The amusement in his voice doesn’t anger me, not when the pain from knowing he’s letting me walk away consumes what little hope I had for us, as friends, if nothing more.
As always, I take his words to heart, trusting in them—in him— and change direction. A few hundred yards later, I glance up at the moon to check my bearings. “This can’t be the right path,” I mumble out loud.
“Not to camp, no.” Garrett’s behind me, hanging back at asafedistance. “It’s the path to my cabin, where you’ll be staying while I’m training you. The regimen involves night maneuvers, which would cause alarm in the main part of camp. You want me to train you, Angel, this is how we do it. How I train any shifter who asks, so don’t think I’m giving you special treatment.”
“You sure you want me in your cabin?”
“I can handle sharing close quarters. The question is, can you?”
I stare him straight in the eyes. “You made your stance perfectly clear. Now let me make mine. I lured dozens of shifters into the WSSO’s trap. That only happened because I got caught. I don’t intend for that to ever happen again. Nor do I lure shiftersfor fun, that includes you. If you can’t understand that, I’ll find someone else to train me. Is that clear, Mr. Black?”
Garrett nods, his eyes still locked on me. Then he shifts to his wolf, and bounds towards his cabin, leaving me to follow or not. He doesn’t really care.
But I do.
I’ve found a new purpose to my time with his pack, and it doesn’t involve Garrett Black… beyond what he can teach me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GARRETT
Angel leaps across the stream, surprising me when she lands with barely a thump compared to a week ago when she’d landed with all the grace and noise of an elephant.
“You’re improving,” I say when she returns to my side of the river. If only her scenting skills would improve….
“So much of what you’ve taught me makes sense. As long as I stay focused, it’s easy to apply.”
“Learning how is only the first part. Practice is essential. You have to repeat the moves over and over so they become instinctive. I’m surprised your pack didn’t train its females. Even the White Wolves know there are times when a woman blends in better with humans.”
“Job assignments had nothing to do with gender. Our teachers assessed our natural skills through a series of tasks. Tracking was an absolute failure for me. Several of the teens correctly identified deer trails, rabbit tracks, even a bear shifter who crossed into our territory. Me? I found footprints, reported back that we had ahuman in our territory. The guards sent out extra patrols and soon everyone was on high alert.”
“That’s a huge discovery!”
Her ponytail falls forward as she shakes her head. “I’d been following my own prints. I didn’t recognize my own boot prints from before I shifted. Or realized that I’d gone in a circle. God, that was embarrassing. After that, they looked to more internal tasks that could suit me. Cookhouse, supplies, maintenance. Turns out I have a penchant for math and organizing. That’s how I ended up working in supplies. Eventually, I took over when Ferris retired. ”
“We don’t assign jobs here until much later, and the shifter usually gets to choose. Except Callen. He was a guard for years. Sort of inherited the enforcer position when our previous enforcer was captured by the WSSO.”
Angel pales. “How long ago?”
Fuck. “Way before they caught you, darlin’.”
“How long?” she persists. She doesn’t believe me anymore. That’s on me. I pushed her away so hard, a wall formed between us now. On top of that, my wolf’s gone silent again. He doesn’t understand why I’m keeping my distance from Angel.
When I first brought her to the pack, I was sure she needed shifters, pack, around her. Now, I’m not sure what she needs. But I know one thing… I’m stuck in the past, and I won’t drag her down with me.
“Garrett?”
“Oh. Five or six years. Ransom escaped a WSSO research facility with the help of a female shifter they’d been holding for several years.”
“Years…”
She gains a distant look.
“We should change the topic.”
“No, I want to hear what happened. To know there’s hope for a shifter held for so long.”
“Are you thinking about the ones I left behind?”
