Page 108 of Piece You Saved

For the first time, I get the measure of the surgeon. I watch his smile and amiable disposition melt away as something cold and hard takes its place. I hadn’t thought he stood a chance in a fight with Kade. Now, I wonder.

“He did, did he?” Harley asks with a glint in his eyes I’d expect to find in Kade’s. A killing light. “Shame I didn’t find him there. I wouldn’t have minded having a conversation or two with him.”

He’s not an alpha like me, but he’s strong. Fierce. And protective of Saige.

Kade stops glaring at Harley for the first time since he arrived. Something that resembles respect flits across his gaze. “Shame,” he echoes. “So would I.”

“They liked playing games. Nathan especially.” Saige refocuses on Detective Morgan. As if he can feel the weight of her attention, he lifts his eyes from the table and meets her gaze. “This game was them letting me think I’d escaped, and they took bets about what I would do and where I would go. The winner got a prize.”

No one asks what the prize was. From Saige’s talk of whips, of being passed around Rylan’s packmates, and the shadows darkening her eyes, we all know. Or can guess.

“And the other games?” I prompt, not wanting to know but needing to. My wolf is quiet for the moment, but this isn’t a restful quiet time. My wolf is tense.

Waiting?

Listening?

Saige never breaks her stare with Detective Morgan. “They liked to hunt people on the Playground. It’s what he called his private land.”

Detective Morgan’s fingers flex on the wood. “Huntpeople?” A long pause. “People like my sister?”

She blinks, pity filling her gaze as she looks away. “Maybe not your sister. If she went missing ten years ago, then he hadn’t bought the land yet.”

“But there’s no reason to think he wasn’t doing his hunting elsewhere?” Detective Morgan prompts. “Is there?”

Smart man.

Still staring into her lap with her hair shielding her face, Saige nods. “Probably.”

“And what did he and his friends do once they’d caught the people they hunted?” A pointless question. As if no one on this table doesn’t know, Detective Morgan included, from the strain around his mouth and tension in his shoulders.

“I’d rather not answer that,” Saige says slowly.

“I’d rather you did. What would he have done to my sister?” Detective Morgan leans toward her.

Kade angles his body an inch to the right and unwinds his crossed arms. If the cop knew Kade the way I did, he wouldn’t lean forward another inch.

Curiously, Harley has Detective Morgan trained in his sights. He’s farther away. Opposite. But the surgeon is looking at the Detective like he’s getting ready to go through the table to get to him. I flick my attention over Saige’s shoulder. Aden is staring down at the ground, shoulders tense, muscles quivering. If he were to meet my eye, I’d expect to see his wolf staring back at me. But he’s holding his wolf back on his own. He’s learning. I nod approvingly.

After another long pause, Saige lifts her gaze from her lap and meets Detective Morgan’s stare. Her expression is blank, but her eyes are bleak. Haunted.

“Rylan would give them a five-minute head start. Just get to that wooden bench and you’re home free, he’d tell them.”

“And then?” Detective Morgan prompts. He leans closer.

Kade’s muscles bunch.

I meet Kade’s eyes and subtly shake my head. The cop isn’t a threat. After a long stare and a curled lip, Kade sits back in his seat.

Saige glances at me as if she doesn’t know what or how much to reveal, and then she swallows. “He would release the wolves.”

The cop grips the table edge. Wood squeaks. “Wolves?”

She nods once. “A pack of them.”

No one needs an explanation of what a pack of wolves can do to their prey.

Can a person outrun one wolf? Maybe. But a pack?

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