“Excuseme?”
“You look prim and proper. For Wolfe’s sake, I hope you’re an animal between the sheets, because unless your pussy is as close to heaven as possible, listening to your whining voice isn’t worth a shit lay.”
I punched him.
I didn’t hold back, I put my whole weight behind it, and he didn’t so much as twitch. He didn’t even lose hold of the cigarette.
No. He grinned, and I had a sudden urge to run.
I felt a presence behind me, and Killian walked around me, shaking his head.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?” he asked with exasperation. “I said, don’t piss him off, so what do you do? You punch him.”
Diesel grinned wider. “You told her not to piss me off?”
“Trust me, she has a knack for it,” Killian muttered.
“Why the fuck am I here?” I snapped, looking at all three of them and the pack that hadnowdecided to take an interest.
“There’s a traitor in your pack,” Diesel said simply. “It’s time to flush them out.”
I suspected a traitor too, but why wouldn’t Wolfe tell me that, unless… I stopped breathing.Me? Wolfe thought it was me? “He thinks it’s me?” I asked. My head turned to look at Killian. “You think it’sme?”
Killian sucked his teeth but said nothing.
“Are you kidding me?” I demanded. “He thinks I’d let my own packdie?” I turned and walked away. “Fuck this, I’m going home.” I tried to shift, but a steel collar circled my throat, and I was picked up off my feet.
Then I realized the steel collar wasn’t made of metal; it was Diesel’s hand. I twisted and turned in his grasp, trying to break free, using my legs to swing, kick, connect—anything. He merely cocked his head as he watched me fight, as if I were no more than a bug he could squash with one squeeze.
“Calm down.” He squeezed tighter. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t shift. I struggled more against his hold, my lungs feeling the pressure from the lack of air. “Isaid, calm down.”
With willpower I didn’t know I had, I forced myself to stop panicking and stop moving. He nodded in approval. His eyes lingered on the mark on my neck from my wedding Binding.
“So you can be taught,” he said with approval. “Good.” He lowered me back to the ground. “The alpha calls for me,” he said as he released me. “It’s time formeto go to your Hollow and weed out your shit.”
Rubbing my neck, I looked up at him. “How did you stop my shift?”
“We don’t know each other well enough.” He glanced at Killian. “You got this?”
“It’s why I’m here,” Killian said without a care in the world that I’d just been manhandled. “You’d better tell him this happened.”
Diesel stubbed his cigarette out in his palm. “I don’t keep secrets from Wolfe.”
He shifted into a nightmare. I knew Wolfe was bigger than most shifters, but Diesel…Diesel wasn’t just tall, he wasdense. I could see the muscles under his fur, and I didn’t know that was possible. His fur was coal-black with streaks of ash-gray down his spine and legs. There was no shimmer or softness to it; it looked almost wet, like he had just walked out of the rain and never dried off.
He didn’t linger. He turned and headed up the path, his speed impressive for his size.
“He’s a big wolf,” Cody said to me.
“That’s not a wolf,” I whispered. “That’s death in a pelt.” I looked between them. “I need you to tell me everything Wolfe thinks he knows.”
Killian crossed his arms. “Why?”
“Because I know my pack, and you send that”—I pointed in the direction that Diesel had gone—“into my Hollow, and hell will break loose.”
Killian’s brow furrowed as he listened to me. “Rowen…why do you think Wolfe called for him?”
I pressed the palms of my hands into my forehead as I counted to ten. “I’m asking nicely,please, tell me what my matethinkshe knows, and thenlisten to mewhen I tell you why he’s wrong. Okay?”
