Page 77 of Welcome to Bone Town

“It’s an illusion. This crevice is hidden behind an outcropping that you’d never see unless you hit exactly the right angle. Just like the hidden releases for the doors. We never had reason to explore this closely given it looked like a plain temple wall, albeit a little less lit than the others.”

The thickness of the foliage back here didn’t help either.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Bear smirks. Sure enough, unless we followed the jackal’s exact path, our eyes would have skipped right over this nondescript portion of the temple.

The she-dog pops her head back out, looking at me and barking.

“I’m coming!” I assure her. When I get closer, I hear whimpers—more than one. As I round the outcropping, I’m met with two wriggly puppies, headbutting the jackal’s legs and mewling.

“Awwwwww!” Jax breaks the silence. “Look how cute!” He reaches forward, as if he’s going to grab one of the babies, and the mama jackal immediately snaps her jaws at him, placing herself in front of them as a barrier.

“Okay! Sorry! I got you!” Jax apologizes as he backs away.

“If she’s in here, and she has babies with her, do youthink this crevice leads to the outside?” our ever-analytical beta asks.

Mama jackal—I really should come up with a name for her—snags both pups by the scruff, then trots off, deeper into the mystery crack. This time, she doesn’t look back. She either assumes we’re going to follow her, or has decided we aren’t her problem if we’re too stupid to trust her.

I start to trail her, but am stopped yet again by Roman. “We don’t know where this leads. What if we get lost? Or stuck? We can’t go wandering off butt naked into a hole in the wall.”

“I like going butt naked into holes,” Jax teases.

Roman glares at him, but my body heats at the innuendo. We’ve spent so much time naked this past week, I’ve gotten used to going without.

“This could be a way out, prof.” Bear counters.

“We can get dressed first, but I think we need to see where this goes.” I look Roman in the eyes, silently pleading for him to trust me. I won’t beg, but I won’t let him decide for me either. If we’re going to be a pack, this is a pack decision. Right?

56

This is a test, and I know it, but every part of me still fights against letting Cora go into the dark crevice in the wall. My alpha wants to protect her, tuck her away somewhere safe, but my more rational mind knows I’ll lose her if I keep trying to lead the way I always have before. I’ve always been stronger than the other alphas around me. Intelligent. At the top of my field. In charge.

The urge to demand Cora stand back pulses through my veins, but I know I’ll give in.

“Okay, we see where this leads.But!We get dressed, supplies, and a torch first,” I say. We’ve all gotten way too comfortable walking around naked.

“Fair,” Cora replies with a sweet smile.

“On it,” Jax calls, already bounding back through the foliage toward our camp.

Within minutes we’ve packed up, and we’re back at the secret opening in the wall the jackal showed us. Idon’t have a lot of hope that this will lead out of here, but wherever it leads, I won’t be caught without supplies again.

Before stepping into the dark, Cora grabs my hand. My heart does a little flip. Her touch feels so right, so natural. I want to hold her hand every day, through every dark passage life might throw at us.

“I trust you, hummingbird, and will follow your lead. But, will you let me go ahead of you? Everything in me is fighting to protect you. Please.” I let her see my alpha’s need in my pleading eyes. Her face softens, and she gives me a small smile before nodding.

“Let’s do this.” I lift the torch in my free hand while keeping a tight grip on Cora at my side, then I carefully lead the way.

We take our time, looking out for any signs of traps or danger. But apart from a few spiders, we don’t see anything alarming. The path is narrow, barely big enough for us to walk single file.

“I think this might have been like an emergency exit,” Archer muses, running his hand along some runes on the wall. “A way for the priestesses and acolytes to escape if the temple was ever attacked.”

“So you think it might lead to the surface?” Bear asks.

“If it hasn’t caved in,” Cora says.

The ground begins to slant upwards, and the space gets narrower and narrower until we’re crawling on our hands and knees.

“Do you hear that?” I ask.

---