Book 3 -44-

[Waiting Impatiently]

DECLAN

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I set my jaw and drummed my fingers against my leg. You could hear the tension in the air. Over the last twenty minutes, my troops and I had been waiting in my parents’ old cabin for the hunters.

I recall my parents taking me here as a child. When things were quiet on the pack lands in the summer, we’d come up here, and I’d spend hours in the lake five clicks north of here. Though I didn’t want to sully those fond memories of them by utilizing the cabin as a hideout during the war, it was the only accessible spot where we would be safe and keep an eye out for the hunters closing in on the pack.

Hopefully, my parents wouldn’t be angry at me for using it other than as a vacation home.

As the minutes ticked by, I felt my anxiety rise. I felt out of control, waiting for something awful to happen to my pack. I tried to tamp down my fear and focus on what we needed to do. All this panicking had me wondering if this was my last day alive. Since Jasper to