Page 5 of The Wolf's Kidnapped Mate

Three weeks.

After a deep breath, I nodded. “Alright, fine. But I reserve the right to complain the whole time.”

Everybody laughed.

Chapter 2 - Kylie

Athleticism was next to godliness if my bestie was to be believed. And right this second, I believed that staying fit was the only way to provide any kind of divine intervention in my boring life. Maybe I could have biked to the community center, but why would I do that when I could jog instead?

My legs needed a change from their usual routine. They were used to pedaling rather than pressing heel-to-toe into the tan dirt of the stony path.

Gray and slate-black pebbles decorated the sides of the path, freshly laid. Tall trees sprang out of the dirt near the rocks, along with seasonal bushes that displayed some kind of angelic white flower that bloomed beautifully by the time the sun was high in the sky. I didn’t know a thing about them other than the fact that they smelled nice in the evening when I walked home. Lanterns hung from iron hooks over the path, also new additions.

Blake and Troy had made plenty of adjustments in the past few weeks that had improved the liveliness of our pack land.

Before all this, before the edits and the languid nights I spent rolling in my bed, I had been overseas—in France, riding the train to other cities, othercountries. Because that was the price I paid for being part of the grim underground of my previous job.Grim dogs.That was what my brother called us.

Maybe I had sacrificed too many thought molecules to those evenings. I barely had anything left.

I panted as I slowed my pace, trotting in place to keep my legs from locking up. Damn things loved doing that nowadays. I didn’t have much activity keeping me from a sedentary lifestyle,so I had taken it upon myself to yank Faye from her cozy apartment early in the mornings for some ocean swim time.

Luckily, Faye wanted to be as active as I did. She never complained, and she always invited me to various events in the area. But it wasn’t like I could attend much with the rules Blake had set down for me. Troy had agreed to them too when he took up his co-alpha position. Other than those two men and the security team, nobody knew that I couldn’t leave the confines of this pack’s land.

And it was so aggravating.

I just wanted to do normal things with normal shifters. The life I had left behind—along with my brother, I mentally recognized—was part of my nightmares now. Evenings that should have been blissful occasionally turned into relived experiences. I hated thinking about those memories, and I hated that I couldn’t talk to my best friend about them.

She had no idea who I had been in the past, and she would probably never know. With Liam out in the field again, I couldn’t say a word. I lived a life of secrecy, one that didn’t even involve me doing anything secretive. There weren’t any missions for me these days. There wasn’t intel for me to review or operations to plan.

Liam had dropped me off with this pack a year ago. That was too long to go without a mission, or much of anything.

Sometimes, the old team sent some cards—Banks loved those damn Christmas wreaths, Harp was into classic cards, and my brother usually scrawled something on a random postcard—and the people we rescued occasionally sent a line too. Normally, those were kept under code names, the most recent being Karla and Cora’s ever clever “Blonde Dalmatian” bit. I thought they’dsent a pair of Dalmatian photos at one point, maybe three months ago.

Memory didn’t serve me well. And honestly, it wasn’t really something I liked thinking about. Because thinking of the old team and those soldiers we had rescued made me think about Bernadetti. And I hated to think of that man.

His glassy eyes and sharp demeanor had always made me uncomfortable. I’d often wondered what it was about him that put me on edge, and then I got my answer when our convoy was attacked.

Tyson and Harvey were in the frontmost vehicle. I was with my brother, the Blonde Dalmatians were behind us, and the others were spread out. Bombs exploded in my memory, not as loud anymore. But certainly still impressionable.

I stopped jogging next to a bench and plopped onto it, stretching my legs out to keep my muscles from locking up. I bent forward and stared at the ground between my sneakers, watching sweat darken the soil drop after drop.Bomb after bomb.

A team of four black ops soldiers rescued a team of five black ops soldiers. We were lucky to get out of there alive, but luck didn’t follow us to the States. Bernadetti spilled every single detail about our missions to our enemies in Tehran, then he disappeared right off the map, leaving our lives stranded in wild directions.

Like the way my brother had left me here in the south under house arrest.

Karla and Cora have it better, I thought.They have a cute little cottage up in Canada where they grow produce and sell it at the farmer’s market every weekend.

I sighed.

Why couldn’t I have a life like that? Those two had found love in each other, while I was stranded here in the middle of a ranch with two alphas, a small apartment, and a dead-end job.

Oh, and there was always Fred. It wasn’t like he’d said a word to me since he got here, but he was here. He was around. I saw him sometimes.

My shoulders ached when I sat up. I saw the recreation center up ahead and noticed the growing crowd of people dwindling through the doors. Right—there was a meeting happening soon. That was the whole point of my jog. When Faye joined the masses, I launched from the bench and sped in her direction. I didn’t stop until I looped my arm with hers.

She beamed. “I was wondering where you were.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead and sighed contentedly. “I see we both had the same idea.”

“We did. Where did you go?”

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