Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
In less than two minutes, they all had grabbed their backpacks and didn't bother waiting for the elevator.
Running down the emergency stairs took less time, with the guys jumping over the railings to get to the lower levels.
Grace must have seen the look on Samara's face and grabbed Samara by the elbow.
"If you've never done it before, now is not the time to start."
Samara pulled her elbow away, but nodded in agreement, not stopping her descent for a second. Once they got to Winterbourne, all bets were off.
By the time Samara and Grace reached the garage, Leo had pulled the van out of its parking space. He screeched to a halt in front of the stairwell door. Grace yanked open the door and shoved herself in the back seat, leaving Samara sitting next to Kellen.
Stephen was fiddling with his phone.
"What are you doing?" Samara demanded.
"I'm trying to figure out how Josiah found out that we lived in Winterbourne."
Samara didn't look at Grace. If Josiah had tracked her, that would make this situation even worse. Unless she could prove it, it was best if she said nothing.
"Son of a bitch!" Stephen slammed his hand against the dashboard.
"What?" They all echoed at the same time.
Stephen showed the screen of his phone to Leo, who took his eyes off the road for a second. "Damn him. I'll kill that kid. I should have stomped on his phone instead of throwing it."
While Leo ranted, Stephen handed Kellen his phone. She leaned close to see what Stephen had found.
There it was, her picture taken by the kid Ritchie, with her face as large as the day was long. She lay on the ground with Kellen's hand trying to hold the blood from seeping out of her neck. He'd posted where everyone online could see it.
"Great." Kellen handed it back to Stephen. "Not only is Riverstone going to know where we are, but so will Firebrand and Moonclaw."
"They're all going to converge on Winterbourne after this. What will Firebrand and Moonclaw do?" Samara asked.
"Nothing good," Leo muttered, swinging the van wide to hit Route 69. He sped through back-to-back yellow lights.
"After a century, maybe they’ve forgotten about us," Stephen said, slipping the phone back into his pocket.
Samara could see Grace listening, her face tight as she absorbed their words.
Maybe it was because Kellen knew she was listening that he continued.
"We recently figured out that Josiah instigated a civil war between the Firebrand and Moonclaw packs by killing Firebrand females and pups.
What he didn't know was that the Firebrand and Moonclaw alphas had ordered targeted retaliation strikes instead of a full-on battle to the death.
They sent Leo to kill Moonclaw wolf shifters and Stephen to kill more Firebrand wolf shifters.
Once Josiah realized how he'd screwed up, he sent me to kill both Stephen and Leo so both the Firebrand and Moonclaw alphas would have to keep sending more and more omegas to finish the job.
The fewer Firebrand and Moonclaw omegas that are around, the better chance of Josiah grabbing their territory for himself. "
"Why?" Grace had leaned forward as Kellen talked.
"We're still working on that part."
"So, you three hunted each other and then what happened?"
"We were so good at what we did, we could never get the jump on each other. After a decade of failing, I was tired."
"And lonely," Leo said.
"Then we all walked into that church, ready for yet another battle," Stephen continued. "Before we could begin—"
Kellen picked up the story. "I threw down my guns, my traps, and my pride."
Grace's hand snuck between Samara and her son and rested on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. Kellen took his mother's hand in his.
"That's when he asked us why we were doing what we were doing," said Stephen. "We had no answers except that we did as ordered. Then he proposed the brotherhood. We knew each other better than we knew anyone else by that point."
Leo sped through another yellow light. "We were so disconnected from our own packs, we had forgotten what it meant to have a family, friends, a life beyond plotting to kill each other."
"I fell to my knees," Kellen whispered just loud enough to be heard, "and asked them to join me or kill me because I was done being Josiah's pet."
"I didn't know what to do or say." Stephen shook his head.
Leo tapped the breaks because of another yellow light ahead. "I thought it was another trap."
"I figured one of you would just cut off my head and be done with it.
I wouldn't have cared either way. The fact that you joined me on the floor of that abandoned house of God and listened to what I had to say.
You heard me and my wolf shadow, not your alphas.
When you both agreed to create our brotherhood with me. ..it was nothing short of a miracle."
That last sentence sent shivers through Samara.
How close had she come to losing the man she loved before she'd even been born?
Another shiver followed. She bit her lip, trying to cut off the surge of adrenaline.
Now was not the time to dwell on her love for Kellen because he wasn't going to fight for her.
So, she pulled away from him. "While I'm fascinated by your history, we need to think about what we're going to do now.
How can we keep Carlie and George safe after they return to the restaurant. "
No one answered as Leo sped up driving for the next few hours until he blasted the van over the town line of McNary, about half an hour from Winterbourne.
"We should fill up the tank." Leo pointed to a building with bright lights and the outline of gas pumps that appeared in the distance.
After they pulled over, Stephen headed right for the back of the van. Samara joined him there. Kellen and Grace headed across the street toward a pharmacy that was open 24/7.
The brothers all had an agenda, but all she could do was stand around and feel useless. Kellen had a plan, but they were pressed for time. He’d silently communicated the details to Stephen and Leo, but it annoyed her that he wouldn’t tell her. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to get the drone in the air. We're close enough and with infrared we can see exactly what's happening at the camp." As he talked, he pulled out a delicate piece of equipment followed by the wings. "Can you hold the drone still while I attach the wings?"
"Of course." She squatted low so she could wrap her hands around the body, as close to the nose as she could.
The drone looked sleek and deadly, but it wasn't too heavy.
She easily kept it in place without too much exertion.
Once Stephen attached the wings, it would look much more graceful.
She could only guess that the brothers had done a lot of modifying to get the drone to do what they needed it to do.
Her grandfather had taught her how to use guns and knives, but now that she thought about it, he never did feel comfortable with computers or any modern technology.
He would never have thought to teach her how to use a drone.
Kellen would.
That whisper in her mind held out the hand of temptation, not unlike Kellen himself when she ran from him that first day on the job. Samara shook her head to bring her mind back to the situation at hand.
"Are you okay?" Stephen asked.
Damned wolf shifter senses would make keeping anything a secret or unobserved impossible. "Yeah, just feeling guilty at not being able to do more."
"Kellen knows what he's doing."
Kellen knows what he's doing, but what is he doing?
There was something about the way Stephen said it that had Samara mentally reviewing every conversation she'd witnessed between the three brothers.
As Kellen told her, they worked together no matter what, always asking for each other's opinions, because the brothers had equal say over their lives.
They weren't a pack, Kellen had said, and they never would be, but there was something about the way they spoke.
Who always spoke first when it came to making a big decision?
Who made the decision before asking the others if they concurred?
The truth should have been obvious from the beginning, but it still made her suck in her breath.
She tried to cover her shock by clutching the drone hard enough to keep her butt off the ground.
"Stephen."
Stephen didn't look up at her because he was focused on securing one of the wings.
"Kellen's an alpha, isn't he?"
That stopped Stephen with the wing only half attached, his ice-blue eyes locking onto hers. His wolf came close to the surface for a brief moment. "Don't tell him. Not yet. He's not ready to hear the truth. Not until after we rescue Carlie and George and kill Josiah."
"Why does he think he's an omega? Why haven't you told him he's an alpha? Does Leo know?"
Stephen locked the first wing into place, then moved around to handle the second one, forcing Samara to scoot around to the other side of the nose.
"Kellen has a way of making people believe him.
Believe in him. What the three of us said in the van was the absolute truth.
What Leo and I didn't say was that after the third hour of talking, listening, starting to realize just how much of our lives had been wasted in our pursuit of one another, Kellen walked over to the rectory to see if he could find anything to drink, whiskey or whatever.
While he was gone, the two of us looked at each other.
It was almost laughable. Kellen, honest to God, thought he was an omega, but he wasn't. Any wolf would know that within minutes, except himself.
Grace must have raised him to think he was an omega to protect him from Josiah. "