Page 29 of Wolf Forsaken

She came to stand in front of me and put her hand on my chest. "What do you think, Xander?"

"I think… I'm not going to be able to sleep in this room." I knew that wasn’t what she was asking, she was asking for my opinion on Silas. It should have been pretty clear what my opinion on him was, given I attacked his ass outside.

The walls suddenly felt like they were closing in on me and my breath caught in my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

"Because you can smell him?" Her brows pinched together, and she reached for my hand as I reached for the doorknob. "Maybe there are some other spare rooms we can sleep in."

"I need air." I shrugged off her hand, as much as it pained me, and stepped out, shutting the door behind me.

The last thing I wanted her to see was how broken I was.

Chapter Ten

Ivy

Staring at the closed door, tears welled in my eyes. I wanted to go after Xander, but I also got the feeling he needed a little space to breathe. It was a lot to handle going from just being around us to being around so many other people and being the center of attention. Not to mention everything he had gone through since he came to us.

Eli went to move past me, and I put my hand on his chest to stop him. "I think he needs a little space right now. I know your instinct is to go after him, but he said he needs air."

Eli went back to the bed, sitting down with a heavy sigh. "The things he told me outside…" He rubbed his hand over his face. "I don't even want to imagine what happened to him."

Cole cleared his throat and took a towel from the stack I'd set on a chair in the corner. "Do we know where he came from?"

"Washington. He doesn't know how he got here." Eli laid back on the bed and looked up at the skylight. "You two can take a shower first. I'm going to go find Silas and see if I can use a laptop or phone to get in touch with Sara. Maybe I'll do a little digging to see if there are any packs that haven't been active."

"We would know if a pack just up and disappeared. Wouldn't we?" Cole threw a towel at me, and I barely caught it before it fell.

Silas's housekeeping could sure use some work. The floor looked like it hadn't been vacuumed in months, and there was a thin layer of dust on every surface. There were still clothes exploding from the dresser too.

It must have been driving Cole nuts.

"Not necessarily. From the little he said, it sounded like they are very traditional and cut off from most of our technology. Maybe they're just one of those smaller packs that broke off from a larger pack and like to keep things old school. But if something happens to one of those packs, no one will know." Eli pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "I guess it's another thing I'll need to bring up at the next technology meeting. Now that we have the missing wolf search up and running, we should find a way to keep tabs on the packs that don't want tabs kept on them."

"Is it safe to have all that stuff on the internet?" I started stripping out of my clothes and both of them had their eyes glued to me. "I mean, if the wrong person came across the information..."

"There's nothing on that system or the dating app that would pinpoint that we are anything but humans. And besides, they're hidden on special servers behind firewalls and passwords. Even if someone got through all of those things, they would never know what it was for. They might think we're some kind of commune or secret society, but that's it." Eli sat up and rubbed his bottom lip, his eyes locked on my tits. "You stripping down like this is really working for me."

I winked and put my pile of clothes on the bed.

"Go take a shower." Cole kissed my temple and yawned. "We need to get some rest so we can think clearly. It's been a long few days."

I snorted. "More like a long week." What day was it even? I really had no sense of time anymore.

When I came out of the bathroom after my shower, Cole was passed out on the bed and Eli was sitting against the headboard, typing on a laptop. There was a comfortable silence in the room besides the faint clicking of the laptop keys.

As tempting as curling up next to Cole was, I needed to check on Xander, and if Silas was around, I wanted to ask him about the picture again.

Pulling my hair back into a ponytail, I secured it with a hair tie I'd found in the bathroom. I was glad Silas had a few lying on the counter to tie back his shoulder length hair. It almost seemed pointless to wear my hair up. If I shifted, anything securing it would be lost forever unless someone went around collecting hair ties and bobby pins.

"I'm going to go see if I can find Xander," I whispered, leaning over and giving Eli a quick kiss.

"He's downstairs on a beanbag chair. I asked Silas if there are any spare rooms, and he said there aren’t." He glanced at me briefly and then went back to typing on the computer. "I tapped into your phone. It’s been blowing up, so I sent everyone messages saying that you're fine and would call them later. I also emailed your work and told them you'd be out another few weeks."

I should have been mad that he could get into my phone, but I had nothing to hide. I needed to contact quite a few people as soon as I had time. I also wasn't so silent on social media. Hopefully people thought I was just taking a break and didn't send reinforcements to check on me.

"Any word from Sara?"

He shut his eyes. "I know it seems stupid, but I'm kind of scared to look to see if she sent me any messages. What if she didn't get away?"

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