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I blinked, thrown by the question. We’d never discussed a dog. Not in years, anyway. What the hell was he talking about?

“Uh, no,” I said, drawing the last word out as I tried to figure out what he was getting at.

“No?” Ashton sounded disappointed. “Man, I thought you were for sure going to get him. I guess I misunderstood.” He paused. “Things weren’t what they seemed.”

“ What? Ashton, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll see soon,” he said. “Also, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to call again. Uh, Cole might catch you, and you know how angry he gets. I love you, Mom. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” I said, my throat clenching, turning the word into a squeak.

Before I could hang up, there was another rustling sound, and Kyle was back on the line.

“So nice for mother and child to have a few minutes,” he said. “I’m happy to give you that.”

“Yeah,” I said, choking back emotion. “Thank you for that.”

“No thanks necessary. I’m taking great care of our boy.”

Our boy? This motherfucker. I clamped my teeth onto my tongue to hold back the stream of curses that threatened to explode from my mouth.

“One thing. I have to tell you, Avery, you’ve done a magnificent job raising him. He’s going to be the perfect heir to my empire. My men have been training with him, and it’s shocking how powerful he is.”

Training? What the hell did he mean by that? Was he putting Ashton through similar work that Cole had been doing? Trying to turn Ashton into some sort of soldier who would carry out Kyle’s sick plans?

“I always knew he was strong,” I said, unsure what else to say to keep the conversation going.

“You should know, I’ve had a few reports from my men about wolves patrolling the area around Harbor Mills, North Crest, and a few other areas.

Most likely, they’re Cole’s forces trying to get intel on me.

As much as I want to talk to you, I’ll need to sever contact until things have reached their conclusion. ”

“Conclusion?” I asked dumbly.

Kyle chuckled. “Everything will be over soon. Within the next forty-eight hours, Cole will be dead, Harbor Mills will be ours, and I can take you to bed and claim you. Until then, stay safe.”

The phone went dead. I almost sobbed, but I was too busy thinking to give in. What had Ash been trying to tell me? That whole thing about the dog? What the hell?

Things weren’t what they seemed .

Was he trying to tell me something without Kyle hearing?

Things weren’t what they seemed . The only thing I could think was that he was telling me something about the whole situation was off.

Could that be it? Was it about the training Kyle had mentioned?

If that was the case, why would Ashton think he needed to hide that information when Kyle had been forthcoming with it?

I hissed a breath through my teeth. Why couldn’t Kyle have given him a few minutes alone rather than him being forced to use some code to get information across?

Then there’d been that last little bit about not calling again.

Cole didn’t have a temper like Ashton had said.

That was obvious. He didn’t want me calling again, but why?

The only consolation I had was the fact that he sounded healthy and relatively safe. Not that it did anything to ease my worries. Kyle was becoming more unhinged by the day. Anything might end up tipping him over the edge into a full-blown maniac.

When Cole returned with Langston and Trent a few hours later, I fessed up immediately.

“You did what ?” Cole yelled.

“Not smart, Avery,” Langston said. “You should have told us you were going to do that.”

“Why?” I shot back. “So you could tell me not to?”

“For starters, yeah,” Langston said as he crossed his arms.

Trent, obviously not wanting to get involved in a fight, slipped farther into the kitchen away from us.

“The last time you talked to him, it nearly wrecked you,” Cole said. “It would be better if you hadn’t. I don’t want you stressing yourself out for no good reason.”

“I’m not a fucking porcelain doll, Cole,” I said.

“I realize how upset I was the last time. None of that matters. Ashton has been gone for weeks. Weeks . And all that time, he’s been sitting there terrified and waiting for his mother and father to save him, and we haven’t managed to do anything for him. So I did what I needed to do. Got it?”

Cole looked at me, sorrow filling his eyes. “I’m sorry. We don’t think it was smart for you to do that. Not after what it did to you last time.”

“Cole’s right, Avery,” Langston said. “If you wanted to call him, you should have waited for us to be here. We could have?—”

“ Stop ,” I snarled, glaring at both of them. “You keep acting like this is about me. It’s not. This is about Ashton. Nothing else matters. I called you—” I pointed at Langston “—because I thought it would help get my son back faster, and yet here we are. Is my son in this house, Langston? Is he?”

Langston lowered his eyes, unable or unwilling to meet my gaze.

It should have made me feel ashamed, but instead, a swell of happiness filled me.

I was miserable, so why shouldn’t my friends be, too?

I didn’t even realize I’d had this much emotion bottled up inside me, but it was ready to explode, like a can of soda being shaken up until it could no longer hold the pressure.

“Not sure if either of you care or not, but Ashton told me that something strange is going on. Something that isn’t as it seems. Maybe he means the doctor working with Kyle, or maybe it’s something else, I don’t know.

” I threw a withering glare at Cole. “Kyle is also training him, and trying to get Ashton to call him fucking Dad .”

Cole’s head snapped up, and had I not already been angry, I would have flinched back in fear at the look in his eyes. Rage and shock beyond reason radiated from his face at hearing the words.

“What?” he said, barely managing to choke the words out.

“You heard me,” I said. “I guess now it’s okay that I called? Now that something has hurt your poor masculine pride?”

The anger vanished from his eyes, the color draining from his face as if I’d slapped him.

“Avery, I didn’t?—”

“I’m going upstairs,” I said.

I stomped up the stairs, leaving the two men in my wake.

Striding into the bedroom, I slammed the door behind me, causing the frame to shudder.

It felt good. The explosive sound of the door sent a visceral thrill through me.

Was this why men liked banging things, punching walls, and slamming stuff?

If so, it was no wonder they enjoyed doing it when they were angry. Catharsis. That’s what it was.

Flopping onto the bed, I ran my hands through my hair in frustration.

I should have felt bad about yelling at them, but I didn’t.

It felt right, like it needed to be said.

I’d been relegated to a fucking damsel in distress.

Cole and Langston sending me to hide, keeping me guarded, all while they got to go out and actually do something to bring Ashton home.

It didn’t matter that they hadn’t been successful. They were at least able to act .

A knock came at the door a few seconds later. I didn’t have to ask to know who it was.

“Come in, Cole,” I said wearily. I was irritated beyond belief, but I didn’t want to make things worse between us. As furious as I was, he was all I had to hang on to.

He entered, an abashed look on his face. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He took a seat on the bed beside me. “I’m sorry. Can I tell you my side, though?”

It was all I could do not to bite back with a pissy retort. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“The reason I was upset is because I saw how drained you were the last few times you had to talk to him. We said you wouldn’t talk to him again, right? Do you remember that discussion?”

Bitterly, I did recall it. I thought I knew where this was going, and I was already irritated at myself.

“I do.”

Cole nodded. “We decided that the last time would be the final time. Then, instead of talking to us about it, you went behind our backs and called. What would you have thought or done if I had done the exact same thing? How would you feel if you found out I did something dangerous we’d agreed I wouldn’t do?

Regardless of the reasons why I did it.”

Shit .

“I’d have been upset,” I admitted. “But Cole, you have to admit, we’ve got to try something new.

Kyle’s got us running in circles, and every time we think we’ve done something to get the upper hand, he makes us look like fools.

I didn’t go behind your back to be malicious. I just knew we needed to do something.”

“I know you aren’t trying to call me and Langston incompetent, but that’s what it feels like right now,” Cole said.

“The guys and I are doing the best we can, and hearing you say that is a little like a slap in the face. It’s not that we don’t want to do more—we’re doing all we can. Do you think we aren’t?”

He looked at me, and despite his words, I had to disagree. We had to do more, needed to do more.

From the look on Cole’s face, I could see my silence was the only answer he needed.

Cole sighed and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Avery, you aren’t the only one who lost Ashton.

I know I wasn’t there for most of his life, and you’re his mom, but I’m his dad.

It hurts me that he’s not back, and I know things aren’t happening as fast as we wanted.

That’s upsetting, but there’s bigger things at play here.

This isn’t about us.” Cole pointed toward the backyard, where Gabe was padding around, a man trapped in a wolf’s body.

“The pack, all these innocent people? I’ve got to protect them along with my child and mate. ”

I had no response for that. Half of me wanted to argue and tell him Ashton was the most important thing, that everyone else didn’t matter.

The other side of my mind recoiled from that sort of selfish thinking.

What if we weren’t mixed up in this and Ashton had been attacked while he was walking across the street?

What if he was stuck in the body of a wolf?

How would I feel if some woman somewhere told me he didn’t matter?

“I’m glad he’s safe,” Cole said. “I’m happy you got to talk to him, and that you found out a bit more about Kyle’s plans.”

He looked over at me, and there was no anger in his eyes, nothing but sadness.

“Though, that was a conversation we could have all heard if you’d just told us you were doing it.

I wouldn’t have been able to talk to Ashton, but I could have at least heard his voice.

Langston and I might have been able to figure out more from what they said.

We’re a team, Avery. You doing that without telling us is not what someone who’s on a team does. ”

Without another word, he rose. Shaking his head sadly, he left me alone in the bedroom.

For a few seconds, I stared after him, my head spinning, trying to find some argument that made it seem less like I’d fucked up. Yet, there was nothing. He was right. If I’d asked, he and Langston would have let me call.

Dejected, I slid to the floor and hugged my legs to my chest, resting my forehead on my knees.