Page 96 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Icouldn’t sleep.

Ever since the ceremony, my thoughts had been erratic. Explosive. Like a minefield I had no way of crossing without getting blown to a thousand tiny pieces.

I checked my phone for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes, gushing a sigh of relief when a text from Vivian flared to life on the screen as though I’d willed it into being.

Vivian: Allie, I’m fine. I’m going to sleep. You should too.

Vivian: See you at school tomorrow, k?

Allie: Have you heard from Layla? She isn’t answering my texts.

Vivian: That’s probably because it’s one in the morning.

She was right. I sat heavily on my bed, the mattress sighing beneath my weight.

Allie: Sorry. See you in the morning.

I chucked my phone onto the bed, losing it in a lumpy pile of blankets and leaned forward to press my palms into my eyes, easing the tension headache knocking at my ocular cavities behind them.

They couldn’t fault me for worrying. I remembered what it was like those first few days. I had almost no control.

But then again, I had refused to shift for way too long.

They had already shifted more times in three days than I had in my first two weeks.

They’ll be fine, I told myself stoically. Totally fucking fine.

Them being at home was better than being at pack camp at least. Ryland had offered for them to remain on pack land for a while, until they could both be properly acquainted with their wolves and gain some control.

They’d refused of course. They couldn’t just not go home.

They had families.

Layla especially. She had younger siblings counting on her to look after them while her parents worked. Vivian may have been able to swing it. Her mom likely wouldn’t notice she was gone for a while, and her dad wouldn’t care so long as she gave him a plausible excuse.

I’d worried Ryland wouldn’t grant them permission to leave, but he’d simply nodded and gave both my best friends understanding pats on the shoulders. Playing the part of a benevolent and understanding alpha.

He’d warned them of the risks involved with returning home so soon, but they’d both nodded, accepting the risks. And just like that, he’d let them go with only vague orders requesting them to return the following weekend when they had time.

Ha!

I’d never received such lenience from Ryland. What was he playing at?

Trying to get them on his good side?

As if that would work after both of them watched him break my fucking arm because he was having a goddamned tantrum.

I barely noticed I’d risen to pace until I was out in the hall, turning back at the stairs to walk back toward my room.

With Jared gone back to the quarry on orders from Ry and Clay busy with something in the shop, I’d been alone with my thoughts since Clay and I dropped off Layla and Viv and returned home.

Now that I had time to think things through, I realized there was a lot not adding up. And I kind of wished I’d pulled Jared away to have that talk with him before he had to leave.

But, like usual, I’d hesitated, developing lockjaw in the span of a single breath.

I needed to think about what I was going to tell him. How I was going to say it. I couldn’t very well just blurt out that I thought his uncle was a sadistic douchebag who maybe, probably, had something to do with the missing members of the pack.

Loyalty is paramount in our world, Allie Grace. Those who are not loyal do not have a place here.

If the other missing wolves were anything like the one that’d almost fallen drunk into the firepit the week before, then it wasn’t a stretch to say that they weren’t as loyal as Ryland wanted his pack to be.

And to say that the cowardly alpha who ran away that night at the four corners had something to do with it? How was he getting the others to actually buy into that? There was no way it had anything to do with that pack.

Right?

I stopped, chewing my bottom lip as I glanced into the dark, quiet cabin below from the top of the stairs.

There was something going on. Something that wasn’t adding up.

The more I thought about it, the more I believed it.

I bowed to my alpha’s will to protect my friends and my mates. But would my obedience be enough to save them if he were the monster I was starting to think he was?

I swiped a hand over my face, a jagged sigh tumbling from my lips.

Or was this all just a massive misunderstanding? Was it just that Ryland fucking hated me and was treating me like shit that made me suspicious of him?

Groaning, I raced down the stairs.

There was only one way to find out and put these demons to rest once and for all…

I needed to go to the eastern pack. I needed hard proof. Real, tangible answers.

I needed to know that I didn’t just let my friends make the biggest mistake of their lives when they submitted to the rule of Ryland.

The screen door banged shut behind me as I stepped out into the frigid air, my breaths clouding in icy little droplets on my face as I shivered, hugging my arms around myself as I power walked around to the back of the cabin.

The light was still on in the shop. Good.

“Hey,” I said, rounding the edge of the garage-style door and entering unannounced. “I need to talk—”

Clay rolled off the couch with a snarl and a thud, flipping onto all fours with his teeth bared and eyes wild and ablaze with blue fire. He spun, searching for an attacker, and I realized all at once that he’d been asleep.

Oops.

His gaze settled on me, great gushes of steamy air puffing past his lips. He blinked, relaxing as he rocked back on his heels and caught his breath.

“The light was on,” I said with a wince. “I thought you were still awa—”

“Don’t do that,” he growled, shakily rising to his feet, his face tinged red. “I almost…” he trailed off, throwing a hand through his sleep-tousled hair.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

Clay shook his head and his gaze lowered to the floor. “It’s fine,” he said. “I was just…it was a nightmare. I didn’t expect you to—”

“Barge in unannounced at one in the morning?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Then clearly you need to change your expectations.”

He smirked at that and sat back down on the old sofa, legs spread wide and arms open, one slung over the backrest and the other over the torn armrest. He took up almost half the sofa like that.

Sometimes I forgot how massive he was. With arms larger than my thighs and a chest nearly as wide as two of mine.

It didn’t help that he was shirtless, exposing every shadowed curve of muscle and a little whisper thing trail of dark hairs disappearing into the rim of his loose fitted jeans from his belly button.

Wasn’t he cold?

It had to be less than 60 outside tonight.

“I…” I started but couldn’t seem to find the words, or maybe the courage, to start talking. I bit my bottom lip and glanced out at the trees, craving their solace like I haven’t craved it in a long time.

“What’s wrong?” Clay asked, his casual demeanor shifting as he attempted to study my expression. “Did something happen?”

“Um…”

“Allie?”

“Will you go for a walk with me?” I blurted before I could change my mind. “Not far. Just down the trail and back. Walking sometimes helps me think.”

He narrowed his icy blue eyes at me, but stood after a minute. “Sure,” he said with a note of suspicion coloring his tone and then snagged a dark sweater from beside the couch to toss in my direction. “Put this on. You’re shaking.”

I caught it midair and tugged it on gratefully, wilting beneath the instant warmth and the comforting smell that was uniquely Clay enveloping me.

He grabbed a long sleeve t-shirt from the seat of the bike he was working on. One of the ones he used for work that was a deep gray covered in the stain of engine grease.

“Lead the way,” he told me as he came to the edge of the shop. “But let’s stay tight to the cabin.”

I understood what he meant. Let’s stay within the perimeter of the spell keeping the cabin and immediate area surrounding it cloaked from view.

I had to wonder if he was worried about the same thing I was, or if he’d bought into the rumors of the eastern pack trying to dwindle our numbers. I shook my head. No. He wasn’t that gullible.

Clay didn’t press me as we walked slowly over the carpet of fallen leaves coating the forest floor.

With the moon still near full and the forest canopy thinned from autumn shed, the path was bright.

It had almost a crystalline quality. I could make out every knot of wood.

Every flurry of movement. Smell every scent.

I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the familiar scents of mountain pine and birch soothe the tremor in my bones.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I started.

“I figured,” he said, ever the smart ass.

I gave him a little shove and continued. “This is serious. And I don’t want you to freak out, okay? You have to promise you won’t.”

I chanced a quick peek at him, finding the side profile of his face tight and muscle jumping in his jaw.

“Okay,” he said finally.

“Okay, so basically here’s the thing…the thing is…”

Why was this so hard?

“Spit it out, Allie.”

I stopped and turned to face him, my spine going rigid. He stilled, waiting for whatever it was I had to say with a knot in his brow and lips pressed tight. As though bracing for a physical blow.

“So, remember how Jared said that Ryland was going to apologize to me? Well, he didn’t.

He actually kind of threatened me. Or maybe he threatened Jared.

I’m not clear on that. And then he had that Grey asshat try to tell me how things were going to be from now on.

And anyway, that’s not really important right now, what I really wanted to bring up and maybe get your help with is well…

I think Ryland is lying about the missing wolves and the eastern pack being responsible for their disappearances.

I think that it’s possible that he has something to do with them just vanishing into thin air, and he’s just trying to shift the blame and—”