Page 42 of Forsaken

My stomach clenches. “For what?”

He just glares, as if I’m so insignificant that he doesn’t owe me anything.

Nathan starts breathing heavily. He certainly doesn’t like this, but we don’t really have a choice. We’re like visitors in our own pack.

“Did any of you help him leave?”

“No,” the three of us say in unison.

“Who were you hanging out with yesterday at the party?” He looks at Nathan first. Nathan tells him he was with his mate. Trish is next, and she answers the same. I go last, and even though I want to tell this fucker that they should go after the mate who drugged me last night instead of someone trying to escape a terrible situation, I answer the same, giving him Sean’s full name.

“They’ll be able to verify this?”

We all nod. Sean better fucking back me up on this, but who knows what he’ll be thinking when the alpha’s guards show up on his doorstep. I’m sure he’ll want to distance himself from even being near me if he thinks they’re there because of what he did to me.

“Do you three have any plans to run away from Daybreak?”

“No,” we rush out.

Jesus. Who would want to do that? To run away would be to live Feral, and that’s not something anyone aims for.

“Do we know why Robbie did it?” I ask. “Is he okay?”

The head security guy eyes the other two black-clad men as they march down the stairs empty-handed. “Robert Ventura is no concern of yours anymore. When interrogated, he admitted he was giving up on his mate and his pack.”

I’m sure those weren’t his exact words, but I nod anyway. Poor Robbie. They probably have him in a cell right now. Because rejecting someone and sending them away to Greystone Academy is fine. It’s for reform so you can finally end up together. But shirking your responsibilities by running away, that’s punishable by law.

Yeah, sure.

Now, the question is: how ruthless is Alpha Richard when it comes to rogue shifters?

17

“I can’t believe we’re on house arrest,” Trish whines as she plonks down on the couch, arms outstretched over the cushions. “And then there were three...prisoners.”

“Wake up. We’ve always been prisoners,” Nathan deadpans. He’s not taking any of this well.

As for me, I’m happy that at least Sean can’t get me in here. Plus, I’m distracted, wondering what’s going to happen to Robbie. I wish he would’ve said something. I wish he would’ve reached out.

I understand why he didn’t, though. They isolate us at Greystone, even to everyone else there. They make us all enemies, so that if we even have a thought that is outside the norm, we think we can’t say it. If he’d said he didn’t want a mate to the wrong person, they would’ve turned him in.

I glance over at Nathan and thank the shifter universe for him. I’ve always been able to say anything I wanted in front of him and we both just got it.

Running my hands through my hair, I sigh. “What do you think they’ll do to him?”

I’m met with two very pointed stares, but Trish speaks first. “Well, he’s not sticking around, that’s for sure. He basically just gave Shifter Basics 101 the middle finger. We all should want to mate. We should want to get down and dirty and create all those shifter pups everyone wants.”

I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because we live in a topsy-turvy world. “Has anyone thought of the injustice of all this? Our mates can send us to Greystone Academy because we’re rejects, but we can’t run away?”

“The pack is the highest power,” Nathan muses. “He didn’t just say fuck you to his mate, he said it to the pack. It’s okay if they do it to us, but not the other way around.”

“Talk like that will get you exiled,” Trish says in a playfully threatening way. I warn Nathan with my eyes not to go too off the rails. At this point, he’s the only shifter I trust. Anything we say could be used against us, especially in times like this.

And personally, I don’t need another strike against me. I already have a detonator ticking over my shoulder.

“I need a shower,” I grumble. “Come get me if anything else happens.”

Without looking at either of them, I head up the stairs and escape to my room. I start the shower and stare at myself in the mirror. There’s a fist strangling my heart right now. It’s been that way since they informed us of Robbie’s escape attempt. I don’t know what he thought he would do away from all of this, but I understand his reasoning. I’ve wanted to do it several times myself.

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