AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What is it?” I asked.
“Distress call,” he said. He looked down at me, his brows rising. “Marley, I—”
I shook my head, answering the question on his face. “Go. Make sure our pack is okay.”
He heaved out a soft breath of relief and gave me a terse nod. He set me gently on the ground and turned on his heels, shifting in the blink of an eye. He almost took off running, but then he paused.
Cole looked at me and then back to the forest as if weighing something. When I was just about to ask him what he was doing, he sat back on his haunches and gestured with his nose to his back.
Another howl pealed out of the forest. I wasted no more time, leaping onto his back and tangling my fingers into his fur.
He sprinted toward the forest, clumps of damp ground and grass flying in the wake of his blurring speed. The cool mountain air was clarifying as I held onto his back, watching as the trees and foliage streaked into indiscernible shapes around us. I knew we were running to address an emergency, but the rush I felt as the wind whipped through my hair was exhilarating. It made me long to be a shifter even more—to run as fast as Cole and Travis and the rest of them.
As we ran, the howling continued, morphing into a chorus of two or three wolves. When we finally broke through to a clearing in the middle of the forest, we saw four shifters standing around a bloodstain in the dirt, an abandoned shoe, and what looked like a small amount of vomit.
Cole knelt so I could get off his back and then shifted back. The other shifters followed suit, and I was surprised to find that one of them was a panicked-looking Ginger.
I’d never seen her look so upset. She wasn’t crying, but her skin was ashen and her eyes were wide with terror.
“They took her, Cole,” Ginger said. “They took her and…there was the other one…the cute one from the gym. We have to go after them. We have to go. They’re in the forest, so we could catch up if we—”
“Hold on, slow down,” Cole said, putting his hands on his sister’s arms. “What are you talking about? Who was taken? Who did the taking?”
My blood turned to ice as I started to put information together before Ginger could even come up with an answer. The athletic shoe…the blood…
“P-Paulette!” she screamed. “Paulette and the girl from that stupid shifter gym! I was running with them. We were racing. When I started to win, I heard a whimper. I thought it was Paulette whining about losing, and then I turned around and…”
“That’s Rosie’s shoe,” I said numbly. “I saw her wearing them when she arrived.”
“If she lost one of her shoes…” Cole started.
“Then they must have gotten them to shift back into their human forms,” I said, reaching the same conclusion.
Cole lifted his nose to the air and sniffed. He closed his eyes as he tried to discern the scents, but I could only imagine that the blood and vomit nearby were overpowering his ability. But after a few moments, he let out a low growl.
“It was Lanyon Clover,” he said. “I can smell that Paulson woman’s shitty floral perfume.”
“We have to go after them,” Ginger said. “We have to go now. That…that blood is Paulette’s blood. And if they can somehow force shifters to take their human form, we’ll have more problems.”
Cole turned to me. “Marley, I’m going to start searching. I need you to go back to the group and order all hands on deck. Ginger, let Marley ride on your back.”
“Fuck that! I’m going to look for my girlfriend!”
“You and I both know that you’ll kill the first human you get your hands on,” Cole said. “And it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.”
His voice rang out in a way I wasn’t used to. It tickled some primal edge down the length of my spine—an urge to obey. Ginger seemed to react to it even more strongly, stiffening and looking over at me before finally nodding and shifting back into a wolf. She waited beside me for me to climb on, but I looked at Cole, cringing.
“Will they even listen to me?” I said. “I’m not their alpha.”
“You’re my mate, and in my absence, your word is just as good as mine,” he said. “Trust in your own authority. Own it. Make yourself heard. We’re all depending on you.”
I swallowed nervously, then looked back at the remaining clues of the violence perpetrated against two women I considered dear friends. I didn’t have time to be nervous. Cole was right. I knew my place in this pack, and it was time for me to rise to the occasion.
I nodded and took a deep breath. “Be careful,” I said to my mate.
“I will be,” he promised.
I climbed onto Ginger’s back and held on tight. She didn’t wait to make sure I was secure before sprinting back toward the party. As she ran, I practiced what I would say in my head—the tone I would use, the words I would say, the expression I would wear. I rehearsed scenarios in my head where people asked me what right I had to order them around or just turned around and left. My heart raced and my stomach twisted.
