Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
I suddenly realize I have no way of defending myself. I don’t have any weapons. The pack doesn’t really need them. Suddenly, I wish they’d left a guard or two to stay back with us. There’s nobody here.
It’s with real relief that I hear the footsteps retreat and the door creak a little as it’s returned to the closed position. I stay alert for as long as I can, but in the end I fall asleep in fitful spurts and starts, only waking up when the pack returns around daybreak. They collapse downstairs, and I finally feel safe enough to actually sleep.
I wake up late in the afternoon, to a breakfast of beer and cigarette smoke.
I don’t mention the intruder in the night. I’m not even certain it really happened anymore.
Everybody is chill today, lying out on the grass outside the barn relaxing in the sun and drinking. A few couples sneak off into the bushes, or back into the barn to mate. Sex isn’t a big deal here, but it always happens in mated pairs. That’s just how we are.
A car stops on the road up from the hill. It’s probably about a mile away, but we all notice it. Nobody stops up there unless they’re cops looking for someone. The guys like to get in trouble from time to time, as do some of the girls. So it’s not completely rare that the police do come. It’s just also never good news.
The guys on the outside of the gathering perk up. They’re not officially on watch, but they’re also not, not on watch, if that makes sense. The pack always hangs out in a way that seems chill and disorganized, but has a definite order to it. Single females, like me, tend to be in the middle and at the back. The single males are on the outskirts, with the mated males and their mates on the inside of them, then the alpha at the center with his closest boys.
Trent gets up, lazily, but with intention. He stretches and moves toward the road. There’s an incline he has to go up, which is always a slight problem. I know he’d like to move us all somewhere where there’s higher ground, but we’ve got the barn to stay in for free-ninety-nine, and that’s an attractive price for all of us.
A few of the guys and girls make themselves scarce, using the barn as visual cover as they slink off into the shadows.
A tall man is coming down the hill toward Trent. He’s wearing a long black overcoat and has thick dark hair that flows down over his head in a mane. He looks older. Not old, but definitely old-er. Maybe forty or something. He looks powerful and rich. He doesn’t look like he belongs out here in the middle of nowhere. I can see silver rings flashing on his hands from a distance. This guy is money and danger.
Something about him makes my stomach do a twisty flip, like I’m in trouble. I have no idea why I’m having that reaction, but it is immediate and definite and primal.
I find myself slipping back through the pack just like the others who thought someone was coming for them did.
“I am looking for Anya.”
I hear him say my name in a thick Russian accent. My heart skips a beat, then starts to race. He has the same accent as my mother. Part of me wants to go toward him, but another part of me is suddenly absolutely drowning in guilt. Did she get so worried about not hearing from me that she sent some guy after me? And now he’s found me here? Nowhere near my college? Fuck. Oh, fucking hell. She’s going to be so disappointed in me.
“Nobody called Anya here,” Trent lies smoothly.
I breathe a little sigh of relief. I should have known he wouldn’t give me up to some random guy in a suit. Nobody else will either. I can feel everybody closing ranks. One of the guys pulls me up behind him, creating a human shield.
“I know she is here. I have news about her mother.”
He says the one thing that will always bring me out of hiding.
I knew from the beginning he had something to do with Mom. His accent was the final piece of the puzzle, but even before he spoke, I felt his significance. I can feel his energy reaching out for me even before I move. It feels as though he is somehow speaking to me without words, pulling at me though he cannot possibly be sure I am actually here.
I step out from behind my guard, approaching curiously through the pack. Trent reaches out with a hand, makes a gesture to indicate I should stay behind him. I do as he wishes, stopping a few yards away from the Russian man.