But why?
“Get down!” Someone hollered.
My instincts set in when I heard something closing in on me from behind. It was Marshall, that relentless bastard.
I stumbled to the ground, but something caught my ankle. I kicked back, catching Marshall right across his snout. Jayce threw himself on Marshall again and they landed some three feet away. Still in shifter form, they circled each other. Both were battered, bruised, and literally drained of strength. They were panting hard.
“Draven, is that you?” A cop demanded over the amplifier. “Tell your man to shift and stand down, or he will be shot.”
“Jayce!” Draven hissed, running across the field.
This time Jayce complied. Kneeling to the ground and letting his human side take over. But Marshall didn’t follow suit. He had other ideas, and not a second later, he had torn into Jayce’s forearm.
As he stated, the cop fired and something missed Marshall by only a hair, catching him in the left ear before landing in the ground. Marshall must have realized the severity of the threat because he knelt in the dirt and changed into his human form.
“Are you going to finish this or what, mutt?” Marshall demanded.
“You know I will. Your claim is baseless. If you so much as attempt to put your paws on her again, I will tear your face off,” Jayce stated.
Everyone heard the bickering from across the field.
“Men, this is over. You’re both going to jail.”
Two cops rushed over to where the men stood with cuffs. Before they could get there, Jayce and Marshall started fighting again. The chaos didn’t end until Jayce held Marshall’s head in a vice grip.
“Now, renounce your intentions of harming her,” Jayce demanded.
“Never!” Marshall spat. “When I get out of this jail…and I will…I’m going to make sure she’s ruined for you. I’m going to fuck her and breed her until I feel like my brother has been avenged. I won’t renounce my intentions of taking her, because that is precisely what I plan to do. You hear that, you fake ass cops? No one will be able to stop me. I will—”
The light went out in Marshall’s eyes as he went still.
I didn’t miss the noticeable rage on Jayce’s face as he twisted Marshall’s thick neck again, making sure he was dead. The body fell to the ground.
As Marshall’s cronies started to shift and run across the field to avenge their alpha, they were shot with what looked like red darts.
“Jayce Pembroke. You are under arrest…”
My mouth dropped open and I watched as the cops put Jayce in handcuffs and cart him off.
Everything else was a blur. I think I might have collapsed on the ground, but all I remembered was Draven calling out my name urging me to wake up and then someone was carrying me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
VIOLET
I rubbed my forehead with my palm as I rose from what felt like a nap that had gone on too long. I felt groggy, hungry, and like I was run over by an eighteen-wheeler.
I swung my legs over and almost lost my balance before realizing that I wasn’t on a bed, but a hammock. This wasn’t Jayce’s home. I knew that for sure and it damn sure wasn’t my parent’s home either.
Standing up, I took in the huge screened porch and all of the mosaic, porcelain, and clay pots surrounding me. A calming water feature sat off to one corner and various plants and vines were everywhere. It was either very early in the morning or late in the evening. I walked to the furthest end of the porch and peered through the darkness.
A man cleared his throat behind me.
I spun around to find Draven standing there with a glass of ice water.
I frowned. “Where’s Jayce?”
“Well, hello to you, too,” he mumbled and held the water out at me.
“What happened? How did I get here?”
“I drove you here.”
“Thank you.” I took the glass of water and took a long sip, relieved as the dryness at the back of my throat disappeared. “And Jayce?”
“You’ll see him soon.” Draven looked away.
“You don’t sound so optimistic.” I sighed and sat down in a wicker rocking chair to the right of me. “What time is it?”
Draven glanced down at his wristwatch. “Let’s just put it this way. We should both be asleep.”
I rubbed at my face. “That’s why I feel so terrible.”
“You didn’t sleep all that long. We got here just before nine last night. It’s now four in the morning.”
“Jeez, that’s early,” I exclaimed. “And I slept out on the hammock?”
He chuckled. “Let’s just say you weren’t too happy about leaving Jayce behind when you found out we had driven away after I told you we were following them to the police station. You wouldn’t come inside my house. You fell asleep on the hammock.”
“I do remember fighting with you,” I said, my face heating in embarrassment.
“Trauma affects us in different ways. You were in shock, probably in a daze. Once you fell asleep out here, I thought I’d just let you rest. I didn’t want you to put up another fight with me, either. The chair was comfortable though.”
“You slept out here with me?”
He nodded. “Jayce would kill me if anything happened to you. And I mean that for real.”
“Where am I?”
“Log cabin. About ten miles west of Jayce’s house. I live here.”
“Alone?” I asked, glancing around at the well-manicured plants.
“Yeah.” He shrugged.
“This porch is nice and airy with all the plants and decor,” I said.
He grinned. “Well, I can’t take credit for it. The house comes with a maid. Two actually.”
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t bring myself to seek comfort, not when Jayce was in trouble.
“Jayce was hurt really badly out there,” I said.
“He’ll heal.” Draven leaned against the door.
“How come they arrested him? This was all in self-defense. He was defending himself!”
“Yes, everyone there knew that. Every cop in this town knows that the rogues are a murderous bunch. Marshall was just one name off of their long list of criminals.”
“He admitted to kidnapping other women and using them as breeders, so that’s good, right?” I asked, trying to be optimistic about the situation.
“Works in our favor, yes. However, Jayce still ended a life right in front of the cops. The blood is on his hands. He could’ve done it anywhere else to avoid a charge, but he had no choice. I would’ve done the same thing. Marshall has been known to disappear in the wake of his crimes. Someone needed to stop him. Rest assured, Jayce will be out soon. They have nothing else on him. They shouldn’t, at least.”
Draven sounded like he wasn’t sure. It almost seemed like there was a possibility that they would keep Jayce for other reasons.
“What about the incident from the night I was kidnapped?” I asked.
“Black Ridge pack members got to the wolf bodies before anybody else could find them. The bodies were dragged from the scene in a manner consistent with shifters collecting their dead after an altercation. When Jayce killed them to save you, he left them in wolf form. Even if an unsuspecting human had stumbled upon the bodies, they wouldn’t have thought anything of it other than getting the hell away from the area before the predator came back. That’s only if they’re smart though. Some people are just too damn nosy though. Point is, none of the killings were reported. But we now have evidence that women were being kidnapped by the rogues and held against their will.”
“Do you think the other women will be found alive?” I asked.
“Those rogues are known to keep their breeders like trophies, especially when they cooperate because they fear for their lives.”
I couldn’t help but think where I might have ended up if Jayce hadn’t come when he did. In another state? Canada? Dead? “Any idea where they might be keeping these women?�
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“With the rogue pack at its weakest point and several wolves in police custody, there’s a chance that information will be leaked. The problem is, we don’t know where the rogues have set up their home base but it could be somewhere across the border outside of Arrow Lake jurisdiction.”
“I hope this is all over soon. Is there anything I could do, like give my side of the story? I was there the whole time Jayce was under attack.”
“Do you know who else was there the whole time?”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Two out-of-state hikers. They saw the whole thing go down.”
“Oh, yeah…I remember. The hikers who called the cops.”
“Wait a minute,” Draven said, putting his hands on his hips. “I thought you called the cops.”
I shook my head. “No, I was going to, but then I remembered what Jayce told me about how some of the cops weren’t being so trusting of shifters at the moment.”
“You made the right decision.”
“You said the hikers saw everything?”
Draven nodded. “They got some pictures in too and maybe a video or two. The cops confiscated the evidence.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t end up on Facebook or anything. Last time something like this happened, journalist and news reporters came out here in droves. As you can imagine, we don’t like being the source of someone else’s entertainment, so most of us refrained from shifting out in the open for weeks in fear that we’d end up on social media.”
“I guess there are some who would use a video like that against you, but there are others who just want to understand you,” I said.
“We know that,” Draven said, calmly. “But not all of us openly identify as shifters.”
“The cops? Were they going to shoot you if you hadn’t surrendered when you first got there?” I asked.
“Probably. None of the rifles they were aiming at us had real bullets in them. In this town, they’re allowed to shoot us with tranquilizers if we don’t comply. Some activists think we’re an endangered species. Either way, we can’t always be sure that we won’t get shot down with real bullets. When the rogues started causing problems, residents started to take up real firearms. Because they were under threat, they had the right to shoot if they became a target. I don’t blame them really.”
“Why did their alpha try to bite me?”
“It’s an old custom. When an alpha bites a female, she belongs to him regardless of the mate mark,” Draven stated.
“But if Jayce had told him that we shared the mark, would that have discouraged him?”
“No,” Draven replied, almost too quickly. “A rogue like him wouldn’t even have cared about your mating status. If Jayce had told Marshall about how you two were actually mates and he ended up beating Jayce or getting out of jail for whatever reason, Marshall would’ve done everything in his power to take you and he would’ve kept you out of spite…probably as a breeder to avenge his brother. That’s why Jayce killed him. That’s why he couldn’t stay alive. Marshall would’ve found some way to get out, especially now that he has someone on the inside. It was a fight to the death for many reasons.”
I sighed on a ragged breath. “But it was all in self-defense. The rogues started it. They got what they asked for, but he’s still in jail.”
“Yes, it was. That’s why I’m confident we’re going to get him out.”
“Will the rogues come back?”
“Possibly, but not for the same reasons. Marshall’s vendetta was very personal, but the Black Ridge pack has ties here, just like any other pack that originated from here. They’re still out there, but without an alpha, they’re weakened. It won’t be long before they regroup again. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep them out of Arrow Lake, but I can’t do that with the current restrictions.”
“Lakely’s Law, you mean?”
He nodded. “If we’re going to protect Arrow Lake, we need to be a part of it. And this is our home. We won’t go anywhere.” He paused and then asked, “Do you want to leave here?”
“No, I want to stay,” I replied. “I have to know that Jayce is coming back home and that he’s safe. Get him out. Please.”
Draven nodded. “I will. Until then, you’re under my protection.” He looked away and then down at the floor. Jayce would do the same thing at times when he was troubled about something. They had grown up together like brothers. Their mannerisms were the same. But something told me that Jayce and Draven were more different than the same. Or maybe it just felt that way to me because Draven didn’t really know me and I hardly knew him. Draven kept his feelings contained and at bay while Jayce had no problems voicing his emotions.
“I appreciate everything,” I mumbled. “I made some mistakes coming here and I was careless for stopping at that rest stop. Maybe it’s cruel fate, but if I hadn’t stopped…” I bit my lip, troubled for having to think that I was destined to be the party of some evil custom in order to meet Jayce.
“That’s not how the mate mark works, Violet.”
Blinking back the tears that had almost spilled from my eyes, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“The mate marks draw two individuals together. You would’ve met Jayce one way or another. In another time. Another place. It just so happens that some really bad guys interfered in the worst way possible.”
I narrowed my gaze. “So, you think I would’ve stumbled upon Jayce somehow?”
“What do you think led you to that friend of yours that lives less than a two-hour drive away from Arrow Lake? Is she your only friend?”
“No. I could’ve stayed with quite a few friends. I also thought about just going AWOL altogether without telling a soul. I don’t know what I was thinking when I chose Minnesota, really.”
“This isn’t cruel fate. Wouldn’t you agree?” he asked.
“What about you? Don’t you have a birthmark?”
Draven frowned. “Yes, but not every wolf is gifted with a mate. I’m convinced that no one wears my mark and thus, there is no true mate for me.”
I missed Jayce already. I needed his touch. I couldn’t wait until I could hug him again and hear him tell me that everything was going to be okay. “You’ll still fall in love one day. We all do. I know that now,” I told him, grinning as a giddy feeling rose in me.
I thought I saw a smile spread across Draven’s lips, but just like that, it was gone.
“I have too much on my hands to love anyone like that. That’s why I’m happy for Jayce,” he said, bluntly.
“But—”
“Come inside this time and make yourself at home. There are things for you to use in one of the rooms upstairs. Mrs. Neil is in the kitchen. You can tell her what you want to eat. I have an appointment with our lawyer soon to discuss Jayce’s arrest. If you’d like to go with us to the police station, be ready around noon.”
Draven didn’t wait for me to reply. He left swiftly, leaving the door open for me to follow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VIOLET
On our way to the jail, Draven stopped by Jayce’s house and asked me to go inside and pick out a change of clothes for Jayce. That was the point where I knew they were working to get Jayce out as quickly as possible. The lawyer had reported that there wasn’t any good news as of yet, but I was still hopeful.
During our drive on the way into town, Draven kept switching from radio station to radio station, until he finally turned the thing off. Somehow the story had made the town’s headline.
Shifter fight down in the valley, they claimed.
What shocked me was that most of the stories reported that the fight was between two male shifters over a girl. When I asked Draven about it, he told me that the police likely covered up the real motives like they always did. And in a town desperately trying to keep the tourists coming, I wasn’t surprised.
Driving behind us was a truck full of shifters from the Timber Rock pack. It certainly was
n’t the whole pack, but I counted at least six of them sitting in the bed of the truck. Draven and I were in the SUV with the lawyer. I didn’t recognize the driver.
As we rolled up into the parking lot of the police station, the lawyer was discussing his plans with Draven. Our attention immediately turned to the crowd of news reporters and journalists mulling around outside.
“Oh dear God no,” Draven grumbled, as he looked out at the spectators.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Looks like journalists are trying to squeeze out more of the story,” the lawyer exclaimed.
“I don’t even see how this made headlines. Did the videos get posted to social media or something?” Draven asked.
“I spoke with the investigator last night. He explicitly told me that he wouldn’t release anything to the public,” the lawyer replied.
“Well, someone must have. Why else would these journalists be concerned about a fight between wolves?”
“Don’t know. You two can stay in here while I go speak to the clerk. I’ll try to get the area cleared out.”
The lawyer made a mad dash for the front door of the jail. A few journalists chased after him, but many stayed behind attempting to get pictures of us. Thank God the windows were tinted. I just hoped the men in the truck bed weren’t being harassed too badly.
I looked out of the back window at the crowd.
“Your men are ignoring the reporters,” I stated.
“They know the drill. We don’t talk to journalists about anything that happens in our pack. Ever.”
“Do you think they know that you’re all shifters?”
“They know now, but we’re not exactly in hiding. This is the first time in two years that some of them have been in the main town.”
“I don’t see any protestors around. That’s a good thing, right?”
“They lifted the ban this morning, but only temporarily. I have a meeting scheduled soon with the mayor and we’re going to talk about getting rid of the law altogether. You do know who Lakely was, right?”
Jayce: Shifters of Timber Rock Page 12