CAGED (Mackenzie Grey #2) by Karina Espinosa Read Free Book Online Page B

Jeep and pushed the seat forward to allow Emma to get out from the back. She didn’t move.
    “Come on, Emma, this isn’t the time to mess around. It’s almost morning and Roman needs to get home,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s a vampire.”
    “So he can’t be in the sun?”
    “He can, but it just makes him tired.”
    “So why didn’t he stay home?”
    I sighed. “Emma, stop with the million questions. Please get out of the Jeep.”
    Her small eyes widened. “Please, Ace, please don’t take me to them. I’ll be nicer to you, I promise,” she gulped.
    Her little eleven-year-old hands gripped the back seat of Roman’s beat-up Jeep. Her knuckles whitened with fear of the unknown. I could relate.
    “Hey, Rome?” I called out to him. “Can you go on ahead, we’ll be there in a minute.
    He nodded and walked toward the fire of the Desert Wolves.
    I climbed onto the Jeep again and slid next to Emma.
    “I’m not scared,” she said. Her voice small.
    “I know you’re not. You’re too tough to be scared,” I said. “I mean, what eleven-year-old has the balls to stand up to me?”
    “Eleven and a half,” she corrected.
    “My bad, I meant eleven and a half. You see? Balls of steel you got there.”
    There was a pause as she looked away from me. “What are they going to do with me?”
    “They’re going to give you a home, Emma. A home with your own kind.”
    She gulped. “My mother said Lunas are slaves. I don’t want to be that.”
    It was my turn to freeze in uncertainty. Lunas weren’t slaves, but they weren’t free to be who they wanted to be. There was a structure and they had to follow it. It was the reason I was on the run and not part of the Brooklyn Pack. I couldn’t live like that—I’d rather be dead.
    “You won’t be a slave, Emma,” I lied without looking at her. “Whatever Pack you belong to, don’t let them change you—and you give them hell if they try.”
    Through my peripheral vision, I saw her scoot closer and wrap her arms around me. Her little breath exhaling a sigh of relief as she rested her blonde head on my arm. “Thank you,” she muttered, still embracing me.
    I wrapped my free arm over her as a single tear escaped my eye. I didn’t deserve a thank you, I was putting the last nail in her coffin.
     
    ***
     
    Emma wouldn’t let go of my hand as we walked through the open land to the entrance of the camp. The Desert Wolves lived freely, most of the time in their wolf form. You would have thought being a wolf full-time would make them less human, but it didn’t. They were so in tune with the earth, if anything they were more human than wolf. I envied that sometimes.
    La Loba and her son Emmanuel stood by the bon-fire with Roman. While she was old and weathered, Emmanuel was tall, strong, and a warrior. He was shirtless with only a pair of basketball shorts on. His long black hair was braided behind him to his mid-back. And like his mother, his eyes glowed yellow—the only inkling that his wolf was present. 
    Everyone knew La Loba was the Alpha of the Desert Wolves, but Emmanuel assumed the role when they meet with The Summit, since women couldn’t hold that position. Their tribe believed the oldest in their community were the wisest and only ones qualified to be Alpha. I liked their way of thinking even if they practiced their ways in secret.
    “We missed you last month,” Emmanuel said as he smiled, his canines peeking over his bottom lip.
    I shrugged. “Was busy with a case, but I’ll be around next time.”
    He nodded. “Good. So what brings you around on a non-full moon?” his eyes glided over to Emma and back to me.
    I cleared my dry throat. “Emmanuel, La Loba, I’d like to introduce you to Emma…a Luna.”
    Emma’s hand tightened as it still held mine, and she stepped closer to me, hiding part of her face behind my arm.
    “Hey…” she grumbled.
    “Hello, little one,” La Loba smiled at her. Lines of age and wisdom, indented around