Page 143 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

By the time we made it to the top of the hill looking down over the quiet bus depot in the distance, it was full dark. Just like we’d planned it. We settled into the shadows beneath the bottom branches of a tall pine tree, nestling in against the trunk to wait.

I pulled my small pack from my back and set it on my lap, drawing out a bottle of water for a drink after the hike out here. We’d been very careful to carve a path keeping downwind of the bus depot, and we’d driven in as closely as we could to reduce our trail just in case.

There was still the possibility that Sam would scent us, even with all the precautions, but we had to stay optimistic. This was the only possible lead we had so far, and I didn’t want it to pan out almost as much as I did want it to.

I had Jared keeping a wary eye on Archer and Callum, and the entire pack now knew to be on the lookout for witches, and we’d found nothing suspicious with either.

That left Sam. And if she weren’t to blame for any of this, then we had to start from ground zero and pray one of the search parties picked up the scent of the foreign pack again.

Vivian was pushing them to go further each time, and I let her, for the most part, knowing we would need to widen our net if we were going to find anything.

But it didn’t make me any less uneasy to think that the search parties were too far away for us to be able to get to them if something were to happen.

At least not before it would inevitably be too late.

Clay sniffed in my direction, distracted momentarily by the scent leaking out through my pack. “What’d you bring? Is that...donuts?”

I grinned, peeling back the zipper to reveal a pack of the powdery white donut holes he loved, a thermos of coffee, and binoculars. “What’s a stakeout without donuts, right?”

He smirked despite the pent up tension that’d been building inside of him since this morning. Since long before that if we were being honest.

“You think we’re downwind enough?” I asked as I popped open the plastic packaging and passed him a donut.

He turned it in his fingers, as though he wasn’t really sure he wanted it. But in the end, hunger won out. The potato pies that we’d had for dinner might have temporarily filled the void in our stomachs, but they did little to sate our hunger.

These would help get us through the night.

I took a big bite of one myself, and Clay followed, shoving the entire thing in his mouth in one bite, leaving a smear of white powder just below his lower lip.

Without thinking, I leaned over and brushed it away, kissing the spot where it’d been and tasting the sugary sweetness on my lips.

He dropped his head, his brows pinching.

“She might just like running out this way,” I attempted to reassure him, but the sentiment fell flat.

He knew how I felt just like I knew how he felt.

Clay knew I didn’t trust his sister. Hadn’t since the moment she’d arrived.

But he also knew I was trying my best to.

“We might feel like total idiots when this night is over.”

He swallowed hard, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth and reaching for the thermos. “Yeah,” he said solemnly. “Maybe.”

We settled into a tense silence as we watched the sleepy little bus depot down below, listening for sounds of approach. Waiting to see a flash of dark fur passing beneath a streetlamp.

“When did you say the last bus is?” Clay asked after two buses came and went without picking up a single passenger, though each dropped one off.

“Midnight. There’s a red-eye that goes from here to Portland.”

Clay tugged his phone from his pocket and checked the screen. There was still another hour or so until then.

The minutes seemed to pass as though each their own hour, the time ticking down to midnight.

And with each one, Clay grew even more tense.

His muscles straining. Veins popping on his wrists and in his temple.

I had to erect a wall to block the flow of his discomfort from reaching me through the mate bond.

I had no idea how he was managing to hold himself in human form with all that pent up anger and stress filling him to the brim.

Sighing, I scooched closer to the big fucker, pressing myself against his side and shivering a little at his warmth.

The night wasn’t all that cold. In fact, it was the perfect temperature for my wolf.

But for my human flesh...well let’s just say a sweater might’ve been a good idea.

Clay grunted at the chill of my bare arms and tugged me closer, wrapping his big arms around me with a sigh of his own. “How you’re always this cold, I’ll never understand,” he grumbled to himself. “Wolves are supposed to run hot. In wolf form and out of it. It’s unnatural.”

A quiet laugh pressed against my sealed lips as I tried to remain quiet, and I gave my head a little shake before resting it on his shoulder. “What about me has ever been normal?”

“Fair enough.”

I inhaled his spicy scent, finding it lacked the signature undercurrent of engine grease and orange hand scrub that it once had. He was so busy between the pub and the pack that he hardly spent any time working on bikes anymore. I wondered if he missed it. I knew I did.

Hell, we hadn’t ridden in ages, either.

“Hey, you remember that time a couple of winters ago when we decided to ditch camp for the night?”

His chest rumbled with an almost laugh in reply.

“You mean when we had to spend the night in that cave up north because of the storm and you almost died of hypothermia?” he replied, mostly teasing, but even to this day there was a tension in his voice when he recalled it.

He’d been so worried, even if he had put a brave face on for me.

“How could I forget? I’d had to hunt down wood for a fire to keep you warm in a fucking blizzard. ”

“And you kept the fire going for hours with damp wood somehow. We reeked of smoke for weeks after that.”

I didn’t mention the other part. How after I’d stop shaking so much and Clay’s fire and body heat had started to warm my bones, we’d turned to other methods of keeping warm until the storm passed and we could start the journey home.

We were stuck there for two days, and Jared had been frantic trying to find us, but between the storm and how far we’d accidentally wandered, there’d been no hope of that.

Jared had been so pissed at Clay. He hadn’t realized it had been my idea to go off for the night with my other mate. It wasn’t my fault a storm came unannounced to ruin my plans.

“We sure did,” Clay said, squeezing me tight. “It was stupid. I never should’ve agreed to take off like that. I don’t know what got into me.”

“I do,” I teased. “You just can’t say no to me.”

He barked a disapproving sound, but didn’t deny it.

Once, he had no problem denying me anything.

And he definitely never hesitated to tell me just what he thought when I had a particularly stupid idea, but when push came to shove, I knew I could convince him to go along with just about anything.

He knew it, too, though he would never admit it.

Clay stiffened as the sound of a bus engine rumbled down the road, and we separated as we watched it enter the depot, eyes peeled for any sign of a dark wolf or a black-haired girl.

“You see anything?” Clay asked in a hushed tone, leaning forward to army crawl closer to the edge of the dugout-like space beneath the tree.

“No. Not yet.”

If I shifted, I might’ve been able to sense her, but then there would be too great of a chance of her sensing me, too.

Not worth the risk. I pulled the binoculars out of the bag and put them to my eyes, lowering myself next to Clay until the smell of cold dirt filled my nose.

While in human form, our eyesight was heightened, just like the rest of our senses, but the distance we needed to keep from the depot was a stretch even for my twin soul eyes.

I scanned the area, starting from the tree line cozying up to the western side of the depot and all the way through the platform and in every nook and cranny. I saw nothing amiss.

Once again, no passengers got on the bus when it finally pulled to a stop against the platform, but two did get off.

I scrutinized them with the binoculars, but they were clearly human.

A younger couple with tattoos who grabbed guitars from the compartment beneath the bus as they departed, walking away up the road as they chatted.

We waited with bated breath as the bus’s air brakes hissed and the doors closed. “She didn’t come.” I whispered, more to myself than for Clay, but he answered anyway.

“Doesn’t mean she still won’t.”

“That was the last bus,” I muttered as it pulled away and disappeared around the back of the building in the direction of the main road.

Clay ground his teeth, and I could tell by the faraway look in his eyes that he was thinking hard about something. His blue eyes flared with the glow of his wolf, and I reached out to rub a hand up his back.

“Hey, we can stay. Might as well wait out the night to see—”

“Shh!” he hissed a second later, tensing under my hand, and my heart lurched into my throat as I followed his line of sight.

A flash of movement caught my eye in the shadowy channel between bus terminals, and I pressed myself into the dirt, putting the binocular back to my face, barely daring to breathe for fear that I’d be heard.

A sick feeling made my throat slick with the acrid taste of bile as I spotted her. It was hard to be sure at first that it was her, but as the lonely streetlamp caught her in its glow, I became violently certain of it.

My wolf growled within, immediately battering at my defenses, wanting to assert her alpha dominance over Sam without the need for any further proof.