Page 111 of Wolf's Endgame

“Cassandra.”

“She’s the same.”

I dipped my head in acknowledgment. “And your brother?” I didn’t manage to keep the scorn from my voice, but Cass ignored it. It seemed to be our thing: I ignored all the things about her I didn’t like, and she did the same to me. It was a shaky truce, but it was a truce nonetheless.

“He’s getting stronger. He may be able to shift soon.”

I said nothing, but I was sure I didn’t need to. My face was incapable of being blank when Landon the Prick was mentioned. “Good.”

It was good. It meant the little shit could be out of my house soon.

“Is Kris with you?” Cass looked past me, hoping that the reason we remained civil to each other was here too.

“He’s in the bunker again,” I told her. Walking to the fridge, I opened it, searching for my dinner from last night that I hadn’t had a chance to eat. “Where’s my food?”

“Oh.” Cass was bright red. “Was that yours?” She saw my scowl. “Um, Landon was hungry.”

“I’m hungry,” I snapped at her. “Tell the lazy shit to get up and get his own food.”

“Cannon!” Cass gasped. “He’s still healing!”

“Humans heal quicker than him!”

“Hey, guys.” Hannah walked into the house through the front door. “Good time?”

Cass practically deflated with relief when she saw Hannah. For some reason best known to my friend’s reasoning, Hannah and Cass had formed a friendship.

“Is it ever a good time?” I mumbled as I returned to the fridge. “I assume Landon also wanted the leftover chicken?”

“Um, no. That was me. The baby, really.”

Shutting the fridge closed with more force than necessary, I smiled humorlessly at both of them. “Excellent.” I gave Hannah a tight smile as I passed her and headed upstairs to see Kezia.

“How did it go?” Hannah called after me. “At the Anterrio Pack?”

Pausing on the stairs, I looked down at her. “They’re dense, bigoted, and beyond help,” I told her flatly. “But Kris thinks they’re getting better, so”—I shrugged—“who knows.” Resuming my climb, I made my way to my bedroom. Kezia lay exactly as I left her, laid out on her back, her white hair around her, her skin as white as the bedsheets, and her eyes closed. Dropping down, I brushed her pale pink lips with mine.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I greeted her. “Your old pack are a bunch of fools,” I told her as I stripped off my clothing. “They have been liberated from a tyrant, and they act like they’ve lost a martyr.” Kicking off my shoes, I pushed my jeans off. “How you lived amongst them amazes me.”

Kezia never answered.

“Kris is going gray trying to deal with them,” I carried on. “I can practically see him aging. I do not know why he keeps trying.” Grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist, I carried on. “Actually, I do. He thinks he owes them. He owes them nothing.” I went into the bathroom, got my toothbrush, started to brush my teeth, and came back out again. “Nikan and Leo finally caught up with the missing pack,” I added. I brushed the other side, taking the brush out to tell her more. “Rounded them up and added them to the bunker. There are so many cells now.” I grinned at her. “You’d have lots of company.”

Going back into the bathroom, I rinsed my mouth, switched on the shower, and returned to the room.

“We have thirteen held.” I hadn’t expected the Pack Council to take so long to come for retribution, if I was honest. I had thirteen prisoners, and although they said little, I still couldn’t kill them, as they were my proof that Bale was a psycho. “I don’t think Doc will cope if we find any more.”

I watched her as she lay there. With a sigh, I went into the shower, washing away the day’s fatigue.

Two weeks ago, I took charge of my pack again. With a plan set, my closest confidants and I cleaned up the aftermath of the pack war.

Ned had cleared the compound so thoroughly that we had a lot of evidence against Bale and the thirteen we held. Kris hadn’t known the code Bale had used, but he was familiar with his thinking, and he and Ned had decoded some damning evidence.

Nikan and Leo led teams of scouts and flushed out the remaining enemy pack from the mountains. I’d been a part of some of the scout teams, and pummeling my fists into Anterrio Pack faces had been a great stress reliever.

Royce and I had received word from some of the closer packs that Bale had been causing them trouble too. They had been willing to talk, and Hannah and he had gone and met with them. They were warier of me, and while I needed their cooperation, I had stayed away. I didn’t want to spook them when they could testify in front of the Pack Council.

Doc had driven through many of the towns in the state and neighboring ones and uncovered a lot of Bale’s fighting rings. As a male who passed for more human than shifter, he hadn’t raised any alarm bells. He had documented it all, taking pictures, and he’d even snagged a ledger of fights.

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