“Sounds like we’ll need a drink for that.”
I looked at the shifter who strolled over to us. Her blonde hair fell down her back in thick waves. She was tall, willowy, and beautiful. She sidled up to Cody, and he wrapped his arm around her.
“This is my mate, Thalia.”
“Hi.” I looked over at Killian. “Can we?—”
“So easy to dismiss us,” she murmured. “There are forty shifters here right now, listening to you freaking out about our alpha. Don’t you want to meet the pack he leads?”
I licked my lips. “Thalia, look, I do want to meet everyone, but right now, I need to talk to Killi?—”
“He won’t talk,” she said as she watched me coolly. “If he wanted to talk, he’d have told you before you came into our territory.”
Oh my Goddess, these shifters were infuriating. “I—” I blew out a breath. “You know what, I need to go home.” I started to walk away.
“Did you tell her?” Thalia looked between Cody and Killian. “Does she know?”
“Does sheknowwhat?” I snapped as I spun to face them.
“Diesel left,” Thalia said with a small smile, but her look was hard. “You can’t leave.”
He’d sent me to lunatics. I was going to kill him. “What do you mean I can’t leave?” I glared at Killian. “You think you can make me stay?”
Killian shook his head. He was grinning. “I don’t need to do anything; Diesel did it the minute he left the territory.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Diesel is the packenforcer,” Cody told me. “If he isn’t here, and Wolfe isn’t here, then our territory would be hard to defend.”
I looked behind him at the cluster of shifters who looked ready to take on anything. “Somehow, I think you’ll be fine.”
“We will,” Thalia said, still watching me. “Because no one can enter our territory when the alpha and his enforcer aren’t on pack soil.”
“That’s…” I shook my head.What?“That’s strong magic. Wolfe doesn’t have that kind of…” All three of them werewatching me. “It’s a pack spell?” I asked them. “It’s a legacy spell? Right?”
Killian nodded. “Stonefang cannot be breached when the alpha and the enforcer aren’t on territory land.”
“No one can get in?” I looked over the land, with its gentle slopes, wooden homes that were no more than temporary stops, and the sweep of the land as it curled up towards the mountains. No wonder it looked unspoiled; only this pack moved over it regularly.
Thalia leaned forward. “And you know the real kicker?”
“What?”
“No one gets out.”
I looked at them as I felt the air close around me. “No…”
Killian looked almost sorry for me. “He wanted you safe, Rowen. Nowhere is as safe as these packlands right now. Not with Diesel and Wolfe both gone.”
“He trapped me here?”
“Your mate is protecting you.” Cody frowned at me. “Even with things…difficult between you, he is looking after you.”
I was going to throw up. “He isn’t protecting me! He just put me in a fuckingcage!”
Cody shrugged, and he and Thalia turned toward the rest of the pack. “Call it what you want, you’re still not going anywhere for a while.”
Killian stayed beside me as I fumed internally. I was in a glorified cell. With no bars and no obvious sign of enclosure, it didn’t change the fact that I was still trapped here.
