Page 15 of Rejected Wolf Mate

Tannen rubbed his chin, and I frowned at him. “That’s your ‘I have a thought and you’re not going to like it’ face,” I told him.

“Yup,” Tannen said. “Dead on.”

I exhaled. “Go on.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little coincidental?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just a bit strange,” he said, looking around the group. “I can’t be the only one thinking it. The Gray Wolf’s guys find out we’re looking into them, kidnap Astrid in hopes it’ll get to Rand—even though she and him haven’t spoken in years—and she manages to escape and just so happens to come to Brixton of all places?”

I froze. Then my eyes narrowed as my wolf bristled.

“You’re my best friend,” I said. “So please tell me you’re not implying what I think you’re implying. Because it’s sounding a lot like you think she’s in cahoots with the Gray Wolf and this whole thing is an elaborate plot.”

Tannen held up his hands. “Not exactly. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re using her without her realizing.”

“Using her how?” Jameson asked.

“As a way to mess with us? Maybe they fed her false information they expected her to relay? I don’t know. I just think that we need to consider this is somehow a trap.”

I frowned at him again. “Yup. I still don’t like it.”

He shrugged. “It’s just a theory.”

“And what about the other option?” Oliver asked. “The one where she is in league with the Gray Wolf.”

I snarled at him, stalking forward. Mark stepped in front of me, holding his hand out. “Easy there, buddy,” he said.

“We have to consider all options,” Jameson pointed out.

“You don’t know her like I do,” I snarled.

“You don’t know her anymore,” Mark pointed out.

“So what, we’re just going to treat her like a criminal because we don’t know the whole story?” I asked.

“No one’s saying anything like that,” Jameson said placatingly. “We don’t have any evidence for this. Oliver’s just throwing out another possibility.”

“It’s a fucking stupid one,” I barked, not bothering to hide my rage.

I glared at the three of them, and they all stared back, not breaking eye contact. Tension crackled in the air, and all I could think about in that moment was how badly I wanted to take a swipe at them.

“For the record,” Klyte cut in, slicing through the tension, “her injuries line up with her story. She was malnourished and pretty beat up, and there’s no way she could have given herself some of those wounds. So if she’s lying, then she went to a lot of literal pain and effort to do so.”

I glanced in his direction, then took a step back. I wouldn’t apologize for defending Astrid, but now wasn’t the right time to start this type of fight.

“I’m not even saying I believe the theory,” Oliver told me. “I’m saying it so it’s out there.”

“If you ask me, the likeliest of explanations is that the Gray Wolf is using her without her realizing it,” Jameson said. “I agree there are a lot of coincidences, but we have no evidence for any of them.”

“The one thing we know is that the Gray Wolf is a threat,” Malcolm pointed out.

“Right. So let’s focus on that bit.” Jameson pulled out a large map. “If we believe Astrid—which, considering that’s our only lead, we will—then they held her somewhere about a day’s run west of here, and we were the only pack she came across.”

“Which means the most plausible place for a base would be in this general area,” Tannen pointed. “Roughly.”

“We should send out a couple of patrols to check the area,” I said.

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