“Move to the other side, by the shelves with the clothes,” Drake sounded calm, but she felt as though it was deceiving as to what he was really feeling.

She turned her back to the wall so that she was facing the newcomer as she backed away. Drake was snarling and growling with such ferocity that she worried that perhaps the man standing there looking startled was dangerous to her.

“Decebel and Jen sent me,” the man said as he attempted to look anywhere but directly at the wolf snarling at him. When he turned to look at her, Drake lunged, crashing into the cage. The man backed up. “Okay, okay, I won’t look at her. I’m supposed to show her where the bathroom is, and I brought food, water, blankets and pillows.”

Bethany just stood there unsure of what she should do. After several minutes of nothing but Drake snarling and the man standing there looking at the ground, she decided she’d better say something.

“If you will just leave the stuff there outside the door, I can grab it once you’re gone. I don’t think he will like it if I come over there while you are in here.” Drake growled louder as if needing to punctuate her words.

“What about the bathroom? Jen, she’s the Alpha female of our pack, thought you would like to clean up, take a shower, and brush your teeth.”

Bethany did not like the idea of being naked in a house full of people she didn’t know.

“I can wait on the shower,” she paused and turned to look at Drake. “Or, if you let him out he could go with me and guard the door. I would feel safer with that than going on my own.”

“Do not let me out of the cage, Bethany.” His statement and the anguish that filled his voice surprised her.

The man started toward the cage. “Wait! Stop!” she yelled. The man jumped back when Drake lunged again. “Okay, bad idea. Drake said not to let him out of the cage.”

The man’s eyes widened. “You’re his mate?”

Bethany shrugged. “Looks that way.”

“But he’s not in control. How can you be his mate and him still be like that?” He pointed at the wolf who was practically foaming at the mouth.

“I don’t really know what he’s supposed to be like. I’m new to the whole werewolf, mate thing.”

After several more minutes of tense silence, the guy turned to go. “I’ll just leave this stuff here like you asked.”

He closed the door behind himself and Bethany let out the breath she’d been holding. She turned to look at Drake who had already phased back to his human form. He held out a hand, silently requesting another pair of sweats. She tossed them to him, too distracted by what the guy had said to notice his nudity or be embarrassed by it.

“What did he mean, Drake? He acted like you should somehow be acting differently because of me.”

Drake pulled the pants on and then stepped over to the right side of the cage. He wrapped his hands around the bars and leaned his head against them with his eyes closed. “He means I shouldn’t be feral.”

“Feral? What does that mean?”

“It means my wolf has lost control. The darkness has seeped too deep inside and when my wolf takes over, I can’t control him. Usually a male who finds their true mate has more control over his wolf. Most males don’t like their mates to touch other males, but being in the same room with another male, especially a pack mate, doesn’t usually bring on violence. My wolf doesn’t want any males near you. If I hadn’t been in this cage, I would have killed him.” She knew he was talking about the man who’d just been there. But he didn’t say his name, almost as if saying his name would make him too much of a person, and not an enemy.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So, what will happen?”

Drake’s scarred back was tense as he answered. “My Alpha will have to kill me.”

Epilogue

"I'm falling. I keep waiting to hit the ground, to feel my body be crushed from the impact, but it never happens. I just keep falling. It's a continual state of moving, yet going nowhere" ~Sally

Sally Morgan sat on the balcony of her apartment staring out at the slowly setting sun. She loved sunsets. She loved knowing that, even as the darkness fell, the day wasn’t really ending. Rather, a new one was on its way to beginning.

She needed a new beginning. Her parents’ deaths had been sudden and in the blink of an eye she found herself on her own. As soon as her parents had been buried and their house cleaned out, she'd packed up her stuff and driven all the way to South Carolina. And the only reason she stopped there was because the ocean was in the way. She'd come to the last town before the ocean began and found an apartment within a day of arriving. Tomorrow she would begin putting in applications for a job.

The paper lay beside her on the little table next to her chair. She’d circled little ads here and there. Sally picked it up and glanced back over the employment section. She'd circled two advertisements for department stores—she liked clothes so she thought that could be fun. She had circled one for a bank—at least at a bank she'd have weekends off. She'd circled one for a vet clinic—she loved animals. Those all made sense to her. But the last job she'd circled was a mystery to her and the only reason she could think that she'd picked it was because she needed a new beginning. She wanted to try things she'd never done before and be someone she'd never been. So when she'd read the ad for, 'Bartender needed, will train, no experience necessary', Sally had circled it on a whim. Out of all the jobs she'd considered, it was the only one that felt right to her. Who knows, maybe she'd actually even be good at it?

Thank you so much for taking your time to read Den of Sorrows. I truly hope that you enjoyed it and don’t dislike me too much for that ending…just remember I believe in happy endings. It just might take our favorite characters going through hell, and back, before we get there. Hang in there! There is more to come. I’ve already started working on Book 10 in the Grey Wolves Series. Many of you ask how many books will be in this series and my answer is as many as the characters will let me write. As long as the story continues to unfold and it doesn’t become boring or blah, then I will keep writing the GWS. Check out my other books, as well as the following talented YA authors.