Page 55 of Alpha Wolf's Arranged Bride
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’d like to get to know everyone, and I’m sure they can use an extra hand. Schools always do.”
“Okay,” I say, giving her a quick kiss. “I’ll be back this afternoon.”
I turn to walk back to the car, feeling a sense of impending doom descending on me. My instincts have alwaysbeen exceptional—they made me an excellent agent—and right now, they’re screaming that something is extremely wrong.
As I make it back to the car, I pull out my phone and see several coded messages that have to be from WS. And one about the bake sale.
Mary really doesn’t stop.
I type my reply to the WS codes, and a location is texted back. Driving to the outskirts of town, I try to keep myself calm, but my mind is reeling.
I’ve dealt with danger my whole life. It’s not difficult for me, but now that I have Scarlett and Jarrod to worry about, everything has changed.
I leave the car at a campground and shift, loping into the woods until I find the meeting point. Bradley is already there and shifts as soon as he sees me. I shift back to human as well.
“Thanks for coming, boss,” Bradley says.
“I’m not the boss anymore,” I remind him.
“Keep telling yourself that. You’ve been out, what, a few weeks? And here you are, taking on command duties.”
“Brad, what is it?”
Brad sighs, looking at the ground. “There is something big about to go down at Eccles. They aren’t building a parking lot.”
“What could it be?” I ask, fear trickling down my spine.
“It looks like a stone platform carved with runes. This is ancient—like, really old. Possibly prehistory.”
“What the fuck?”
“That’s what our archaeology consultant said.”
“What does it do? I don’t understand why they’d dig it up.”
“We don’t, either, but considering the past reports of power blasts that decimated the country for miles in every direction, I’d say we should take it pretty seriously.”
I swallow hard. “Miles… does that mean we’re in the kill zone?”
“Close to it,” Bradley replies. “I think that’s why you guys have stories about it. Anytime this thing has blown up, your pack was near enough to see it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“At the moment, we are gathering intel and researching. It’s well-defended—we can’t just go running in there.”
“Okay. So, nothing happening yet.”
“Well…” Brad trails off.
“What?” I growl.
“Eccles scouts are on the move. They’re closer to Rose Hollow than they were yesterday.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s a hunting pattern.”
