Page 26 of Lost Wolf (Exiled Omegas #2)

Twenty-Six

Ollie

I jolt awake with a gasp and a bolt of pain shoots through my already pounding head. My stomach sloshes uncomfortably and a burp makes its way up my throat, leaving a stale, unpleasant taste in my mouth. Not that my mouth didn’t already taste like something died in there. Yuck.

Sitting up in the bed, I raise a hand to my spinning head as I glance around the room in confusion. How did I get here? And, for that matter, where is “here”?

Slowly my brain pieces together the events of the last few hours.

Our arrival in Rockcastle.

Meeting the Alpha.

The tour.

Sitting down to dinner.

And then…? I blink, struggling to pull up a solid recollection of how I got here. My gaze travels the room again, but it’s still completely unfamiliar.

Did I fall asleep?

I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing at my temple with one hand as I wrack my brain trying to figure out what’s going on. I kind of remember feeling sleepy, though that’s pretty typical of me lately, so it doesn’t seem all that strange.

But my instincts are screaming at me that something’s horribly, horribly wrong.

There’s a dull ache in my chest and I absently rub the palm of my hand over it. What is…?

The mating bond.

Luke .

That’s what’s wrong. Luke wouldn’t leave me alone. Not here.

And something tells me I need to find him. Now .

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the hardwood floor cold against my bare feet. I puzzle over my missing shoes for half a second, but it doesn’t really matter what happened to them. I don’t need shoes to find my mate, and I’m pretty sure I have bigger problems than cold feet even if I can’t quite figure out what they are yet.

Padding across the floor, I approach the window and tug the curtain to the side. The room I’m in is on the second story, and the night outside is almost pitch black, the only light coming from the full moon overhead.

But it was barely seven when we sat down to dinner.

How long have I been here?

Apprehension growing, I let the curtain fall back into place and move to the door. The handle won’t turn and I’m pretty sure it’s not stuck. Which means someone locked me in here.

And that is definitely not good.

I swallow a swell of anxiety, forcing myself to take a deep breath. Panicking is the last thing I need to do. Luke is out there somewhere. In trouble. And I need a clear head to find him.

A surge of adrenaline floods through me and my whole body goes on alert, searching for some threat I can’t see. Just as quickly, the feeling is gone, disappearing like it’d never been there, instead leaving me shaky and on edge.

What the hell was that ?

A heavy sense of uneasiness falls over me as the urgent need to escape escape escape floods through me. My eyes burn and I struggle to regulate my breathing as panic rises in my chest.

I’m locked in.

I’m alone.

And it’s all happening again .

That last thought is barely a whisper, but it acts like a sledgehammer. One of the previously insurmountable blocks in my mind cracks and shatters into jagged shards, letting loose a flood of memories. I fall to my knees, my hands on either side of my head as the overwhelming parade of images painfully assaults my brain.

When it’s finally over, tears make wet trails down my cheeks and my jaw aches from clenching my teeth so hard.

But things are a lot clearer to me now.

Well, my current situation is at least, because this isn’t the first time Wanda tried to keep me prisoner. Emphasis on tried .

The sequence of events in my head is still a little piecemeal, the memories there but not all the connections between them, so it’s hard for me to figure out the order of some things. It’s like I’ve put most of the puzzle together, but only in sections separate from each other, and I can’t get them all maneuvered into place to make the whole picture.

As my older memories weave into the newer ones, they overlay my current circumstances, giving me an almost déjà vu like feeling. I was locked in a room like this before. Hell, maybe it was even this particular room, I don’t know.

My horrible suspicion from earlier was true. Wanda had hoped I could give Earl the alpha heir he so desperately craves. A shudder goes down my spine at the thought of his hands on me.

I can’t hold back a half-hysterical laugh, the sound loud in the silence of the space around me. Whatever Wanda’s goals this time around, I don’t think she expected my memories to come back.

Or how having my memories is going to make me even more determined to be sure her plans don’t come to fruition.

A new sense of confidence fills me, and I get moving. First, I try the door again just in case, giving the handle a firmer turn but it still doesn’t budge. I’m definitely not getting out that way, not unless I have an as yet undiscovered skill for lock picking.

Which I’m pretty sure I don’t.

I glance around the room, then head toward a second door in the corner. This one leads to a bathroom, which isn’t particularly helpful. A third door opens into a walk-in closet. I huff out another laugh. At least this time I’ve been locked up in style instead of a tiny metal cage.

Shaking away the claustrophobic memory of the cage, I make my way back to the window, this time pulling the curtains completely open. Second story or not, I think going out the window is my only choice.

I shove my shoulder against the window pane, using the leverage to force it upward. Something is blocking it from opening more than eight inches or so, but for once I can be grateful for how skinny I am. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but I can fit.

Probably.

I start with my head, turning sideways and sliding through, then I twist my shoulders around to wiggle them through the gap. The bottom of the window scrapes along my back as I force myself through the opening, but I make steady progress. Once I’m halfway out, my waist resting against the window sill inside the bedroom, I realize I might have a problem.

Going out head first might not have been the best idea because as soon as my upper body tips the balance toward going out instead of staying in, I’m going to go headfirst into the ground below.

I’m a shifter, so I’d likely be just fine, but I don’t have time to take that risk.

I wriggle my way back into the room, then turn around and thread my legs through the small opening. This is a little more awkward since I have to hold myself up with my hands to push myself through the window, but in the end, it will be much safer.

Or at least doable without me cracking my skull open. That would definitely put a crimp in my rescue plan.

Not that I’m entirely sure what that is …

Doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with that when I get to it.

I return my attention to maneuvering myself out of the window, thanking my forethought this second time around that I went out face down so I’m not trying to bend backwards to get my head out.

After a few more awkward wiggles and some really shallow breaths, I finally slither all the way through the window, leaving me holding on to the ledge as I dangle over the ground below.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and let go. The landing isn’t quite as graceful as I would’ve liked, but I do remember to bend my knees to absorb some of the impact, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t broken anything.

A large light attached to the side of the house clicks on, illuminating the area directly around the house. Not good. I’m just going to have to make a run for it and hope for the best.

I dart away from the house, heading for the tree line. The trees won’t provide a ton of cover, but they’re better than the nothing I have now. After running across another open area, I reach the woods and tuck myself behind a large pine before sliding down to sit on the ground, taking a moment to think over what’s next.

My first priority is finding Luke. Nothing is more important than that. I just need to figure out where he is and how to get to him. Sounds easy enough, right?