Page 60 of My Fugitive Wolf
"You have to come back." George coughed again. "I tried to call Kellen, then Stephen. I even tried Leo, but none of them are answering." He broke off in a fit of coughing.
"They're standing right here, George. Tell me what happened."
For a moment, all she could hear was a scuffle. Then the smarmy voice of Josiah filled the room. "I have both of them. The chef and the waitress."
Kellen held out his hand, his eyes intense. She turned the phone over to him without thinking twice. "What do you want?" he demanded.
"Well, well. If it isn't my wayward assassin. I knew I smelled your stench in that rat infested piss joint."
"The more you insult me, the longer you're going to have to wait for us to get there. What do you want?"
"All of you. I was going to settle for Samuel's brat, but I'm thinking I'll take your two boyfriends as payment for you daring to think you could escape and get away with it. So, this is how it's going to work?—"
"No. We do this my way, or we don't do it at all."
"You're willing to sacrifice your precious employees for your ego. You know I don't tolerate insolence. There will be consequences for your poor pathetic humans."
"I'll endure those consequences, but if you hurt my friends before I get there, then nothing will save you from my wrath."
"You're not in control here."
"Neither are you. I care about Carlie and George. Torturing them won't get you what you want. You’ll have to accept my demands. Killing them won’t get you what you want either. You agree to my terms, or I walk away."
"I'll start cutting off their fingers if you keep this up."
Cool and calm in a disturbing way, Kellen countered, "C'mon Josiah. We've been around long enough to have witnessed how much cruelty humans inflict on each other. I've watched people I cared about die of smallpox and whooping cough. I've visited them when they were confined to iron lungs because of polio. I watched men’s guts spill onto the sand during D-Day. I remember all of them and their deaths will haunt me to the end of my days. Carlie and George are no different. I will weep for them, I will mourn for them, I will hate myself for not having the ability to rescue them, but you will not know a single second of peace for the rest of your life, even if you do manage to rip Samuel's wolf shadow out of Samara. You think about that before you call me back."
Then he hung up.
"Kellen...what did you just do?" Not for one minute did she think Kellen would walk away from Carlie and George, but taunting Josiah into torturing them?
Kellen held up a finger. A moment later her phone rang again.
"Fine." Josiah spat out, the venom in his voice chilling the air even from hundreds of miles away. "We're a klick south of the bar. There's an old campground?—"
"I'm familiar with it," Kellen snapped. "You will send Carlie to the restaurant in four hours. When we get there, I will check to make sure she's unharmed. If I'm satisfied with her condition, Stephen and Leo will walk to the camp."
"That's not good enou?—"
"I'm not done." Kellen waited to make sure Josiah kept quiet. "When they get there you will send George. After he gets to the restaurant, Samara and I will walk to the camp. None of us will shift. You get what you want, and Carlie and George go free."
Three long beats passed.
"Deal."
Kellen hung up the phone, giving each of them a hard look. "Grace, he doesn't know you're with us. If you want to leave, now is the time."
"No. I just found you, Kellen. I'm not giving you up a second time."
"Stephen, Leo..."
"You don't even have to ask. We're all in."
Then he turned to her. “Samara, you can’t go to the camp with us. You understand that, right? We can’t risk Josiah getting his hands on you. Not with those spells he possesses.”
“If I don’t join you, Josiah might still dispatch some of his omegas to chase down George and Carlie.”
Something was up because Kellen looked at the ground, not at her, his jaw tight. When he looked up at her, he placed his hands firmly on her shoulders, his gaze both hard and concerned, but focused only on her. “I’m working on a plan for that. I just need more time to figure out the details.”
