Page 157 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Despite how weak she appeared, it took four of us holding her down to re-break and set each of her bones. She could do nor say anything useful in her state and as soon as we had her bones set, wrapped, and splinted, she passed out.

Much as I would have liked to slap her awake, I knew she needed to mend not just her bones, but her mind before she could help us.

“I really don’t know why we bothered setting her bones,” Jared grumbled, leaning cross-armed against the wall by the sofa where Sam slept fitfully, covered in a layer of her own sweat and blood. Ruining my goddamned couch.

“Jared,” Hazel tutted, swatting his arm and missing save for the tips of her fingers.

He lifted a brow at Hazel. She’d been the one to order us about when we carried a delirious Sam back to the cabin. Before we knew it, she had us mending Sam’s bones, and I didn’t fight her on it.

We needed to get her talking, and in the amount of pain she was in, that was unlikely.

Fixing her up a bit was a means to an end and did not for one second mean I wouldn’t rebreak each and every bone I mended to get the information I needed if she didn’t give it to us.

“She’s fucked up,” Vivian said, watching Sam like she might like to snap her bones all over again, too. “You suppose Devin did that to her?”

My nose wrinkled as memories of that vile bastard crowded my thoughts. The slap of his knuckles against the bones of my cheek. The feel of his hands around my throat.

I had little doubt it was him. The question was...why?

Was she not his spy. Had she not said over the phone that she loved him? Clearly he didn’t share that sentiment with her.

But then again...he always did have a warped idea of what love was.

Sam stirred and Clay lifted his head to watch her from where he was hunched over, head bent and fingers splayed on the kitchen island.

“She’s waking up,” Layla said in a breath.

Sam muttered something, and I strained to hear it, carefully stepping closer to better hear.

“Water,” she croaked, her eyes slitting open.

Layla and I shared a look, but I nodded, giving her permission to go fill a glass from the sink for her.

Layla handed her the glass a moment later and Sam spilled most of it over her chest and the couch trying to drink it with shaking hands and weak limbs.

Clay was the only one who stayed fixed where he stood in the kitchen vehicle the rest of us crowded closer as she peeled her eyelids back, seeming to see all of us around her for the first time. Her pulse began to pound, and my inner wolf began to pace within.

I was about to speak when Hazel came around the head of the couch and Sam locked her blue eyes on her grandmother’s milky ones. Growing pale at Grams’ hard expression.

“I’m disappointed in you, Samantha.”

I don’t think any of us could say a single thing that would hurt her more than Hazel saying those five words. She looked like she’d been bitch slapped and had her heart carved out all at the same time. Shock and anguish showing in her eyes.

“Our sins have a way of catching up to us...but I’ll not see you die today.”

Hazel reached down to pat Sam’s sweaty shoulder, but she flinched away from her grandmother’s touch. “Not if I can help it.”

She lifted her head, and her loose silver-streaked hair fell back away from her face. “Do with her what you must, but I ask that you spare her life as a favor to me.”

Sam began to sob. “Thank yo—”

“Hush up,” Hazel snapped.

My fists clenched, and even though I knew she couldn’t see me, I had a hard ass time looking Hazel in the eyes. Instead, I fixed my wrathful stare on a trembling Sam. “I can’t promise you that,” I admitted. “But if she gives us what we need…”

Sam bowed her head until her chin was pressed against her chest. I’d never seen her so broken. She was a firecracker, just like her brother. This was...embarrassing.

“The pack will want retribution,” I told Sam as Hazel stepped away from her granddaughter to brush past me.

“If you decide her fate will be to meet the stars, then I would say goodbye first,” Hazel said, showing no emotion at all on her aged face.

“You have my word.”

Hazel lifted a hand to give my shoulder a squeeze, and my stomach dropped to my toes at the realization that one granddaughter was at the mercy of another. I vowed to try not to kill her, if only for Hazel as she found her way outside into the pre-dawn air.

“Start fucking talking,” Vivian snarled, and Layla snatched her wrist before she could dart forward.

“No one touches her unless I say so,” I gritted out, meeting the stares of each of my mates and each of my best friends before letting the full weight of it fall on my would-be sister-in-law.

She squirmed on the stained cushions until her head was propped against the armrest, her face betraying how much pain she was still in.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I lied. “But I will if—”

“I was supposed to say I was attacked,” she blurted before I could finish, her bloodshot eyes going wide as though she herself was shocked at her own admission.

Her eyes welled anew, and her face pinched. “He told me that I should say I was attacked by his pack and return to you. To be his little pawn. His spy.”

I settled into the armchair usually reserved for Clay, dragging it round so it faced her head on. Leaning over my knees, I knotted my fingers together and waited for her to go on. I didn’t necessarily believe a single word she said, but if I had to bring Hazel back here to read her, then I would.

“I can’t…” she trailed off on a choking sob. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?” Vivian demanded. “Betray your pack?

Betray your own fucking family?”

“He never loved me,” Sam said in a distant voice. “I know that now. You don’t...you don’t hurt people you love. Not like this…”

Her weary eyes swept over her battered body, and I knew for sure.

It was Devin who’d done it. If she were telling the truth, he’d done it just to make us think that her story of having been attacked was believable.

And he was so confident in Sam’s feelings for him that he thought she would still love him—still do his bidding— even after he’d beaten her.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had.

It surprised me more that she saw his true colors. “I-I overheard him before...before he…”

She swallowed hard, glancing at her brother, whose jaw flexed and eyes burned with hot blue flame.

“Overheard what?” I demanded, urging her to get to the fucking point. We needed to know everything she knew. But most of all, I wanted to know if she had any idea where our missing wolves were.

Her lip pulled at the new scar running down her face. It didn’t look like it was going to heal properly at all. It must have been inflicted by Devin’s fangs, otherwise it would heal. She was going to be marred like that for the rest of her life.

As though she could sense where my thoughts had gone, she lifted a hand to touch the pink skin above her mouth and frowned. “He said he’d spare my brother,” she replied in barely a whisper. “He promised me. But I heard him. He means to kill him and Jared. He thinks once he does…”

Her upper lip curled, and venom seeped back into her eyes as she lifted them back to mine.

“He thinks once they’re out of the way that he’ll be able to form the mate bond with me,” I finished for her, and she nodded.

“You dumb bitch,” Jared growled, and Clay slammed a fist down on the counter. I’d be surprised if he didn’t at least crack it.

“Enough of this,” he barked. “Tell us where he’s keeping them Sam, or so help me…”

She flinched away from her brother’s words.

“All right,” she murmured, that one word rendering us all deadly silent. Each of us afraid to break the spell of this moment.

It was almost too good to be true. My throat grew thick with emotion.

“Where?” I managed after a second, and Vivian closed the distance to Sam in the blink of an eye, throwing herself onto her knees at the side of the couch and snatching Sam by her shoulders. She shook her violently, her eyes wild.

“Where?” she shouted. “Where are they?”

Sam, startled, tried to wriggle out of Vivian’s hold.

I pulled Viv back, making her fall heavily onto her backside against the rug.

Sam swallowed. “Follow White River south,” she told us, and if it were possible, she went even paler than she already was. “Follow it down to where it meets with Iron Creek. That’s where you’ll find them. There’s an abandoned mill there. That’s where he has them.”

Of course. He used the rivers to hide their trail.

Stupid.

Why hadn’t we thought of that?

Jared shoved off from the wall, drawing Sam’s attention to him. “How do we know she isn’t lying?”

“I’m not,” she promised, and though I felt she was being sincere, it was impossible to be certain.

“Layla,” I called, and she nodded, knowing already what I wanted and heading for the door.

Hazel couldn’t give us a definitive yes or no as to whether or not she was lying. But she could help us to be more certain of her intentions here.

As though she were just as guilty as we all assumed she was, Sam closed her eyes and shuddered as Layla left.

“If you’re lying to us,” I warned her. “I won’t be able to save you from this pack.”

We waited out the five minutes until Hazel returned listening only to the sound of Vivian pacing the floor. None of us daring to hope we might finally have gotten a win.

Hazel hobbled through the door with Layla on her heels, and Vivian immediately took Grams by the hand and led her Sam’s side. I didn’t miss how Grams flinched at the contact with Vivian. I wouldn’t want to feel that hurricane of emotion, either.

She tugged out of Vivian’s grasp as her shins knocked against the couch, and she reached down, waiting for Sam to give her her hand as opposed to taking it.

Like she was giving her granddaughter a choice to do the right thing.

It took a second, but Sam did lift her hand, tentatively slipping it into Hazel’s with a grimace.

The old woman closed her other hand over Sam’s for barely an instant before dropping it as though scalded.

She cocked her head at her granddaughter, shock registering on her face.

“What is it?” I demanded impatiently. Glaring between grandmother and granddaughter.

“I can’t be certain,” Hazel told me, wringing her hands as though she could wash them of whatever she felt at Sam’s touch.

“But I believe she’s telling the truth. She fears Devin.

And with good reason. But there’s resolve there, too.

Her desire to protect her kin is stronger than her fear of denying him. ”

A derisive snort came from the kitchen, and I turned to find Clay shaking his head, running his tongue over elongated teeth.

He wasn’t fucking buying it. But even if he wouldn’t show it to the others, I could feel his deep seated hope that his sister wasn’t entirely lost to that monster. That he wished he could believe her.

Hazel made as though to console Sam before snatching her hand back to her chest with a sad look in her eyes that made me wonder what it was she saw. I could guess, though. Having been under Devin’s thumb once myself.

“What are we waiting for then?” Vivian declared, her voice growing in pitch. “We have to go and free them. We have to bring them home.”

I cast my best friend what I hoped was a reassuring stare. “Yes,” I agreed. “But we have to be smart about it.” I turned my attention back to Sam. “If you want to prove your loyalty remains here with this pack—with your family—then there’s something I need you to do.” Her brows wrinkled.

“I need you to go back to him.”

She gasped. “I can’t,” she pleaded, a note of panic returning to her voice. “He’ll kill me.”

“He might,” I agreed.

“Why send her back?” Hazel asked in a flat monotone, not betraying how she felt on the matter. “If I’m wrong about her intentions, then…”

Then she could destroy us. It was a risk.

But I trusted Hazel’s judgement. Could sense Sam’s remorse.

“It’s a bad idea,” Jared argued. I held up a hand.

“You will tell Devin that I’ve done as he asked. That I’ve severed the bond with Clay and Jared and you personally witnessed my rejection of them. And that I plan to give myself up as he requested.”

“I don’t get it,” Vivian snapped. “What’s the play here?”

“We’ll discuss it once she’s gone.”

“Please don’t ask me to do this,” Sam pleaded. “I’ll do anything else you want.”

“This is what this pack needs from you.” Her lower lip trembled.

“You’ll leave as soon as you’re able to walk on your own.”

“What are you doing, Allie?” Clay demanded, his jaw working again.

Trust me, I tried to tell him without saying the words aloud and his lips parted, but no other argument fell out.

“If you betray us again,” I warned Sam. “Devin won’t be the one you need to fear...and that beating he gave you will look like a fucking mercy. Do you understand?”