Page 16 of Wolf Unleashed
He put a hand on hers, stopping her. “Let them finish drying. You can stay here by the fire. I’ll go elsewhere.”
She returned to her spot by the fire and clutched the jeans against her chest.
He stopped just as he put his hand on the cabin’s door to leave. “For what it’s worth, Artemis, I’m doing the best I can. I want what’s best for you, but I don’t know how to be anything other than what I am.”
When she said nothing, he opened the door. Cold air swept into the cabin, and Alyssa shivered.
“Don’t go, Rafe. Not again,” she said, her voice shaking with fear.
“Again?”
“I was terrified when you made us leave you. Not knowing what was happening, if you’d return. Tiernan said you would, but in my experience, people who say they’ll come back never do.”
Rafe closed the door and knelt behind her. The moment he wrapped his arms around her, his wolf settled. Clearly, the beast wasn’t concerned with the pack they’d left behind. He winced. His wolf should be concerned.
“I had to tell my father your identity. There was a real possibility that by harboring you, he could bring down the wrath of other packs. And while I stand by that decision, it’s also why we had to leave. He wanted to hand you over to the other packs, to use you as bait, no different from the shifters we left behind at the DSA. I wouldn’t let him do that to you. To anyone in your position.”
She took a deep breath and nodded, her anger washing away. “Sometimes I think letting the DSA use me for bait would be for the best. Then this would all be over. I could confront my father once and for all, and you wouldn’t have to leave your pack because of me.”
“Not because of you. Because my father is scared, like a lot of shifters. He was right to send me to the DSA training program to learn to work beside humans so we can take down the anti-shifters together. The DSA, while far from perfect, has the right idea. Shifters haven’t been able to stop the anti-shifters, partly because we don’t have any authority to attack them without risking the wrath of the U.S. government. And the humans just haven’t been able to dedicate the necessary resources to combatting organizations like the WSSO. I guess in part because most humans are torn on the subject of whether shifters deserve to be left in peace or not. But we’re a ready and willing army, for the most part, that could give the DSA what they need to be effective against the anti-shifters. Man power. An ironic term, but you know what I mean.”
“I do. And you’re right. Both humans and shifters need to work together.”
“Which I’ve only come to realize these past few months. But I still draw the line at using you or anyone else as bait. Draw one man out and capturing or killing him, even if that man is Woodrow Monroe, won’t destroy the WSSO. The organization is too big.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, because I don’t want you anywhere near that monster.”
“I can handle myself. You should know that by now.”
“I’m allowed to worry about you, Rafe, just like you worry about me. That’s what I was saying earlier. I mean, I love how protective you are, but you can’t be calling all the shots over me, Tiernan, or Maddox. Equals, Rafe, or this won’t work. I won’t diminish them just like I won’t put all the responsibility for what does and doesn’t happen on you. It’s just not fair.”
Rafe paused, trying to absorb what she was saying. What she had said several times now. “I know what they mean to you and what you mean to them. I promised to protect them, and I don’t go back on my word. Ever.”
She rested her chin against the arm he’d wrapped around her chest. “I don’t think you’re getting it. You took a big risk back there. Four against three is a lot better odds than four against one. You can’t keep sending me away or make me wait on the sidelines. I may not have your strength or other shifter abilities, but I’m far from helpless. Even without a gun. We have to back one another just as much as we have to trust one another.”
He pulled her between his legs, keeping her close to the fire. Tiernan was right. She was shivering, even here by the flames. “I can’t promise anything, Artemis, but I’ll try to be the male you need me to be.”
“You already are. I just want—” She sighed. “I just want everyone to work together and for no one to be made to feel like less.”
“Are we talking about Tiernan and Maddox still, sweetheart? Because I’m getting the feeling you’re talking about yourself now.”
“Both, I guess. I was an only child when my mom left. Everything went wrong from that point on. My father was so angry with me. Constantly blaming me for him losing his job, for the way the world was. Everything. He’d accuse me of being like my mother. I never understood why that was a bad thing until I turned thirteen and discovered her secret.”
“You said you never shifted.”
“I didn’t, but I found photos hidden in a box under the floorboards of my father’s room. Evidence of her shifting. She was in a dog cage, Rafe. The photos were numbered, like someone doing an experiment was documenting. Did I tell you my father used to do research for a lab? Anyway, in the first photo, she was human, and then in the next, her torso stretched and… so many physical changes. There were dozens of photos. By the end, a wolf was in the cage where my mother had been. My mother wasn’t who I thought she was. And she was in a dogcage.”
Tears welled in Alyssa’s eyes. “She never told me she was a shifter. But my dad found out. There’s no other explanation for those photos being hidden in his room. I think he killed her, that she didn’t just run off like he claimed.”
“Why do you think he killed her?”
“Because that dog cage used to belong to our dog. After I found the pictures, I ran to the garage. The cage was missing.”
“A missing dog cage isn’t proof. He could have just thrown it out.”
“I can’t believe you’d sit there defending him.”
“I’m not defending the son-of-a-bitch, just offering possible explanations.”
