Read Online True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) by Michaela Wright, Alana Hart - Free Book Online

wardens.”
    Sinead felt startling warmth wrap around her fingers. She looked down to find Theron holding her hand. She exhaled. She didn’t pull away.
    “This is internment,” he said, softly, and the tone hurt her heart. She knew it for what it was, but somewhere in Theron’s world there was a different kind of knowledge, a different memory that could only be harbored by those with certain ancestry – those who’ve heard stories of darkness, those who’d seen a different world than hers. It felt as though the Holdens saw this darkness arrive not with shock, but with an almost defeated expectation.
    It broke her heart every time.
    “How could this still be happening, and no one knows?” He asked.
    Sinead frowned. “This is five hundred miles north of the middle of nowhere, Theron. No one stumbles upon a place like this unless they mean to.”
    “Because we’re shifters?” He said, then his eyes went wide. He hadn’t meant to say it, but she’d known. If they let him onto the property – if they considered him one of the Holdens, then he was like the rest of them.
    And by the temperature of his hand alone, she’d known with utter certainty - Theron was like Eddie.
    “No one would speak up for us. The tribes don’t speak of us. We don’t share our stories with just anyone,” Theron said, and suddenly let go of her hand. He was up now, pacing. “Has anyone tried to dig under it? The fence? Have they done a perimeter check?”
    She gave him a half laugh and displayed her forearm to him. She took hold of his hand, drawing up his index finger, then ran it over her skin.
    The sensation unnerved her in a way she hadn’t expected. Still, she fought to hide it from him. A moment later, they both exhaled at the same time.
    They’d both been holding their breath.
    “What is that?” He asked.
    She touched her own fingertips to her skin. There was something hard there, just under her skin. She gave a sad smile. “It’s a tracker. We all have them.”
    His eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean? They put this in you?”
    He touched her arm again, this time with more purpose.
    She nodded, fighting to stifle a whimper of surprise and excitement.
    Where the hell did that come from?
    “If we congregate in one place for too long, they come. If any one person spends too much time along the perimeter, they come. If a tracker stops working, they come. Darrell cut his out after they injected them. Baird hunted him down for it. Shot him in the back with a new tracker.”
    Sinead went quiet a moment, remembering the sound of Darrell’s cries as he went down. Everyone had thought he was dead.
    Theron was agitated now, his feet falling heavier with each step. “No one knows? I know we’re not like other people, but a fucking internment camp? And they’re starving you, aren’t they? That fence doesn’t just keep you in – there’s no game. There’s no hunting, is there?”
    Sinead looked up at him, suddenly feeling an endless rush of patience. She knew all the things he was just now realizing – just now railing against.
    “There are no trees in sight – how do you keep warm in the winters?”
    Sinead gave a sad smile. “I have space heaters. On the really cold stretches, I stay with Pearl or Pauloosie and Cara.
    There looked to be a fire rising in his chest. She’d seen this before – just before Darrell got himself shot. “How big is The Extension? Acreage?”
    “We’re about five miles, squared as far as we know,” she said. She watched him for a long moment before she spoke again. “Don’t do it.”
    The wind howled outside the window, betraying a turn in the weather.
    Theron turned back to her, startled. “Do what?”
    She softened her eyes, taking a moment to let the silence speak for her. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re thinking of fighting back. It’s no use.”
    “How can you say that?”
    “They watch us. They watch us all the time. If we do anything they don’t like they punish