Page 148 of Shadow City: Silver Wolf

“Uh…what’s going on?”Griffin's words startled me from my doze. “Killian, those are some of Shadow Ridge’s police cars.”

I blinked a few times before reality came crashing back in. We were passing by Shadow Ridge University, and there were indeed a few police cars parked in front of the school with flashing lights. My chest tightened.

What the hell had gone wrong while we were away?

CHAPTER FOUR

The flashingblue and red lights reminded me of a scene from a movie or some horrible news clip on television. We were still far away, but the lights were almost blinding in the darkness.

Killian groaned, still in pain. “This night keeps getting better. I’m covered in blood and injured. Isn’t that bad enough?”

“It’s nice to see my alpha being so strong and brave.” Sierra snorted.

“Well, we can’t leave the Navigator there. It’s already been over twelve hours at this point.” Griffin’s knuckles turned white as he clutched the steering wheel.

Ugh. Once again, it felt like we were in an impossible situation. My mind began to race, causing my sanity to crack. I was so damn tired of us being put in difficult positions.

No. I couldn’t break down. Not now.

“Let’s park somewhere downtown and take the woods into the school,” I suggested. “We can climb over the fence relatively easily.” The huge gate and fence were only for the front part of the campus, in order to appear secure for the humans coming to visit, despite them never being admitted. This was a supernaturals-only college, but I knew they had to keep up the charade that everyone had a chance of attending. In truth,because of Griffin’s father leading the charge, supernaturals from all over the world could attend. The admissions staff just weeded out the human applicants. Living this close to a powerful, hidden supernatural city would raise human suspicions and threaten to expose our races’ presence to the human world.

Though we were much stronger than humans, they outnumbered us by leaps and bounds. And the few humans who had learned about us had developed weapons that could take us out. We didn’t remain hidden for noble reasons—it was a means of survival.

“I can’t go in there,” Julius insisted. “We need to go somewhere else and forget about your damn cars.”

“Except that Killian and Griffin disappeared, leaving their cars behind. This could be all about finding them.” I had been so arrogant. I’d suggested they get a rental car so they could follow me without easily showing up on the enemy’s radar. I’d thought that we’d return before nightfall, but I’d underestimated my enemy and might have caused this new situation. “If that’s the case and we don’t get their cars now, it could escalate things. You two should check in with your packs.”

“Then how are you going to explain me?” Julius’s voice took on a wild edge. “The people who are hunting you—well, now us—have spies everywhere. I can’t be spotted.”

“Killian introduced me at the university, and it wasn’t a huge deal.” He was freaking out over being seen, which made me wonder who was involved. Maybe this was a bigger group than we realized…or there were more people we trusted who could be wrapped up in this. What had those people done to Julius? “It’s not like they’re going to be able to tell you’re a silver wolf on sight. If that were the case, they would’ve known about me.”

Julius snapped, “We need to keep a low profile, which is the opposite of strolling up to police officers with a new person intow, another who’s been missing for weeks, and a Shadow Ridge alpha who’s been shot up.”

My stomach dropped, and bile rose in the back of my throat.

“What are you trying to say?” Griffin stopped the car in the middle of the road and turned toward the back. “That we run and hide? You obviously don’t know Carter well. If none of us show up with his brother, he’ll start running his mouth to anyone who’ll listen.”

“Regardless, if they’re looking for Killian and Griffin, the longer we wait to show up, the more cops they’ll have searching everywhere, which means you could be discovered, anyway,” I said.

“It’s not like I can hide in the trunk. They’ll smell my scent. I guess I need to make it on my own.” Julius’s nostrils flared.

“Not happening,” Griffin growled, and his eyes darkened. “Do you think that after you tried kidnapping Sterlyn multiple times to hand her over to some self-absorbed prick, we’re going to trust you and let you go? There’s no way in hell. In fact, you’re going to tell us who the prick is, or we’ll beat it out of you when we finally get back to the house.”

“He must think we’re idiots.” Killian’s face tightened, and he glanced at Julius, giving a small flinch as the only sign that his shoulder pained him. “Maybe we should just kill him and lose the threat.”

“That wouldn’t be smart.” My chest squeezed at the thought of something happening to Julius, but I couldn’t let my emotions factor into this any longer. I needed to keep my head on straight but make sure I didn’t lose my heart.

Dear God, if Dad knew how many times I’d repeated his little teaching moments that I used to roll my eyes at, he’d tease me and tell me he was smarter than I ever gave him credit for. But that was the problem with pure warriors who pushed their hearts aside. For whatever reason, they left theirhearts outside the equation and made decisions based on logic, and that was when what was right became blurred concerning what they wanted done. Both parts were equally important—one shouldn’t outweigh the other. “Right now, let’s figure out our first problem, because he’s afraid.”

Julius’s gaze met mine, and his pointer finger tapped on his leg.

He was uncomfortable that I’d called him out. Being afraid was hard for silver wolves to admit. Being confident and steadfast was ingrained in us.

“Okay, she has good points,” Sierra jumped in, surprising me. She normally stayed out of strategy conversations. “So what do we do?”

“I still say kill the asshole,” Killian grumbled and scowled. He looked a little green and sweaty, and I wondered if his wound was feeling worse.

Randall lifted a hand. “Hey, if that’s what my alpha wants, who am I to disagree?”

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