Page 126 of Claimed

I feel the color drain from my face. I only smell one scent inside my house. Brody, I think.

Grey searches my face, and I feel pain coming from him. He’s not just angry. He’s hurting right now. He’s angry and hurtingthough only the anger is visible. Because I’m the one who gets a peek into what’s inside. Because I’m his. I’m going to be okay; I’ll get through this because he’s here with me.

“Okay…”

“Let’s go,” he grunts and flexes his jaw muscles.

“Wait. I… Where are they?” I don’t think I caught their scents at the mess hall. Though, the overpowering stench of the whole village could be messing with my senses.

“People you share the place with aren’t in there,” he says. “Just Brody.”

“They’re in the mess hall?”

He shakes his head. “Those scents aren’t here.”

“Aren’t here?” I hurry inside the trailer, looking around the front room, to the kitchen, and noting the layer of dust, already knowing they haven’t been here in a while.

Why?

“Where’s Aunt Shea, Addy, Misty, and Halla?” I ask. “They’re not in the mess hall?

Nobody’s been here today at least. Maybe much longer than that.

Grey is behind me. “I don’t know where they are, but the scents from this house aren’t in this compound right now.”

I move through the kitchen and down the back hall past the bathroom toward the bedrooms and see Brody standing in the bunk room I share with Adelaide, Halla, and Misty.

He turns to look at me and his expression is deadly serious.

“This bed? Whose is it?” he demands.

I’m taken back at the aggression rolling off him.

“Adelaide, my cousin. We call her Addy.”

He looks past me at Grey who is directly behind me.

My eyes bounce to Grey, and he’s got a deadly serious look on his face as he regards Brody.

“Adelaide,” Brody says softly, and his dark eyes flare with an amber light. He touches her pillow, then lifts it and puts it to his nose.

Grey’s hands land on my shoulders. “Where would they be, you think?”

“I… here?”

“They’re not here,” Brody says. “None of the scents from this room besides yours are nearby. You know where she might be? Because she’s not within five square miles for sure unless she’s…” His expression darkens.

I frown. “Are they alive? Please tell me they’re alive.”

“We don’t know, Blossom. The guy called Larry said they’ve been burning the dead. You don’t know where they might be if they’re not here?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“I gotta find her,” Brody says to Grey. “Gotta get away from this other stink – it’s clouding things – need to look for her scent outside the gates.”

“One sec, Brody. Larry!” Grey shouts.

Larry shuffles in, Jared at his back. When Larry sees me, he gives me a dirty look, a look loaded with blame.

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