Page 59 of Wolf Claimed
“We can’t leave her here, and at this point, we’re stronger together. She wants to find Tiernan, as do I.”
“I want to save him. Do you?” she cut in.
“If possible, yes. But you must prepare yourself for what is more likely. If he’s feral, as I believe, we can’t save him.”
“Just take us to where you last spotted him,” Alyssa said. “Please.”
Herpleasesounded like she was taking all this personally, as if he want to hurt Tiernan. “I don’t want to put him down, but I may have no choice.”
“She knows,” Maddox said when Alyssa failed to say anything. “She’s having trouble accepting, Heir.”
It was odd how being called Heir didn’t bother him at the moment. Probably because an insult, if Maddox still intended it that way, felt so insignificant compared to what was soon going to happen. Rafe would have to put Tiernan down. And Alyssa would never forgive him.
“I scented Tiernan all around the center’s perimeter,” Rafe said, trying to take his mind off of the inevitable. “It was like he was trying to find someone but couldn’t.”
“Probably searching for Alyssa,” Maddox said.
“Tell me what’s been happening,” Rafe asked. “You said we needed to talk, Artemis. Now is a good time. You have my full attention.” She always had his full attention, but right now, he needed her to distract him from Tiernan. And given how her expression eased, he suspected she needed the same.
As they left the abandoned town, heading through the woods to the DSA training facility, Artemis filled Rafe in on everything that had happened with her and Maddox since they’d found the town. Mostly everything. She left out the part about them having sex, but that had been clear the moment Rafe had scented her. What shocked him more than her having sex with Maddox was that Rafe’s wolf didn’t object. He wondered if that was because his wolf knew he could never blood-bond her.
Two hours into their trek toward the training center, Artemis still avoided his gaze. That wouldn’t do. Since she believed she could save Tiernan, the only reason she was avoiding him had to be because she’d slept with Maddox. He considered telling her she was free to mate whoever she wanted, as long as that included him, but he knew she would take it the wrong way. She didn’t answer to him. And without a blood-bond, he could never hold on to her.
“That’s why I’m sure I have a wolf in me.” Alyssa finished telling him about how she believed her mother was a shifter.
“That’s rich,” Rafe laughed as he jumped over a narrow stream. “Woodrow Monroe marrying a shifter and then having a half-shifter daughter. I didn’t know you had such a sense of humor, Artemis.”
Alyssa’s face paled, and Maddox simply shook his head.
“You’re serious, aren’t you? I thought you were joking. The idea of you being half-shifter is absurd, Artemis. We would scent if you were shifter.”
“Believe what you want, but I know there’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect.”
“Been there, tried that,” Maddox called from up ahead where he’d taken point. “She didn’t believe me.”
“If you have a wolf in you, she would have emerged years ago.”
“Oh, she’s had plenty of wolf in her,” Maddox said, chuckling.
“Unless she’s trapped,” Artemis replied, ignoring Maddox’s dirty joke.
Trapped? Wolves emerged at puberty. Unless. . . Fuck. Could her father have done something to her? The man was a geneticist and virologist. He’d created the SEV virus to eliminate the wolves in shifters, but ended up killing many shifters instead. There was no knowing if he’d experimented on his own daughter.
“Are you going to stop me when we find Tiernan?” Alyssa asked.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
She turned around. “Is that what it means to be an alpha? To give up on those who depend on you?”
“You know it isn’t.”
“Angel,” Maddox said as he walked back to her and stroked her cheek to get her attention. “This is just the way it’s always been.”
She stared at Maddox. “Do you want me to give up on him?”
She fought with such determination, enough that she should be shifter. Rafe didn’t think she was shifter any more than Maddox did, but they couldn’t know for sure, not given who her father was.
