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ChapterFourteen
“Mile marker thirty-four.” Tanner indicated the green post sign on the side of the secondary road. “How far down again?”
“Merle said a quarter-mile, give or take.” Isaiah scanned the road up ahead.
A gap appeared between the larger trees. “Slow down.” Isaiah pointed. “There.”
Tanner looked. “What?”
“That’s got to be it.”
“I thought we were looking for a road.”
“A dirt road. Now pull over.”
Tanner guided the old pickup to the shoulder of the road, where a slight incline led to the remnants of a gravel road washed out by decades of rainfall and no maintenance.
Grass filled the gaps between fist-sized rocks, and saplings crowded the gullies.
“Merle sure has a weird concept of what a road is,” Tanner said.
“You have to remember how he’s lived for the past five hundred years.”
While the loss of the Cana had destroyed most packs and left their bloodlines lost to the time, Merle had worked hard to preserve his family, taking in Varu with and without wolves.
After the first colonists, they’d been forced to uproot, but instead of moving weekly by caravan, they migrated between the small off-grid towns they’d established with family members who had no Fenrir.
Living with people who aged and had children helped Merle and others maintain the illusion of being human, allowing them to remain in one area for centuries.
But watching their people grow old and die took its toll on a lot of them and they’d wander.
Drawn by the need to be with their own, more than a few who resided in the West Virginia territory had stumbled upon Caspin. But they’d been born into a relatively civilized life. And while living off the grid wasn’t easy, it was better than the deplorable conditions Caspin wallowed in. When they tired of living like an animal, they’d contact Merle and ask to come home.
Being an honorable pack leader, Merle would drop everything to go get them, even if it was on the opposite coast.
The delta didn’t exactly hate Caspin, but there was definitely no love lost. Especially considering how many betas Caspin had almost killed when they tried to run him out of the area.
And it's why Merle had not only given Isaiah a truck but had also made sure he was armed.
“I want you to stay at least a mile back.” Isaiah undid his seatbelt.
“You’re going alone?”
“It will be better that way.”
“What if—”
“Out, Tanner. Now.”
The beta obeyed and took one of the shotguns from the rack in the back window and several rounds of ammo.
Isaiah hoped they wouldn’t need them.
He moved into the driver’s seat. “Keep your cell phone on vibrate. I’ll call you when I find him.”
Tanner nodded and stepped off into the shadows. Isaiah pulled back onto the barely-road. Another mile down, it dead-ended to a flat area where rocks rose out of the ground, in the first step toward the mountains.
Tucked in the shadows, a narrow entrance to a mine.
