The she-wolves in the purity cell were in somewhat better shape physically than the others. Not surprisingly though, their mental condition wasn’t much if any better. Over the next couple of days, I managed to talk to a couple of them privately – that first night, Dion and Truman helped us find a room off to the side of the building that wasn’t bugged.
Gregory did some subtle checking and was able to find out that the room was used by Kane and Bethany to “interview” the she-wolves. Another guard told us that they took the she-wolves there when they thought she might have information about the packs that they wanted. He laughed when he told us that she always came out sporting a black eye, bloody nose, etc.
“Alpha knows how to tame those b**ches without sticking his d**k in them,” he’d said with a wink.
I may or may not have “accidentally” tripped, fell into him, and knocked him on his a** at dinner the next night, making him spill his full food tray. (Yes, I did clean up the mess.)
Because of that room being private, and Gregory somehow getting Kane to let us use it, I was able to let the she-wolves know pretty quickly that I was there to help them.
Since they knew that we were on their side, the she-wolves did what they could to help us out too. One thing that I had been dreading ever since Kane mentioned it was having to force feed the ones reluctant to eat. I told them this, and told them that the food was safe to eat – Gregory or I went every night to pick it up from the cafeteria and brought it back to the cells. In that instance, it was actually beneficial to us that Kane didn’t want most of the rogues there knowing what was actually going on. He wouldn’t allow anyone from the cafeteria to deliver the food to the cells, so we were able to go get the food ourselves and could make sure that it wasn’t tampered with on the way. We both agreed that since the chef made the same dinners for the she-wolves that he made for everyone else, we weren’t too worried about him tampering with them. Besides, he thought that he was making food for she-wolves that had been abused, neglected, and/or abandoned and were too timid to face anyone just yet. He didn’t realize that he was making food for she-wolves that had been kidnapped and ripped away from their homes and families because an evil b**tard just saw them as dollar signs.
I spent the next couple of days trying to dig around through the encampment and unearth all the information that I could about Kane and the operation he was running. I found out a couple of interesting things. One was that the attacks on the pack were usually launched from a smaller compound near the Sun Pack. I found this in some paperwork in the office near the cells that I came across while pretending to search for my timecard (which was in my pocket). I asked Gregory about it, and he said that he had been there a couple of times. Apparently, Bethany usually teleported the rogues involved in the attacks there before sending them anywhere else. He said that, because he had convinced her she could trust him, she confided that she did this so that if another witch got involved and tried to trace them through magic, he or she would only be able to trace them back to the smaller compound instead of here. I had to grudgingly admit that made sense. I made sure to pass that information to Jason and the rest when we talked to them that night.
For their part, Alvara and Delilah continued to try to reach out to Jessup, with no luck. They didn’t want to show up unannounced to his house, as he and Riley were expecting their first pup any second now, it was a fair distance away, and it was a gamble as to if he’d even be there. They said if they hadn’t heard anything from him by the time all the warriors were assembled and ready, they’d go to his house and take their chances on him being there or not. Rianna had apparently given Riley the message for Jessup to call, but she was super stressed about the upcoming birth and she kept forgetting to pass it to him. On the afternoon of my third day there, Gregory and I got a mind link from Kane right after lunch.
‘Gregory, Todd, I need the two of you to report to the banquet room,’ he told us.
The banquet room was a room in the same building as the conference room. I thought of it as a tongue in cheek kinda thing to call it that, because obviously a group of rogues like that isn’t going to be having any banquets. I think they just didn’t know what else to call a big, empty room with no other purpose except for “intake” of new members. There weren’t even any chairs in there. It was just a big room with gray floors and gray walls. The doors in the room, as with a lot of other rooms in this compound, were built so that if someone didn’t know where they were, they’d have a very difficult time finding them, because they literally slid back into the walls when opened. You would think that that would clue people in that something here wasn’t on the up and up, but nope, not with these geniuses. Kane convinced them that it was in case of an attack. I’m not sure how they thought having a room that they couldn’t get into or out of without Kane was going to help them, but there you have it.
‘Sure thing, boss,’ Gregory replied while rolling his eyes at me. ‘What’s up?’
‘We’ve captured the white wolf.’
We had both been been kicked back on our beds with our legs stretched out, but we both immediately sat straight up.
“S**t fire, I can’t believe they caught her,” Gregory said as we both jumped up and ran out the door. “Me neither,” I replied as we were running down the hall.
I’m not sure how, but word must have immediately gotten out that there was a white wolf in the compound, because everyone was flooding into the banquet room. I’m sure that it wasn’t Kane, as he wouldn’t have wanted everyone knowing that he’d captured her and that she hadn’t come willingly, so I’m thinking one of the rogues that had done the actual capturing must have mind linked someone that there was a white wolf there, and that someone told someone, and so on.
As we ran into the room from one direction, I saw Kane coming running from another. We were faster though, so we got into the room a minute or so before him.
When we entered the room, we immediately pushed and shoved our way to the front of the crowd. There she was. Easily the most beautiful she-wolf I’d ever seen in my life. Well, in her wolf form at least. I had no idea what her human form looked like. I immediately felt a connection to her that I couldn’t immediately put my finger on. ‘Is she our mate?’ I asked Dion.
‘No, but we are connected,’ he told me. ‘I think I know, but if I’m right we’ll find out in just a few minutes.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him.
‘Just listen,’ he replied.
I had pushed my way to the front to hopefully be able to protect her from any harm, as I’m sure Gregory had, but we could both immediately see that she didn’t need our help. She was snapping and snarling at the rogues around her, and flashing her deadly canines to keep them at bay. I could see blood drops on the floor, and I spotted a wolf off to the side whose snout was bloody and deformed looking. My guess is that he didn’t heed her warnings and she bit the h**l out of him. Good for her, because they all deserved it. I was surprised that I could hear her voice in my mind, but Dion explained that magic didn’t affect her since she was the white wolf, and added that it also didn’t affect her mate. I wanted to ask him about her mate, but needed to hear what she was saying. She was addressing two guards by the name of Jessie and Kyle. Jessie was the same guard that I’d tripped in the cafeteria for being a crude a**hole. Jessie had his head tilted down slightly, obviously trying to keep her from seeing his face, and was berating Kyle for being too stupid to do the same. Honestly, he wasn’t wrong – Kyle was definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed. I also heard him saying that magic would not work on her, corroborating what Dion had already told me. ‘As much as I’m enjoying this little exchange, I’m going to need one of you morons to tell me where I am,’ I heard her snap at them. I had to swallow a chuckle at that – she was feisty, and for some reason, even though I’d never even met her, that made me proud of her. “Morons?” I heard Jessie say. “You’ll do good remember that you’re the one being held prisoner here, Snowball. We could easily kill you!” I inwardly rolled my eyes. He’d be snapped like a twig if she wanted to. Even from where I was, I could sense that there was more strength in one of her massive paws than most of these morons, as she’d accurately called them, had in their entire bodies. I wondered how many of them it had taken to capture her. My guess was at least fifty, probably more. I had to suppress a grin when she responded with a laugh. This she-wolf wasn’t a bit scared of them. She could easily overpower them all, and she knew it. ‘Kill me?’ she scoffed. ‘Nah. First off, it would take a lot more than what you have here to take me down. Second, obviously Kane wants me alive or I wouldn’t be here. And I know you’re all scared sh**less of him.’ She knew Kane’s name? Now I was even more intrigued. I could see already that in addition to possessing incredible strength and beauty, she was also extremely intelligent. ‘We have to make sure she makes it out of here alive,’ I told Dion. ‘Are you watching the same wolf I am?’ he asked me. ‘I think we just need to make sure she doesn’t mow us over on her way out the door.’ I had to laugh. He was right. Kyle was protesting, saying that they were in fact not scared sh**less of Kane, but I knew that was a lie. And upon seeing his pale face, I’m sure she saw right through that lie too. He also demanded to know how she knew Kane’s name. She laughed again and simply replied, ‘I’m the white wolf. I have resources you don’t know about.’ I was sure she did. She seemed to be a strong, fearless, resourceful young wolf, and I found myself getting more anxious to get to know her better. I only hoped she gave me that chance. I needed to figure out the connection I felt to her. ‘I think you’re going to find that out sooner rather than later,’ Dion informed me. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him. ‘Just pay attention,’ he replied. ‘I want to make sure I’m right before I say anything.’ I heard Kane’s sickening voice coming from behind me. “They may not know about them, but I do.” He came striding through the crowd, with everyone stepping aside to allow him through. He wound up standing right beside me, as Gregory and I were just a few feet from the white wolf, and I had to fight to keep myself from stepping away from his disgusting self. He smiled at her. “Hello, CandiAnn.” She glared at him through narrowed eyes and spat out, ‘Hello, Kane.’ Wait. Not only did she know his name, he knew hers too? I had a feeling things were about to get a lot more interesting around here. He kept the evil, s**t eating grin on his face. “So you know who I am then?” She snarled at him, showing her canines once again. Those teeth looked like they would rip through Kane’s throat like butter the second she got a chance. ‘Oh, yes, I know who you are,’ she replied, her tone dripping with ice. ‘You’re the jack**s who’s low enough to seduce a mated she-wolf, just when she was at her lowest point, then didn’t bother even trying to stick around when you knocked her up. You’re the a**hole who tries to convince rogues you’re helping packs when you’re really attacking and murdering peaceful packs who never anyone.’ Everyone around me gasped, shocked to the core when the truth was finally thrown in their faces. But she wasn’t done. ‘Yeah, sorry, y’all your fearless leader here isn’t trying to rescue trafficked she-wolves. He’s the one actually doing the trafficking and murdering innocent pack members to get them. Did you guys ever wonder why he never bro