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For those first several months, Sarah had beat herself up inside for what she’d done. She’d acted like an idiot, running away from her problems with Max instead of facing them head-on. It was her fault that she was in this situation, and there would be no getting out of it.
Pulling herself back out of the dreamlike state the memory had left her in, Sarah looked at Ava. She was a beautiful young thing, almost as tall as Sarah was now. Sarah hadn’t even known she was pregnant with her when she’d been captured. The news had both devastated her and given her a spark of hope. Ava had brought life back to Sarah, and now it was time for Sarah to do the same thing for her. “Can you come help me get the last ingredients out of the pantry?”
“Sure.” Ava put down the knife she was using to slice the carrots and followed her.
Sarah plucked a bag of rice from the shelf and handed it to her. She rested her hands on it even as Ava took it, meeting her eyes. “Do it, honey. If you think you can, then do it.”
Ava beamed. “Okay, Mom. Let’s get out of here.”
4
“Janice!”
Sarah cringed as she heard her father bellow for her mother. It was nothing unusual. Even if he was in the same room, Edward had a way of commanding all the attention. He spoke louder and walked heavier than was necessary. He bragged about every tiny thing he could think of, throwing around prestige as though he’d done something magnificent to become the Alpha of the Greystones instead of simply inheriting the title. Sarah went back to scrubbing the bathtub.
“Janice!” Edward repeated, his voice reverberating throughout the hallway at Sarah’s back. “What time is the thing tonight?”
Sarah slowed her scrubbing. Her fingernail still forced a corner of the sponge in between the tile grout, but she was no longer paying attention to the job she’d been assigned. What thing? If something was going on in the packhouse, she needed to know about it.
“Eight,” came Janice’s softer voice from a little further away. “We need to make sure we leave by seven-thirty to get there on time.”
“Is there no end to all the things an Alpha has to do?” Edward grumbled. “I’m busy enough as it is, but now I have to go to some ridiculous party. Won’t I get a break from all this hard work at some point?”
Sarah smirked. Hard work, her ass. The only hard work he did was making sure Sarah and Ava’s lives were as miserable as possible.
“I’m sure you will, dear,” Sarah’s mother reassured him. “And we only have to stay for a couple of hours. Molly and Ryan are so excited about their new place and are throwing a housewarming party to share it with everyone. They’ve been planning it forever. And, of course, there’s no way they would’ve been able to get such a lovely home if you hadn’t given them the start they’d needed here with the rest of the pack.”
“That’s true. I guess I ought to at least enjoy some of the fruits of my labor and get a free meal. What am I supposed to wear?”
Their voices receded down the hallway, and Sarah could no longer hear what they were saying. She fervently resumed cleaning the tub, wiping down the walls and hosing out the corners with the shower head. She gave the shampoo and soap bottles a cursory wipe before she chucked them back on the shelves, not paying much attention to where they went. It was only four o’clock. That meant they had a few hours yet before Edward was out of the house.
Good on Janice for cajoling Edward, playing into his ego to get him to stop whining. Had she done that on purpose, knowing that Sarah might hear her? Probably not. Janice sympathized with her, and she showed Sarah kindness whenever she had the chance, but she feared her husband more than anything else. She also knew that Edward had wired the whole place up with that security system of his and that even if Sarah and Ava had been left completely alone, they’d never get past the threshold without someone knowing about it.
The sink and toilet were already done. All that was left was to grab the bag from the trash can under the sink. Sarah grinned as she did so, wishing she could’ve been there when Edward found his cell phone in just that spot. The man was known for throwing fits, and if he had any idea what his granddaughter was capable of doing, he would’ve blown a gasket.
It was hard to force herself to walk slowly through the house with the trash bag in one hand and her rubber gloves in the other. Sarah casually moseyed to the garage door, opened it, and chucked the bag into the bin that would go to the curb the following day. Several other Greystones were milling around, ignoring her as they’d been told to. She slipped back down into the basement, her heart thundering and her mind whirring, hoping no one could tell.
“Ava!”
“Geez, you scared the crap out of me!” Ava jumped back from the utility sink. “I guess I got a little too involved in what I was doing.”
“Whatareyou doing?” Sarah had left Ava to take care of the laundry since she’d have some privacy down there in the basement. The washer and dryer were running, but Ava was standing at the sink.
“Washing this little guy. Isn’t he cute?” Ava stepped back just enough to show her mother the small dog sitting placidly in the sink, lounging in a few inches of soapy water.
“A dog? Where did he come from?” Sarah held out her hand and let the little terrier mix sniff it. One of his ears stood straight up, and the other flopped forward. He blinked his warm brown eyes as he sniffed her hand, then ducked his muzzle under her fingers.
“Gina, of all people,” Ava snorted. “She came down here and pretty much shoved him at me. I guess she adopted him from a shelter. She said she didn’t want to see him again until he literally smelled like roses, and there wasn’t even the ghost of a flea on him.”
“Oh, boy. I feel sorry for the poor thing if he belongs to Gina now.” Sarah scratched around behind his ears. Her Aunt Gina had never been a pleasant person, even before Sarah was in her current predicament. She believed she held a special status by being the Alpha’s sister, though she—like Edward—didn’t do anything to deserve it. Gina treated just about everyone like peasants, which had always gotten under Sarah’s skin. She was the last person Sarah would’ve expected to own a dog.
Ava drained the sink. She turned on the faucet, holding the stream of water out of the way while she checked the temperature with her free hand before giving the dog a rinse. “I don’t think she’s even given him a name yet, or at least she didn’t tell me. He’s a sweet thing, though, and he didn’t seem to mind the bath at all. He even let me wash his belly. Didn’t you, handsome man? Didn’t you?” Ava pursed her lips into a kissy face and was rewarded with a swipe of the dog’s tongue across her chin.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with her.” Sarah had been stunned to find the dog, but there was much more important news she needed to share. “Edward and Janice are going to a housewarming party tonight. They’re leaving at seven-thirty, and they’ll be gone for at least a couple of hours.”
With one hand still on the dog to make sure he didn’t leap out of the sink, Ava looked up at the floor joists above them. “Do you think everyone is going?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted. “I think it’s a good possibility. It’s for a young couple in the pack who just bought a house, and Janice said they wanted to share their new place with everyone. It could be our chance.”
