Grayslake: Furrever Yours (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Online Free

and then he’d lost her. Smart girl. The Southeast Alpha, who was the Territorial Alpha for all the packs in the Southeast, including Knox’s, was pissed. The Northeast Alpha, whose son was supposed to be marrying Margaret next week, was beyond pissed – he was boiling with rage. The dark was melting away now, and the glowing orb of the sun in the east bathed the distant hills in glowing red and yellow, but Knox was in no mood to enjoy the sunset.
    He paced back and forth in front of the Grayslake Itan’s home. It was a large, Southern-style residence with columns and a broad front porch.
    Knox’s Beta, Clarence, stood there with his arms folded across his broad chest, scowling. He didn’t like being in bear territory. Neither did Knox, but he had no choice at the moment. Fortunately, Ty Abrams, Itan of the Grayslake clan, had recently reached a truce with the local wolf pack, which made it easier for all the wolves in the area to have a semi-civil conversation with the bears.
    Or at least a conversation which didn’t end with blood spilled in the dirt.
    Knox had swung by the Abrams property to give them a piece of his mind. Several of them were gathered on the front porch, and they did not look happy.
    “How could you have lost her?” Knox growled at Virginia, who was one of the nurse’s aides at Grayslake Memorial, and also a bear shifter from the Grayslake Clan.
    Knox had put out the word to all shifters in the area to notify him immediately if they spotted Margaret, and to keep an eye on her until he got there.
    “Excuse you,” Virginia snarled right back at him. “This is a wolf issue. Not my problem. In fact,” she sneered, “you’re lucky I even called to let you know she showed up in our E.R. Next time I won’t.”
    Ty Abrams, the Itan of the Grayslake Clan, let out a low, rumbling, growl, and Virginia’s whole posture and attitude changed immediately. Ty was a large man, with broad shoulders and a fierce glower, but it was more than his expression or his size. There was an aura of strength and danger roiling about him. It was why he was the leader of the Grayslake Clan, and the other bears quailed when he was angry.
    She hung her head submissively, her shoulders slumped, and she stared down at the ground.
    “Itan,” she mumbled.
    Ty’s Enforcer Van, who served the same role for the bears as a Beta did for the wolves, looked at him stood back, a look of anger wrinkling his forehead. Clarence met his gaze steadily. “You’ll do what I command,” Ty ground out. “And if any Alpha or Itan or leader from any species calls you up and asks you to keep an eye out for a shifter showing up at the hospital, then you will call me, and tell me, and I will decide what you do next.”
    “Yes, Itan. Of course, Itan,” she mumbled. She risked a pleading glance at him. “I did call you and tell you as soon as I heard about the search for the girl, Itan.”
    Knox couldn’t fault her for that. She answered to Ty, not to him. What he could fault her for was letting Margaret walk out of that hospital.
    “I scented wolf in her room,” he growled at her. “As in, at some point, she must have shifted. Now, the curtains were drawn, so maybe nobody saw it happen. But maybe they did. That means a risk of exposure, which doesn’t just threaten us, it threatens all shifters. Why weren’t you watching her room?”
    “I couldn’t,” Virginia whined. Her gaze darted to Ty and then back to Knox. “I’m on the opposite side of the E.R. They divide up the rooms between me and the other nurse’s aide, and I had rooms one through ten. She was on the other side of the E.R. Heather would have been assigned there – she had eleven through twenty.”
    “Where were you when she disappeared?” Knox demanded.
    Virginia went pale and swallowed hard.
    “Answer him,” the Itan growled.
    “I was…I was on a coffee break,” she said miserably. “She’s a wolf, I didn’t think it was a big deal what happened to