Page 154 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

It was the only option that kept everyone as safe as possible, even if it would take months for us to recover financially. That was a worry for another time, though. “I’ve been thinking,” Layla said, lifting her head with a furrowed brow. “He had to have been planning this for a long time, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Attacking our food supply, our income, and reducing our numbers…” Even I had to admit it. “It was well thought out.”

“Don’t forget using my kid sister as a fucking spy to get all the info he needed to do it,” Clay grunted, crossing his bulging arms over his bare chest where he leaned against the fridge.

“That too.”

“What are you getting at?” Vivian asked, her jaw working as she ground her teeth in a way that made my skin crawl.

Layla pursed her lips. “I don’t know. This can’t just be about payback, right? It has to be something more.”

I nodded to the slim black flip phone at the heart of the kitchen island. “That’s what we’re going to find out. He has to want something otherwise he would be killing the shifters he took, and Viv would know if Destiny was…”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but Viv nodded anyway. “She’s not dead,” she confirmed. “I would know. I would feel it.”

That didn’t mean she was all right. Not in the least, but I wasn’t about to say that.

“I think I might have an idea what he’s after,” Jared said, staring at the phone like he might rather smash the thing to dust than let me make the call.

“What?” Layla asked and Jared’s eyes darted first to her and then to Clay, whose upper lip twitched into a snarl. Eventually, his glowing amber eyes slid to me, and I saw and felt so much hatred within him that my pulse quickened.

“You,” he said simply, as though it were the obvious answer, but also the most disgusting one he could imagine. “Do you remember what he said to me at Jacqueline’s bookshop the day I asked you to come home with me?”

I thought back to that day. When Devin had come to confront me at work and Jared had made him leave and convinced me to stay with him.

“You’re mine,” I repeated the words Devin said to me that day, shivering and sick at the memory.

“And he believed that,” Jared continued. “It’s why he kidnapped you. Why he turned you. He thought that when you shifted, you would mate with him and be bound to him forever.”

“But I didn’t. I mated with you, and with Clay.”

And the rage and utter betrayal I’d seen in Devin’s eyes that night told me that nothing had ever hurt him more than bearing witness to that.

“So you think this is all some ploy to get to Allie?” Vivian asked, her face turning a sickly shade of green.

Jared shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the only thing that makes sense. At least, a fucked up kind of sense. The guy’s a psychopath.”

“And not the fun kind,” Layla muttered, drawing curious looks from the others. She and I shared a look and I remembered that she had been borrowing books from my library.

“No,” I agreed with her. “Definitely not the fun kind.”

Devin was no Viper or Saint. He was an actual monster. The kind that didn’t deserve to be understood or forgiven. The kind that needed to be killed. End of story.

Clay snorted his agreement and tapped the clock on the stove. “It’s time. Let’s see what this fucker has to say.”

I snatched up the phone and went to the only contact in the list—the other burner cell—and hit call, afraid I’d lose my nerve if I hesitated even for a second.

Devin needed to know that I meant fucking business, and I wouldn’t bend to whatever it was he wanted.

If it was a war he wanted, then I might just give it to him.

I put it on speakerphone as it began to ring and let it clatter back onto the counter, leaning over and winding my hands together to keep from shattering the marble countertop with my grip.

The call connected and there was a brief pause when I thought he might’ve hung up, but then a familiar voice filtered through the speaker, lifting the hairs on my arms and filling my stomach with acid.

“Smart girl,” Devin said. “Though I expected no less.”

He sounded almost the same as I remembered. That same smooth voice that haunted my nightmares for almost a year after what he put me through, now colored by age. It had a deepness to it that hadn’t been there before. A gruffness that suited him far better than his smooth tongue ever had.

“You’re a dead man,” I spat, unable to form anything more articulate just yet. I needed him to know what I intended to do to him.

“Now that just hurts my feelings, and we both know you wouldn’t dare launch an attack against me. Not while I have so many of your pack under my thumb.”

“Get to the point, asshole. What the fuck do you want?” Vivian shouted, and I sent her a look. They all promised to be quiet.

“Vivian, is that you? Destiny’s been asking for you, you know—”

Vivian’s eyes went saucer wide, and she launched for the phone, her wolf bursting out from within. “You fucking bastard!”

I managed to snatch it before she could, and she sailed over the smooth counter and landed in a heap on the floor, scrambling to her feet with claws instead of fingernails.

“Get her outside,” I ordered, and Layla dutifully herded Viv out, muscling her in a way I didn’t know Layla was even capable of.

Laughter echoed from the line and the amount of venom in my blood was making my vision darken. He was laughing at her. At us.

The only thing that allowed me to remain even remotely calm was thinking in detail about everything I was going to do to him once I got my hands on him.

After a moment, his laughter quieted. “No? Not funny? Well shit, hope I didn’t offend…”

“Where are they?” I asked. “What have you done with them?”

“They’re alive,” he replied. “For now. So long as you do as I ask, they will remain that way.”

Clay bristled, his body tensing in a way that told me his wolf was also on the verge of breaking free.

“And what is it that you want?” A pause.

“You.”

“Motherfucker,” Jared cursed under his breath, shoving away from the countertop to walk into the living room, arms braced behind his head. Every muscle taut as a bowstring.

“You belong to me, Allie. You always have. You always will. One day, you’ll see it, too. I promise you that.”

My own stomach turned at his admission, but I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. And honestly? This might work to our advantage. He wanted me? The twin soul wolf.

As far as any of us knew, I was the strongest shifter to have ever lived thanks to having ingested my would- be twin sister in my mother’s womb.

If he wanted me, he would get me. I’d end him.

“When and where?” I asked, drawing furious and shocked looks from my mates.

“Now, now, my pet. Don’t be hasty. I know you miss me but there’s no rush.”

“I want this over with,” I told him, trying to ignore the way Clay and Jared were staring daggers at me. But beneath their trepidation I felt their curiosity. They were wondering what my ulterior motives were with this.

I loved them for realizing I wasn’t stupid enough to just walk into a trap.

“Me for the shifters you took and full immunity from future attacks against my pack. Do we have a deal?”

The crackle of a fire somewhere near him on the other end of the line popped and hissed before he replied, his voice taking on the dangerous tone I remembered from the times he hurt me.

“You think I’d play right into your hand?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Allie. I know you too well.”

My tongue slid across my teeth, passing over where my canines were slipping out from my gums, elongating.

“If you challenge me openly, I will kill them all,” he promised me, and I dropped my head, clenching my teeth together in frustration. That had been exactly what I planned to do.

It was an easy fix. I knew I was stronger than him. I would win, and he would die. And this fucking madness would end.

“How do you propose this works then?” I ground out, imagining plucking his stupid green eyes out of his skull with nothing but my bare hands.

“You’ll see, my love. I have plans. Big plans.

You’ll have to be...neutralized. Can’t have my wife trying to kill me at every turn, now can I?

First, though, there’s something I need you to do for me.

A gesture of good faith so that I know you’re serious about your offer to leave your pack and take your place with me, where you belong. ”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, fully unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice any longer. “What’s that?”

“It’s a small thing, really. You see, I can’t very well have you while you’re still… mated to those mutts. Reject them.”

My heart gave a panicked start at the very idea of that without meaning to, I let out a hiss that turned into a very growly “Fuck you.”

That wasn’t even a consideration. If I rejected the bond, it would destroy me. And it would relegate them to spending their entire lives alone. A wolf only mated once. The only thing that could permanently and fully sever a mate bond was death. Only then could a shifter find another mate.

As long as I lived, if I rejected Clay and Jared, they would never find other mates. And nor would I.

“Tsk tsk,” Devin said with a gleeful ring to his voice. “I thought you were serious about saving the lives of the shifters I’ve borrowed from your pack, Allie? Shall I send you a token of the seriousness of my intentions? A hand perhaps? Or a head? Perhaps Destiny’s?”

“You monster.”

“You have one week. In the meantime, I give you my word that they will not be harmed. But if you haven’t done what I’ve asked you to by then…”

“I’ll call you at this number with further instructions in a few days.”

Dark clouds swirled through my thoughts, ridding myself of the ability to respond. My wolf growled within, backed into a corner from which she couldn’t see a way out.

One week, I whispered within. A lot can happen in one week. We can find him. We can kill him. It won’t come to that.

“Oh, and Allie? I’ll expect you to answer the phone when I call. If you don’t, I’ll have to punish one of your pack, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”

“Is that all?” I gritted out. “For now.”

I clicked the phone shut and pulled back my shaking hands before I could knock it from the counter and risk breaking it.

“He’s a dead man walking,” Clay swore, his face red.

A vein in his temple jumping with his quick pulse.

Jared’s eyes locked on mine. “We have to find them,” he said. “We have to find them and bring them home before he…” He didn’t finish, his throat bobbing while his brows lowered, shadowing his eyes from view.

I shook my head. “I would never do what he just asked me to do,” I told them both, a pit yawning open in my stomach. But even as I said it, I realized it might not be the truth.

If it was a choice between rejecting my mates and saving people from being killed? From saving my entire pack from Devin’s wrath? It would be the most selfish thing I’d ever done to refuse the request.

Jared came to wrap his arms around my shoulders and press a hard kiss to my temple. “We know.”

Over his shoulder, I could see Clay watching me. In his icy eyes I could see that he wasn’t fooled. More than that, I felt the challenge in his stare. Just fucking try it, he seemed to be saying. I’ll never let you go.