Page 108 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Unable to help myself, I leaned in and wrapped my arms around her.

Layla did the same, the two of us sandwiching her from either side as tight as we could.

I don’t know how long we stayed that way, but by the time Layla began to let up, Viv had stopped crying, and her fingernails were no longer jabbing sharply into my forearm.

They were back to a more normal, human length and bluntness.

Vivian lifted the hem of her jersey to her face to swipe away her tears. “Maybe Ryland was right,” she said. “Maybe I should stay at pack camp for a while. I can probably come up with some sort of excuse for my paren—”

“No,” I all but growled. Even thinking about Vivian staying at camp, so close to Ryland, gave me goosebumps and made my stomach clench. “If you want to stay at the cabin, you can, but there’s no way in hell you’re going back to camp.”

Layla cocked her head at me, her brows lifted as though seeing something that’d been there all along, but that she’d somehow managed to miss. On the contrary, Vivian just looked confused. For the moment, it seemed, they’d switched places.

“Allie?” Layla prompted. I sighed.

“Am I missing something?” Vivian asked, digging her palms into the dirt to push herself into an upright seat. “I know the guy is a dick, but—”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?” Layla asked, her manicured brows knitting together.

I’d promised them… No more lies.

And if I were going to be able to keep them away from Ryland, they’d have to know why, right?

A million questions stomped and scurried across my thoughts. A million reasons why I should tell them everything. And a million reasons why I shouldn’t.

I bit the inside of my cheek and sat back into the wet leaves and damp soil. “I’m going to tell you everything,” I started, trying to find the right way to begin. “But you can’t talk about it. Not with anyone.”

Layla sagged, her expression telling me she wasn’t the least bit surprised there was more awfulness incoming.

Vivian, on the other hand, had grown stiff, the sorrow and guilt that’d been weighing her down lifted in favor of her patented nobody-fucks-with-my- friends look.

From defense to offense in the blink of an eye.

Happy to let the weight of my problems erase her guilt. Distract her from what she’d just done.

“Not even Destiny,” I added, before I started, shooting a pointed look Viv’s way.

She chewed on that for a second before finally nodding. “All right. I won’t say anything.”

I told them all of it. My suspicions. Clay and my excursion to the eastern pack to investigate. What we found out. How we didn’t have any proof but that I figured it must be true.

Layla was turning a shade of green visible even though the sky was casting shades of orange over the forest. Vivian’s reddened cheeks only looked more inflamed beneath the warm hue.

“Please tell me that’s all of it,” Vivian spoke through clenched teeth.

I wished I could.

I frowned, a mental image of a man shot at point blank range in cold blood flashing in my imagination. “There’s one more thing. Not even Clay knows about it—”

“I don’t know about what?” Layla screeched like a cat.

“What the hell?” Viv demanded, brushing off her knees as she shoved to her feet.

I froze, turning my gaze in horror to find a battered but quickly healing Clay standing barely a stone’s throw away. How long had he been there?

A hot flush crept up my neck. It was borne of guilt but quickly morphed to white hot fury when I got a good look at him. His knuckles bloody. His lip swollen and split on the left side.

“Where’s Jared?”

“Is he always so quiet?” Layla asked. “I didn’t even hear him coming, like, at all. Did you?”

Vivian snorted, and from the corner of my eye, I could see her appraising his wide shoulders and tall, bulky frame. His size thirteen shoes. Viv shook her head.

Clay, completely ignoring my question, let his hard stare pass from me to Vivian, and then to Layla. He came to stand in front of me, fixing me with an accusatory stare that made my blood boil.

“You fucking told them, didn’t you?” I cringed.

“Christ, Allie, what were you thinking?”

Was it wrong that I was relieved he seemed to have forgotten the part of the conversation he’d interrupted, because damn, I nearly pissed myself when I heard him.

Clay gnawed his lower lip, throwing his hands through his hair as he stepped to the left, and then back to the right, as though unsure where to go, or what to say, but needing to move anyway.

“Okay,” he said, and then more firmly as he paused in his short pacing steps. “Okay. I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit.”

Coming out of his rage, his face turned back from a scary shade of crimson to his normal slightly inflamed pink. He shot a look to Vivian. “You can’t say anything about this, not even to—”

“I know,” she interrupted, crossing her arms over her chest. “I won’t tell Destiny. I already promised.”

Clay nodded, satisfied for the moment. He licked his lips, thinking.

I had been about to demand where Jared was again when I heard a howl far in the distance.

It was him—I was sure of it. He must’ve gone to the cabin while Clay followed our trail just in case we were already back there waiting for them.

Or, more likely, maybe he went to make sure Bev was going to be all right.

That made sense.

“You shouldn’t have told them,” Clay growled at me and Viv tipped onto the balls of her feet, looking like she was ready to put the big bastard in his place if I didn’t.

Luckily for her, or maybe for Clay, I’d learned to deal with the brute myself.

“They’re my best friends. I can’t lie to them. Not anymore.”

Clay made an exasperated sound and clenched his jaw.

“We can trust them.”

Clay’s cut-glass stare softened as he took me in. He nodded once, turning to face my friends once more. “All right. Then maybe you can help.”

“Whatever we can do,” Layla said at about the same time Viv said, “Count me in.”

“Wait,” I said, confused. “Help? Do we have a lead?”

“No,” he replied, lowering his voice to a deep rumble. “But I think I know where we can find one.”