Page 25 of My Fugitive Wolf
On the other hand, her grandfather would just sit there, stone still, acting like their happiness was a silly thing to be ignored. Her mother would tell her later that Grandpa was just stuck in his ways and hadn't had a happy childhood. They wanted to give their daughter more, even if they couldn't be with her as much as they wanted.
A couple of times Kellen stopped the discussion to ask her questions like what sort of supplies she would need, and would she mind if they drove straight through without stopping. She kept her answers practical and short, disappointed that she couldn't join in on the intimacy between the three.
How on earth did they achieve a relationship like that? Do wolf shifters had some sort of magic that allows them to connect to one another in a way that was closer than blood family?
After listening and watching for another few minutes, Samara's pent-up energy got the better of her. Not to mention her neck ached and the stitches itched.
She stood up and immediately the three men stopped talking. "I'm just going to take some aspirin, then go for a walk."
"Don't go far." Kellen frowned, but didn't say she couldn't leave. Instead, he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small bottle of painkillers and a small flip phone and handed both to her. "My number is already in there. Just in case you get lost."
"I won't go farther than the tree I found yesterday." She took the phone and pill bottle, not a little bit insulted at the getting lost part. "I won't be too long."
A blender whirled in the background when she wandered into the restaurant where the scent of grilling steak filled the air. The walk-in fridge had the usual complement of sandwiches, salads, and desserts. She grabbed a chicken salad wrap along with a bottle of water.
No whisky today, she thought while gulping down the aspirin as she walked outside.
She found her tree and sank down with her back leaning against the scratchy bark and looked up to see if the thick leaves would give her a peek of the sky. There it was, nice and blue for the moment, but growing darker. That was okay. She just needed a few minutes to herself to think through her own plan.
While listening to the brothers talk, her trust in Kellen had expanded to include Stephen and Leo. Kellen had said she would have to be a part of the Brotherhood, at least for now, so trusting them was more mandatory than optional. She liked their perfect combination of personalities. They were a most remarkable group and part of her envied that.
She loved her parents dearly, but as close as she was to them, she never had a connection like she had witnessed back in Kellen's office. Her grandfather on the other hand always had the veneer of caring about her, but there was always a little piece of his heart that she could never quite touch. She didn't feel it was her place to press, but now she regretted not getting to know him beyond his caretaker role.
Instead of dwelling on what she couldn't have, she unwrapped her sandwich and ate while listening to the calming sounds of the wind winding its way around the pine trees and the rustling water of the river. For a brief moment, she wondered what it would be like to live in Winterbourne and have this space all to herself.
That thought died when a sharp snap of twigs told her someone else was nearby. Before she could stand, she saw a man with floppy hair, dressed in jeans and a flannel, approach. He looked familiar, but it took her a second to remember that he'd been the shaggy-haired guy who'd asked her out.
Alarm bells sounded loud in her head. A few days ago, he seemed harmless, if a little too bold. Today he walked with purpose until he stood right over her, breathing heavily. Trying not to appear flustered, Samara brushed the crumbs off her lap before she stood.
Standing toe-to-toe didn't shake the urge to run. Unlike his flirty style a few days ago, today his blue eyes looked hard and...not mean, but it made her uncomfortable. She covered her nervousness with a smile.
"Uh, hi," she said. "I remember you."
"Yeah. Look, um, I know I came across as rude?—"
A man doesn’t walk this far into a forest just to apologize for anything. How did he even know she was here unless he’d been following her. "No, no. That's okay. Like you said, we're both new here. Maybe we can walk back to the restaurant and grab a drink. I get a free dinner because I work there."
"Yeah. We'll go to the restaurant, but not right now. There's something I have to do first."
Samara took a deep breath and made a gesture as if she were still brushing crumbs off her shirt while slipping one hand underneath to grip her knife and sliding the other hand toward her back pocket to grab Kellen's phone. "Okay. Why don't you give me your name first?"
"My name?"
The more he talked, the younger this guy looked. She'd pegged him for early twenties yesterday, but right now he looked more like a teenager trying to act like an adult. "Yes. You do have a first name, right? Mine's..."
"I know what your name is. It was on your name tag."
She hadn't been wearing a name tag because there hadn't been one already available with Maria on it. "That's right. Silly me. I forgot all about that."
"Look, I just want you to know this wasn't my idea."
"What isn't..."
"For fuck's sake, Seth, grab the bitch and let's go!"
The other voice was older and deeper, the authority clear. Samara pulled her knife out of its sheath just as 'Seth' pulled a gun he had hidden in his belt behind his back.
Thanking her grandfather again for the knife lessons, Samara darted inside Seth's reach so the gun was no longer pointed at her and slammed the knife into his gut all the way up to the hilt. Seth roared in pain and fired the gun into the woods before falling toward her.
