Page 33 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

“If you say so.”

Georgie rocked back on her heels. I knew she had something else she wanted to say but was holding back. This conversation had already turned in a direction I wasn’t exactly thrilled about, however, so I didn’t push her to speak her mind. She did anyway.

“You don’t have any way of contacting your family?” she asked. “No email or phone number?”

I thought about it for a second. “I guess if I was desperate enough, I could try emailing one of my sisters. I don’t know if they still use their old accounts, but it’s possible. But I really don’t think it’s a good idea for me to open that door again. Even if I wanted to, what if I got them in trouble somehow?”

She made a face. “Just for the record, they got themselves in trouble. And you wouldn’t have to ask them for any incriminating information. You could just see how they’re doing. Try to get a sense of whether or not they might’ve been trying to reach out…”

“I don’t know.” I bit the inside of my cheek.

“I know it’s scary and that you vowed never to have any contact with them after they left, but that was a long time ago Di. You’ve grown up a lot since then, and maybe they have too. Probably not your dad, but you once told me you didn’t think your sisters were irredeemable.”

“I said that?” I frowned. “Hmm.”

She laughed. “Yes, you did say it, and you meant it. You told me about some of the good memories you had from childhood, the times you and your sisters would play together in the backyard, and I remember thinking that you seemed to miss them even if you weren’t ready to admit that to yourself. This could be a good excuse to reach out to them. If they are trying to send you a message, wouldn’t you want to know?”

That was a question I didn’t have an answer to. It had been years since I thought about possibly talking to my family again. As harsh as it might sound, I’d spent much of the time we’d been apart trying to forget all about them altogether. The wounds they left behind when they packed up their things and ran from the consequences of their actions were deep, and I used to think the only way they were ever going to heal would be if I pushed my sisters and parents out of my mind entirely.

Now that I was confronted with the possibility of my family wanting to talk to me, I didn’t know what to think.

“You don’t have to decide anything today,” George reminded me, most likely picking up on my building apprehension. “But hey, I’m really glad you told me about this.”

“Of course. You’re my best friend.”

She smirked. “Yeah, your best friend who you’ve been keeping secrets from!”

“One secret,” I said, but immediately regretted it, because now I was keeping another secret from her. The email. “And I told you the truth in the end, so…”

“I know, you’re right,” she said. “I was just giving you a hard time.” She finished off the rest of her coffee with one big gulp and then smacked her lips together as she brought the mug down on the counter by the register. “Oops, would you look at the time? We were supposed to open the doors five minutes ago. We can talk more about this later if you want.”

I didn’t want to, but I smiled and nodded just the same. I was happy when Georgie opened the doors, and within a couple of minutes, customers walked inside and started asking me questions about various bestsellers. The distraction was a welcome one, and I ended up spending the rest of my shift finding ways to keep myself busy so that Georgie wouldn’t corner me and try to talk more about my family.

Despite knowing I was probably falling down a rabbit hole that led nowhere, I couldn’t help but go back through the email from Georgie’s mystery friend again that night. There wasn’t any new information, but thinking about Andreas and the rest of the Vilks on the compound was a good way to keep my mind off everything else going on in my life. I spent a solid three hours sifting through the same paragraphs and re-reading all of the entries on that kid’s blog, but ultimately, I ended up with more questions than answers.

It was getting late when I closed my laptop, but oddly enough, I wasn’t even remotely tired. Some of the more peculiar comments written on the werewolf blog rattled around in my head, and I recalled how the site creator mentioned that it was easier to catch the creatures in ‘shifted form’ at night.

But it wasn’t real. Werewolves weren’t real.

That’s what I had to tell myself—multiple times. No matter what I thought might be going on with the odd folks over on the west side of town, there was no way I was going to be convinced that Silverleaf was home to a community of werewolves. In fact, a part of me wondered if the comparison to a vicious animal wasn’t born out of some deep-seated hatred for the unknown. Maybe the person behind this website wasn’t a kid with a wild imagination. Maybe it was someone making up stories about a group of people that the townies just didn’t know what to do with. Whoever made the page needed to get a life, and so did I.

To do that, however, I had to find a way to stop obsessing about this. I wasn’t going to see Andreas again, nor would I drive to that side of town anytime soon, so what did it matter?

But when I tried to close my eyes and forget everything I’d read, I realized that the only way I could truly move on was to find out the truth. I needed to look Andreas in the eye and finally learn what he was hiding and why he was so afraid of trespassers and strangers on his property. And the sooner, the better.

Chapter 15

Andreas

After a long day of helping my brother work on his truck, watching Sarafina laugh as she talked on the phone with the man I now understood to be the love of her life, and listening to Becc gripe about every little thing—I was over it. I was over all of it. I didn’t want to eat dinner with either my brother or betrothed, so I made up some excuse about wanting to walk the perimeter of the compound to check for potential safety breaches and left them to their own devices. So as to not look like a liar, I did walk around the property, but then I tucked myself deeper into the surrounding forest and waited until it was pitch black outside.

Then—I shifted.

Before I inherited the title of pack leader, I used to shift all the time—a couple of times a week at least. Mikeal and I would go for runs, carving paths through the woods with our calloused paw pads. Even if my brother was busy, I would typically go out at night and stretch my four legs to get some of the day’s leftover energy out. But lately, I hadn’t been shifting regularly. I was too busy, too fearful of doing so before dark, and too tired late at night to make the effort. That’s why it felt so good to let loose tonight. After a very stressful week, losing myself in my wolf form was the best therapy I could’ve asked for.

I took a second to stretch my joints and remember what it felt like to walk in my wolf skin, then I sniffed the air and found the direction of the nearest creek. I took off toward it. The feeling of my paws pounding against the ground, the wind whipping through the fur around my face and ears, was nothing short of intoxicating. I knew from the second I started going full speed that I wouldn’t stop any time soon. I didn’t care what time it was or how tired I would be the following morning after spending all night in the woods.

Nothing was going to pull me out of wolf form tonight.

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