Free Rescued by the Pack by Leah Knight Page A

only way. They’ll come back if they think I’m in danger. Won’t they?”
     
    “Well, yes, I’m sure they would,” he agreed, clasping her delicate wrist. “But at what cost? And even if they do come back, there’s no guarantee they’ll forgive me… or us.”
     
    “But it’s possible,” she said. “I don’t see any other way. Do you?”
     
    “I don’t,” he admitted.
     
    “Then we must do what we must do,” she said. “I trust you.”
     
    “I can’t help but think of the what if,” he said.
     
    “Well, I can’t help but think what if we don’t,” she said. “There is no other way.”
     
    Michael’s skin turned a sickly shade of green, and he looked as though he might lose his lunch at any moment. Allison could think of nothing else to say, but she snuggled close to him and stroked his arm.
     
    “No,” Michael said suddenly.
     
    “Huh?”
     
    “I said no,” he repeated. “No, I won’t risk you. There has to be another way.”
     
    “But you said…”
     
    “My decision is final,” he said. “I refuse to put you at risk. We will find another way. We must.”
     
    She meant to protest, and her mouth opened to do so, but the stony look on his face told her he would not be swayed. She sighed heavily and sat back resignedly. Retrieving her soggy clothing, she began to wriggle into it.
     
    “Thaddeus,” Michael said suddenly.
     
    “Who?” Allison asked absently as she struggled to yank her shorts over her wet skin.
     
    “Thaddeus was the Alpha of our pack before…” he paused, and she stopped struggling with her clothes to stare at him. “Before he died.”
     
    “What happened to him?” she asked gently.
     
    “Victor.”
     
    “Oh. Well, what about Thaddeus?”
     
    “On his death bed, he beseeched only one thing of us,” Michael said. “And that was to remain a pack and always look out for one another. An oath made to a dying Alpha can never be broken. So you see, they have to come back! They’ve simply forgotten about their oath in their distress.”
     
    “Well, how can we remind them?” Allison asked.
     
    “We have to find them, first.”
     
    “You said you could use pack instincts to find them,” Allison reminded him.
     
    “Normally I could but…” he paused.
     
    “What, Michael?”
     
    “My instincts seem to be severely hampered at the moment,” he admitted, hanging his shoulders dejectedly.
     
    “By what?” she asked. Then she saw it in his eyes, and she added, “By me.”
     
    He nodded.
     
    “It’s not supposed to happen this way,” he told her. “We live as a pack, we love as a pack, we often die as a pack, though that’s obviously not always the case. I don’t know what came over me.”
     
    “You really should just forget about me,” Allison said. “I’m nothing but trouble for all of you. You should just throw me to the wol… um… dump me off somewhere and go on with your lives.”
     
    “You know we cannot do that,” he said. And then he added, “ I cannot do that.”
     
    “So what’s the solution to all of this, then?” Allison asked.
     
    “We bring them back, apologize profusely, and remind them of their oath to Thaddeus,” he said. “Failing that, I don’t know.”
     
    “How will we find them?” she asked.
     
    “We let them find us.”
     

Chapter Eight
     
    The grave was on a hill underneath an ancient laurel tree that stretched its arms in a vast canopy that shaded the surrounding area, marked only by a stone wolf statue that sat with its haunches buried slightly in the damp earth and its neck craned high as it howled at an imaginary moon.
     
    Michael approached it with solemn reverence, his head bowed. He stopped beside it and kneeled.
     
    “Hello, old friend,” Michael said.
     
    His hand brushed lightly over the grass-covered mound, plucking away an errant twig, grooming it carefully.
     
    Allison placed her hand on Michael’s shoulder and paid respects to the man who had led this