Page 97 of The SnowFang Secret


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“I showed you how it was done yesterday at breakfast, you lazy mutt.”

Searle grinned. “That’s not what I meant, little pup. Jealous?”

“I’d volunteer but I’m young enough there’s still hope for me.”

Thatwas too far. I gave Tim a shove. “That’s a cheap shot.”

Go ahead and tell Searle to give me some fucking breathing (and grieving) room, I’d be appreciative, but cheap-shotting Searle right in the balls wasn’t going to help anyone. And I wasn’t going to be Tim’s damsel in distress so he could wring some prestige out of Searle.

Tim backed up off my hand but scowled at Searle, who growled in his throat. Disgusted, Tim said, “So fucking transactional. You run your relationship like you run that feedmill. Pay as deep a discount as you can cut out of everyone. You’re a stingy, transactional bastard that keeps score on everything. It’s fucking gross, and wolves have started to notice.”

Tim shoved past us and headed down the steps to breakfast.

We slipped out the front door, being careful to be quiet and not draw attention. It was just about dawn, and the morning was chilly, but not too cold.

Searle got into the truck next to me and reached over to stretch my seat belt so I didn’t have to twist. “Is your side worse?”

“I can handle getting between two hangry males.” I tried to ignore how the band of the seatbelt sat across my bruised midsection.

“Do not try to minimize internal bleeding.”

“Not a chance.” As in, not a chance I was going to jeopardize Sterling’s final weeks of training by letting myself bleed internally and end up in the clinic whichwouldget back to him. And I kicked the exhausted little voice that whisperedhe walked away, who caresinto the corner. That was just my brain trying to be angry so it didn’t have to be sad and lonely. That was the little voice that also saidquit, you’re exhaustedduring the last mile of a run or the last rep of a set.

Sterling had left me on that tarmac. He’d taken the last few weeks we might have had together away. But it hadn’t been out of malice.

Searle? Equinox?Thathad been malice.

“Why do you want to go to Norway?” Searle asked.

“Research.”

“On the necklace?”

“Yes.”

“What would the FrostFangare know?”

He didn’t know about the Archives. “The hunt has to start somewhere and they’re the oldest pack.”

“I find it hard to believe such a simple request got so violent.”

“I knew what I was asking for when I asked.” The dawn-lit spring fields were beautiful and laced with dew and sunlight. I inhaled the scent of grass and rolled my window down all the way. I’d never been farther than the base of the hill and the AmberHowl territory was like something out of a postcard.

Searle took me into the little town I’d seen so often from my window. It was quaint but humble and very rural, a lot like where I’d grown up, just the East Coast version. He pulled up to a small building tucked next to a small general store. Without a word, he unbuckled my seatbelt, and took me inside. The bells rattled lightly and the door creaked on its hinges, and the smell of food wafted out. It was pleasantly half-or-so full, mostly males wearing boots, jeans, and an assorted variety of shirts, and half the males were not human, but wolves.

AmberHowl. Maybe more than half. I’d never seen most of them.

They all glanced over as Searle entered, with the humans acknowledging Searle with little nods or flicks of the gaze, while the wolves were a little more deferential. I got more than a cursory look, especially by the humans.

It was so much like Montana, except with a different paint job.

Irony of ironies:thiswas what would have been my ideal mate, had Gaia given me a blank check. I’d probably have described Searle and this life in AmberHowl. Maybe notasambitious as an Elder First Beta, because that was pretty close to the fire all things considered. Didn’t needallthe sparklies.

The waitress was human, and a bit sweet on Searle in thatit’d never happenway, and nice to me. The coffee was pretty decent.

“How’d you get the black eye?” the waitress asked me, pointing at me with her pencil as she took our order.

I touched my cheek. “I have a black eye?”

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