Page 8 of Wolf's Claimed Mate
And I didn’t need a beta wolf putting me in that position.
Jackson’s number was still in my phone. Kato had always told me to keep hold of it and I just hadn’t deleted it even since Kato’s death.
I had to get in touch with him. If not for the pack’s safety then at least for Thalia’s.
I could do this alone. Not with Conall. Not with anyone else.
“Yeah,” I said, as fear broke my voice. “I’m here.”
Chapter 4 - Conall
I never expected Sasha to even answer my texts, never mind pick up my phone call. But she had, and I’d tried to plead Fenrys’s case—mycase—to her, hoping it was enough to sway her into working with me.
In the end, she ended up going more distant, and when we hung up, I wasn’t quite able to focus. I was drawing up notes and maps of the old warehouse Kato had holed up in. It had been empty ever since the fight, but there was a chance that if the rest of the pack had stayed low to regroup, then they’d return to their old base. They weren’t after a full incognito mode, so they wouldn’t need to hide their meetings; they just would want to keep us in suspense.
A pack like Kato’s—or whoever had become their leader now—enjoyed holding their presence over our heads like a threat. They would want to keep us in suspense, always awaiting an attack, as we watched them go about their day, never settling, never relaxing.
I wrote down as much information as I could remember from the warehouse, but Sasha’s inside knowledge would be invaluable. She’dlivedwith the very pack Fenrys wanted us to take down once and for all. She knew the people we’d fight.
A thought occurred to me: she’d known Kato; had she mourned for him after Fenrys had killed him? Would she mourn the other wolves we killed?
I sighed, pushing my thoughts away. She had no loyalty to me or, Fenrys, or even Silverlake Valley. She could betray us, double-cross us, flit between packs as she pleased. She served nobody but herself.
I text Fenrys:Are we sure Sasha isn’t a liability? She’s not a wolf. She won’t care about pack politics or territory wars.
Fenrys shot back a response minutes later:That’s also your job to find out. I trust you. Find out if she would completely give her loyalty to us, no matter how deep she gets in this investigation.
I still hadn’t told Fenrys that Thalia refused to meet with me. I was one ignored phone call away from battering down her door. The shame of reliving her rejection kept me from going there sooner.
Instead, I made my way back to the gym. I wasn’t with Fenrys or Aidan this time, and it wasn’t two in the morning. It was barely even four in the afternoon, but I knew that was when Declan mostly hit the weights.
Silverlake Valley gym was mostly empty when I got there, with only a handful of users around the machine. Dakota was in there, training with a state-of-the-art imported sparring dummy, blocking hits it punched out. Different parts of the dummy lit up, and she threw her blows carefully.
According to Aidan, she was getting stronger, better. Apparently, his methods werefarmore effective, but judging by the bruises I’d seen on her neck and wrists that she wore proudly, his methods weren’t ones I could invest in. I didn’t need to know about their bedroom life. I only needed to know that Dakota was safe, and she’d assured me she was.
“Hey,” I said to her, preparing to do my warmup on the stair machine.
“Hi,” she answered, throwing me a quick smile before she dropped to a crouch, avoiding a robotic arm that jabbed out.
“Should you be doing that… in your condition?” I winced.
“Condition,” Dakota snorted. “Thalia went through half of her Mating Games while pregnant. I can handle a training dummy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine,” I said. “If you can handle that, how about a little sparring with me, then?” I lifted a brow in a challenge, smirking, forgoing the warm-up in the end. Dakota’s grin turned fierce as we headed over to the mats.
Aidan would likely kill me for challenging his pregnant mate, but he wasn’t there, and Dakota could make her own decisions. I trusted her.
She raised her fists to her face, and we began the dance of jabbing out, ducking, swinging fists, and side-stepping blows. Dakota was fast, her ginger curls behind the only thing I hit. In a cropped vest and sports leggings, she looked determined and ready, headstrong. Once upon a time, I’d underestimated her. Now, she was Aidan Tyrone’s mate and had held her own in plenty of fights since. I’d even seen the two of them fight as humans and wolves, which wasfierce.
We’d all had to quickly leave the room after their wolf fights once they’d shifted, the two magnetized to each other, wrapped up in passionate adrenaline, which was only heightened by the hormones Dakota gave off as his pregnant mate.
Her fist slammed into my cheek, and I staggered, distracted by a man coming into the gym. The very man I’d been aiming to see.
“Wait,” I said to Dakota. We stepped back from each other.
She noticed my attention on Declan. I stepped towards my brother.
He eyed me up before saluting Dakota, who gave him a wave. I forgot how well those two knew each other. She’d lived with Declan for weeks during her capture. The fact that my brother had participated in something so cowardly as to steal a female wolf from her pack still angered me.
