Page 91 of Wolf's Gambit

“I’m here,” I told him calmly, wondering how he was already upstairs. “What’s lit the fire under you today?” I asked him with a laugh.

“Where’s Kezia?”

My laughter stopped abruptly, my eyes narrowing as I stepped closer, feeling my wolf surface. “What do you mean, where’s Kezia?”

Nikan looked between the three of us. “Did you let her out? Put her somewhere else? I need to know what to say if someone asks me about her!”

I turned to look at Royce. “Tell me you closed the door when you left?”

He was frowning. “I could have left the cell door open,” he admitted slowly, obviously thinking about it. “I closed the door.”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s happening?” Nikan asked quietly.

Royce met my hard stare. “I’m sure it was closed,” he spoke quietly.

“How sure?” I pressed, walking toward my front door.

I heard his heart rate increasing. “Not one hundred percent.”

“Fuck!” I was already running down the stairs toward the bunker.

“What’s going on?” Nikan asked behind me. “Is she gone?”

At the edge of the bunker, I caught a faint trace in the air, and my head turned sharply as my wolf chased her scent in the breeze.

“She’s gone.”

CHAPTER 24

Kezia

I paced outside the mouth of the caves.

I’d been here three days, shifting between wolf and human form, and still, he never came. My wolf kept us fed as she hunted freely in the well-known area to us, but I was getting increasingly restless as I worried about being in the same place for too long.

Cannon would know I was gone. I hoped he hadn’t noticed until the next day, but while Luna gave me her grace to let me leave, I didn’t think my luck would have been that good. No. Alpha Asshole would be looking for me.

He thought I had no control.

I thought he was full of shit.

Mates? I had more chance of being mated to that tree over there.

I resumed pacing as I hoped my brother would come. The caves had been a shelter for our family when we were young. It’s where my brother took us after our parents’ accident. Murder. I gulped. They had been murdered, and I’d had my tongue down the throat of the male who could tell me more.

“Goddess! You’re such a useless female, Kezia. Big muscles, nice abs, and skillful hands, and you become no better than a floozy.”

I grinned. Floozy was a term Lottie loved to use. Luna, I missed Lottie.

I also missed my brother, and I thought the stupid oaf would have come at least once to this spot while he was out running. Kris always let his wolf run—his was as impatient as I was.

I resumed pacing, grateful my brother had left our hidden packs there. Shorts and a T-shirt were better than greeting him, after all this time, naked.

Rustling in the trees had me spinning in alarm, too close to hide but not too close that I couldn’t shift and run like hell if anyone other than my brother came out of those trees.

When I saw the familiar tawny wolf approach cautiously, I immediately burst into tears. My legs gave way, and I sank to the ground. I felt Kris shift, and I heard a mumbled “hold on” as he was covering himself, and then my big brother was on his knees beside me, holding me as I sobbed into his chest.

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