“Get over there against the wall,” she ordered, her voice low and steady in a way she didn’t feel.
“What are you doing?” Cody blinked up at her with wide and watering eyes. “You can’t—this isn’t—I need a hospital! That rabid dog bit me!”
“Well, then you’re about to die a slow, horrible death chained to this wall. I’ve heard rabies is a nasty way to go.”
King sat down and chuffed. He sounded like he was laughing.
“Please,” Cody whimpered, pulling against the restraint. “Please, Greta, you don’t understand. I saved her. I saved Alice from the world. From men like Daniel. From her own reckless choices.”
Greta stood over him, her breath coming hard and fast. “You. Saved. Her?”
“She’s mine,” Cody sobbed, his voice breaking. “She belongs with me. I kept her safe. I loved her. You have to bring her back. Please, Greta. I need her back.”
Something in Greta snapped. The rage she’d been holding at bay—for Alice, for herself, for every woman who’d ever been told she belonged to someone—surged up and out.
She reached down and dragged him up off the floor by his collar, slamming him against the wall. “I am so fucking sick,” she said, her voice deadly quiet, “of pasty, whiny, little limp-dick men like you deciding a woman belongs to them.”
Cody flinched.
“You kept my sister in a basement for half her life,” she continued, stepping closer. “You chained her to a wall. You made her use a bucket like an animal. And you have the fucking audacity to stand there and tell me she belongs to you?”
“She was happy here!” Cody insisted, tears streaming down his face. “She was safe! I protected her!”
“From what?” Greta’s voice rose. “From living her life? From having a future? From having a choice?”
“She was going to run away with Daniel Goodwin! He was going to hurt her! I saved her!”
Greta stared at him, the pieces falling into place. “You took her that night. The night she disappeared. You saw her with Daniel and decided you knew better.”
“He would have destroyed her.” Cody’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I saw the way he looked at her. The way he touched her. I was the only one who could keep her safe.”
“You’re worse than he is.” Greta stepped back, suddenly needing distance from the man on the floor. “At least Daniel’s evil is out in the open. You pretended to be a good man while keeping my sister in a cage.”
King pressed against her leg, his warm weight steadying her. She buried her fingers in his ruff, drawing strength from his presence.
“Where is she, Greta? Please. I need to know she’s okay.”
“She’s free.” Her voice broke on the word. “And she’s never coming back.”
She pushed herself to her feet and shuffled toward the stairs. Her legs shook. Her face was bleeding. The knot behind her ear throbbed in time with her pulse, and the room was tilting slightly to the left.
With Cody wailing behind her, she made it up out of the basement, across the cabin that jarringly looked like something out of a home and design magazine. Reclaimed wood paneling, woven throws, and a stone fireplace. She passed Maggie’s signature brass candleholders on the mantel, and her stomach turned as she pushed out the door into the cool mountain air.
She stumbled and sank to the porch steps. King leaned hard against her, propping her up. She put both arms around his neck and pressed her face into his ruff. He smelled like dirt and pine and blood, his fur damp from whatever he’d been running through. There was a gash across his shoulder, and a patch of fur was missing from his flank. His pads were torn up—he’d run a long way to get here, on roads and through woods, and he’d done it on his own.
He’d found her.
The big idiot who had no boundaries, no manners, and only selectively listened to his training had tracked her here.
“You good boy,” she said into his coat. “You impossible, perfect, stupid,goodboy.”
He enthusiastically licked the side of her face, but she didn’t mind.
The sky was turning gray at the edges, the mountains still dark silhouettes against it. A dirt road wound down the hill below, and as she stood there, trying to orient herself, the sound of engines cut through the morning quiet.
Multiple vehicles, coming fast.
Bear’s truck slid to a stop in the dirt, throwing up a cloud of dust. He was out of the cab before it had fully stopped moving, his massive frame silhouetted against the headlights. He froze for a second in shock when he saw King, then picked up his pace.
