Billionaire Wolf's MateDate - Serena Meadows Page 0,39
and turned his attention back to Janice. Her eyes were clear again, but her face was still pale, and her eyes kept darting over to the servants bustling around the room cleaning up. Still not making a connection, he studied her for a minute, then took her hand.
“Janice, I can tell something is bothering you; won’t you tell me what it is?” he asked.
She looked around, her eyes stopping on the guard posted by the door. “I don’t think we should talk about it here,” she said.
She picked at her breakfast but managed to eat enough to satisfy him, so he led her out to the barn and introduced her to the horses. Some of the strain disappeared from her face as she fed them chunks of apple and pieces of carrot, then he pointed out the sweetest mare and helped her saddle it. When they finally rode out of the barnyard, some of the color had returned to her cheeks, and she actually smiled at a few of his bad jokes.
They followed the path through the grounds, took a fork that led the to a little stream, then followed it through the forest. Janice seemed deep in thought, but then she said, “Josie told me what pays for all of this. I thought I understood, Reggie, but I really had no idea how bad it was. I don’t understand how something like this can go on in this day and age. I mean, isn’t there someone out there who could stop it?”
Reggie sighed. “That exact thought is what drove me away from here,” he said. “But what you have to understand is that the clan has lived here for so long that no one dares to touch them. Bad things happen when they try, and over the years, I guess the authorities have just given up. It’s not right, but that’s the way it is.”
“So, they can just go on terrorizing people, stealing their children and keeping them as slaves,” Janice said. “It makes me physically sick when I realize that I’m part of this, part of a family that cares so little for other shifters.”
Her face had become pale again, and he realized that it was anger that was robbing her face of all its color. “There is something we can do,” he said, stopping his horse and turning to look at her. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you, but I have a plan that will bring all of this to an end.”
She turned to face him, a smile spreading across her face. “How can I help?”
He grinned at her. “Well, for starters, there’s someone I want you to meet,” he said, kicking his horse into a trot. “But Janice, you have to know that this could be dangerous; our fathers aren’t going to give in easily, and some of the men on the council have just as much to lose as they do. I don’t know what my father’s proposal is, but the first thing we have to do is stop it.”
“I don’t care, Reggie. I can’t live here the way it is, and they don’t want to let us leave,” she said. “My mother made me promise never to let anyone force me to do something I didn’t want to do, and right now, I don’t want to be part of the clan the way it is. I promised Josie I’d help her. I’m going to keep that promise, and if you know of a way I can do that, then it’s worth a little risk.”
Reggie couldn’t help but smile at the fierce look in Janice’s eyes or the way her chin lifted in defiance, and deep inside, he felt the bloom of respect, coupled with a sense of pride that the woman riding next to him belonged to him. But he wiped the smile off his face when she looked over at him, feeling his love for her warming him from deep inside.
“Then we’d better get started. We have a lot of people to see today,” he said, kicking his horse into a gallop.
Janice dug her heels in and was soon riding next to him, her hair streaming out behind her in a dark curtain, her body one with the horse. He couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to shift and run with her through the forest, only the two of them, free of the clan. But he pushed the idea from his head, promising himself that the day would come