Page 24 of Vicious Wolf Mate

“Mace, what do you-,” I look back at him. Mace is now staring at his right ankle with curiosity.

“Is that where our trackers are?” Mace bends down and pokes the area on his own leg. “That’s where yours was and where you checked on Natalie.”

“No,” I respond quickly. “That’s just where they put them on employees… on humans”

There is still so much that they don’t know. So much that they’ve been left in the dark about. Who is going to tell them?

Should it be me? I guess so, who else is it going to be? I’m the only one willing to help them here.

But I don’t know how they might react if I tell them. They could get angry at me, after all I have been hiding it from them. They could abandon me here in the desert.

Maybe this is information that’s best left unsaid until the right moment. Them knowing exactly where their trackers are won’t change what we have to do today. It’ll just put something else on their plate to worry about.

“Mckenna?” Mace is looking at me with those sharp eyes. “Where are our trackers?”

As I look in his eyes, it starts to feel real. I can’t keep this from him. The guilt starts to well up inside me. I don’t want to hide stuff from Mace. There is something inside of me that wants to tell him everything. At the same time, I know how dangerous that can be.

It’s a lot more complicated than simply telling the truth. There are consequences and reactions that follow. The truth will change everything, though I can’t hide it any longer.

“Mckenna?” Mace asks again. “What’s wrong?”

“Your trackers aren’t in your ankle, they’re in your brain.” Shock washes over Mace’s face. I can hear Jax and Natalie gasp behind me, but I keep my eyes on Mace.

“What?”

“They put them in your brain. The only way to access them is at the Wolf Collar data center, or another facility in Washington.”

“Washington?” A mixture of fury and confusion appears on his face and in his voice. “LikeWashington? The capital?”

“Yes.” And that’s only the beginning. One big bomb shell at a time. Otherwise, they might get overwhelmed.

Mace’s eyes narrow, “What else aren’t you telling us?”

17

MACE

“Mckenna? Tell me, what is it?”

Mckenna won’t meet my eyes now. She keeps looking away. Her entire body language has changed in an instant. What the hell is she hiding?

She told us about the trackers being in our brain. That is a lot to swallow and is very scary for the future of my clan but I handled it. She also told us about the only two places where we can do something about them. Which was very shocking - one being in Washington is a concerning revelation but I handled that too.

What more could there possibly be? What is this secret? How bad could this next bit of information be that she won’t tell us?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, we should get moving.”

She’s lying. I didn’t need my instincts to tell me that, it’s written all over her face. But it’s nice to have that second opinion. She’s hiding something.

I’m surprised I can even tell. Usually, she’s such a good actress. Whatever the truth is, it must really be upsetting. It’s throwing her off.

It almost seems like she wants to tell us. Like it’s a piece of information she thinks we should know. But at the same time, there is something holding her back from sharing.

I look at Jax and Natalie. They both seem to be picking up on the same energy I am from Mckenna. They watch her with concern.

“Mckenna, what aren’t you telling me? What are you hiding?”

“We don’t have the time to do this right now, Mace! We need to get goingnow!”

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