Page 62 of Bound

We find nothing on the run, and by the time we get back, Hunter has dinner ready for us. Everyone eats with enthusiasm, especially after Gage’s over-cooked chicken at lunch. Red lies by the fire while we watch True Blood until it’s time for bed.

I take Red outside one last time before we head upstairs and find Hunter and Maddox coming out of her room.

“We changed the bedding for you,” Maddox tells her.

Smart.I should have thought of that.

She steps into her room as everyone heads to theirs to get ready for bed. But something about the way Red stares at her bed has me hesitating to leave. I step in behind as I call her name. “Red?”

She doesn’t move, so I step up to her side and touch her head gently. “Red?”

My wolf whines when she still doesn’t respond, her eyes glued to the bed. I step in front of her, blocking her view as I sink to my haunches and grip her face. “Red? Come back to me, angel.”

It’s as if she’s in a daze, and my wolf claws at me to get out.Wait,I tell him as I push him back a little so I can maintain control.

Deciding I need to get her out of there, I scoop her up and carry her down the hall to my room, gently placing her in the middle of my bed. When I step back to look at her, she blinks. I quickly shed my clothes and let my wolf take control as I climb on the bed.

As soon as my wolf takes the reins, we start to nuzzle her, offering our scent to her to help calm her down. After two minutes, I feel her head start to move, then she rubs her face against my side. I pull back so I can see her properly, and when I see her bright blue eyes, no longer haunted by her past, I lick her cheek and lower my head as she lowers hers, pressing our foreheads together as we take a moment to breathe.

Eventually, I encourage her to get comfortable, then I curl up around her, making sure her head is tucked into my neck. It doesn’t take long for the others to find us. Chase and Hunter in wolf form, curl up around Red as Maddox, in human form, lies beside me, his head on the pillow. Gage sits in my armchair with his laptop.

I close my eyes and let my wolf bask in the presence of our entire pack. Although the connection with my brothers is purely platonic, the wolf side of us craves this sort of pack closeness. Before Red arrived, we never slept in the same room, and I worry about what will happen when we find out who her mate is. Will we still be able to sleep as a pack?

Because my wolf is convinced we never need to sleep alone again, and after my lonely upbringing, I’m starting to agree with him.

Chapter 29

Gage

Sitting in the lounge chair, I watch as Hunter and Maddox try to teach Red to swim. She’s terrible at it, though, and in the end, Bain holds her while they scrub her fur clean, and Chase swims laps around them, offering commentary for some reason.

Her tail wags, telling me that whatever he’s saying is helping her to relax.

I smile at the picture they paint, a happy little pack caring for their… Their what? That’s the problem, isn’t it?

I sigh, looking down at my laptop as I continue reading the article I found about the possible existence of Starfall Haven. Once again, it gives no indication of a location. Finding out if it actually exists and where it’s located is becoming crucial. I have an inkling that our days in Westgrove are numbered. I don’t like the idea of just up and leaving without a destination, so I need to find this location for us. Or at least a state.

But I also need to figure out what’s been done to Red. She is a conundrum. It’s impossible for her to have been in wolf form for five years and still be so coherent and… submissive. I’m not sure if that’s the right word for her behavior; she did lash out at Juliet several times.

She’s definitely protective, which just makes her even more adorable. I shake my head. I’ve never referred to anything asadorablein my life, not until her. I glance over at her, now in Maddox’s arms, completely drenched, and her tail wagging as she lets him hold her.

So strange. The fact that she lets all five of us touch her so freely might be part of the puzzle. Although, wolves do tend to be more affectionate in their wolf forms, so maybe that’s all this is.

Still, how is it possible she can come back to life after dying? I’ve dug deep, and the only four creatures I could find that can do that are vampires, demons, phoenixes, and wendigos. And even if the last two weren’t myths, she can’t be any of those. She’s a wolf, and even shifters from mixed parents only get their shifter genes from one parent. The only possibility is that whoever had her for the past five years did something to alter her.

They somehow found a way to hone in on her wolf’s accelerated healing and use it as a way to extend her life, permanently. Or at least, I assume it is. Who knows if there is a limit to how many deaths she can have.

On the dark web, in a place specifically for supernaturals, I found rumors of human facilities that were doing just that. Experimenting on shifters. Not specifically for prolonged life, but for other things like harnessing their strength or heightened senses. I’d almost vomited after reading what a fox shifter wrote about how he was trapped in one for a week and what they did to him. He’s lucky to still be alive.

Nobody seems to know where any facilities are today, though. Apparently, if a shifter does escape, the facility is gone before they can get back there with reinforcements.

“You’re thinking awfully hard there,” Hunter says as he wraps a towel around his lower half and sits in the lounge chair beside me.

“I’m frustrated that I can’t find any concrete answers on anything we need.”

He nods his head as we both stare at Red being towel-dried by Chase. She barks at him and jumps back, her ass in the air and her tail wagging. Hunter chuckles as Chase shifts into his wolf form and pounces toward her.

She turns and runs across the yard with him right on her heels. She ducks through the handful of trees and switches directions as Chase barks and chases her, pretending she’s winning when we all know he could pin her in two seconds if he wanted to.