Page 202 of Shadow City: Silver Wolf

Shadow City reinforcements are en route, too,Griffin informed us.They should be here in the next few minutes. I alerted them as soon as we knew of the attack.

That was good. We needed all the guards we could get. There could be more enemy shifters coming, but if Saga and Luna were here, that probably meant every one of Dick’s fighters were here, too, or they wouldn’t have risked coming. They’d assumed that they would take us out, which solidified that they didn’t know about Bart and the other silver wolves.

The river came into view between the trees, and Luna increased her pace. Three boats floated in the water with several people in each one of them, poised as if they were ready to take off at any time.There are three large boats here.

Darrell and I will go with Cyrus to help Sterlyn,Bart said.That should be enough to get us by, and the rest of the pack will come help Griffin and Killian until more guards arrive.

Fine, but if Julius betrays us, Griffin linked, allowing his feelings of distrust to be felt by all,then I’ll kill him.

I’m on your side,Julius tried to reassure him, but it fell flat. Things always seemed to fall flat when it came to his interactions with any of us, which made Griffin not trust him even more.

He won’t,Bart reassured.We're near Sterlyn now.

I slowed my pace a few feet from the tree line of the river, not stepping into clear view. The three motorboats were in front of me, and Saga walked to the side of the middle boat with a hate-filled smirk as Luna raced toward it.

She cooed, “Good job, Luna. You actually managed to do something right, for once, unlike your father.”

Her hateful, mocking tone sent a chill down my spine. Her once hidden soul swarmed with an evil that I’d never seen before. It coated her so thickly that her skin took on a demonic reddish glow.

“And you got the silver wolf I wanted all alone.” Saga lifted her arms outward as her eyes locked on me. “She’s injured, which will make things easier for us. We still have big plans for her.” She snapped her fingers, and three men walked up behind her while six more—three in each of the other boats—turned their attention to me.

Her words rang inside my ears.

She still had big plans for me. She’d been in on this with Dick.

My stomach revolted at what the original plan had been for me. A fucking breeder. But with whom?

Honestly, not knowing the answer was probably best.

Luna had purposely led me here, but I’d expected that. What I hadn’t expected was for these people to seriously be listening to Saga, though the darkness clinging to her told me enough. She must have had someone help hide her true self inside Shadow City, which was why I hadn’t felt either good or bad from her—a witch must have aided her, similarly to how my brother had been spelled to appear dead.

Maybe it was the same witch.

Saga laughed heartily and placed a hand on her chest. “Even in animal form, I can see your confusion. You thought you had this all figured out, but you know nothing.”

The man on Saga’s right, who had a long scar down one cheek, moved as if to get off the boat. Saga lifted a hand and commanded, “Don’t use the real guns. Get the tranq ones. We can’t chance killing her.”

He obeyed immediately, rushing off to do as he was told, but five others stayed, leaving their rifles pointed at me.

Holy shit, there was no hesitation. He thought of her as his superior. But Dick had been so against women leading.

Realization washed over me, making dread weigh down my body. This whole time, she’d been in charge, not Dick.

Rosemary landed next to me, the purple of her eyes glowing in the moonlight as she stared down Saga. “What would good ol’ Dick say about you taking charge?”

Hope sparked in my chest. Out of everyone due to arrive, Rosemary could not have been timelier. She and I thought similarly. Even though we didn’t have the mind-linking ability, she’d asked the exact question I’d been thinking.

“Who do you think has been in charge since the beginning?” Saga retorted. “In fact, it was easy getting his attention, but I had to play the submissive role. After all, Shadow City wolves don’t take female alphas seriously. You didn’t even suspect me.” She frowned and gracefully climbed out of the boat. She walked past Luna and toward me, not even acknowledging her daughter’s presence.

That was why she’d wanted to mate with Atticus. She was an alpha forced to play down her own power, so she had to get the strongest wolf possible to pick her for a chosen mate. She’d been working this angle for longer than Griffin and I had been alive. This had been a cold and calculated plan—no wonder we’d felt like we were behind for so long.

Julius overhearing a woman on the phone say Atticus being dead was a good thing made sense. Saga had somehow gotten pregnant soon after Ulva, to try to come into power that way, and had used Dick to strong-arm Griffin, using his grief against him.

“You got pregnant on purpose, didn’t you, right after Ulva did? Luna is only a few months younger than Griffin,” Rosemary said with a sneer.

Her eyes glazed over like she was going back in time. “Yes, when Ulva got pregnant and we learned it was a boy, I got my backup plan in place.” She gestured at her daughter.

How the hell was that possible? She couldn’t have known she was going to have a girl…unless a witch helped her.

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