The travel from the Eastern territory to the West was long, boring, and at Cole's insistence, quiet. I tried books on tape, twenty questions, to which every question he gave the same noncommittal answer, and plain talked to him. He couldn't have had less interest in anything I had to say.

Anything.

We left the vacation resort-like Eastern territory packhouse late in the morning. I didn't understand since we had more than two full days of driving time and would've loved to sleep overnight, but Cole insisted on our staggered leave times. Raina and Elena had left overnight with half my father's security team, then the other half left the following morning Idris and Rose.

Six hours into our 'road trip,' irritable didn't begin to describe how I felt. Lumi floated in the back of my mind, asleep from boredom. The silence, except for the sound of our breaths, was thick and tense.

Cole's body language was tense. His shoulders hunched up to his neck and his fingers squeezed the steering wheel like he wanted to rip it off. His styled brown hair was disheveled and his face wore a permanent scowl that deepened the farther he drove.

After thirty more minutes of this stifled, uncomfortable silence, I whooshed out a sigh. "I'm going to go crazy if we sit quiet for much longer." I reached for the satellite radio station but he swatted my hand away.

"No radio."

"Why not?" I groaned.

He also vetoed my books on tape, grumbling about werewolf romance novels and him not growing a vagina while being forced to listen to them.

"The second you tap into a satellite connection, we're a dead giveaway, Princess." He grunted, as if connecting to a radio station was a dead giveaway.

I think he doesn't want to admit he has bad taste in music.

"Ugggghhhh..." I bumped my head into my seat's headrest and looked at the ceiling. "Don't you think you're overreacting a little?"

I flapped my hands at the deserted road in front of and behind us, which Cole could have driven down the middle of and been fine. "We haven't seen a single car since we left."

He didn't answer, but shifted his eyes in my direction. Given his sparse communication, that led me to one conclusion.

He's hiding something.

"Cole..." I glared at him through narrow slits. "Why haven't we seen anyone yet?"

"We're... taking a slightly different route," he admitted, fixing his eyes ahead but his shoulders rose up.

My jaw dropped so fast that my ears tingled. I turned my head so fast that his hulking form blurred. "What?"

His only response was silence, so I glanced out the window for clues. My eyes widened at the sun setting outside my window. We weren't going in a western direction. A few mental blinks reminded me we headed south.

South?

Looking out the windshield, the road was narrower than the main highway. It was paved but unkempt grass and brush leaned in and brushed up against the outside of my door. There was no shoulder space to pull over.

If we break down then we'll never be heard from again.

"We're still in the East, but I'm going through some of the back roads in the Southern territory," he explained. "It'll take a little longer but it'll be worth it. Definitely safer."

"Safer until we're lost," I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Relax." He scoffed, knuckles protruding as he wrenched the steering wheel. "I know these roads like the back of my hand."

"Which is covered with scratches." My lips curled up because while I teased, I wasn't wrong.

"And I know every one of them," he retorted without a blink.

"But... Why?" As I turned my head back to look at him, my eyes narrowed.

Typical Cole tossed out, "Because it's my hand."

"No." I rolled my eyes. "Why are we driving this way? Don't we have to get permission from the Southern territory first?"

"I have permission from the Southern territory's alpha." Cole smiled and the sight made me pause.

Wow, he's actually smiling.

Of course, his mouth wasn't pulled into a happy, normal smile that relaxed the strain in his cheeks. Nope, he kept an upward tug on the corners that indicated he still withheld information from me.

If he isn't going to tell me his motivations, then I want his intentions.

"You say that like you're drinking buddies." I frowned at the casual tone in his voice. He didn't answer me, twitching up the other corner of his mouth.

As I continued to stare at his oddly, quirked-mouth, smile impression, suspicion rose in me. Very aware that I was inside a car, with one person - I mean werewolf - I also didn't know where we were anymore.

Is he kidnapping me? I mean, it's Cole... It's Cole, right?

"Cole... Why are you here?" I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. "We both know you don't need to train me much anymore."

"Driving, Princess," he replied with the same dry, cranky answer he'd given me for every one of my twenty questions. His salty attitude did nothing but further soured my mood.

"I think we both know I'm not a princess," I scoffed and looked out the window. Darkness surrounded us since the sun set but I recognized the same monotonous, rolling fields of tall, wild, green grass in the car's headlights.

Just like the field my father had me whipped in roughly a month ago.

I shivered at the reminder from the last time I was in this type of area. The memory was a stark reminder that things as Grumpy Gus drove us who knows where could be a lot worse.

Maybe Cole has the right idea, taking a road that isn't through my father's territory.

"I'm with Elena," he replied with a grunt. "Despite your little tiff against her, she wanted to go West to help you. Plus, I'm head of your security, so kind of an obvious choice."

"Tiff?" I arched an eyebrow. "Is that what you'd call lying behind a friend's back?"

"She didn't lie." He looked at me before the road grabbed his attention. "She withheld information for your safety, and hers, until she felt the time was right to tell you."

I stared at his profile while he stared ahead at the road. The glow from the dashboard flicked on, highlighting his high cheekbones and giving him skeleton-like eye socket shadows. At one point he must have had his nose broken because it had the tiniest bump in the bridge.

"How is she?" I asked, knowing full well that I could mindlink her and get the answer myself.

Cole might've mentioned wolf telepathy had a distance limit, I didn't know since I could only mindlink him and Elena.

When Elena left with Raina, she looked terrible, flushed pale, eyelids and lips swollen, her shoulders and arms sagging. She moved slowly, lethargic, and mumbled about her stomach being upset. I felt bad for Raina, who looked less than enthused at the giant pile of barf bags Cole tossed into the back seat.

"Not feeling better," he admitted with a sigh. "We might pass them at the rate they're going. They already had to stop since she got sick."

Oh gross.

My nose wrinkled at that kind of roadside pullover. Despite that, the mental image of Raina holding back Elena's long, blonde wig at the side of the road made me smile. Elena didn't look as terrible as a blonde as I thought she would, almost like my sister. She wouldn't let me talk her into dying her eyebrows blonde though.

"Maybe there's something they can give her in the West, to make her feel better?" I offered.

If there's any place for modern medical relief, then it's right where we're headed.

Well, right where everyone who's not taking the scenic detour is headed.

"I'm hoping," Cole muttered as his eyes dragged up to the rearview mirror. I looked over my shoulder but saw nothing other than the endless, flat road.

"Have you heard from Idris and Rose?" I asked.

Unlike Elena, Rose looked ridiculous in her Zara wig. She was so much shorter than both of us that the ends trailed down to her butt. She hadn't been able to stop herself from repeatedly petting her hair when the lovebirds with the second half of my security team personnel.

My question earned me a loud sigh. "I texted him before we left. They stopped too, but..."

"But what?" My eyes widened at the idea that Rose was in danger again.

"...It was for something else." Cole's smirk returned as he finished that thought.

"Oh, did they go out for dinner?" The idea in my mind of them stopping to have a roadside date was so cute. My hands clasped together on my lap.

"Not that." Cole's shoulders twitched as he laughed. "I forget how naïve you are sometimes, Zara."

I stared at him, lips parted until I realized what he insinuated. Once I understood the real reason for Idris and Rose's stop, my cheeks warmed.

"That's gross." I didn't mean to let those words slip out but Rose and Idris mating was not a mental image I wanted.

Especially not if they made a quick stop off the side of the road for... that. And especially, especially not if she still wore her Zara wig.

Cole's laughs cut through my thoughts. "You won't think it's gross once you find your mate," he replied. "It'll be all you think about, Princess."

Groaning, I shifted my knees toward the side door and grounded my elbow on the door rest. My lips couldn't help but twitch up at the crack in Cole's stoic silence.

He's talking! Of course it's about sex, but better than silence.

"Doesn't matter. I'm zero-for-two," I muttered, closing my right hand in a fix and resting it against my temple. "I don't think at this rate I'll find my mate."

"We're only halfway done," he reminded me. "If your mate is out there then you'll know before you see each other anyways."

"You knew before you met Elena?" I assumed this was true but hoped we could continue the conversation.

"Sable was restless the entire day before, no matter how many times I let him run," Cole tucked his chin down and smiled, as if he held an inside joke. "I wasn't outside when she arrived, but I smelled her the moment her car door opened. Your father tucked her away pretty quickly. Sable was going insane not meeting her until that day in the gym."

"Yeah, I remember that." I scowled at the memory of how he pinned her into the wall. That moment rendered me as a permanent third wheel.

"Patience, Princess." He smiled. "You'll get your chance, you've been at this for two months. I waited twenty-two years, eight after I met Sable."

"It should be longer than two months." I rubbed my free hand over my forehead and heaved a sigh. When I removed them, I looked over and saw Cole's eyes were on me, then he quickly brought them back to the road.

Fearing that meant he aimed to slip into another conversation-free coma, I asked him something that I hadn't pressed upon enough earlier.

"Why are you here with me then?" I wasn't going to let this subject go. "Why not run away and have a litter of babies with Elena?"

"You have no idea how much I'd rather do that, Princess." He scoffed and his fingers squeezed around the steering wheel.

"Then why?" I pressed, both Cole and my patience level with him withholding information. "Why are you the head of my security?"

"I... can't." His fists squeezed tighter and his voice dropped to an obvious 'Drop it, Zara' level.

I ignored his suggestive warning. I had nothing else to do and he talked to me so I couldn't resist and poked the bear.

Literally. I turned back and jabbed his meaty bicep with my finger.

"Can't talk about it?" I chided him, pairing each word with a poke into his rock-hard muscle. "Or won't?"

Shrugging my jabbing finger off, he fell silent for several minutes. I wasn't sure if he was silent so I dropped the subject but his eyes shifted between different points outside the windshield.

Oh... maybe they can't have children?

My lower lip rolled under my teeth, where I held it.

I'd really be an asshole for teasing him about that.

"He... killed her," he spat the words so softly, only a wolf's sense of hearing would have picked them up.

"Who?" I whispered, my eyes wide at his candor.

Turning back, the bluish glow from the dashboard and darkness surrounding us gave Cole's expression a ghastly color. Lines in his jaw etched with shadows as he clenched it.

"My sister." His eyes darkened as they looked straight into mine. "Your father killed my sister. That's why I'm here."

"Your... sister!?" The words squeaked out of my mouth.

I stared at Cole, my face chilling like the blood drained from it, for what felt like five hours. The amount of time that passed was more like five seconds, perhaps five minutes, but the weight of his words struck right into my entire being. My heart thumped in my ears.

His entire body remained rigid and slumped over the steering wheel, eyes forward, mouth pressed closed. The slight round in his forward slump stretched his T-shirt over his tensed back and shoulder muscles.

"How?" I whispered.

"It was twelve years ago," he mumbled with his eyes forward. "She was seven, I was ten. We both got the annual vaccinations before school started, like normal. I was fine but within three days she went from her normal, happy self to comatose."

By far the most I'd ever heard Cole open up about something personal, I sat back with my mouth dropped open. Mostly because, after six hours, I absorbed the fact he said anything at all.

Didn't expect him to open up emotionally.

If I hadn't been seat-belted down in my chair then I would've fallen over.

Even in a whisper, his voice strained, "She... never woke up."

"Oh, my Goddess." My hands flew to my gaped open mouth. The situation sounded like a complete freak accident. "What was she like?"

"My baby sister," he confessed with a softness I didn't know he was capable of. "She wanted to do everything I did, and most of the time I pushed her away. She loved singing and being outside. She used to collect, of all things, rocks."

"Rocks?" Despite the horrible, devastating subject, a smile played on my lips.

"Yeah..." If I hadn't blinked then maybe I would've seen a similar smile on Cole's face, but I missed it. Fortunately, he continued, "We grew up near the caves on the Southern territory's border with the West. She used to go inside them and got so excited about rocks and geodes that she'd found."

"That's cool though." I meant that because it sounded like exploring for hidden treasures.

"She must've had over a hundred when she passed away." Cole's tone turned somber and whatever lightness he wore in his expression tightened, "So we buried her in them."

My heart tugged in my chest and tears pricked the corner of my eyes. I didn't have much else to offer, but when I spoke my voice was husky. "Again, I'm so sorry."

"You didn't have anything to do with it." His voice box slipped back into cold and dismissive mode, Cole shrugged.

"So..." I drummed my fingers on the passenger's side door. "Not to make anything about me, but why are you in the Central territory now?"

"I couldn't save her, but when I heard about a security position guarding you..." As his leveled voice drifted, his brown eyes became dark. "She would've been your age next month."

My heart cracked for his loss. I only knew a slight comparison but still filled my thoughts. I rubbed my hand over my chest, as if the frictioned rubbing eased the pain.

I lost a brother that I'd never known. Cole lost a sister that he'd grown up with and watched as she slipped away. His experience was by far worse. My fingers curled around my seatbelt strap and I clung to like a life support line.

"Cole..." I reached over, took his nearest hand in mine, and squeezed his palm. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't get all sentimental." His eyes rolled, but he gave me a squeeze back then dropped my hand. "Elena wanted me to tell you because she said I'm too tough on you. Which isn't going to change, Princess, even knowing about my sister."

"You're a kitten in training compared to Raina." I grinned as he scowled. "But thank you for telling me."

He didn't reply, sending me an annoyed scowl that I was happy to interpret as Cole's version of a smile.

The scary version he gives anyone other than Elena.

Maybe that's why he's also pissy, he's worried about her.

"You..." he started and paused, his eyes searching the inky black expanse beyond the car's headlights. "Would have liked her. Everyone loved her within the first two minutes after meeting her."

A smile played on my lips. "What was her name?"

"Sunniva," he whispered, before his own mouth tugged into a soft smile. "I called her Sunny. She was like a ray of sunshine, at least to my ten-year-old self. We had the same eye and hair color, although hers had golden highlights."

"Sunny." My smile widened at the cute softness in his voice. "I like it."

He grunted and slipped back into silence. I paused for a few moments and watched the blackened shapes that passed around us. The narrow road curved and dipped. A set of dark gray clouds masked the moonlight. Only the headlights illuminated ahead of us.

I wasn't sure how appropriate asking how Cole's sister had passed, but asked anyways, "You said it was... the vaccines?"

"My guess." His shoulders shrugged up to his tensed neck. "She wasn't sick before she got them."

Chewing on my lip, why he traveled to the Western territory became obvious. My father's pharmaceutical company developed and manufactured those very vaccines. Those same vaccines were distributed to the entire country and administered to everyone.

Almost everyone.

I'd never gotten the annual vaccinations because Anna informed me they were incompatible with my other medications. Now I knew those were female reproductive suppressants, silver nitrate, and wolfsbane, but none of those components made sense for common vaccines like polio.

Looks like I'm not the only one who has questions for the medical manufacturers.

I didn't prod Cole any further, but felt the need to offer some form of comfort, "I'm sorry for what happened to your family. We're going to get to the bottom of this, I promise."

"That's the plan." He pulled his scowl into a tight smile, confirming my suspicions.

'So... You felt this way about my father all this time?' Since Elena had told me I needed to practice mindlinking, I switched and earned myself a Cole grunt. 'You joined his pack anyways? Why?'

'Call it undercover detective work.'

Frown lines creased the space between his eyebrows. He paused, again at most a minute. In the silent car surrounded by blackened darkness, the span of silence felt like years.

Cole's eyes gazed forward, with an occasional flick in my direction. Despite knowing he mentally chewed on what to tell me, I didn't expect what he told me next.

'Gathering inside information princess... for my real pack.'

My spine stiffened, shoulders locked, and breath froze in my lungs.

'Which is...?' A chill shivered down my spine as my mouth dropped open.

First Elena's secretly from the Eastern territory, now Cole?

The fact that my father took in wolves from other packs made sense. Other than my nurse Anna and a few house keepers, I never saw any females in the island mansion. There were no families, only security detail warriors.

Still, Cole must have been pretty discreet and trusted by my father to become head of my security team.

'I'm the future gamma of the Red Valley pack.' He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, waiting for my reaction to the second bombshell he dropped within an hour.

Unfortunately, for this reveal of secretive information, it was my turn to become anticlimactic.

'Huh?' I blinked at him as if that meant something I should have known. 'Where?"

Cole inhaled and held his breath. 'Southern territory, princess.'

'Ohmygawd!' I squealed and clapped my hands over my mouth. The gesture was a force of habit gesture, but Cole winced at my girly thought.

My pleasant surprise was replaced with a frown and my fist slugged into his bicep. As expected, he didn't flinch or rub the spot. 'Sorry, why didn't you tell me sooner?'

'For a long time, we didn't know who's side you were on, Princess.' His brown eyes looked at me, round with concern. 'But after what your father did to you last month, the isolation and manipulation Elena told me about... We decided to take a risk, hoping that you hate him as much as some of the rest of us do.'

"I don't," I blurted out loud, sending us both back into silence.

My lower lip pinched with pain from my teeth sinking down at the admission. Cole's spine stiffened so his head bumped against the ceiling and he wrenched the steering wheel. After a few seconds, his gaze caught mine.

I stared at him, my eyes unblinking, then made a quiet admission. "I... don't hate him like you do."

My voice sounded as emotionless and cold as ice crystals formed around the edges of my heart. They first pricked into existence when I laid in the hospital and wondered why he left me to bleed out in a field. Gnawing inward, the icy chill spread with each lie after lie revealed through Elena and Rashida's snowball approach. The last snowflake that froze over my heart, hardening it with callous indifference, fell when the lies threatened Lumi.

"Zara - " Cole started, his voice soaked in hesitation.

The corners of my scowl turned up into a smile that didn't match the coldness inside me. I stared directly into his eyes, without so much a flinch in my expression or voice as I admitted the conclusion I'd come to before we left the Eastern territory.

"I hate him more."

She didn't say anything, but based on her quiet, steady waves of anger radiating through me, Lumi was in full agreement.