nearly beat a girl half to death that's around half his size, but he is still a boy. I am willing to give him one more chance to straighten out. If he doesn't...I will deal with it."

"Prosecuting him is out. We can't deal with it the human way. Not without trying to explain how Luke found her and why she didn't go to a hospital and a whole lot of other issues," Sebastian threw in gently as well.