Page 57 of What a Wolf Demands

Especially if she was on the verge of going feral.

He pushed that thought aside. Later, he could worry about how to handle that particular problem—assuming he even could. Right now, he had to keep her safe, rescue her friend, and somehow manage to keep himself alive in the process.

When had this trip become so damn complicated? Abruptly, he remembered he hadn’t checked in with Remy. Hell, he hadn’t even looked at his phone. Remy probably wouldn’t worry, though. Dom wasn’t overly fond of carrying a cell in the first place. The thought of anyone being able to track him down at any given moment grated on his nerves. He’d always handled whatever task Max assigned him. He didn’t need a babysitter to make sure he stayed on schedule.

The trees and foliage on either side of the road grew more tangled and unruly. Overhead, thick clouds made the sky a dull gray, giving the scenery an ominous look. It was good and bad. Good because it gave him a bit of cover. Bad because it gave just as much cover to any wolves who might be tracking them.

He frowned. The subtle, tingling awareness he’d felt was . . . gone. Where he’d sensed the presence of other wolves before, now there was simply blank space. He cast his senses out, drawing on his wolf a little to scan the area.

Nothing. It was as if someone had taken a giant eraser and blotted out every trace of his kind.

Before he could ponder it, Lily pointed ahead.

“That road there. It’s the turnoff for Levesque’s place.”

He slowed. “You sure?” The “road” was little more than a dirt path. A little ways ahead, a sizable tree branch lay across it.

She gave him a look. “I’ve lived in Bon Rêve for twenty-three years. I’m pretty sure I know where the Alpha’s house is.”

Point taken. He pulled down the road. Immediately, the SUV bumped up and down, hitting ruts and kicking up stones. He slowed to a crawl, gritting his teeth as branches snapped and crunched beneath them.

Lily put a bracing hand on the dash, her gaze scanning the trees outside her window. She spoke in a low voice. “Do you think they know we’re here?”

Maybe. Probably. The wolves in New York patrolled the territorial borders constantly, and security was especially tight around the Alpha’s home.

But she was already tense, her body drawn taut as a bowstring. So he made his voice calm and answered honestly. “I don’t know. I don’t feel anything.”

She turned her head, her eyes wide. “You can feel them? Other wolves?”

“Sometimes.” How could that be a surprise to her? She was a latent, yes, but she’d been raised by werewolves. “Your parents. They never mentioned it?”

A wave of sadness rolled off her—the force of it so strong it took his breath away. She lowered her gaze, then faced the road. “They didn’t talk much about . . . wolf things. When time passed and I didn’t Turn, they sort of stopped mentioning that part of their lives. The last few years I didn’t even see them in wolf form.”

He swallowed. There was something terribly poignant about that—something both beautiful and sad. “They wanted to protect you,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, her voice soft. “They were good parents.”

Loneliness hung around her like a cloak—as if a heavy blanket had smothered her spark. He suddenly wished for the spunky, argumentative Lily back. He’d welcome a disagreement or a chin lifted in haughty challenge. Anything to make the flush bloom in her cheeks again. To see those plump lips curve in victory when she got her way.

“We’re close,” she said.

He jerked his attention back to the road. At first he didn’t see anything, just twisted trees and the rutted dirt path. Then, up ahead, a white house came into view. It was a typical antebellum mansion, complete with Greek pillars and a deep porch.

“We’ll stop here,” he told her, pulling to the side of the road. He got as close to the trees as he dared, crossing his fingers the SUV’s tires didn’t get stuck in the mud. He shut off the engine, unbuckled his seat belt, and shrugged out of his jacket.

Lily watched him, her expression guarded. Her nostrils flared when she got a look at the gun holstered against his ribs.

“I want your word you’ll stay in the car,” he told her, unsnapping the holster he’d worn over his T-shirt.

She met his gaze, protests gathering in her eyes.

“We discussed this already,” he said quietly. He waited for his wolf to grow irritated—something that typically happened when a subordinate challenged one of his orders.

But the beast was mysteriously silent.

That left him with nothing but a glower and the hope she’d listen to reason.

He gave her his best intimidating stare—the one that had made more than one trainee stammer and go pale.

---