Page 159 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

It was hard to imagine that only a few weeks ago Seth and Layla came to this very spot for something as innocent as stargazing.

Now, returning to the barrens, Layla looked anything but innocent. In her wolf form, she was lithe and alert. Vividly aware that her boyfriend would have arrived at the mill where the white river met the iron creek over an hour ago.

If everything went to plan, they would already be on their way here.

Layla had wanted to go with them, but saw the sense in coming with us instead.

I could account for Vivian’s absence if we met with Devin before they arrived.

I could say that she couldn’t be trusted not to attack first and ask questions later, given he had her mate.

But Layla not being present would raise suspicion.

Especially when I had the entire pack at my back.

Though there was still the chance he might wonder at the absence of Seth and Charity, having known them too when he was still with the Forest Grove pack.

Please, I sent the silent prayer to the heavens as we cleared the trees and stepped out onto the wide expanse of patchy dirt and grass known as the barrens. Please let this work.

My pulse picked up at the prospect of seeing Devin again and not being able to immediately go for his throat. I was really hoping Viv would show up with all of the others in tow before Devin got here so I wouldn’t have to hold back.

I came to a stop just outside the tree line and the rest of the pack stopped with me, their nervous energy ramping up.

Where is he? Clay asked, and I peered with my canine eyes across the expanse to the trees on the other side. Seeing nothing.

Late?

My hackles rose at what that could mean, and I soothed myself in the thought that perhaps we were just early. Judging by the positioning of the sun, sunk beneath the tree line but not fully drowned just yet, we were right on schedule.

Pretty, isn’t it? Layla said, distracting me from my thoughts.

I turned to find her just behind me, staring up at the sky with hopeful eyes.

She was right, though I hadn’t noticed it. The sky awash with the colors of a summer sunset in the mountains. Clouds with pink stained bellies in a hazy purple sky. A wash of amber light over the floor of the barrens. Tipping the tops of the trees in a gold so bright they appeared to be on fire.

My gaze snapped forward as the stench of foreign wolves was carried our way on a westward breeze.

They’re here.

Blood rushed in my ears, and I dug my paws into the earth, rooting myself still until the moment when I could spring ahead. My wolf bristled at the feel of the earth beneath us. The slight tremble of it as the enemy approached.

Easy, Jared warned and I reined in my wolf with a long exhale.

I still don’t sense him, Callum sent from somewhere behind us and my blood chilled.

It may not mean anything, I told myself. They may just be slightly out of range. It was handy having one half of a mated pair of shifters with us. Callum could tell us when Archer was near. He was also the reason we knew they were all still alive. Or, at least, Archer was.

We’ll stall, I decided. I’m sure the asshole will want to preen first anyway.

Just then, a wolf broke through into the barrens. A wolf with dark fur the colors of stone and wet earth, with eyes brightest emerald. A silent gasp parted my lips at the sight of him.

There was no mistaking who he was. I’d know those eyes anywhere. They were the same ones that stared into mine as he hurt me. Bit me. Changed my life forever.

But this wolf was twice the size of the one who was run out of Forest Grove over four years ago. And as his pack emerged from the shadows of the forest, I saw that his numbers were not exaggerated as I’d hoped.

Perhaps not seventy, but there was no denying the number was painfully close to that.

On closer inspection though, I found young shifters much like the one who gave us the information we needed.

There seemed to be many more teenagers and even younger juveniles than I’d anticipated.

Though none seemed older than their mid-forties.

Though, if they’d been running with a pack for any length of time, they could all be much older than they appeared.

My initial relief at seeing so many younger, more inexperienced wolves was quickly replaced by a horrid hollowness in my stomach.

There are so many young… Jared trailed off in my thoughts, mimicking my worry.

They were just kids. We couldn’t kill them...could we?

I shook my head.

It won’t come to that.

Anything? I sent to Callum, setting my jaw as Devin and his pack came to a standstill fifty years away.

No, he replied, and I could hear the worry in the inflection of his voice even though he was trying to hide it. Nothing.

Goddamn it.

Devin shifted along with the two wolves to either side of him and I gasped, recognizing one of them.

Is that…? Clay asked, and I felt the tension radiating off him in waves.

It’s Forrest, Jared confirmed.

He was at Ryland’s right hand four years ago, before I became the twin soul wolf and everything changed. I’d let him go along with a small group of others who couldn’t bear to stay under my command.

So it seemed Sam wasn’t the only one who came back to bite me.

Forrest wanted his revenge, too.

“Come,” Devin called across the clearing. “Let’s talk.”

I stifled a growl and my wolf retreated, letting me take the reins for a minute. I shifted, and though I’d gotten used to being naked in shitty situations, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so exposed.

Once, Devin had proclaimed my body his.

Once, I’d had to wonder if he’d touched me while I was drugged in that cave.

I clenched my fists and stood taller.

“You really filled out,” he called appreciatively, and I ground my teeth, trying not to pay any more attention than I needed to his naked body.

Jared and Clay bent low at my sides, their tails going rigid as they growled at him.

Devin fixed his cutting stare on my mates next.

“It seems my intel was mistaken,” he said, his brows lowering, and I wondered at how he could possibly tell whether I’d rejected them or not. Being an outsider of this pack, there was no way he could know for certain.

He lifted a hand, beckoning to someone further back in his three line formation.

I turned briefly to find Callum several yards behind me. He shook his head, and I stiffened.

Where the fuck were they?

Barely a second later, I sensed Clay’s alarm and heard Hazel’s low whine before I spotted her. Two shifters in their human form held a struggling, naked Sam between them as they pressed through the rest of their pack, dragging her to Devin’s side.

She bucked against their hold, and despite the piece of silvery tape covering her mouth, I still heard her muffled pleas.

A pitched keen came from down the line, and I found Hazel stepping out ahead of the others. Her silvery gray wolf tilting its head to better hear what she could not see.

“Hazel,” I called, drawing her attention.

Don’t, I implored her, and she fell silent as she slipped back into line.

My first thought was that she’d betrayed us and my wolf nearly stole back the reins. But then if she’d told Devin everything, why did she look so much like a prisoner between the bodies of the two shifters holding her. Why did she look so afraid?

“I thought it a bit suspicious,” Devin said as the two men came to a stop next to their alpha, and Sam’s panicked gaze found me across the barren field.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I found suspicious?” Devin called, tipping his head to one side as he steepled his fingers.

How had I ever thought he was anything less than a total psychopath?

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me whether I give a shit or not.”

He grinned, flashing two rows of shining white teeth in an angular jaw. “I found it suspicious that Samantha returned to me even after I told her to remain with your pack.”

I realized that his offhanded admission should have shocked me. I wasn’t supposed to know that Sam was working with Devin to destroy us, but it was too late now, and he only grinned wider.

“Where’s he going with this shit?” Clay whispered harshly, having shifted in the span of a single breath.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, keeping my voice low. “But I don’t like it.”

“So, like any rational person would, I questioned it. I thought her loyalty knew no bounds, but it seems I was mistaken there, too.”

Devin’s appraising green eyes passed over Sam, and she looked away, her shoulders curling in defensively.

He reached out to trail a hand down her cheek, and she bucked, trying to escape his touch. Despite my fury at Clay’s sister, I seriously considered how I might bite off that hand for daring to lay a finger on her. On any woman who didn’t want it.

“Without my little Piper, I might never have known the truth.”

As though on command, a girl of no more than eighteen stepped forward, her mousy brown hair a mess of mats and tangles down her chest to her belly button.

She stepped around Sam and lightly touched her cheeks.

“Does Samantha have anything she’d like to say?” Devin asked, and I glanced to Clay for clarity. What exactly was happening right now?

The girl called Piper dropped her fingers a moment later and turned to face her alpha with a bowed head and a pronounced tightness in her jaw.

Her hands moved in a sequence of patterns, and I realized after a second that she was signing something. “She’s deaf,” Clay said, confirming my suspicion,

and my mind began to race.

Hazel was blind and could see a person’s past experiences and feelings through touch.

I had a twin soul and mated to two shifters instead of one.

This girl, it seemed, was deaf to the world around her, but could hear the inner thoughts of those she touched.

Devin had used her to read Sam’s thoughts. Fuck.

This was it. She was it. The secret weapon he’d used to get the upper hand and takeover five other fucking packs. The thing Sam couldn’t tell us about.