Page 7 of Hellhounds Never Lie

"Yeah. Except you don't get the brawn without answering my questions."

The alpha rushed toward where I was seated and leaned over me. His growl was menacing; spit dripped from his extended teeth and landed on my jeans. His eyes flashed gold, showing how close to the surface his animal was. The display was meant to intimidate.

Too bad for him it took more than a partially shifted wolf to scare me.

"Is this not the pack house?" I asked again, calm in the face of his aggression. At this point I didn’t have anything more to lose since I wasn’t staying anyway, but I was curious. I liked having answers.

"Get out." The alpha attempted to backhand me, but I easily ducked and evaded the hit.

The guy didn't have a clue how to fight someone who wasn't frozen in place as they cowered in fear. It would have no doubt been a valuable lesson to show him what happened when he couldn’t bully someone into submission, but what would be the point?

I scooped my bag from the floor beside my chair and made my way to the rickety stairs. He snapped at me, but his teeth didn’t touch me. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.

When I’d packed up my few belongings this morning, I’d done it on a hunch. I’d hoped the day would go differently, but I wasn’t surprised it hadn’t.

"Hey, you," the alpha shouted at my back as I climbed the creaky stairs. "If you tell anyone about this meeting, you’re dead. Got it?"

"Whatever." I waved away the threat.

These wolves needed to get out more. They didn't understand anything about my kind, and that made me think they probably didn't know much about anything other than being a wolf. And truthfully, they weren’t very good at being wolves either. A good, strong wolf pack looked out for each other. They were united by loyalty, friendship, and love, not fear, greed, and ignorance.

I sighed again as I pulled my bag up on to my shoulder. At this rate I sounded like an angsty teenager with all this sighing, and I hated it’d come to this.

No one stopped my exit.

When I got outside, I inhaled deeply, drawing in the soothing scents of the pine and aspen forest. The wolf pack was shit but their property was beautiful, even with night cloaking the land. I should have left earlier, before the sun went down, but I’d needed to give the pack one more chance.

I shouldn’t have bothered. What a waste of time.

The darkness didn’t bother me, but it wouldn’t bother the wolves either. This was their territory. They may have let me walk out of the basement, but I knew they’d come after me. I was too much of a liability to let free. They probably thought the idea of chasing me down in their beast form would be a good fun training exercise. Wolves like these tended to think they were superior to every other supe until someone finally came along to show them how wrong they were.

And it looked like that might be my job tonight.

I stretched, cracking my neck to loosen my muscles. I wasn’t scared of the fight ahead. I was a hellhound after all. I was built to fight. But I didn’t have to like it.

For now, all I had to decide was which way to go. I sniffed the air again. Nothing called to my beast.

Well, the alpha had pointed east. Maybe that was enough of a sign. I huffed out a breath, disgusted at the sensation of hope I could feel unfurling in my chest again.

When would I learn? It didn’t matter which direction I went; I’d only find more of the same. I knew that.

So why hadn’t I figured out how to accept that yet? When was I going to learn hellhounds were meant to be alone?

And the real question was: Why did I crave being with others so much if it was impossible?

ChapterThree

ASH

The greenish glow from my truck’s dashboard was too bright and distracting. And, almost as irritating, I couldn’t figure out how to make the damn thing dimmer. Whoever designed my vehicle obviously thought everyone drove in the city, surrounded by streetlights.

I held my hand over the brightest part of the console to block the light as I squinted into the trees on either side of the empty road. I’d done the same thing every night since Jake shared his vision a week ago and so far neither I nor any of the other searchers had come across a hellhound being hunted by wolves. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I hoped we hadn’t missed them.

Luckily, my boss had been understanding when I’d told him I couldn’t work nights this week, but I wasn’t going to get away with working only day shifts next week too.

And, who knew? Maybe the vision was for some future event a month or a year or a decade from now. Then what? How long would we keep up the patrols?

I huffed out a breath and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. I couldn’t worry about that. I had one task tonight. If we didn’t find anyone out here in the woods again, figuring out our next step was tomorrow’s problem.