Page 70 of Wolf Tamer

Bullet shoulders his way past us and takes a small deer trail through the towering oaks.

I sigh and follow him, not missing the way Tasha growls under her breath. Bullet hasn’t been the most welcoming presence despite knowing what he knows about our bond. Instead of showing Tasha the proper respect the alpha’s mate deserves, Bullet has taken it upon himself to barely acknowledge her at all. She might as well not exist.

Do I tell him to straighten up? Or do I let things progress naturally and keep an eye on them to see if anything changes?

It’s just another one of those things where either decision might have a world of hurt toppling down on me.

I glance down at Tasha, whose got her eyes trained ahead. She still wears her distaste for Bullet on her face, and I can’t blame her, really, knowing how my friend rubs her just under the skin.

Sometimes I wonder if he does what he does on purpose. Then again, Bullet is a wildcard. He’s always been the type to dive into the action rather than run from it, which was part of the reason I gave him the position of my beta.

“What exactly is it you want us to see?” Tasha asks.

Wisps of pink hair flutter in the breeze and bring her scent to me. I draw in a deep breath, but damn, the woman is already written on the inside of my bones. Written into my soul.

Hers are the only footsteps audible as we crunch over the leaves that have fallen. There are still small patches of snow on the ground, but nothing of note. Nothing to mark that others have been this way.

Bullet leads us off the main trail toward a meadow I have a feeling will be filled with clover come the spring. He jerks his head in her direction, with his eyes narrowing at her question.

As a sacrifice, she has no right to speak to him that way. She is the lowest of the caste system. But as my mate—

His eyes dart to me like he’s asking permission. Finally I nod, a brief dip of my head that has him clearing his throat.

Message received. He has the opening to speak as freely in front of her as he does with me.

And she has no idea what has just taken place.

She’s staring at something on the ground ahead of us with such force that she breaks away from me a tense second later and without waiting for him to answer.

“There’s been evidence of a breach in the boundary line, Reid. I wasn’t sure of it yesterday when one of the omegas brought it to my attention, but after you said there was a disturbance in the house” —his gaze flicks over to Tasha, who is practically on her hands and knees crawling along the ground— “I decided to check out the spot myself. It’s a small tear that didn’t make it all the way through the defenses, but it has come the closest of all the other attacks,” Bullet says. “And it’s growing.”

“When did you find out that it was getting bigger?”

“About an hour ago. I came to you straight away.”

His answer is a thorn burrowing deeper into my skin and trailing acid in its wake. So, the initial tear happened around the same time Tasha and Julius witnessed the portal in the hallway. And it’s been growing into a larger problem since.

It’s no mere coincidence.

I shoot a glance at Liam and see him worried and silent. His normal look, for sure, but I wonder what’s going on inside his head, what thoughts he’s keeping to himself.

And my gut is telling me this is all going to come to an end sooner than I expect. Which is a terrible thing to think, but I can’t help it. The knowledge plays in a loop in my head, that we’re skirting the drop of a cliff, and there is no hope of dodging the inevitable ruin.

A breach in the barrier isn’t just something to fear; it spells disaster.

I brought Liam instead of Julius, not wanting to completely trust my older brother on this detail and especially not around Tasha. Even Bullet is able to hold his tongue when he wants to, but Julius… After what happened with the portal in the hall…

My trust only extends to a certain point, and after that, it has to go in a new box:stupidity. I chose the people I knew are able to keep their lips zipped just in case this breach gets out of hand. I have to be able to get ahead of the problem before it becomes such.

Too bad we’re past that point already.

“There are tracks here inside the boundaries. Do you guys patrol in your wolf form?” Tasha asks suddenly.

When I glance over at her, she’s bent down with her cheek practically parallel to the ground, a broken twig between her fingers and a sour expression on her face.

“We do,” Bullet answers sharply.

“How about as humans? Does that ever happen?”

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