Page 100 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Toby’s packmates caught up to us on our way. There was a fleeting moment of blood curdling fear as they descended upon us, but then Toby must have communicated with them the deal he’d cut to allow me entry.

I couldn’t be sure because I couldn’t hear their thoughts. I tried to speak to one of them and tried to listen in, but heard nothing. I figured it must be a pack thing. Like, one pack couldn’t get into the heads of another pack. Maybe Jared had told me this already and I’d just forgotten.

But…distantly, I remembered hearing several thoughts the night I was turned and at that time I was not pack. And I could hear my mates’ thoughts too, but I assumed that was different.

Maybe they were just blocking me like I’d managed to block Clay earlier at the river.

Toby’s matte light-gray wolf slowed, along with the two russet ones on either side of his flank. I slowed with them as we approached what I had to assume was their pack camp.

Fire smoke drifted on the breeze, mingling with a distinct and overpowering foreign animal scent that made my wolf wrinkle her nose. I kept close to Toby as a tall wooden wall came into view.

It had to be at least thirteen feet high, built of wide logs all standing shoulder to shoulder. It went in both directions as far as I could see, curving gently to make a large circle, or perhaps an oval.

I caught my breath, chest heaving as Toby howled and a hidden gateway in the wall swung open, revealing a glimpse of the interior.

What at first glance I thought were weird tents turned out to be various sizes of yurts. Fat bottomed and tapering up to a pointed tip they sat clumped together in places and spaced apart in others, like giant forest fungus or some strange genus of mushroom.

Wolves and humans milled about inside, many wearing bright colors and loose fitted clothes. Thin raw-leather vests and headbands. It looked like the seventies never left this place, if you know what I mean.

And that strange scent on the air I thought was just the smell of foreign wolves revealed itself to be that and something more. Pot.

The skunky odor was easily distinguishable now, and if that weren’t enough it was clear from the cluster of three of the eastern pack slouching against the inside of the wall passing a joint around as we entered.

I willed my pulse to stop racing and tried to quiet my mind.

Get in. Get answers. Get out.

The door was pressed shut behind us, and I whirled, holding back a growl as I took in the woman hefting a large wooden plank into place to bar it shut. My tail pressed between my legs and my lip pulled back over my teeth.

“Annie,” a familiar voice called, and I spun, antsy and skidding to one side as I took in Toby back in his human form. “Get Adam. The twin soul wolf is here for an audience, and she doesn’t have much time.”

I relaxed, if only a little, but I wasn’t ready to shift yet.

I was weak in my human form. Like this, with my wolf holding the reins, I was stronger.

Safer. I knew I wouldn’t exactly be able to have a conversation like this, but I wouldn’t leave myself vulnerable for a single minute longer than I needed to.

It was what Clay would have wanted me to do, I was sure of it.

At the thought of him waiting alone out in the woods, my heart clenched.

Clay? I tried, projecting the thought as forcibly as I could. I needed to know if he could still hear me.

Can you hear me?

Only the echo of my own voice rebounded in my skull. I swallowed hard and my skin bristled. I was alone.

“You idiot,” the woman called Annie chastised Toby. “Why the hell would you agree to that?”

“Just get him,” Toby snapped back at her. “I think he may want to hear what she has to say.”

Toby cut his bright eyes back to me, as though imploring me to have something worthwhile to tell his alpha. I got the feeling he’d be punished if Adam didn’t like what I had to say.

Would he be disappointed that I merely came to ask a question that I was fairly certain I already knew the answer to?

I hoped not.

And looking around it was more and more clear to me that I was right without even needing to ask Adam.

There were maybe a total of twenty shifters in the camp that I could see and that was being very generous. But that wasn’t the dead giveaway. They were all so…

So… Peaceful.

A small group played the banjo and sang to a trio of children near a low burning fire in the distance. A pair of younger girls sat together, scribbling in notebooks or maybe sketching.

A few cooked in an open-air kitchen near the fire, and the rest sat or laid in various states of blissful high around the remaining grounds.

These were not people looking for a fight with their neighbors. Nor were they people who would attempt to pick off our numbers one by one without hope of repercussion.

If Adam told me otherwise, I’d call him a liar.

That was when a few flaws in my plan began to emerge from my muddied thoughts.

They could lie to me.

Who was to say that just because I asked if it were them who’d been picking off our numbers that they would tell me the truth?

And who was to say that they wouldn’t turn around and tell Ryland themselves that I came here without permission, asking treasonous questions.

Fuck.

Why didn’t Clay think of any of this? Jared would’ve.

Damnit.

Clay was right. We should have told Jared. He should have been a part of this.

I fucked up.

I totally and royally fucked up.

Maybe I should just leave now, say it was all a mistake.

“The twin soul wolf,” someone called, and I stilled, recognizing the voice. It was the same voice that’d called for my execution that night at the Four Corners. The same alpha who fled instead of standing and fighting.

He stared at me beneath heavy lidded eyes. His long beard hid most of his face from me. He could have been smiling, or he could be snarling, and I wouldn’t be able to tell for the thick bush of salt and pepper hair. He wore a white tunic and loose tan pants. His feet were bare.

He looked for all the world like he was about to welcome me into his commune for an hour of beer yoga. Only his eyes spoke of his status here. Heated. Wide pupils ringed with burning hazel irises.

“Welcome to my territory,” he spat like a curse, training a furious stare on Toby who said nothing but dropped his head in shame.

“Well,” Adam hissed. “Do you want this audience or not, girl? I heard you have a lad waiting who’s primed to explode if you don’t return in the next forty minutes.”

I wasn’t sure if I did want to have this meeting anymore, but I was here now. Too late to back out.

I held in a pained cry as I shifted back, the transformation slower going for the fourth time in a day. I cringed to think how the fifth time would treat me when we got home. At least there was a hot bath waiting there.

I clenched my fists against the urge to cover my nakedness from view and forced my spine erect. “Thank you,” I managed. “For giving me an—”

“This way,” Adam said without letting me finish, waving an arm at me to follow him. “You too, Toby,” he added. “I’d like a word with you when our visitor departs.”

I offered Toby an impish grin, and his face pinched, falling into step behind me as I followed Adam to one of the larger yurts not in a cluster but set apart, with its own little herb garden outside.

Scratch that. Pot garden. With its own little pot garden outside.

Adam went inside, holding back a thin white flap for us to follow him. On entry, my senses were assaulted with a myriad of colors and smells. Jasmine and sandalwood. Sage and juniper.

There were patterned carpets and fuzzy blankets of every color. Orange leather and wicker and thick, chunky lace drapes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have guessed the entrance to the yurt was actually a portal through time.

And Adam just sort of blended in with it all. He folded himself down into a wicker seat with bits of the straw-like material fraying and broken in places. It was a wonder the thing didn’t collapse under his weight.

“Sit,” he ordered Toby, jutting his chin to a chair set next to his, with a small tree stump table placed between them.

He offered me no seat, though if I were being honest, I preferred to remain standing anyway.

Adam gave me one long up and down look, making me shudder and want to cover all the bits and pieces I’d been taught to keep hidden my entire life until now.

He jabbed two fingers at a patterned blue and black blanket cast haphazardly on a lumpy bed jammed against the other side of the yurt. “You can put that on if you want, then I suggest you get talking so we can get you back to your friend before he has a fit.”

Grateful, I rushed over and draped the thick blanket over my shoulders, tugging it closed at my front. I tried to ignore the faint scent of body odor clinging to it. It was better than being ass naked in front of two strange men.

Though Toby didn’t seem to mind one bit.

“Get on with it, girl,” Adam urged, slouching back in his chair with a huff.

An annoyed flush crawled into my cheeks.

Now that I was here, exactly where I wanted to be, the question seemed foolish.

I knew it wasn’t their doing, but maybe they could still give me information I could use.

Among the other wolves who had joined our pack after Ryland killed their alphas, there had been a few who seemed to know things about Ryland.

And it was those wolves—supposedly—who’d gone missing.

Maybe there were shifters here who knew some of those things, too.

“Several wolves have vanished from our pack,” I began, trying to keep the acid from leaking into my tone. I didn’t like how either of them were looking at me. How they were speaking to me. I lifted my chin and waited to see if they would take the bait, tell me something.

Adam’s brows lowered at the open-ended statement. “Are you accusing us of something?”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that, so I continued, choosing to ignore his question. “They’ve vanished without a trace. We’ve searched for weeks, to the outer edges of our borders and far beyond them where we could. They left no trail. Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed further, and he made a considering sound in his throat, thinking through something. “And you’ve come all this way to tell me this…why?”

I swallowed. “Originally, I came to ask if you had something to do with it,” I admitted, watching his lips part in surprise, but I wasn’t finished. “Since that is what my alpha would have the rest of our pack believe.”

The tiniest smirk shifted Adam’s beard. His eyes crinkled. “Is that so?’

I nodded.

“It seems he failed to convince at least one of his pack. Maybe two.”

I nodded again.

“Let me guess…” Adam trailed off, plunging his thumb and index finger into his beard to rub his chin in an exaggerated pose of thoughtfulness. “These shifters who went missing, they opposed him in some way? Perhaps they knew things about him that they shouldn’t have?”

My throat went instantly bone dry, and my stomach dropped.

I prayed that this shifter wouldn’t turn around on me and tell Ryland that I came here and everything I said, because the way this conversation was headed, if he did, I was certain I would be the next wolf to vanish into thin air.

“They did,” I agreed, wetting my lips. “Or at least, I think they might’ve.”

A long silence stretched between us where I think both were waiting for the other to add something to the conversation. Maybe he didn’t want to incriminate himself in case I intended to run back to Ryland and tell him all Adam’s theories and accusations.

I needed to give him something. Something that would make him trust me.

But that something could also get me killed if he decided to share it.

I inhaled deeply, trying to draw strength in with the oxygen. “I think he killed them.”

Adam’s eyes widened in surprise, though I didn’t think it was because of what I said. More that I’d actually said it.

I couldn’t hardly believe I’d allowed the words through my thoughts, never mind freed them from my mouth. I didn’t realize how much I actually believed it until I voiced my worry aloud.

Adam dropped his gaze, thinking for a moment before he replied.

“You’re smart, I’ll give you that,” Adam said on the back of a sigh. “But also foolish if you think he won’t find out you’ve come here. He has spies everywhere.

And that damned vamp friend of his can draw secrets out of anyone with his compulsion.”

“I know the risks.”

“Bravery is all well and good girl, until it gets you killed.”

This coming from the alpha who fled, allowing two of his own shifters to be killed. Hell, the one I killed could have been one of his. I wasn’t sure. Though he seemed utterly unconcerned about that.

My so-called bravery may get me killed, but at least I would go down fighting for something. For people I loved. To make sure they are safe.

He was more likely to be stabbed in the back rather than stand his ground against an enemy.

“If I remember correctly, you were the one who wanted me dead at the Four Corners.”

Another twitch of his beard, though this time I couldn’t tell if he was smirking or scowling. “Aye.”

“Then don’t fucking preach to me about bravery and risk,” I snapped, feeling my wolf surface briefly before settling back down.

“I came here for some answers and you can take comfort in knowing that those answers—should you choose to share them with me— will more than likely see me to an early grave.”

He nodded appreciatively. “True,” he agreed, leaning forward to steeple his fingers, pressing his elbows into his knees. “Though I’m starting to think perhaps I was wrong about you.”

“Thanks?” I said sarcastically. “That’s comforting.”

Adam dropped his steepled fingers and sat back once more. “Very well. I’ll tell you what I know if you’re that determined to hear it, but I do not guarantee the veracity of any of it. Rumors travel through shifters just as swiftly—and unreliably—as they do through mortals.”

“I understand. Tell me everything you know.”