Page 49 of Wanted

I nod in understanding while continuing to run my fingers through his hair. His eyelids fall to half mass.

“My mother used to tell me that our people kept our secrets in our hair.”

I blink and tilt my head slightly. “Your people? You mean shifters?”

He shakes his head. “Apache. Some of my family originated all the way from the West Coast. But many roamed the lands of the Southwest. Some as far down south as present-day Mexico.”

“Really?” I sit up on my elbows.

He nods. “My mother wasn’t born Apache, but after she mated with my father, she learned everything she could aboutour ways. She would wash and style my hair in the traditional ways while telling me stories that were passed down from one generation to the next.”

“That’s so beautiful. Can you—” The ringing of my cell phone stops my question.

I move to pick up my phone and an involuntary groan escapes me.

“Mother,” I say in my most neutral voice.

“Where have you been?” she immediately scolds. “It’s been days since you’ve answered my calls.”

I open my mouth to answer her, but she doesn’t give me time.

“Do you know how many wrinkles worrying causes?” She huffs out a breath. “I hope you haven’t been ignoring all of your calls the way you’ve ignored mine. What if Billy wanted to speak with you?”

“Who?” I clap my hand over my mouth, knowing better than to speak over my mother.

“Billy. Your boyfriend.”

I blink and shake my head having completely forgotten about him.

“We’re not?—”

“I hope you haven’t been ignoring him the way you have your own parents.”

“He’s not?—”

“Is that internship so important that you neglect the most important people in your life?”

Guilt lances through my chest.

“I’m sorry, Mother. But?—”

“But what? Is playing with rocks or whatever you’re doing out there more important than your responsibilities here? Billy could have?—”

“Mother, Ashley’s missing,” I blurt out.

“What?”

I sit up, moving from the bed.

“She’s been missing for days now,” I tell my mother in one breath. I explain everything to her. Well, almost everything. I leave out the part where I was attacked by literal wolf shifters and am now staying in a community of wolf shifters because there may be some after me.

“Your sister’s not missing,” my mother says in a huff.

“What? She is. I haven’t spoken to her in almost two weeks. The police won’t get involved, either.”

There’s a pause on the other end.

“Ashley’s here.”