Chapter 7 #2
“Are you kidding me?” I demanded. “He thinks I’d let my own pack die?” I turned and walked away. “Fuck this, I’m going home.” I tried to shift, but a steel collar circled my throat, and I was picked up off my feet.
Then I realized the steel collar wasn’t made of metal; it was Diesel’s hand. I twisted and turned in his grasp, trying to break free, using my legs to swing, kick, connect—anything. He merely cocked his head as he watched me fight, as if I were no more than a bug he could squash with one squeeze.
“Calm down.” He squeezed tighter. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t shift. I struggled more against his hold, my lungs feeling the pressure from the lack of air. “I said, calm down.”
With willpower I didn’t know I had, I forced myself to stop panicking and stop moving. He nodded in approval. His eyes lingered on the mark on my neck from my wedding Binding.
“So you can be taught,” he said with approval. “Good.” He lowered me back to the ground. “The alpha calls for me,” he said as he released me. “It’s time for me to go to your Hollow and weed out your shit.”
Rubbing my neck, I looked up at him. “How did you stop my shift?”
“We don’t know each other well enough.” He glanced at Killian. “You got this?”
“It’s why I’m here,” Killian said without a care in the world that I’d just been manhandled. “You’d better tell him this happened.”
Diesel stubbed his cigarette out in his palm. “I don’t keep secrets from Wolfe.”
He shifted into a nightmare. I knew Wolfe was bigger than most shifters, but Diesel…
Diesel wasn’t just tall, he was dense. I could see the muscles under his fur, and I didn’t know that was possible.
His fur was coal-black with streaks of ash-gray down his spine and legs.
There was no shimmer or softness to it; it looked almost wet, like he had just walked out of the rain and never dried off.
He didn’t linger. He turned and headed up the path, his speed impressive for his size.
“He’s a big wolf,” Cody said to me.
“That’s not a wolf,” I whispered. “That’s death in a pelt.” I looked between them. “I need you to tell me everything Wolfe thinks he knows.”
Killian crossed his arms. “Why?”
“Because I know my pack, and you send that”—I pointed in the direction that Diesel had gone—“into my Hollow, and hell will break loose.”
Killian’s brow furrowed as he listened to me. “Rowen…why do you think Wolfe called for him?”
I pressed the palms of my hands into my forehead as I counted to ten. “I’m asking nicely, please, tell me what my mate thinks he knows, and then listen to me when I tell you why he’s wrong. Okay?”
“Sounds like we’ll need a drink for that.”
I looked at the shifter who strolled over to us. Her blonde hair fell down her back in thick waves. She was tall, willowy, and beautiful. She sidled up to Cody, and he wrapped his arm around her.
“This is my mate, Thalia.”
“Hi.” I looked over at Killian. “Can we—”
“So easy to dismiss us,” she murmured. “There are forty shifters here right now, listening to you freaking out about our alpha. Don’t you want to meet the pack he leads?”
I licked my lips. “Thalia, look, I do want to meet everyone, but right now, I need to talk to Killi—”
“He won’t talk,” she said as she watched me coolly. “If he wanted to talk, he’d have told you before you came into our territory.”
Oh my Goddess, these shifters were infuriating. “I—” I blew out a breath. “You know what, I need to go home.” I started to walk away.
“Did you tell her?” Thalia looked between Cody and Killian. “Does she know?”
“Does she know what?” I snapped as I spun to face them.
“Diesel left,” Thalia said with a small smile, but her look was hard. “You can’t leave.”
He’d sent me to lunatics. I was going to kill him. “What do you mean I can’t leave?” I glared at Killian. “You think you can make me stay?”
Killian shook his head. He was grinning. “I don’t need to do anything; Diesel did it the minute he left the territory.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Diesel is the pack enforcer,” Cody told me. “If he isn’t here, and Wolfe isn’t here, then our territory would be hard to defend.”
I looked behind him at the cluster of shifters who looked ready to take on anything. “Somehow, I think you’ll be fine.”
“We will,” Thalia said, still watching me. “Because no one can enter our territory when the alpha and his enforcer aren’t on pack soil.”
“That’s…” I shook my head. What? “That’s strong magic. Wolfe doesn’t have that kind of…” All three of them were watching me. “It’s a pack spell?” I asked them. “It’s a legacy spell? Right?”
Killian nodded. “Stonefang cannot be breached when the alpha and the enforcer aren’t on territory land.”
“No one can get in?” I looked over the land, with its gentle slopes, wooden homes that were no more than temporary stops, and the sweep of the land as it curled up towards the mountains. No wonder it looked unspoiled; only this pack moved over it regularly.
Thalia leaned forward. “And you know the real kicker?”
“What?”
“No one gets out.”
I looked at them as I felt the air close around me. “No…”
Killian looked almost sorry for me. “He wanted you safe, Rowen. Nowhere is as safe as these packlands right now. Not with Diesel and Wolfe both gone.”
“He trapped me here?”
“Your mate is protecting you.” Cody frowned at me. “Even with things…difficult between you, he is looking after you.”
I was going to throw up. “He isn’t protecting me! He just put me in a fucking cage!”
Cody shrugged, and he and Thalia turned toward the rest of the pack. “Call it what you want, you’re still not going anywhere for a while.”
Killian stayed beside me as I fumed internally. I was in a glorified cell. With no bars and no obvious sign of enclosure, it didn’t change the fact that I was still trapped here.
“You’re thinking of killing him, aren’t you?” Killian asked, rubbing his neck.
“Kill him?” I asked. “No, no killing is too quick for him.” I shook with rage as I walked back to my shelter.
“No, he’s going to suffer for this,” I vowed as my wolf whimpered at my fury.
“I am going to make his life hell for the rest of his life,” I promised as I walked. “For the rest of his very long life.”
The door slammed shut behind me.
“I’ll make the bastard bleed for this,” I vowed as I stood seething in silence.