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

have to work directly with the bears too often.
    And this situation was a highly unusual one. Shifters healed fast, and rarely needed hospitals. When they were badly injured, they always went to their pack or clan healer.
    Except when they were afraid to. Except when they felt they couldn’t turn to their own kind for help.
    This whole situation was making him uneasy.
    Eugene Hanson, the Northeast Alpha, had put the word out that this girl had run out on an arranged mating to his son, Kevin, and they wanted her back.
    Eugene was based in Pennsylvania, and his son had founded a small pack nearby, and he’d been looking for a suitable mate. Margaret Romaine was the one he’d selected.
    When Eugene had called Knox, he’d made it sound as if this girl were a thief and possibly mentally unstable, somebody who’d stolen cash and credit cards from Kevin and then gone on the run. And he’d told Knox there was a good chance she might be showing up at the emergency room in Grayslake soon.
    He’d been deliberately vague about the injuries the girl had suffered, though, getting downright snappish when Knox had tried to press him.
    “I’d like to make myself a new bearskin rug, is what I’d like to do,” Clarence growled, his voice slicing into Knox’s dark thoughts.
    “Good thing we don’t have to deal with them too much,” Knox said with a shrug. “They’re not worth the trouble, unless they keep up the attitude, in which case they might be worth the trouble. Of course, they’ve got that truce with the Redby Pack. Effin’ politics.”
    He shook his head as they drove aimlessly, heading back to Sugar Creek.
    Right on cue, Knox’s phone rang, and a quick glance showed that it was Eugene calling.
    He let out a growl of anger before he grabbed the phone and answered.
    “Yes, sir. We still haven’t found her,” he said.
    “You mean nobody has been able to pick up her scent?” Eugene Hanson demanded.
    “I had half a dozen of my men going through the woods looking for her outside the hospital. She ran down to a local creek and used that to throw us off her trail. They’re still searching,” Knox said wearily.
    “Only half a dozen? Why not more? It was your error, letting her escape. You should have your whole pack on her trail.” The arrogance in his voice set Knox’s teeth on edge. And it was Eugene and his son’s error, not his; she’d fled their pack, after all.
    Knox restrained himself from pointing that out, however. “I spoke to the emergency room personnel last night. Margaret was unconscious when she arrived. She was apparently severely beaten.” He wasn’t going to let this go.
    “And?”
    “And that’s a problem. You told me that your son’s intended mate stole his money and ran off, and you wanted to find her. Now I’m wondering why she ran off.” And if she’d really stolen anything, but he wasn’t quite ready to call the Northeast Alpha’s son a liar. “I don’t stand for abuse of women. Alpha.” He added that last bit partly as acknowledgement of the other Alpha’s status, but partly with a hint of snark to it.
    “I doubt she was injured that badly,” Eugene scoffed. “Humans lie all the time.”
    “There were bloodstains on the sheets, and security video at the hospital shows one of the nurses carrying her in, completely limp, in his arms.”
    “There’s no security videos showing her leaving?”
    “No, unfortunately, there are no security cameras in the back lot, which is the last place I scented her,” Knox said. And because of the hospital’s security system, he knew there was only one way she could have gotten out the back – with an employee’s help. He strongly suspected that had been Heather, but he wasn’t handing Heather over to the Northeast Alpha, no matter what.
    Eugene let out a heavy sigh. “She was probably unconscious because she’d been drinking, to be honest with you,” the Alpha said. “I am not saying that my son made the best choice with this