Page 66 of Veil of Shadows

“All right,” I said as I focused back on Dom, “now, we just need to get you out of here.”

“It’s a trap,” he choked out.

I grinned. “Trust me, I’m aware.”

“For you.”

That snapped my gaze to his. “What?”

Dom swallowed thickly. “It’s a trap that’s been set for you. She’s coming for you, Bexley. You have to get out of here.”

“Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh,” I said as I patted his chest and walked to the back of the tree. “Once we can get you out of here, you can get us both back to the pack. How’s that sound?”

He coughed and sputtered. “Y-Y-you—you don’t understand. Bexley, she?—”

“Sh,” I hissed as I dipped down toward the handcuffs. I watched wisps of smoke rise up from Dom’s skin as the flames felt as if they licked my back.

Jesus, the cuffs were actually burning into his skin.

I have to get a barrier between the handcuffs and his wrists.

From the ground, I picked up any leaf that wasn’t yet crunchy and dead. I slipped it in between the bleeding skin of his wrists and the heavy metal of the handcuffs. They didn’t look like traditional handcuffs, either. They were impeccable. They had an infinite shine on them. Hell, they could’ve been mirrors, for crying out loud.

“What are these made of?” I asked as I continued slipping leaves beneath the cuffs.

“Silver,” Dom wheezed.

I committed their weakness to memory as I blocked out all of the sounds around me. The screaming coming from the compound. Wolves, howling in the distance. Voss, bellowing over the crackling flames of the forest. All I hoped was that Merida got those pups back to Voss and Ronyn safely.

“There,” I said, surveying my handiwork. “How’s that feeling?”

Dom finally drew in a deep breath. “Bexley, get the hell out of here.”

I crouched down and studied the handcuffs. “Just give me a second. I can get you out of this.”

“No, you can’t. Just?—”

“Just shut up, Dom!” I exclaimed.

I shook my head and racked my brain for anything that might work. I ran my fingers through my hair, but I didn’t have a bobby pin to use. I slid my hands along the forest floor, but none of the sticks that I picked up were small enough or sturdy enough to help me pick the lock on the cuffs.

“If something happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself,” Dom pleaded.

“Good thing I’m a trained agent,” I said breathlessly.

“You have to get out of here. Your pack needs you.”

“So does yours,” I said as I kept searching the ground for anything to use to get him out.

“Bexley, you need?—”

I walked around to the front of the tree and pinned him with a look. “Shut up, or I’m gonna punch your lights out so youdoshut up.”

He grinned weakly. “Promise?”

I scoffed, but I couldn’t help the small grin that crossed my face. But, he was right. I had no way to pick the lock on his handcuffs. The tree was much too big for me to take down by myself. I didn’t have a way to call out to Voss, otherwise he probably could’ve uprooted the damned thing with his pinkie toe. I rushed back around to the handcuffs. They were much too tight for me to dislocate Dom’s fingers and slip his hand through. I had no hair tie, no lockpicking kit. I had none of the things on me that I required to get him out of the situation.

I rushed back around to look at Dom’s sweat-stricken face and I heard Voss bellowing in the distance.

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