Chapter 5
Chapter Five
As it turned out, Kellen had left the bar before she returned the empty dinner tray to the kitchen. George was busy, so Samara headed to the break room. Carlie didn't hesitate when Samara asked where Kellen had gone.
"Across the street to the gym. One of his buddies owns the place and he's always there when he's not here.
I wish I could buy the secret to eternal good looks from them.
George and I work out twice a week and go to the shooting range a couple of times a month, but we're showing our age and nothing can stop that.
Kellen and the other two, I swear they must bathe in the fountain of youth every night cause after thirty years, they don't even have so much as a gray hair on their heads or crow’s feet around their eyes. "
A brief laugh escaped before Samara could stop it.
One of the few nuggets of information she managed to learn was that the average wolf shifter lived five hundred or so years.
The housekeeper who was put in charge of her after she was released from her cage told her this after she made it clear she would not help Samara escape.
Not that it mattered then, and it still didn't matter now.
Once she drank the colloidal silver, she could feel her old self slipping back into her skin.
No more wolf rattling around in her brain, trying to make her comply with the pack's orders, or anyone else's for that matter. Her body belonged to her and her alone.
There would be a blizzard in Miami before she let anyone or anything take that control away from her again.
Thanking Carlie, she left the break room and headed outside.
There was zero traffic at least, so she could quickly dash across the street to the Winterbourne Fitness Club.
Of course, there would be a half-wall between the front windows and the interior blocking her view so she couldn't see if Kellen was nearby.
Inside, the air conditioning blasted the breath out of her.
Now she wished she'd brought her ragged sweater.
Too late for that. Rounding the half-wall, the first thing she noticed was how big the gym looked for such a small town.
About half of the equipment was in use, but it was still early in the day.
"Can I help you?" A woman, who looked to be in her mid-twenties, approached with a frown.
She wore a light green tank top that accentuated her eyes and hair of the same color.
She also wore a sports bra that boosted rather than flattened, along with mid-rise black tights that showed off her gold navel ring.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was here to be seen, not work out.
Which was fine because Samara only needed one question answered.
"I need to speak with Kellen. Is he here?"
The other woman's frown deepened. "I'll give him a message."
"No, thank you. I work across the street." Samara turned so the woman could see the logo on her sleeve. This apparently soothed whatever feathers Samara's presence ruffled. "I have an urgent matter that would be best described by me."
With a shrug and a tilt of her head in the general direction of the back of the gym, she said, "They're in the back. Go behind the row of bench presses, look for the door that says "Room 2."
At least the woman didn't follow her, so Samara wondered if she worked there or if she was just a nosy member of the gym club.
This gave her an opportunity to not quite run toward the bench presses.
Seeing the door, she pulled it open revealing a huge open space with a parkour course, with some rock climbing, and slacklining included around the edges, all in use.
To her left she saw the alcove with a sign that said "Office. "
The door opened before she could knock, revealing a man as large as Kellen with tousled blond hair, light golden brown eyes that matched his leather jacket, and a face that looked like the angels had carved it.
Once again, Samara endured the familiar elevator eyes.
What was it with that? Sure, her discoloration was unusual, but the rest of her looked normal—didn't it?
At last, the blond man stepped aside and motioned her in with a gallant bow. Kellen sat in a swivel chair next to another man, both absorbed in the TV mounted on the back wall. As Samara took in the scene, she realized her trip had been for nothing. They were listening to the news report replay.
"That's why I'm here," she said, pointing to the monitor. "I wanted to make sure you knew what was happening."
The man sitting next to Kellen switched off the TV, silencing the next news segment.
He had short clipped brown hair—not as dark as Kellen’s—but his striking blue eyes cut through the dimness of the office.
Dressed in a tank top with a name tag and gym shorts, he gave off casual confidence that made her assume he owned the place. His name tag said 'Stephen.'
"You did that?" Stephen asked, his eyes focused on her while Kellen kept his back to her, staring out into space.
She was tempted to say ‘do what?’ but Kellen had made it clear he wouldn't tolerate any stalling. Since he already knew how she escaped, there was no point in denying what she'd done.
"Yes, I killed the wolf in the garbage bin.
He chased me around the perimeter of the house but didn't know I had the knife.
I could see his shadow as he got closer, right before he jumped me, I swung around and fell backwards.
He landed on the knife. All I had to do was keep cutting upward until I reached his throat, then I cut off his head to make sure he stayed dead. "
A beat passed. Then another. It wasn't everything that they wanted to hear, but that was all they were going to get for right now. The blond leaned toward her and sniffed. This was getting more uncomfortable by the moment.
"What the hell is that scent?" he asked just as she slipped her knife from its sheath. "It almost smells like..."
"Silver." Kellen stood up, tugged his polo back into place. "She smells of colloidal silver."
Alarm bells rang in her head as she got ready to fight, even knowing she had no chance against three wolf shifters.
You had no hope before you killed the omega.
"Put the knife away," Kellen said, sounding both tired and sad. "Leo won't hurt you. He's just being an asshole."
"Hey, if she can escape Riverstone and murder seventeen of the pack..."
"Which is less than half." Samara corrected, slipping the knife back under her shirt.
Once again she was trusting a wolf she barely knew for reasons she couldn't understand and didn't want to dwell on right now.
"Subtracting the two that died in the railcar, there’s still eighteen or so Riverstone wolves out there, including the alpha. "
"Better odds than we ever had," Stephen muttered.
Her suspicions were right. They had been part of the Riverstone Pack at one point. No wonder Kellen still had that mournful look on his face. She must have killed his friends.
No, that couldn't be right. A guy like Kellen who treated her with kindness and gentleness would never have fit in with the Riverstone Pack. She just couldn't imagine him living like they did, much less making friends.
"Are the three of you on the run too? Does the alpha want all of you dead?" It was the only thing that made sense to her.
Silence was the only response, with lots of glances between the three of them.
The non-verbal communication said more about their connection than they could have guessed.
It didn't take a whole lot of thought to realize that this wasn't just a friendship, or a brotherhood, or even a pack. These three were family.
Instead of answering, Kellen stepped right in front of her, invading her personal space. He looked down at her. "How much silver did you drink?" he asked.
Unlike with the blond, Samara didn't feel the fight or flight instinct at all. That didn't mean her thoughts didn’t race as she scrambled to remember the bottle she'd bought. Should she tell him? What could he do with that information? Information was power, and she already had so little of it.
"How much, Maria?" Kellen's voice turned ragged.
She swallowed hard. "Thirty-two ounces."
Leo stepped farther away from her, while Stephen rolled his eyes in disbelief.
"Thirty-two ounces?" Even Kellen sounded horrified. "That would kill an elephant, never mind a person. If you weren't a wolf shifter, you would be dead. No wonder you couldn't shift when I chased you."
Should she tell him? Could she? Her throat turned tight at the memory of gagging back the sour metallic liquid. "It didn't kill me, but it killed the wolf inside me. The wolf shadow is dead. I'm no longer a wolf shifter. I never wanted to be one, and I will never become one again."
The three of them looked at each other, then back at her, then back at each other one more time. It would take years of study to understand what they were saying to one another.
"That's not possible," Leo muttered. "It's just not possible. You still have a wolf's scent."
"It'll wear off." At least she sounded convincing, but at best it was a fervent hope.
"When was the last time you shifted?" Kellen asked.
As if she could ever forget. "I only shifted once. Two months ago."
Don't give them the details, her instincts screamed, but a part of her broke. All of her fear and horror poured out of her.
“I was in Helena, living my life. I'm a paramedic.
I worked at Station Two but had to leave early because of a migraine.
I got home to find my grandfather had died of a heart attack.
I did everything I was supposed to do even though I knew it was too late.
One minute I'm calling the coroner, and the next I'm locked naked behind bars in a basement with nothing but one dim light bulb and a pile of meat in a bowl. There were bite marks all over me."
"All over you?" The blond asked. "It should only take one bite to turn a human."
Samara ignored him. "I thought I'd been attacked by dogs. I got frustrated and angry. So angry that I started to rush the bars of the cage, hitting myself against them. Next thing I know I'm growing fur and it felt like every joint in my body was dislocating."
She had to stop and catch her breath before her emotions stole her voice.
"I'm not sure what happened. Everything turned hazy.
I think Josiah shot me with a tranquilizer so he wouldn't have to shift and could.
.." She didn't finish, not that it mattered anyway.
It was over and she was free, and Josiah could choke on his own rage.
"He knocked me out every couple of days for the next few weeks. "
"No," Kellen whispered, reaching out to brush her cheek with his thumb, which she leaned into without thinking about what she was doing.
"He didn't rape you while you were unconscious.
He's vicious, and if wanted to rape you he'd make sure you were awake to remember everything.
And how the hell could he knock you out once you acquired a wolf shadow?
We metabolize medication so fast, it doesn't affect us. "
She pulled away from his touch. “Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Josiah never told you?”
“He never said anything to me. He just yelled a lot.”
"There's also no reason for him to pick a random woman off the streets," Stephen added, picking up where they’d left off.
"It would've attracted the wrong kind of attention.
Josiah may be a power mad alpha and a coward, but he's not stupid or a risk taker.
There's a reason he wanted you. We just need to figure out why. "
She could only shrug while Kellen stepped away giving her back her space. "I've had plenty of time to think about that, but I’ve got nothing. I'd never seen him before or any of the Riverstone Pack, to the best of my recollection, and my memory for faces is pretty good."
More silence, the three of them deep in thought but this time not looking at each other. That lasted until Stephen spoke again. "It's time, Kellen. We've been here thirty years. That's about the limit before folks start to notice that we're not one of them."
"Time for what?" Digging herself deeper into the lives of these three would only lead to trouble, and yet her curiosity got the better of her.
"Time for us to leave Winterbourne." Leo sounded almost mournful as he looked at her. "If we stay here much longer, folks will start to realize that we're not aging."
"We also never get sick, and we can heal quickly, between a few minutes and a few hours depending on the damage inflicted."
Samara thought about Carlie's comments earlier about how these three must drink from the fountain of youth.
Kellen took a deep breath. "Yeah, it's time."
"Then it's time for me to leave too." Samara pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "I'm back to my original request. If you don’t mind giving me some money and supplies, I can freight hop again. The farther away from the Rockies I get, the safer it'll be for everyone."
"No, it's not safer," Kellen said. "It's more dangerous. If Josiah ever does catch you, he could torture you until you tell him we were here. Then he'll have a thread to follow us. We've evaded him for the past century and a half and we're not going to leave any sort of trail for him to follow."
Kellen crossed his arms, and this time looked her directly in the eyes. "There's no other option. You're going to have to join our brotherhood. From here on out, you're one of us."