Gage
Sitting in the lounge chair, I watch as Hunter and Maddox try to teach Red to swim. She’s terrible at it, though, and in the end, Bain holds her while they scrub her fur clean, and Chase swims laps around them, offering commentary for some reason.
Her tail wags, telling me that whatever he’s saying is helping her to relax.
I smile at the picture they paint, a happy little pack caring for their… Their what? That’s the problem, isn’t it?
I sigh, looking down at my laptop as I continue reading the article I found about the possible existence of Starfall Haven.
Once again, it gives no indication of a location.
Finding out if it actually exists and where it’s located is becoming crucial.
I have an inkling that our days in Westgrove are numbered.
I don’t like the idea of just up and leaving without a destination, so I need to find this location for us. Or at least a state.
But I also need to figure out what’s been done to Red. She is a conundrum. It’s impossible for her to have been in wolf form for five years and still be so coherent and… submissive. I’m not sure if that’s the right word for her behavior; she did lash out at Juliet several times.
She’s definitely protective, which just makes her even more adorable. I shake my head. I’ve never referred to anything as adorable in my life, not until her. I glance over at her, now in Maddox’s arms, completely drenched, and her tail wagging as she lets him hold her.
So strange. The fact that she lets all five of us touch her so freely might be part of the puzzle. Although, wolves do tend to be more affectionate in their wolf forms, so maybe that’s all this is.
Still, how is it possible she can come back to life after dying?
I’ve dug deep, and the only four creatures I could find that can do that are vampires, demons, phoenixes, and wendigos.
And even if the last two weren’t myths, she can’t be any of those.
She’s a wolf, and even shifters from mixed parents only get their shifter genes from one parent.
The only possibility is that whoever had her for the past five years did something to alter her.
They somehow found a way to hone in on her wolf’s accelerated healing and use it as a way to extend her life, permanently. Or at least, I assume it is. Who knows if there is a limit to how many deaths she can have.
On the dark web, in a place specifically for supernaturals, I found rumors of human facilities that were doing just that.
Experimenting on shifters. Not specifically for prolonged life, but for other things like harnessing their strength or heightened senses.
I’d almost vomited after reading what a fox shifter wrote about how he was trapped in one for a week and what they did to him. He’s lucky to still be alive.
Nobody seems to know where any facilities are today, though. Apparently, if a shifter does escape, the facility is gone before they can get back there with reinforcements.
“You’re thinking awfully hard there,” Hunter says as he wraps a towel around his lower half and sits in the lounge chair beside me.
“I’m frustrated that I can’t find any concrete answers on anything we need.”
He nods his head as we both stare at Red being towel-dried by Chase. She barks at him and jumps back, her ass in the air and her tail wagging. Hunter chuckles as Chase shifts into his wolf form and pounces toward her.
She turns and runs across the yard with him right on her heels. She ducks through the handful of trees and switches directions as Chase barks and chases her, pretending she’s winning when we all know he could pin her in two seconds if he wanted to.
“You should join them,” Hunter says, and I turn to him with an eyebrow raised in question. “Seriously, have you even shifted outside of the pack runs?”
“I’m busy,” I tell him, turning back to my laptop and not watching Red from the corner of my eye.
“It will be good for your wolf. Isn’t he telling you to go to her?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious.
Yes! My wolf yells in excitement. No, I tell him firmly as I push him back, close my laptop, and stand.
“Where are you going?” Hunter asks as I head for the house.
“I’m too distracted out here. I have things to do.”
“You know it’s okay to take a break every now and then. Maybe it’ll even clear your mind.”
I ignore him, even though my wolf begs for me to stay and shift. How can I possibly run around and have fun when there are so many unanswered questions?
I can’t.
Failure isn’t an option. That’s something that has been driven into me since birth.
The Maple Bay Pack did not look like the kind of pack that demanded perfection, but it did. It hid its expectations behind polished boardrooms and charity galas, behind expensive suits and carefully managed public images, yet usefulness was the only currency that truly mattered.
My father was respected as a beta, steady and reliable, but no one ever mistook him for a future alpha.
He met my mother in Korea, recognizing her as his fated mate at first sight.
He brought her back to America to join his pack.
She’d been raised in a strict household, one that valued intelligence and hard work, something she impressed upon me.
She was sharp-minded and exacting, the kind of woman who believed potential meant nothing if it was not fully realized.
She did not raise me to rely solely on strength.
She raised me to think three steps ahead, to anticipate weaknesses before they became threats, and to understand that intelligence is just another form of dominance.
That did not stop the pack from watching me like they were waiting for me to disappoint them.
Maple Bay liked its wolves polished and predictable, and I was neither.
I asked too many questions, noticed patterns other people ignored, and had no interest in pretending instinct was more noble than strategy.
During the day, I trained my body with the others as I was told, but at night? That was when I trained my mind.
I learned to code while the other kids were out partying.
I studied markets the way they studied combat patterns.
By eighteen, I had turned a small inheritance into significant wealth through legal and carefully calculated investments, and suddenly the traits they once viewed with suspicion became the reason they wanted me close.
That was when the alpha’s attention shifted toward me in a way that should have flattered me. But it didn’t.
What began as recognition gradually became expectation, and expectation slowly twisted into assumption. They started to demand more results, more money. When I pushed back, I was reminded that everything I built existed under Maple Bay’s protection, and that loyalty required contribution.
Contribution, however, was not enough for the alpha.
He wanted control, and he wanted me to use my intelligence in ways that skirted legality, to move money through channels that would benefit leadership more than the pack as a whole.
When I refused to cross those lines, the conversation changed from business to obligation.
A mate contract was proposed under the guise of strengthening alliances, but it was clear that binding me to a chosen female would secure my finances within pack bloodlines and make it nearly impossible for me to leave.
The worst part? My father helped make the arrangements.
Anything to be on the alpha's good side.
So I did what I had always done, and I prepared.
I moved my personal money quietly and legally, making sure every asset was completely unattached to anyone in the pack long before I made my formal request for release.
When they denied it, confident that the threat of rogue status would frighten me into compliance, I invoked the oldest financial clause in our pack law and paid back what they claimed I owed for my upbringing, down to the last documented cent.
My parents didn’t even say goodbye. They just turned their backs in disgust, showing me where their loyalties lay.
That’s why I cannot ignore unanswered questions now. I did not survive by hoping problems would resolve themselves, and I did not build independence by accepting uncertainty. Whatever is going on with Red, I will find it.
Because failure is not an option. I’ve already lost one family and I refuse to lose another.