Page 60 of Wolf Forsaken

“You’re probably right. I didn’t even want to be alpha if I’m being honest. Maybe if I would have had more time to train and learn from my father, things would be different.”

Maybe, or maybe he would have been strong enough to beat me, just like Dante had.

Chapter Nineteen

Ivy

Iwoke up feeling well-rested and like I could take on the world. My feet were toasty from Xander lying on them and I slid them out from underneath him, trying not to wake him up. I stood and stretched; my body was slightly sore from my activities the night before.

Xander let out a whimper, and his paws moved in his sleep like he was running. He went from a whimper to a growl and then jumped up so fast I nearly fell backward, my feet unsteady on the mattress.

"Xander!"

He turned to face me, a blood curdling snarl making me want to shift and put him in his place. I held my hands at my sides and backed up a step. He stalked forward.

Was he just messing around? The look in his eyes told me no.

"Xander, it's me, Ivy. Your mate." I repeated it through our connection, hoping he’d snap out of it.

"Mate?"He sounded confused, but at least had responded.“Ivy?”

“Yes. Come back to me, Xander.”I knelt, risking my face so I’d be at his level.“You’re safe now. We’re all safe.”

I didn’t know that for sure, but his wolf keeping him locked inside was dangerous for the human part of him. If wolf therapists existed, we needed to find him one. I probably needed to find myself one too.

He cocked his head to the side, and then he shifted on his hands and knees. His head was down, and he was panting as if he had just run a mile at his fastest pace.

“Xander, are you okay?” I itched to reach out and touch him but didn’t want to spook him.

“Ivy?” His voice was strained and gravelly. “What… How?”

I didn’t quite understand what he was asking me, and I tentatively reached out my hand to touch his that was gripping a pillow. “We’re still at Silas’s den. Your wolf kind of took over, didn’t he?”

He lifted his head, and his green eyes met mine. “He… I smelled him.” He sat back on his ass. “He was there, in Huntsville. I think he was alone.”

“Who’s he? Is it one of the people that had you?” I crawled across the mattress and wrapped my arms around him, putting my head against his chest.

“Yes.” His shaky arms wrapped around me, his fingers clutching onto my shirt. “You have to believe me.”

He must have been listening when we talked about whether it was a hallucination. As much as I wanted to believe him, it was looking less likely the man had been anything other than that… a man. Sara was going to go through security footage to try to identify him.

“Maybe he was there on vacation.” I hated to think there was a facility that tortured and experimented on wolf shifters right in our backyard.

A loud bang and shouts came through the door and caused both of us to jump. Xander’s eyes widened, but luckily, he didn’t shift back into his wolf. We had talked the night before about being careful about noise for the sake of Xander.

“What the hell?” I jumped up and rushed to the door, opening it just in time to hear Silas yelling.

“I’m not going to let you go and fucking die. Fuck that asshole.”

By the time I made it down the hall, Silas had Cole by the front of the shirt shoved against the wall by the door. Both men were red in the face, but Cole wasn’t fighting back. I felt like I could never leave those two alone in a room together without them going at it.

Eli was sitting at the dining table with his face in his hands, and Sara was next to him, staring at the laptop screen. What the hell had happened?

“It’s none of your business what I do. What choice do I have left?” Cole shoved Silas off him and fixed his shirt.

I’d seen enough. “What the hell’s going on out here?”

Silas threw his hands in the air and marched over to the table, spinning the laptop so I could see the screen as I approached it. “Cole wants to go on a suicide mission.”

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