Wolf Six's Salvation A Shifter Love Story - Krista Lakes Page 0,2

sure to talk to Chloe almost daily. It was a part of their routine. Then six months ago the letters stopped.

At first, she hadn't been too worried. He was supposed to be stateside at a base in Virginia. Nothing bad could have happened to him stateside, and if something had, her mom would have received notification. So, at first it just seemed weird. Then his cell phone number was disconnected. Not just transferred or unpaid. Completely turned off.

It was at that point that Chloe had really started to be concerned. It was completely out of character for her younger brother to shut her out. Even when he was at his most angry, he would still at least text. She started calling Army bases around where he was last stationed, talking to his old squad mates or anyone he had served with trying to find some answers. No one seemed to know where he had gone. No word for three weeks had her to panic mode.

Her mother had told her not to worry; Blake was in the military and things like this happen. Chloe didn't accept that. Blake wouldn't have left without at least a note. She called everyone she could think of again.

The base in Virginia had no record of him ever leaving, but his bunk had been occupied by another soldier for weeks. Every former Army buddy she could find hadn't heard from him, and a few even seemed skittish about her asking. She finally had called up Delly, his best friend from the tour in Iraq, asking him if he had heard anything.

"I haven't heard from him, okay?" the man had growled into the phone. "You really need to just drop it. He'll start writing again when he can."

"What do you mean, 'when he can?'" she had asked, trying to coax as much information out of him as she could.

"Listen, Chloe, when someone goes dark like this, it's best not to mess with it, do you understand? If he can't be found then there is probably a good reason for you not to go poking your nose in places it doesn't belong." He refused to say any more after that.

The day after that phone call a letter had arrived. That one was in the very front of the box of letters.

Dear Chloe,

I heard you were looking for me. I'm not really supposed to be sending any letters right now, but I need you to stop looking. I'm on a mission and I can't write you, so this is the best I can do. Know that I keep that picture of you and Scout on that camping trip with me always. Let Mom know not to worry.

Love, Blake

She knew he was in trouble the moment she opened it. Scout was their "duress code". When they were kids, if Blake was in trouble but didn't want Mom to know, he would ask her to please feed their dog, Scout. Since that was already one of her chores, it had been the perfect cover. To see Scout's name mentioned in the letter told her that something was terribly wrong.

She stopped calling the base and actually went there. The members of his unit pretended that he had just been shipped off to a different platoon, but every one of them seemed edgy and unwilling to talk. Someone mentioned Afghanistan and the others nodded, everyone jumping on the lie as though numbers would make it true. She had gone back to her motel room disappointed.

She had been packing her bags to leave when one of the men from his unit showed up at her motel door. She remembered him saying his name was Roberts. He was wearing a ball cap and had the collar of his jacket turned up. He nearly bowled her over to get inside when she opened the door, but then he hid behind it and out of sight of the windows as though he were afraid that someone might see him.

"I don't know much about it, but if it were my brother, I'd be looking too. They gave us all this genetic test. It was just a swab on the inside of our cheek. We all had it done, but he was the only one they came back for," he had said, his voice low and quiet.

"What was the test for?"

Roberts shook his head. "I don't know. But I do know they were super excited when he agreed to help them. The men in the unit were all junior