“I take it this is your sister and your brother-in-law.” Time was he would have been able to sniff the air and know which one was the Female and which one was the Male. That ability still eluded him at the moment, which was fine. Anyone who threatened Lena got a beat down—Male or Female.
“Devin, please don’t involve yourself in this. It’s a family matter.”
Her words stung him a little bit, but he pushed it aside. He’d given her no reason to think she could trust him with this delicate a situation.
“I’m here, Lena. I’m not leaving until they’re no longer threatening you.”
Both Wolves turned on him, snarling. Their mouths open, saliva pooled out of their tongues onto the ground. Yep, they were doped up, no question.
One of them growled at him and lunged forward in a threatening manner before crouching low. So the bastards wanted to fight. He took a steadying breath, not taking his eyes off the lead Wolf.
“You want to threaten me, fine. But you stay away from her.” He pointed at Lena. Devin couldn’t shift, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t protect her. He’d fought Dragons in his human form. A drugged up Wolf wouldn’t be that big of a problem.
The Wolf lunged and Devin scurried out of the way. Lena’s brother-in-law—Devin assumed it was he and not the sister—smacked into the wall headfirst. The Wolf whimpered just as the second Wolf attacked.
Lena’s sister managed to bite at Devin’s arm before he flung her off. She landed next to her husband, whimpering right next to him.
“Not so tough, are you, when no one is afraid of you?”
Adrenaline surged through his blood. Yes, he could kill right now if he needed to. He might even enjoy it.
“Want to go again?”
The two Wolves shifted back into their human forms. They sat, side by side, on the floor. If they had been mildly frightening Wolves, they were downright pathetic humans.
Lena’s sister looked a little bit like Lena. She had the same blond hair, although hers looked like a rat’s nest had been built within its strands. Her face looked gaunt, her eyes bloodshot. He suddenly wondered how she’d managed to shift at all, considering she looked like she was about two seconds away from floating away into nothingness.
Her mate—well, there was no accounting for taste. He’d lost about three quarters of his brown hair. His face looked bloated and his bulbous nose glowed red in the dimly lit room.
“Who do you think you are, interfering in something that is none of your business?” Elizabeth Knox might resemble her sister a little bit, but that was where the similarity ended. Her voice was filled with venom.
“I’m Lena’s friend. You were attacking her. That makes this my problem.”
“You’re her friend?” Elizabeth’s words ran together when she spoke. “That’s rich. I can smell her all over you and you all over her. Is friendship what they’re calling it these days, baby sister?”
Devin wished he could shift so he could teach Elizabeth some manners. He stepped forward, and Lena rushed to put herself between Elizabeth and him. Her eyes were huge, pleading.
“Please, Devin, she’s not well. Neither of them is in their right minds. They’re addicted to drugs. Fergus is a war hero; we need to cut him a break.”
The rage that Lena’s words threatened to unleash in Devin became a living, palpable thing.
“Let me see if I understand you correctly.” He took a step back, not trusting himself at that moment not to roar at her. At his sides, his hands shook. “He’s a war hero, so that gives him the right to come into your home and threaten you after having, apparently, robbed your family blind several times in the past.”
“Hey, asshole.” Like his mate, Fergus couldn’t string two words together correctly without slurring them. “What the fuck have you ever done?”
Devin moved forward, placing Lena behind him as he surged toward Fergus. In two seconds, he had him off the floor and pinned up against the wall. “What have I ever done? Nothing. Not one thing of note.”
“That’s not true. Fergus, Devin is a war hero, too. You have that in common.”
He wished Lena would stop talking. Devin couldn’t help himself. He needed to handle this like he needed to breathe.
“If you were there, you should get it. I need to be able to afford to feel again.”
Devin roughly turned him so he faced Elizabeth. “Look what you’ve done to your mate. Did you fight for all those years to do this?” In his arms, Fergus shook. Good. The man had some sense of the Wolf left in him. “Did you fight to keep her safe from the Dragon-beasts to do this to her?”