Chapter 8: No Touching, You Said

Rafe shoved the fallen branch aside and stepped out into the snow, and I went after him.

Two men stood by the gate with a chain in their hands and a pickup behind them.

I knew them both from the lodge, wolves of the council's own guard, in black jackets with the silver ridge on the shoulder.

"Alpha," the taller one said, and he lowered his eyes.

"Who sent you?" Rafe said.

"Elder Standish. He said the owner's car was at the gate and the road was closing. He wanted her brought down to the lodge for her safety."

"Her safety."

"Yes, Alpha."

"From what?"

The man did not answer.

"I'll bring her down myself," Rafe said, and his voice dropped into the low register I had only heard him use on the pack.

"Alpha, the elder said..."

"The elder said what? That my guest needs an escort in a blizzard from a man she's in a locked cabin with?"

The wolf's eyes flicked to me and back.

"Go back to the lodge," Rafe said. "Tell Standish I have her. Tell him I'll be back when I'm back."

They went.

I stood in the snow in his coat and watched the pickup's lights go.

"They weren't sent to rescue me," I said.

"No."

"They were sent to take me somewhere."

"Or to keep you from being somewhere." He turned toward me. "What did Brynn give you?"

I held out the folder.

He opened it, turned each page and closed it.

"Blank," he said.

"She said the first page was torn out. She said Ward has a file on my mother."

"Your mother died of a fever."

"That's what my brother and I were told."

Rafe went quiet.

My car was parked at the gate, with a layer of snow on the roof and a clear patch where the men had dug the tires out.