Page 56 of Wolf Forsaken

"Better safe than sorry." Silas was focused straight ahead, and before I could protest, he'd climbed into an idling delivery truck. "Let's go."

"You've got to be kidding me." I had no choice but to climb in after them. Was this how packages always went missing? Stolen delivery trucks?

Silas pulled out of the parking lot and handed me his phone. "Tell me where to go. Rover was sending me a rendezvous point."

Shaking my head because now he was trying to sound like some big shot secret agent, I opened the text and pulled up the address on maps. "I'm dreaming, right? Or this is some initiation prank for me to be accepted into your pack?"

"Which way do I need to go, Ivy?" Silas wasn't messing around.

"Head east, back the way we came. On the edge of Huntsville is a strip club." I really wanted to throw the phone because this entire day was a disaster.

Couldn't I just have one day where nothing went wrong? Had I done something to bring me bad karma?

"Oh,Naked Goddess?"

"Yes." I sighed. "Of course you know exactly where the strip club is."

"Hey, I'm a man that appreciates a woman's form. I can't wait to see you strip for me one of these days." Silas glanced over at me and gave me a goofy grin. "I can install a stripper pole, if you want."

Shaking my head, I patted my leg for Xander. He made a sound that sounded an awful lot like a grumble and then put his head on my thigh. "I don't really know how to act with him like this."

"What you're doing is fine. We don't normally interact with each other like this, but it feels good to be pet. I see why dogs are fans of it."

A comfortable silence fell over us and we rode in silence about fifteen minutes before Silas pulled off the highway and into the strip club parking lot. There was an SUV and a truck waiting, and we quickly piled into the SUV.

Cole and Eli were inside, and I threw myself at them, letting them fuss over me. I'd been trying to keep my cool for Xander's sake, but now that we were safe, I was shaking.

I had the horrible feeling that we'd escaped for now, but would see that man again.

Chapter Eighteen

Cole

Xander was on the couch, his head in Ivy's lap as she stroked between his eyes. It had been hours since we got them back to Silas's den, but he was still in his wolf form. With him not communicating, we had a difficult time deciding what to do.

Silas had switched vehicles again at another stop and gone back with his betas to see if they could locate the man but had turned up with nothing. They also circled back to where they had thrown out the bags of clothing and searched through them. There was nothing but clothes inside.

Xander had been through extreme trauma, a lot we still weren’t aware of. His current lack of communication made me wonder if he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. Him freaking out might have then affected Silas’s and Ivy’s judgment of the situation.

But it was better to err on the side of caution.

I sure hadn’t, and look what had happened.

I felt like a failure. I couldn't protect my mate, my pack, or myself. Everything my father built and worked hard to cultivate was gone. The pack would never be the same, even if I got my spot as alpha back.

How do you trust an alpha to protect your very essence when he can't even sniff out his own beta plotting against him?

Sara estimated he’d been plotting for at least three months based on internet searches, vehicle locations, and tones used in communications with me and the other betas. It was easy to miss when you weren’t monitoring every move someone in the pack made. But maybe I would have if I’d heeded my father’s advice all those years ago.

And now there was a possible threat nearby, and the pack was vulnerable without me at the lead. I was so disappointed in myself I could hardly bear it.

"Cole, did you hear me?" Eli asked, concern in his voice.

"What?" I looked up from the spot I was staring at on the coffee table. There was the faintest ring from a cup that had needed a coaster.

"Is this movie okay? Xander likes action movies." He gestured to the projector screen. “Maybe it will help bring him back.”

I stood, stretching and faking a yawn. "I think I'm going to head to bed."

---