Page 46 of Planet Wolf

Everything suddenly happened so fast, I couldn’t keep track of things. There were howls. Wolves came out of nowhere. Alfie jumped to his feet.How did they get here undetected?We heard cars approach from miles away, so no way would my men have not heard the Wolves or smelled them coming.

But there they were, and they launched themselves on my healer. In the other room, it sounded as though the other guys were fighting as well. Alfie couldn’t shift. They had him down, and maybe whatever they had done to make him not know they were coming also stopped him from doing what he had to do.

I could shift, only I was too terrified to consider it. I shook and begged my body to do something. Anything. Frozen with fear was suddenly an expression I understood.

Jadon’s father strolled into the kitchen like the entire situation was no big deal. “If this stops right now, they’re too injured to do anything about it. I’ll put them on a shuttle and send them away. If it goes on another minute, they’re dead. All you have to do is cooperate.”

I nodded. That I could do. He wanted to send them away. He’d done the same thing to my fathers. Sure. Let him do that. I wasn’t my mother—I’d leave Earth to find them. Now that we knew there were things to be done, he couldn’t stop me, not for long. “Whatever you want,” I agreed easily. After all, one of my men was the best tracker in the galaxy.

“Good girl.”

One of the Wolves leaped on me, and I hit the floor hard, head first. Everything went black.

I woke up on the ground outside of the cave where I’d spent the night with the guys all those months ago when we’d been stranded on Planet Wolf. Alone—why had they put me there? They should have taken me off planet. That’s what they did to my mom, anyway.

Okay. Things were different, apparently. My head rang.This would be okay.There was no way that the guys wouldn’t come get me as soon as they woke up wherever they were taken. I shook my head.Fuck. That could be years.

I had to think. I was alone in the woods with nothing to help me survive except my wits. His father left me here because he was sure I would die, I knew it. Of course, his father didn’t know I could shift. That was a plus from the last time I’d been there, but the only plus. My last visit to the cave involved me being surrounded by men who already loved me, even though I didn’t know it yet.

That thought made me cry, and it was everything I could do to suck them back after the tears started to fall. I wasn’t a baby.I can do this.

Somehow.

I could shift but probably only once after one week’s worth of infusions. That wasn’t going to last me years in the woods, so I had to be smart about it. I’d eat the pigs, when I could find them, because I could get some vitamin from them. Of course that meant I would need to kill the pig, and to do that, I had to shift.

Past the complications of the situation, my emotional state wasn’t the best. I missed them, the pain of being apart like a wound in my chest. I struggled to my feet. His father left me there to die. People expected me to die my whole life, and I was good at beating odds. I would make it through, and I wouldn’t shift until I had to. Hopefully, I could hold on long enough to avoid the seizures, but I’d lived with pain. I could do it again.

With my back stiff, I got busy getting busy.

By nightfall, I gave up on trying to make a fire, despite trying for hours, and I shivered in the cave. I would have to shift or I wouldn’t survive the cold.

Okay. I have no choice. I would…

A sound caught my attention before my guys stumbled into the clearing at the mouth of the cave. They were still pretty beat up. I jumped, startled and for a second, not sure if I imagined them. “How are you guys here?”

Alfie rushed over to me. “Don’t ever trade yourself for me, do you understand? Not ever again.”

They were all talking to me then, and I couldn’t understand any of it. “You’re supposed to be on a ship.”

“No one beats me.” Jadon frowned. “I can see why you’d think they had, given what happened, but no, we won. Even Alfie here managed to beat them back, once he shifted.”

They didn’t look like it had been so easy, but maybe I wouldn’t mention how battered they looked right then. “How did you not hear them coming?”

Carl sighed. “Pretty sure we were slightly drugged. It’s a scentless odor that makes us sort of loopy. It’s also completely illegal.”

Everything was stacked against us, but at least they were there. “How did you find me?”

Their smiles were huge, and it was Carl again who answered. “I’llalwaysfind you.”

“But, seriously, we beat the shit out of several of them until we were told where you’d been taken. Sorry it took a minute. How are you feeling?” Alfie lifted a bag. “I have all of your meds and more of the vitamin.”

How was I? “I think I’m okay for now but… I can’t live like this.” It was hard to admit it. I wanted them to be happy beyond anything else in the world, I really did, but there was a line, and it had been crossed.If they’d died, this would be a very different night.

“I agree.” Jadon looked away. “I think it was ego, Esther. I was sure I could fix things. That I could simply will things the way that I wanted them to be. I’m sorry. I almost lost you and that can’t happen. Ever. So… I think, if you are amenable, we’ll go to that planet with the other non-conforming shifters. If everyone is welcome there, we’ll go there.”

I threw my arms around him and held on. “If it’s awful, we’ll come back and just hide.”

“No,” he kissed my neck, “I’m never hiding you. I’m never hiding anything about us ever again.”