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“Oh, they’re probably with their own pack,” he said dismissively. “We coordinated your rescue with your father’s pack, you know—it’s just that we got here first.”
No wonder there were so many wolves out here! I looked around at the sea of shaggy backs milling around and wondered where my stepfather and his Alphas were and if Christopher and Gabriel were with them.
“What…what happens now?” I asked, swiping at my eyes with the cigarette-smelling sleeve. “Am I going home with my brothers and my father?” It killed me to call Esteban my “father” instead of my stepfather, but I had an idea I would have more status and value in the Colonel’s eyes if I named him that way.
“Well, no—you’ll come back with us, to Pack Master Moncrieff’s lands of course,” he said, as though that should be self evident. “He wants to see you at once. In fact, he’s waiting for us right now,” he added, frowning disapprovingly.
My heart dropped.
“Please, before we go can’t I say goodbye to my brothers?” I begged. “I just want to be sure they’re okay.”
“I’m afraid there’s no time,” Colonel Brazier said dismissively. “We’ve kept your future mate waiting long enough. We really must be going.”
I started crying even harder, but this time it didn’t work. He just set his jaw, took me by the arm, and led me to an unmarked black truck that was parked a little way out in the desert.
He helped me into the high cab—(more like pushed me in)—and then shut the door firmly behind me. Then he came around to the driver’s side, got in himself, and slammed and locked the doors.
Just as he started the truck, I saw two familiar figures running towards me. It was a large black wolf with a golden-brown wolf at his side.
My heart started pounding.
“Gabriel and Christopher! It’s them! It’s my brothers!” I exclaimed, leaning against the window. I fumbled to find the button that rolled it down, but somehow nothing I pressed seemed to work.
Colonel Brazier was ignoring me. He had already put the truck in drive and was pulling away.
“Wait! Wait!” I begged him. Out there in the moonlight, I saw the wolves turning back into men. It seemed to be a slower process than the man-to-wolf transformation—maybe it was harder for them to change back, since the full moon was still out and shining overhead.
“We’ve waited long enough—Pack Master Moncrieff will be most seriously displeased if I don’t bring you to him at once,” he snapped.
“But my brothers! They came to say goodbye! Please!” I begged.
“No. We’re already late,” was his curt reply.
He punched the gas and the last sight I saw was Christopher and Gabriel standing there, naked in the moonlight, watching me leave them behind forever.
THIRTY
“There now, dearie—don’t you just look lovely?” Crenshella, the elderly housemaid who had been assigned to me when I came to Pack Master Moncrieff’s house, fussed with the long white veil that covered my face. “Just like a bride should look,” she said, more to herself than to me. She enjoyed dressing me like I was her own personal doll and I was too unhappy to object.
I looked in the full-length mirror at the girl dressed in the long, white dress and veil and all I could see was a life of pure misery staring back at me. That probably had something to do with the past three weeks I had spent living in the house of my husband-to-be and the way Harlan Moncrieff treated me…
The nightmare had stared literally the minute I had walked in the door. I’d only had a moment to admire the marble entryway and the long, winding staircase that looked like something out of a movie set. My husband-to-be lived in an Antebellum mansion that had been faithfully restored to its original, pre-Civil War glory.
But before I could notice more details, Pack Master Moncrieff came down the stairs wearing a black suit and a frown. He was even uglier than I’d remembered, with the tufts of wiry gray hair growing out of his oversized ears and nostrils and liver spots on his wrinkled skin. His big-knuckled, boney hands were clenched at his sides.
“You took long enough! Where have you been?” he demanded, shooting Colonel Brazier an angry look.
“Sorry, Sir—the girl was all covered in blood. She needed time to clean up,” the Colonel said quickly.
Moncrieff didn’t even ask if I’d been hurt—the mention of me being covered in blood didn’t seem to phase him at all. Instead, he glared at his underling.
“You let her clean up? I told you to bring her directly here in the state you found her in!” he exclaimed. “We need to know if she’s still pure. Did you have Garen check her?”
Colonel Brazier looked uncomfortable.
“Briefly, Sir,” he said at last. “We, uh, were in kind of a hurry to get back here—I knew you were waiting to see your new bride.” He nodded at me, like I was an object he’d brought back for his master’s use.
