Wolf Freed

by Sadie Moss

  Wolf Freed

  The Last Shifter #4

  Sadie Moss

  Copyright © 2018 by Sadie Moss

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or had, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Also by Sadie Moss

  Chapter One

  “Pack alpha, huh? What exactly does that mean?”

  Molly’s voice filtered through the burner phone, and I rolled onto my back on the hotel bed, staring up at the ceiling. A small crack worked its way out of one corner, and the white paint was yellowing.

  I sighed. “It means… It means I’m in charge of all these people. Of trying to make their lives better, keep them safe—keep them from killing each other.”

  “Holy shit.” I could picture her shaking her head, her honey-blonde hair shimmering with the movement. “So, no pressure, huh?”

  Despite the worry clinging to me like a bad funk, I chuckled. “Nope. None at all.”

  “God, it’s so crazy. All of this. Sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that you have these two separate parts existing inside you. It’s just amazing.”

  Her voice pitched up with excitement, and my smile widened. Molly was mildly obsessed with the occult and unexplained phenomena, which had made her much more willing to accept the revelation that my mates and I were shifters than her boyfriend, Carl, had initially been.

  She was also one of the kindest, most curious people I’d ever met, and one small silver lining to my pack having to leave the military base behind was that I could keep in touch with her more easily. When we’d left her and Carl behind in Salt Lake after rescuing Sariah, I honestly hadn’t known if I’d ever talk to her again.

  “Yeah, that makes two of us,” I joked, before growing serious again. “The funny thing is, both sides feel totally natural and right. Even becoming alpha feels right. As much as it freaks me out, my wolf knows it’s meant to be her role—I might have doubts, but she doesn’t. Which, honestly, helps a lot.”

  “I bet. What happened to the old alpha?”

  “He’s still part of the pack. We fought, but I didn’t ki—”

  I broke off. Remembering the night I’d gone up against Elijah made a shiver run down my spine. I had never felt such a bone-deep exhaustion as at the end of that night. He’d threatened my mate and refused to listen to any of our warnings, and something inside me had snapped.

  We had fought, and I’d somehow managed to get the upper hand on him. I could still remember the feel of his pulse thrashing wildly against my tongue as my jaws clamped around his neck, ready to deliver death with a single bite.

  My wolf side would’ve done it in a heartbeat. But my human side had refused. More killing wasn’t the answer to any of our problems.

  Well, with a few notable exceptions.

  “You didn’t kill him?” Molly asked softly. She had seen my wolf in action before, so I couldn’t be surprised she’d guessed what I’d been about to say.

  “No. I didn’t.” I ran a finger over the thin bandages covering my ear. “He yielded to me, and that was enough. I don’t want to lose anyone else—we need to stick together or we’ll never stand a chance.” I paused, and then added, “But I do have a guard watching him. Just to be sure he doesn’t try anything.”

  “That’s smart.” Molly’s response came immediately. “Carl always says trust is all well and good, but trust backed up by a few safeguards is even better.”

  “He’s a smart man.”

  “Don’t I know it.” She laughed, the sound sweet and uninhibited.

  “How’s life in Salt Lake City?” I asked, changing the subject.

  She and Carl had traveled there to help us free Sariah from the underground Strand compound hidden in the outskirts of the city—and when we had left for Montana to track down the Lost Pack, they’d stayed.

  She sighed, a note of melancholy creeping into her voice. “It’s… all right. We’re settling in. Carl’s back to work, although he’s keeping his hands out of the rougher stuff this time. He doesn’t want me to go back to work yet, which I understand, but… I miss it. I miss feeling useful.”

  I nodded, twirling a strand of brown hair around my finger. “I’m sure he’s just trying to keep you safe. But hell, if he gets to work, you should too.”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “No, don’t!” Carl had finally gotten over his grudge against me for threatening his girlfriend while in wolf form. I didn’t need to add anything else to the pile of reasons for him to dislike me.

  Molly chuckled. “Fine. I’ll deliver the message from an ‘anonymous source’. But enough about my boring stuff. Anything else new with you? How are the four horsemen?”

  The easy smile slipped from my face, and I sat up, pressing a hand to my lower belly. As if prompted by her words, a wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, and I swallowed down the acidic taste in my mouth.

  Five tests.

  They’d been be a waste of cash, since after the second one, I’d had my answer as clear as day, and it hadn’t changed on the remaining three.

  I was pregnant.

  Despite the fact that no shifter had ever gotten pregnant before, despite the fact that it wasn’t supposed to be possible for shifter females to have children—although Strand had certainly tried—I was pregnant.

  My breakfast threatened to make an unceremonious reappearance, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Alexis? You still there?” Molly’s soft voice held a touch of concern.

  “Um. Yes.” I cleared my throat, blinking rapidly.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” My voice was too loud, too full of forced cheer. “Everything’s fine. The guys are good. They’ve been totally on board with the whole alpha thing, which is good; hell, they might be more excited about it than I am. I don’t think I could handle it on my own, so I’m lucky I have a really good support system.”

  “Do you get to boss them around and stuff?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of my lips, and I rubbed my stomach to calm it as I answered. “I wish. I told them not to treat me any differently just because I’m pack alpha now, and for better or worse, they’ve done what I asked. Jackson still teases me, Rhys is still overprotective, and West and Noah do everything they can to take care of me.”

  “Damn,” she drawled. “Sounds like torture.”

  I rolled ov
er onto my right side, curling up on the bed. My stomach was settling, although I kept a hand pressed to it, covering it protectively—guarding the tiny baby growing in my womb.

  “Yeah, it’s awful.” I bit my bottom lip, my chest warming. “I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

  “It’s not just luck,” she reminded me. “Good people attract good people. And those four have been attached at the hip as long as I’ve known them. It honestly doesn’t surprise me they all fell for the same woman—wolf shifter mate bonds aside.”

  For a moment, the oddity of this whole situation struck me, and I wrinkled my brows. It wasn’t just that my mates and I were shifters—that was starting to feel normal, really—but that I was having this conversation with a non-shifter, and she wasn’t freaking out, accusing us of being freaks, or calling the authorities on us.

  I opened my mouth to thank her for the millionth time for everything she’d done for us, for me, when a soft whir-click sounded. A second later, the door opened.

  Six bodies spilled into the small hotel room, everyone talking amongst themselves, and I stood quickly, crossing to the window. Jackson noticed I was on the phone and punched Rhys’s shoulder. The volume of conversation quieted as I glanced toward my mates and mouthed, Molly.

  “Is that them? Tell those goofballs I miss them! I’m sure Carl’s been in touch, but as far as I know, he still hasn’t had any luck digging up information on where Strand is planning to ship all the old test subjects. I’ll make sure he calls you if he finds anything.”

  “Thanks, Molly. And thank him too. You guys have done more for us than we can ever repay.”

  “Good thing you won’t need to then,” she said lightly. “We’re friends. That’s what friends do.”

  No. It’s not. Not what all friends do.

  We’d just been lucky enough to wind up with friends who would go above and beyond for the people they cared about. I knew all my mates would do the same for them, and it struck me that maybe Molly was right—good people attracted good people.

  “Thank you. I’ll call again soon if I can.”

  “Deal. Love to the four horsemen.”

  I pressed the end call button and dropped the phone on the bed before turning to my mates, Val, and Sariah.

  Val leaned against the door, her posture projecting strength and grace like always. Her long auburn hair wasn’t in a braid today, and it spilled over her shoulders nearly to her waist, partially obscuring the curved scar that arced across the right side of her face.

  It had occurred to me more than once that she would make a better pack alpha than I did, but despite the fact that she’d been Alpha Elijah’s beta, she’d never once given any hint that she wanted to challenge me for the position. Instead, she’d merely continued her old role of beta with me, providing support, guidance, and perspective.

  Jackson flopped onto the bed, jarring the mattress and making the phone bounce. “Ugh. A week and a half in this damn place and I’m already going stir-crazy.” He craned his neck to look at me. “Molly say anything about how the search is going?”

  I leaned against the windowsill. “Just that it’s still going. We were lucky Carl was able to dig up info on the Strand complex in Salt Lake. Wherever this new one is that they’re planning to move all the shifters to, it doesn’t seem to have been documented at all.”

  “Assuming Walker and Marcus were actually telling the truth,” Rhys growled, his bright blue eyes flashing. He still hadn’t forgiven the two shifters for betraying us.

  I had. It was easier to forgive the dead.

  “What about that symbol from the tattoo? And ‘the Source’, whatever that is?” West asked.

  He crossed to me, pulling me into his arms and pressing a kiss to my hair. I knew he was surreptitiously checking on the bandages around my ear at the same time, but I didn’t resist, letting my body melt into the comfort of his. This was still new for us—this kind of casual, affectionate contact as mates—and every time he touched me, a little thrill ran up my spine. I wrapped my arms around him, running my fingers over his powerful back and pressing my good ear to his chest.

  “No luck on Carl’s end. Molly has been doing some research on that too—she already follows a bunch of blogs and forums about unexplained supernatural phenomena, so she’s been poking around there. But she hasn’t found anything either.”

  “So, basically, today’s the same as yesterday, which was the same as the day before.” Jackson groaned.

  “Yeah, but the upside of that is that Strand didn’t find us yesterday or the day before, and they haven’t found us today.” Noah sat on the edge of the bed, shooting a look over his shoulder at his brown-haired pack mate. My favorite lopsided smile tilted his lips. “You gotta look on the bright side, dude.”

  I opened my mouth to add my encouragement, but before I could say a word, the nausea that had cramped my stomach earlier returned with a sudden vengeance. I snapped my jaw shut, tensing as I fought to keep my breakfast down.

  “Hey, you okay?” West murmured, pulling back to look at me.

  “Mm-hm.” I nodded reassuringly, not daring to open my mouth.

  Val stepped away from the door. “We should do the rounds and check on the pack. Not all of them are used to being in human form this long, and it’s beginning to wear on some of them.”

  “Good point,” Jackson murmured.

  “Will you four go ahead? I need to speak with the alpha alone for a minute.” She sidestepped, leaving a clear path to the door, and although my mates all glanced at her curiously, none of them resisted. They respected Val, and they trusted her, even more so now that she was my beta.

  West shot me one last assessing gaze, his worried eyes darkening as he glanced at my ear. I fought to keep my face calm and neutral as they headed to the door.

  As soon as they were gone, I ran to the bathroom and threw myself down in front of the toilet.

  Chapter Two

  The nausea had hit hard and fast, and in two minutes, it was all over. My stomach was empty, and though it still felt unsettled, it wasn’t cramping like it had been.

  I hauled myself to my feet, reaching over to flush the silver handle, and was bent over the sink rinsing out my mouth when Val appeared in the bathroom doorway.

  “How you feeling?”

  “Better… now.” I swished water around in my mouth before spitting. “It happens about once a day, and then I’m fine.”

  “Once a day is still a lot when you’re losing all the food you’ve eaten every time.”

  “I know.” I pushed away from the sink basin wearily. “I’ve been trying to eat more, but I just don’t feel hungry. Jackson was really disappointed when they got fast food the other day and I only had two burgers.”

  “You could use some fresh meat. You and a few of your mates should go hunting tomorrow. I can cover for you here.”

  “Thanks, Val.” I smiled wanly at her.

  She was the only one who knew I was pregnant, and the only reason she knew was because she’d walked in on my barfing my guts up the day we’d arrived here—a dingy hotel on the outskirts of Meridian, Idaho. She’d been the one to put the idea in my head that maybe it wasn’t just stress causing my stomach to rebel.

  I’d taken the five pregnancy tests in private, but I had shared the results with her. I’d needed to tell someone, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my mates yet.

  My second-in-command dipped her head in a nod. “I wish I could tell you it’ll get better soon. For some women, it only lasts a couple weeks; for some, it’s much longer. When I was pregnant, I had morning sickness all through my first trimester.”

  I blinked, turning toward her slowly. “You were… pregnant?”

  Her shoulders stiffened for a heartbeat, and I got the distinct impression she regretted her words. I never pushed any shifters for stories about their time at Strand or their lives before they were taken. Everyone had their own personal traumas, and I figured it was up to them whether
they wanted to share those or not.

  But I’d had no idea Val had a kid.

  “Yes.” She smiled woodenly, making the arced scar around the right side of her face crinkle and contort. “Back when I was fully human. I had my daughter when I was eighteen. It wasn’t planned, but that didn’t make any damn difference in how much I loved her.”

  “Are you… Is she…?”

  I didn’t have any idea how to phrase the question. How do you ask a woman if her child is still alive? Or whether she even knows?

  But she nodded, tugging her thick auburn hair over one shoulder. “She wasn’t taken by Strand when I was. She’s okay, as far as I know. She’s with my sister, so that’s—”

  She broke off, a muscle in her jaw twitching, and my heart ached. She might use the word okay, but saying it didn’t make it true.

  “I left Addison with my sister when I went on my first tour of duty. She was four by then, and I wanted to make the world a safer place for her.” A scoff fell from her lips. “I just didn’t realize there were more terrifying enemies lurking closer to home. The day I was released from duty, a man approached me. Said he was from the private sector, offered me the chance to be part of a new experiment they were conducting. He wouldn’t give me enough details, and he seemed sketchy as hell, so I told him no.”

  My mouth fell open. “He offered you the chance to be a lap dog?”

  “That’s what it seems like now. I didn’t know any of that then, of course. Just like I didn’t have any idea that my ‘no’ meant shit. I woke up a day later bound, gagged, and drugged in the back of a transport vehicle.”

 
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