Rescued by the Pack by Leah Knight Page A

no choice if one of you were back there?”
     
    “I’ll not discuss this with you,” Luke said. “Get in the cave.”
     
    “Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” Allison shouted. “You have no right to—“
     
    “Have it your way,” Luke shrugged.
     
    Then he snatched Allison up and threw her over his shoulder, pushing his way past the brush and branches and into the pitch-black cave.
     
    “Put me down!” she shrieked, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but he was much stronger than she. “Put me down right this instant! ”
     
    Luke ignored her, and a little while later, she heard a click and a deep grinding noise like heavy stones rubbing together. Light peeked through a small crack in the cave wall, growing wider and wider until a doorway appeared. Luke carried her through it.
     
    Once inside, he planted her on her feet and she slapped him. His cheek reddened deeply where her hand had struck, but he said nothing, only staring at her for a moment before turning and exiting the room. The stone wall began to close, and she tried to follow him out, but the gap closed too quickly.
     
    “Damn it,” she muttered, crossing her arms before her and glowering at the wall.
     
    She turned to notice a fairly cozy room built within the natural stone of the cave. Clearly, this place was meant for wolves. Though it had beds in the form of creaky looking military cots, and food, and another doorway that appeared to lead to another room that Allison hoped dearly might be a bathroom, the floor was earthen and the walls were bare stone. The room was lit with the golden glow of lighting recessed into the walls.
     
    “My, you guys are resourceful,” she commented.
     
    Her irritation was palpable. She began to pace the floor as she waited. For what, she did not know. Would Luke and Logan stay there with her? Would they go back for Michael? She began to gnaw her fingernails as she paced.
     
    She’d nearly worn a rut in the bare earth when the door began to grind, and she froze with her thumbnail between her teeth.
     
    Michael, bruised and battered and with dried blood crusted in his hair and wearing nothing but black shorts, appeared in the doorway.
     
    She twitched, her instinct to run to him, but she stopped herself just in time. Instead, she tilted her head to one side and said, “About time you showed up.”
     
    “Nice to see you, too,” he muttered, limping into the room, followed shortly by Luke and Logan, also in shorts.
     
    Michael rolled with a painful grunt onto a cot and stared at the ceiling as the heavy stone closed, sealing them in.
     
    “Were you followed?” Luke asked.
     
    “Do you think I’d have come here if I were?” Michael growled.
     
    “Don’t be a dick,” Luke grumbled.
     
    Michael shot a warning glance in Luke’s direction and said, “It’s because I’m a dick that you all are alive right now.”
     
    “Sorry,” Luke muttered, plopping heavily onto a cot across the room, his face taut with frustrated contrition.
     
    “How long do we have to stay here?” Allison wondered aloud.
     
    Michael gripped his ribs and grunted as he pulled himself into a sitting position, and he glared deeply into her eyes. “This is our new home thanks to you.”
     
    “Thanks to me?” she gasped, offended. “You’ve got to be kidding! I didn’t ask for any of this!”
     
    “No, but we could have just let Victor keep you,” Michael reminded her. “We didn’t need to rescue you… either time.”
     
    Allison’s jaw dropped, and she started to fly into an indignant rage, but she managed to suppress her rage. He had a point. Instead, she dropped onto a cot and assumed the same defeated position that Luke had been glowering in.
     
    “Logan, please lower the lights,” Michael said. “I must rest. Stand guard until I awaken.”
     
    “Got it,” Logan said.
     
    Moments later the lighting dimmed to near darkness. Allison leaned heavily against the wall, biting the inside of her