by Rider, C. P.
"Ripping out your throat would feel so good right now, spiker."
Her brain was easy to lock onto and penetrate. In less time than she had taken to grab me, I'd tunneled deep inside her head. The shifters in the living room were a fantastic source of energy, and I needed only a small amount from each of them to power my spike. The draw was so light per shifter that it didn't even wake them up.
"Don't." Dan Winters shuffled into the room, eyes bloodshot, body bruised. Carter must have given him the beating of a lifetime for him to not have already healed from it.
"What do you mean, 'don't,'" Farrah whispered harshly. "You hate her every bit as much as I do."
"I wasn't talking to you." He stared straight into my eyes. "Please don't hurt her."
Farrah laughed. "I think you should worry more about the person with their claw on her carotid."
Dan ignored his wife, focused entirely on me. "She's not herself. The pregnancy, plus what's happening with me right now, she's not thinking straight. I have no right to ask you for mercy, I know, but I am asking. Please don't do it. Please don't hurt my child."
"Tell her to get her hands off me and I won't," I said. "My word."
"Oh, your word," Farrah snapped. "What's your word worth?"
"Deal." Dan lowered his voice. "Let her go, Farrah. Now."
"No."
"Do not push me. I may no longer be third alpha of the Blacke group, but I am still a stronger alpha than you are. Release her."
The chill in his tone must have convinced his wife he meant business, because she retracted her claws and loosened her grip, releasing me. I stayed inside her head, because I wasn't stupid. Shifters, especially angry ones, were as fast as a tornado and just as deadly.
"Go into the bedroom and get our things, please," Dan said, keeping his eyes on me. He circled the island, giving me a wide berth as he approached his wife. "Do it now."
"Why should we go?"
"Exactly what do you think our alpha's response will be to your treatment of his mate in his house? We'll be lucky if he doesn't kill us both after this. This was a stupid thing to do." Dan said through gritted teeth. "Go."
Farrah, finally realizing that she had put her husband, herself, and their child in mortal danger, stumbled backward in her haste to leave the room. "I didn't mean…" she began, but one look from her husband and she clamped her mouth shut and ran out.
"I appreciate you not killing her," Dan said stiffly. It wasn't a lie. His thoughts mirrored his words.
"It was a near thing," I said blandly.
"You would have killed her even knowing that she's with child?" Dan dragged his hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers brushed a gash near his temple.
"To save my own life? Yes." Opening the drawer closest to me, I pulled out the darkest colored dishtowel I could find and pressed it against the cut on my neck. "If you're waiting for an apology, better get a magazine and settle in, because you're going to be waiting a long-ass time."
"You've been hanging around Chandra," he muttered, then aloud said, "I'm not expecting an apology. Farrah started it."
"It would be a good idea for the both of you to leave this house before Lucas sees what she did." Not that I cared what happened to either of them, but Lucas didn't deserve to have to kill Dan over me.
"Yes. It's a good idea for us to leave this town."
"Do you plan to leave now that you've lost your place in the group? It can't be a good situation for you. Having lost a challenge, I mean." Although I said this with no sarcasm, Dan's face darkened with anger.
"I lost my place on the security team, not in the group. Carter Reid is a stronger alpha than I am. So is Amir Gamal, for that matter. But I'm right behind them, which makes me more alpha than anyone else in the group. I have no worries."
His thoughts said otherwise. Dan was open to leaving, but Farrah wasn't having it.
"Does it bother you that people hate and fear you?" He held up both hands as if to show me he meant no harm, and began to circle back toward the guest room, again giving me wide berth. "That you could never be sure if they're being nice to you for yourself or because they're afraid you'll spike them to death?"
"If there's one perk that comes with being a telepathic spiker, it's that I absolutely know the motivations of the people around me." It's also one of the suckiest parts, but I didn't feel the need to confess that to Dan. "It's how I know you fear me."
To his credit, he didn't deny it. "That's right. You could spike the shit out of me and drag every secret I've ever had into the light for the entire world to see. That's your superpower, right?"
"Sure. But just because I have a superpower, doesn't mean I use it."
He halted in the doorway. "But you could."
"You and Farrah also have a 'superpower,' right?" I pulled the towel away from my neck, felt blood dribble down into my bra. "Tell me this, shifter. Who used theirs first today?"
Dan's jaw tightened. "I need to get out of this town." He left the room.
"Promises, promises," I muttered.
I checked on my coffee cake, then zipped across the living room and down the hall to Lucas's bedroom. Bleeding profusely in a room adjacent to hungry shifters was not on my bucket list, and any list made while bleeding in front of hungry shifters would have to be of the bucket variety.
The alpha leader of Sundance was naked and face down on the bed, lying diagonally, one arm hanging off the side. I admired his well-muscled ass for a moment before calling his name.
"Lucas." My hands were bloody, so I nudged his arm with my foot. "Wake up."
"What?" His voice was muffled by the pillow. "I just went to bed five minutes ago."
"It's half-past six. You went to bed three hours ago, which I admit isn't a lot of sleep, but let's not exaggerate. Anyway, I have a favor to ask. Two, actually."
"The answer is yes, but I need to go out to my truck for the condoms I bought yesterday. We're out."
This time I nudged him with a toe pinch to the thigh. "Not that, you horn dog. Although you probably should bring those inside for later…" Focus, Neely. "My first favor is that you not get mad and revenge-y."
"Revenge-y? Do you mean vengeful?"
"Yes. That's what I mean. Will you promise not to get all vengeful?"
"Mmmkay." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sniffed, and snapped up his head. "Hey, are you okay? Amir told me about what happened last—holy shit."
"I'm okay. Sort of. I do need you to heal me. I've got coffee cakes in the oven and this isn't sanitary."
"Jesus, Neely. How are you so calm?" He sat up and pulled me onto his lap. "Who did this to you?" His eyes flashed gold, his canines lengthened.
"You promised. No vengeance."
"I was tricked into agreeing to that. I thought I was getting sex."
"It looks worse than it is." The second the words left my mouth, I knew they were a lie. I was beginning to feel lightheaded from blood loss.
"Mentirosa." He placed his palm over my throat and closed his eyes. In seconds, the wounds disappeared from my neck and appeared on his. Another five seconds and they were gone. That was how Lucas was able to heal. He took on the wound himself and healed it with his accelerated healing ability. He couldn't heal mortal wounds—at least not wounds that would be mortal for him—but this was just a nasty bunch of cuts.
"Don't call me a liar. I was trying to keep you calm with a social fib." I leaned my head on his shoulder. "I feel kind of sick."
"Want to take a bath? Still got that vanilla bubble bath you like."
"You mean the bubble bath you like, and yes." I smiled. "First I need to wash off this blood, then ask one of the shifters to take the coffee cakes out of the oven when the timer goes off in twenty minutes or so."
"Those animals will eat it all. They wake up hungry after a convocation."
I scrunched my nose. "In that case, we'd better take a quick shower."
"Sounds good to me."
We went into the bathroo
m together. I stripped down while he turned on the water. "You going to tell me who did that or should I come right out and tell you I know it was Farrah Winters?"
"You should honor your promise and not get vengeful."
"I'm honoring, I'm honoring." He got into the shower and held out a hand to me. I took it and followed him into the warm, relaxing spray. "I wanted to murder him for what he did to you, allowing you to be captured by that damn trancer and taken to—"
"Why didn't you?" The words came out more accusatory than I'd intended, so I softened them. "What made you choose not to?"
"I had a talk with Amir and Chandra about it. They made some good points, but in the end, it was because of their kid. Dan's going to be a dad. If I killed him, I'd be punishing the child, and that didn't sit right with me." He sighed. "I'm not sure it was the right move, and my Smilodon thinks it's the shittiest move ever."
"Are you okay with the change on your security team?" I asked. "Dan's been your third alpha for longer than I've been around."
Lucas cupped my face in one hand and carefully soaped and rinsed my neck with the other, watching the red foamy suds slide down my body and swirl around the drain. When the blood had all been washed away, he pulled me close.
"I'm good."
We finished our shower and dressed, and I went to take the coffee cakes out of the oven to cool. Some of the shifters were waking, but most were still snoozing. Lucas appeared in the kitchen with his cell phone.
"I got a call from Juan Martinez while we were in the shower. He left a voicemail."
"Is he back in Austin?" Alpha Juan had helped Lucas and my dad save my life at the sanctuary. I owed him a favor. A big one.
God, I hoped he wasn't calling to collect it.
Lucas tapped on the phone's screen. "Last I heard, he was. Listen to this."
"Luke, can't talk long. In a tight spot at the moment. I've stumbled onto something out here and it involves Neely. Neely and … Gil. I'll call back. Answer your damned phone when I do. Be careful." The message ended with a muffled curse.
"That was cryptic." I transferred one of the blueberry coffee cakes from the stovetop to the island. "Alpha Juan mentioned someone named Gil? Who's that?"
"Do you remember when I told you how he was searching for his little brother? How he'd infiltrated several sanctuaries trying to track him down? Gil is the brother he was looking for."
I searched the utensil drawer for a cake server. "That's good news, then."
"You’d think." Lucas stared down at his phone. "But if finding Gil is such good news, why is Johnny calling to warn me?"
Chapter Nine
The Austin wolf alpha called back on the drive from Lucas's place to my bakery. If this were an ordinary Saturday, I'd have opened at six a.m. and closed at four p.m., although lately I'd been calling it a wrap somewhere around two. However, nothing about this day was ordinary. The way I felt, it would be a wonder if I opened at all.
Lucas answered the call. "Hey, Johnny. You're on speaker with Neely and me."
"You got my message?" Those were the first words out of Alpha Juan's mouth. The second ones were: "Is Neely all right?"
"I'm fine, thanks." The Mini's tires crunched over the graveled parking lot behind the bakery.
"Very fine indeed." Lucas winked at me. "Did you say you found Gil?"
There was a pause, and then: "Yes, and no. I haven't laid eyes on him myself, but a contact of mine called me after they took down what they thought was a sanctuary outside of Austin. This person caught a glimpse of my brother. Even managed to get a picture. He looks a little …" Alpha Juan cleared his throat. "It's Gil all right."
"That's good news." Lucas said this in a tone that conveyed that he wasn't sure it was.
"Yeah, it should be, right?"
"It's not?" I turned off the car, and Lucas and I took our phone call inside.
Another sigh. "To be honest, I don't know."
"How long has he been gone?" I washed my hands, then went into the bakery to start a pot of coffee. I still felt rough, but I'd decided on the short walk from the parking lot to the kitchen that I might as well open the café. What else was I going to do with myself? Sit around all day and wait for the wolf creature to attack me?
"A little over a year. But, as Luke knows, he'd left the family before that. I haven't seen him in years, but he called our mom and Auntie Gert regularly." Juan pronounced the word "auntie" like "Annie." It reminded me of the way people spoke in town when I was a kid, which made sense, since we were both from the same county in Texas.
"I knew something was wrong when he stopped calling altogether. A month after that, a friend of Gil's contacted me in Austin. A shifter named Rosie. They were captured together, but she managed to escape. She went back for him after she contacted me. I never heard from her again."
Lucas let that rest for a moment before asking the obvious. "What does finding Gil have to do with Neely?"
The sound of an engine in the background told me Alpha Juan was in a truck. Or a car with a loud engine, but I was betting on truck, having met the alpha wolf in person. He came across as a truck sort of guy.
"The contact, the one who sent me the picture of Gil? He went missing two days ago. Right after he sent the picture and what amounts to a partial report on the organization he believed was holding my brother. Yesterday, while investigating the information he'd sent me, I found his body."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Thanks. He was a good guy doing good work."
"What was in the information he gave you?" Lucas leaned against the doorway separating the kitchen from the café and watched me fuss around the display cases.
"Strangely enough, there was a Bible scripture, a list of names and photos, and contact information on each name. Neely was in that part of the report. I think they're coming for her."
Lucas stilled in that barely breathing sort of way only true predators can. "They're already here." He told Alpha Juan everything he knew about the attacks on me and had me fill in the rest. Not that I had much to add. My memory of the incident at the Dusty Cactus was shrouded in fog. I didn't remember half of what Lucas relayed to Juan, which he'd gotten from Amir, who had gotten it from me directly after the incident.
"Neely, can you describe the man you saw in the bar?" Juan asked.
I removed a tray of day-old mantecadas from the refrigerated display case, placed the muffins on the back counter, then faced Lucas and the phone. "Male. Handsome. Lucas." My forehead creased as I strained to recall anything about him. "When I say Lucas, what I mean is he reminded me of Lucas. Something … his hair, maybe? The only thing I recall clearly is how I felt about him."
"And how was that?"
"Equal parts attracted and repelled. And I was afraid."
"What about the song he played?" Lucas asked me.
"Oh, yeah. Whoever came into the bar apparently played an old country song on the jukebox. No one there saw anyone but me, but they heard the song."
"What song was that?" Juan asked.
"Seven Year Ache."
"Oh."
Frown lines appeared between Lucas's eyes. "Johnny, you don't think Guillermo could be involved in something like this, do you?"
"Come on, you know my little brother. If anything, he's being held prisoner by them. I just don't know where."
A fragment of conversation flowed into my brain.
"What's your name?"
"Neely. What's yours?"
"Guillermo."
I must have gone pale, because Lucas pulled away from the doorway and reached for me.
"What did you say his full name was?" My lips felt numb as I formed the words.
"Who, Gil?" Lucas's frown lines deepened. "It's Guillermo Martinez."
"Damn it, will you people please use your actual names? Why would anyone shorten a beautiful name like Guillermo, anyway? And even if you were going to anglicize it, why Gil? It's supposed to be William." I blurted this as I stepped out of Lucas's reach an
d picked up the cleaning supplies I kept under the counter. My hands. I needed to do something with my hands. Something to stop them from shaking so badly.
"It's a family nickname," the Texas alpha replied.
"Neely, are you okay?"
"Yes, Lucas, I'm fine," I lied. "The man who came into the bar told me his name was Guillermo. I remember it now. Your brother isn't a prisoner, Alpha Juan, he's one of them."
"That can't be true."
"You'd better tell us everything you know about this organization," Lucas said.
"There isn't much." Juan's reply was low and gritty. He spoke in the voice of someone who'd just had the breath knocked out of him. "I'll email you the list of names and photos, but I think these are potential victims, not members of the group. The, uh, Bible scripture was from the book of Mark, King James Version. Don't have it in front of me, but I'll give you the gist. It's about a man from whom Jesus casts out these demons. When the demon is asked for its name, it says something like—"
"My name is Legion. For we are many," I said.
"You've heard this story."
"It's what Guillermo said to me." I abandoned the disinfectant on the nearest table. "Do either of you know any dire wolf shifters?"
Lucas's gaze narrowed. "What makes you ask that?"
"The witches. They said the creature I described might be a type of prehistoric called a dire wolf. They thought it was an omen because the wolf showed up in their dreams."
Alpha Juan cursed—in Spanish and English.
"Is that possible, Johnny?" Lucas asked.
"What? No, it can't … it's not possible…" Alpha Juan sputtered. "There's no way… I mean, there's only one of us per generation per family. That's how it works. How it has always worked."
My eyes widened. "You're a dire wolf?"
"Yes, I am."
"Are you sure this has never happened before?" Lucas asked.
"I can ask Auntie Gert, but she would have told me long ago if it were a possibility. I think." He sighed. "Luke, if this is true, things just got a hell of a lot more complicated. I have to take these people down and I can't do it alone."
"No." Lucas's voice held a growl. "She's not going to Austin."