Page 101 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

We made it back to the border with barely a minute to spare. Clay’s wolf was there, steaming in the chill of the evening as he paced, only stilling when he was able to see me in full view.

Adam accompanied Toby and I back to the border. He shifted back to his human form just before I crossed back over to my own territory.

“Don’t come back here,” he warned. “And if Ryland should ever find out you came here, I will deny everything I told you tonight.”

Coward, I thought, and my wolf snarled a little before I could get her in check.

“In fact, I will tell your alpha that you came here for some other nefarious purpose and leave you to clean up whatever mess that makes.”

Total fucking coward.

I bobbed my canine head and loped back through the break in the trees, but I didn’t feel any less shaky with unease once my paws touched the earth on my own turf. Much the opposite.

My stomach was roiling and my head spinning since leaving the eastern pack camp. Adam hadn’t had a massive amount to tell me, but what he had told me… well, let’s just say that I was praying it wasn’t true.

That the rumor mill birthed it and mouth to ear transit twisted it, turning it even more vile than the original whisper.

Because if it were true… If it were true, I’d kill him.

I may not have been able to defend myself to the point of murder with Devin, but I sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate this time. All I needed was one shred of proof of any one of Adam’s apparent ‘rumors’ and it would be enough for me.

I peered back and watched Adam shift back, his wolf giving me one last long look before he and Toby turned tail and began the short journey back to camp.

I hope it was worth it, Clay’s voice slithered dangerously into my mind and my muscles clenched. There was so much more in that sentence than what it was at face value.

In his voice, I could hear betrayal. Pain. Anger.

He was clearly still pissed at me for leaving him, and I couldn’t fault him for it. I didn’t have the energy to. Not right now. I needed to process. To decide what the fuck to do with the information I was given.

Well, Clay pressed after a moment. Are you going to tell me what he said?

I lifted my face to the wrathful, watchful glare of Clay’s burning blue eyes.

I…I don’t know where to start.

Some of the fire ebbed away, and he stalked closer, peering through the gap to where Toby and Adam had only just retreated.

Did they hurt you? If they hurt you— No. They didn’t hurt me.

At least not in any physical way. Though I was sure my heart and mind would bear the scars of what they told me for as long as it took me to either prove them wrong, or prove them right.

Then what is it?

We should go, I told Clay. Your sister will be waiting for you. I’ll…I’ll do my best to explain on the way. I need to move.

My wolf itched to sprint. She was angry and confused just as I was. We needed to run from those demons, just for a little while. We needed to feel light, or else the heaviness would anchor us in place, and we might never move again.

I didn’t wait for Clay to reply. I took off like a round loosed from the barrel of a gun. Clay barely needed more than a few seconds to catch up with me.

He waited, matching my pace, for me to be ready to talk.

I could still sense his rage, but beneath that was something else. Worry.

Good, I thought. He should be worried.

For a full five minutes of hard and fast sprinting, I focused only on shielding my thoughts from Clay.

I had to think of the best way to tell him all that I needed to, and there was one thing in particular that I couldn’t breathe aloud to him.

If I did…I didn’t think Clay would wait to gather the proof we needed before acting.

Hell, even what I did plan to tell him was enough to send him over the edge. It damn near did for me. The entire run from the eastern camp to the border was spent picturing all the ways I would tear Ryland apart.

It was those very comforting images—those promises to myself—that calmed me enough to even consider not going straight to my alpha and demanding the truth in front of the whole pack.

Except…that would end badly for me. I knew it would.

Just like it would end badly for Clay if he were the one to do it.

We have no proof of any of this, I prefaced the first shared thought between our minds. Adam said himself that all he knows are rumors—that it’s possible none of it is even true.

No reply.

First, they have nothing to do with the missing shifters. How do you know?

Trust me. If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that.

A pause.

Okay. Fine. So what did he tell you then?

I grimaced and relayed all that I could, feeling my gut twist as I spoke. It was so terrible I hardly wanted to say it aloud, let alone tell Clay. It seemed preposterous. A cruel fabrication.

He’d told me that Ryland had his sights set on being alpha of the Forest Grove pack since long before Adam had become alpha of the eastern pack about twenty years ago.

Rumor had it that Ryland had a…disagreement with his brother—Jared’s father about who was going to succeed him should he fall. Furious that his brother, Noah, wouldn’t leave the pack in his hands, he requested permission to leave the Forest Grove pack and was granted it.

Ryland supposedly ran with a northern pack for a good number of years before returning to Forest Grove, requesting to come home to his pack.

By then his brother had had a son. Jared.

Noah brought Ryland back into the fold and they became brothers once more. Ryland became an uncle to his nephew and indispensable to the pack. But not quite as indispensable as Thomas Armstrong.

That’s all true, Clay spoke in my mind. At least, as far as I know.

This is where it gets really bad.

The rumors from way back then, all but snuffed out by now, said that Ryland had his own brother murdered along with his wife.

The whispers said that he made it look like an accident with the help of a certain vampire friend.

They said that he had them shot and skinned to make it look like mortal hunters did it.

Clay’s tension rolled off him in waves. I could sense his confusion. His disbelief. And the beginning of a raging fire sparking to life within him. It was a match for my own.

Clay didn’t speak. He only waited for me to go on.

From what Adam explained to me, it sounds like Ryland thought that he would be handed the mantle of alpha once his brother was removed from the picture.

But he wasn’t, Clay growled in my thoughts. My father was.

Were you there then? You would have been so young. I was.

But your sister—

Wasn’t, Clay finished for me. I remembered he said Ryland never met her.

There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Allie, Clay grunted, pushing himself harder and faster as he ran, forcing me to push myself harder too just to keep pace.

What does that mean?

I guess you might as well know, he said, since you’re going to meet her. My sister wasn’t a born wolf. She was mortal, like my mom.

My eyes widened. He’d never really talked about his sister. Hell, I didn’t even know he had one until last week. Now, I could see why he never told me about her. His entire body was wired for sound just trying to get out whatever he was trying to say.

She was attacked. Raped. And bitten. Oh my god.

Yeah.

After I killed the bastard who did it, she turned. She and Ma were living up North and after I…did what I did…she didn’t want to come to Forest Grove. She found a pack up north and took care of Ma until she passed.

I wondered how he lost his mother but didn’t think now was the time to ask.

She knew about our kind, of course. She never wanted to be like us. She hated shifters. Was terrified of us. It was part of the reason Ma left in the first place, to take her away. To make her feel safe.

I could feel his pain like a gut punch to my own stomach.

I’m so sorry…

Clay made a strangled half laugh sound in my thoughts and his deep voice rumbled again through my head. I just told you I murdered someone and that’s all you have to say?

I frowned. Fuck. I honestly hadn’t even questioned it. What was I becoming that the casual mention of murder barely phased me? I swallowed back the ugly thought and lifted my head. Shook it.

No. It wasn’t wrong. Not for the reasons he did it.

The truth rose up my throat like a brand, but I managed to get the words out anyway. I’m glad you did it, I hissed. He didn’t deserve to live.

Clay ground his claws into the earth, coming to a jarring standstill as dirt was thrown in a wave over the brush. I skidded to a stop, too, breathing heavily.

His burning ice gaze found mine, and he stared openly at me, his head lowered and nostrils flaring with great clouds of steam.

The guy was only sixteen, he snarled. He already had a pup. A mate.

I knew what he was doing, but I wasn’t going to let him. He wouldn’t make himself out to be the monster. Not to me.

And your sister had a life that was taken from her.

I mean fuck, it was no wonder she had a temper. I would, too.

Clay tossed his head to the side, making a disgusted sound in his throat.

You can beat yourself up about it all you want, I all but shouted into his head, but I’m not buying it. You can pretend to yourself that you’re some monster, Clay, but I know better.

I’d killed too. I put down that shifter at the Four Corners without blinking. He was a threat to my friends. He might’ve killed them.

I didn’t know if he had a family, or a mate. But I knew one thing…

I’d do it again.

It may not be the same thing as what Clay did. I’d killed that shifter in the heat of the moment. In defense.

He’d clearly gone looking for the shifter who’d attacked his sister. It wasn’t defense. It was vengeance.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t deserved.

Finish what you were telling me, Clay said, moving back into a walk. We were nearly back at the cabin now. A few more miles and we’d be back on our doorstep.

I bristled, wishing he would talk to me more about what had happened. He didn’t need to carry the weight of it alone. But I wouldn’t push him. I’d wait until he was ready, and one day, I would make him see that what he did wasn’t wrong.

It was justice in a world where most don’t get theirs.

If he hadn’t done what he’d done, then who was to say that bastard wouldn’t have done it again. That he wouldn’t have done it over and over and over.

That’s pretty much it, I explained. There was already a protocol in place for who was to take over should anything happen to him. Your father, Thomas, was to take over as alpha until his own son, Jared, came of age.

So what? Clay demanded. Supposedly, Ry killed Jared’s parents to become alpha of the Forest Grove pack and then he just let my dad take over?

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t.

Sounds a little too fucked up, don’t you think? Doesn’t even really make sense.

If he knew the whole story it might.

It could just be a rumor. Is that all then?

I sighed. There were a couple other rumors that he got a shifter pregnant in one of the northern packs and killed her when he found out. That that was the reason why he came back to Forest Grove. And another rumor that he—

Stop, Clay seethed.

I let my thoughts go blank, realizing Clay was on the cusp of how much rage he could control.

The other stuff—it’s bad—but it doesn’t really have much to do with us or with the pack, I explained. In other words, there was no need for both of us to have to be burdened by knowing it. I sure as hell wished I didn’t.

We walked onto the cabin’s property, and I heaved a relieved sigh when it came into view through the trees. I could hardly believe we’d actually made it, and without anyone catching us.

A small victory, but still a victory.

Clay shifted back once we were on the dirt lawn, showing me his tight backside as he drew up his shorts that were discarded near the bottom step. He tossed me my clothes that were folded nearby and turned around, waiting for me to shift.

I did, whimpering as all my bones cried out in protest. I managed to keep the bulk of my pain under wraps, but I knew Clay would be able to feel it whether I made a sound or not.

It hurt even to pull my t-shirt over my head. The brush of the fabric against my skin felt like sandpaper.

“Done,” I ground out when I was no longer naked, my voice gravelly.

Clay turned and met my eyes. In his, I could see his wolf was still on the prowl. And his face, tight and twisted, spoke of the thoughts I could no longer hear.

He pressed his lips into a firm line. “It can’t be true,” he said.

Though we both knew it very well could be. “For Jared’s sake,” I said, cutting my fingernails into my palms to keep steady. “I hope it’s not.”

Clay threw a clawed hand through his hair and rolled his shoulders back, tipping his head to one side to crack his neck.

“You’re coming with me,” he decided. “I know you’re tired, but I’m not leaving you here. I’ve got to pick up my sister. We’ll take the Jeep to meet her. Jared left it for us.”

I ached for my bed, but let’s be real. Sleep wasn’t going to happen whether I laid in it or not.

“There’s just one thing,” Clay added, his face cut from stone.

“I have to bring her to Ry. It’s protocol.

He needs to officially give her permission to be here.

And the pack needs to get a whiff of her scent, so no one ends up on a wild goose chase.

We’ll drive to the borderlands to meet her so you can have a rest but then we’ll have to go on foot into pack camp. Are you good for one more shift?”

My heart thudded hard against my ribcage. Both at the prospect of having to see Ryland face to face tonight after having heard what I did, and now I may have to shift again. Maybe even twice more before the night was through.

I was going to live in the bath for the next two days after this.

I nodded. “I can.” A tense pause.

“Can you keep your chill when we get to camp?” I asked Clay.

He raised a brow at me. “Can you?” he countered.

I thought about it. “Until we know for sure—yes.” He nodded, cracking his knuckles. “Then so can I.”