Page 134 of Shadow City: Silver Wolf

One of them had a person in it.

"So, this is the girl that you’ve been obsessing over?" One of the burly men’s dark-chocolate eyes perused me as he leaned back in his chair and bounced his foot. His grassy bear scent was strong. "I mean…she’s hot, so I get it, but you two look like you could be siblings."

"So, what I’m hearing you say is that you think Julius is attractive too." I ran my mouth, wanting to get under both of their skins. Just as Julius had tested me, I needed to see what I was working with.

"You stupid bitch," the bear sneered, his mouth gaping open with a crazed smile that reminded me of a hyena. "You got a mouth on you. Maybe I should teach you some manners." He stood and rolled his shoulders like he was preparing to hurt me.

"Don’t touch her," Julius spoke low and menacing.

Wait. Was he actually protecting me?

I must not have been the only one surprised by his reaction.

A wolf shifter leaned forward across the table, placing his elbows down. He wasn’t as large as Julius but was similar to Killian in size. His butterscotch hair hung in his eyes a little, resembling a llama. "Since when do you care if we bust up the prisoners?"

"I don’t," Julius barked, as he shoved me again. "But I have someone picking her up tomorrow, and she can’t be beat-up, or we won't get paid for the job."

Not bothering to pay attention to the others, I glanced at the prisoner we passed. He looked like a younger version of Carter with the same shaggy brown hair and moss eyes. It must be Randall. The only difference between them was that he seemed stronger than his brother. A bruise circled one of his eyes, making the iris seem brighter.

Great, this was going to be fun.So, we need to plan on rescuing Carter’s brother, too.

I love that you want to save people.Griffin didn’t sound like he loved it at all.But we have no clue where heis, and we know where you are.

We do know where he is.I’m looking right at him. He’s in the basement with me—in a cage.

Of course, he is.Griffin sounded defeated.And you won’t leave without him.

I hadn’t even considered the possibility, but now that he said it, I realized he was right.Yeah, pretty much.

Choosing to divert the conversation, I pressed forward.There are five large guards down here. One is a bear shifter, and the other four are wolves. That’s in addition to the bear shifter and the other wolf whoare stationed out front, keeping an eye out for you.

Rosemary saw at least ten men in the woods before she noticed the bird.He paused.I want to rush in and get you now, but Rosemary and Killian won’t budge. They’re threatening to tie me up.

We’re outnumbered.Once again. I was sick of getting into these situations—but at least, having fewer people allowed us to be more flexible. We could hide more. However, having a pack link between all of us would be even more helpful. Somethingwe needed to figure out when this was over with.We’re going to need the darkness.

Fine, I’ll tell the others.Warmth spread through the bond as he said,I love you.

I love you too.I pushed back my feelings toward him.

Julius unlocked the cell across from Randall’s and pointed inside. "Get in there now. And no funny business. I’ve got to patrol the area."

Once I was locked in the cell, he spun on his heel and walked back up the stairs, leaving us down here.

Once again,time moved at a snail's pace. There was no visual indication of it passing because we were underground—but the moon was close to rising.

My blood told me that.

Ignoring the pain in my wrists, I sat on the floor of the prison. I hung my head down, pretending to be defeated for the five guards who glanced my way and snickered, from time to time. I’d named the other three. The one with dark-auburn hair who kept reaching for a red solo cup, made the obvious choice, Solo. Then, the sandy blond guy who kept picking his nose with his left hand became Leftie. And the last guy, fidgeting in his seat the entire time, was dubbed Twitcher.

I ignored them and considered all I knew about Julius. I hated that he knew things about me that other wolves wouldn’t. Of course, the best way to hunt a silver wolf was with another one, but who the hell was he? My pack had been the only one of our kind, so I could think of only two options; they’d been swirling inside my head, creating chaos, because one of them wasn’t plausible.

The most logical one would be my uncle, who ran. He must have run for a reason—and maybe working with assholes was his motive. But Julius was too young to be my uncle, which left two options but, with the similar features to Mom, really only one viable one.

He was my brother.

The very one who supposedly died at birth—which meant the witch had lied to my parents and kidnapped a member of our family. But why?

However, thewhydidn’t matter at the moment. I had to get out of here and take Randall with me, but I couldn’t alert him to anything without tipping off the guards.

---