by Lynn Hagen
He glanced toward the stage to see the new DJ Christian had hired. It seemed the crowd loved having a DJ because the swarm of partiers had doubled since Christian had hired the guy. He had also hired a live band, but it was the DJ who was here tonight.
Christo appeared at Maverick’s side, his dark hair fanning over his shoulders as he waved toward the hallway leading to Christian’s office. “Everyone is here and waiting on you.”
“How’d Zeus get here so quickly?” Maverick lifted his arms when a female around the age of twenty bumped into him, her laughter more like a giggle as she stared up at him with glazed eyes.
“Sorry.” She screamed the word to be heard over the noisy crowd and ear-shattering music. He wasn’t sure how Christian dealt with this noise on a nightly basis. It was surprising his coven wasn’t deaf.
He gave her an easy smile and then walked behind Christo, entering the hallway and looking forward to the soundproof office. When Christian’s second closed the door behind Maverick, he sighed in relief.
“Now that you have us all here,” Christian said from the head of the table where the Ultionem was seated, “care to tell us why?”
Instead of taking a seat at the highly polished table, Maverick dropped down on the couch, setting his helmet beside him. “A cop in my town is after a coyote shifter.”
Everyone glanced at each other and then Christian turned back toward Maverick, his eyebrows pulled down. “What does that have to do with us?”
“He’s working for Kenyon,” Dante surmised correctly. “The head Vampire Hunter now knows shifters exist.”
Talking erupted around the table, everyone asking questions as Maverick watched them, waiting for them to quiet down.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Zeus argued.
“He could just have an ax to grind with the shifter,” Nazaryth interjected.
“Maybe the cop doesn’t even know this guy is a shifter,” Panahasi pointed out.
“Wait,” Ahm said loudly, cutting over the chatter. “I have a feeling there is more to this story.”
All six heads turned toward Maverick.
About damn time.
“There is,” he admitted. “The cop has been following Reno and his mate Baker. Officer Johnson tried to take Reno from his home at gunpoint and Baker is now missing.”
“That does sound like there is a bigger plot brewing behind the cop’s madness,” Zeus said as he shifted his mountainous body in the chair. “He’s using Reno’s mate for bait, or will be.”
“We have to find Baker,” Maverick said. “It seems the cop in question is nowhere to be found either.”
“Even if we find the cop and Baker, what about Kenyon?” Zeus asked. “It’s bad enough that he knows vampires exist. If he finds out about shifters, there is no telling what he will do. It’s a miracle he hasn’t gone public with his knowledge.”
“I think he wants irrefutable proof before addressing the media,” Maverick said more to himself than the group. He turned the situation over in his mind, looking at it from every angle. What would Kenyon gain from his knowledge?
“I still say we take him out before he opens his mouth, high profile or not,” Panahasi said as his fist came down on the table, making the glasses of water jump. “I can make it look like a terrible car accident, or he could burn alive in his penthouse. Trust me, Hondo is very good with fire.”
“And if he has files hidden somewhere?” Christian asked. “Do we continue to kill everyone who lays eyes on them?”
“Works for me,” Dante said. “It’s better than being exposed to the human world.”
“Let’s just catch this cop first and find out his motive.” Ahm leaned back, his belly more pronounced than the last time Maverick had seen the elf. It looked weird as fuck to see Ahm pregnant. Maverick remembered the man when he used to be blue, fierce, and closed off from the world. It seemed being mated to a Lakeland bear had mellowed Papa Smurf out. Too bad, Maverick used to have fun picking on the guy. He wasn’t even blue anymore. That just sucked. “It might not be Kenyon behind the scene,” Ahm finished.
It might not be, but Maverick’s gut told him that not only was the head Vampire Hunter pulling Officer Johnson’s strings, but this was only the beginning.
* * * *
Reno had been hunting his mate for the mating game before. Now he was on the hunt to find the man before Johnson did something horrendous to the human. Maverick had said he would help, but Reno couldn’t sit on his ass and do nothing.
“Anything?” Chief Callahan asked as he strode into the break room, a cup in his hand. The bear rinsed the cup out and refilled it with coffee. He set the empty carafe on the counter and then cut his eyes over to Reno.
“Nothing yet and I’m tired of waiting.”
“Then go search, but be careful. If Johnson reported the assault—”
“Cops would be swarming this place by now,” Reno finished, speaking through his teeth with forced restraint. “They aren’t, so I’m assuming he fled to where he’s keeping Baker.” If Reno had known at the time he had tagged Johnson with his fist that the rotten cop had kidnapped his mate, Reno would have hidden and followed the guy.
Now he had no clue where to begin searching. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands as he stormed from the firehouse to hop on his motorcycle and…go where? His intuition told him the cop hadn’t taken Baker too far. There were plenty of old houses standing empty around the county. But they were too many for Reno to search door to door.
There was a pain in the back of his throat and he found it difficult to swallow. If anything happened to his mate, Reno wasn’t sure what he would do. He was just getting to know the man.
“Do you want help looking for him?” Reno turned in the parking lot to see Bear walking toward him. “I haven’t a clue where to look, but if you need an extra set of eyes, I’m all yours.”
This was the second time today Reno had someone helping him. He wasn’t used to it. He had done things on his own for a very long time. Asking for help was hard for Reno, but this was for Baker. His pride be damned. “I’m not sure where to start either,” he finally admitted to someone other than himself.
“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, Reno.” Bear stepped closer. “Everyone needs help once in a while.”
Reno had tried his entire life to do things on his own, on his terms. But now he had a mate to think about. Although Reno wasn’t going to change who he was, he had to change how he did things. Being a loner was no longer an option. His mate needed him, so Reno would reach out to others.
Clearing his throat, Reno played with the straps of his helmet. “Would you mind helping me look for him?”
“Let’s take my truck.”
Setting his helmet aside, Reno joined Bear. “I was thinking that maybe Johnson would hide Baker in one of the houses that are empty on the outskirts—” Reno’s eyes narrowed when he spotted Officer Johnson cruising by in his police car. “That’s him.”
Bear reversed the truck and headed from the parking lot. They followed at a safe distance, making sure Johnson didn’t spot them. The dirty cop pulled into the police station and parked his cruiser.
Reno was out the truck and heading for Johnson with shifter speed. He grabbed the man, slammed his hand over the guy’s mouth, and dragged him over to Bear’s truck.
“What the fuck?” Bear said as his head snapped around, his eyes darting everywhere. “You trying to get us arrested?”
Reno lowered the tailgate and pulled Johnson in the back. The man struggled fiercely to get free, so Reno slugged him. “Just get us out of here,” he said quickly to Bear. “Take us to my place.”
“Assaulting a police officer and kidnapping,” Bear mumbled. “I’m going to be sleeping with Bubba.”
Reno ignored the prison reference as he held Johnson down, keeping him out of sight as Bear drove quickly through town. Johnson continued to try and get free, but Reno wasn’t letting him go.
Reno was
pulling Johnson from the truck even before Bear had it in park. He hauled the man into the house and shoved him in a chair, relieving him of his gun and cuffs. Using the cuffs to lock the cop to the chair, Reno took a step back.
“I am going to make sure your prison sentence is long and hard,” Johnson threatened as he yanked at his bound hands. His eyes cut over to Bear and he smiled maliciously. “They are going to love you as well. Big guy like you should make a hardened criminal happy to make you his bitch.”
Reno hurried to his bedroom where he grabbed a bandana from his drawer. If he didn’t shut Johnson up, he was going to scare the shit out of Bear. His boss was a nice guy and he highly doubted the man had done anything illegal in his life. Reno sure as hell hadn’t. This was his first crime.
“Call Maverick and tell him what’s going on,” Reno instructed his boss as he gagged Johnson. “He’ll know what to do.” Because Reno hadn’t a clue. All he knew was that he wanted his mate back. He wasn’t even sure how to go about interrogating the man besides beating him senseless. That worked for him, but he wasn’t sure it would gain results.
“They’re on their way,” Bear said as he slid his phone back into the case on his hip. The man looked a bit shaken, but otherwise fine. Reno hated involving the shifter, but his decision to kidnap Johnson had been in haste and he hadn’t had any time to find another course of action.
Reno spun when his back door opened. He had thought the other cops had found out about Johnson and were now swarming his place, until he saw Maverick. How in the hell had he gotten there so quickly?
And he wasn’t alone.
Reno had heard of the Ultionem, but to see them gathered together and walking into his home sent a chill racing over him. The men wore grim expressions as they glanced around Reno’s kitchen.
Maverick walked over to the light switch and turned it off. The room was instantly bathed in darkness. Reno wasn’t sure what the alpha was up to until he saw a pair of flaming eyes appear in the dark. It was the eeriest thing he had ever seen.
When he turned the light back on, Reno saw who the set of eyes belonged to. The man was massive, not just in stature, but just from the very air he breathed. They put the bad in badass.
“This is Johnson?” one of the leaders asked as if not impressed with what he was looking at.
“That’s him,” Reno confirmed. “But I wasn’t sure what to do get him talking.”
Maverick violently rolled his shoulders as he fixed Johnson with a flat gaze. “Trust me, I’m very good at making the unwilling scream.”
Chapter Eleven
Baker looked out from between the bars, but didn’t see anyone in the dull-yellow hallway. He had been sitting in this cell for hours after Officer Johnson had come to his apartment to arrest him. A freaking unpaid traffic ticket. That was what the cop got him on. Baker had never heard of a police officer coming to someone’s home to arrest them for something so damn minor. Johnson hadn’t even let Baker make a phone call.
The cop had marched him down to the cells where he had locked him up and left him to rot. Baker hadn’t seen a soul since. If he could make one phone call, Baker was pretty sure he could call his dad for the money. His father would lecture him, and probably try to ground his ass for being arrested, even though Baker was a grown man now. But he would deal with that if he could just get the hell out of here. He hadn’t even had a chance to call Reno to tell him where he was.
The sad fact was, Baker didn’t even have Reno’s phone number. He had never bothered to ask for it. The guy had been stalking him so much that he was always around. Baker hadn’t needed it. He needed that number now. With a weary sigh, Baker took a seat on the hard cot. Sooner or later someone had to come down here and get him. Johnson couldn’t just lock him up and forget about him.
From the way the loony policeman had been acting, Baker wouldn’t put it past the man.
“What are you in here for?”
Baker moved off of his cot and walked back over to the bars. He had thought he was down here alone in the row of cells. Apparently someone else was forgotten about as well. “Parking ticket,” he admitted.
“Really?” the deep voice asked in what sounded like stunned disbelief. “They arrested you for an unpaid ticket?”
“I guess so.”
“Then I’m really screwed,” came the sullen voice.
“How long have you been down here?” Baker asked, wondering if it was just him, or if the cops in Brac Village intentionally forget about their prisoners. With this being the first time Baker had ever been arrested, he wasn’t sure how things were done.
“Two days,” came the reply.
There was no way Baker was staying down here for two days. It was one lousy ticket, a parking infraction for his car sputtering to a stop in the middle of traffic. He hadn’t done it intentionally. The damn car had just stopped on him. What was he supposed to do?
In all honesty, Baker had forgotten about the ticket. He was more worried about getting his car fixed. But now here he sat, in the slammer for not paying it.
“Is that a normal time?” he asked. “Two days?”
“Never been arrested for a ticket. I’m not sure how long they’ll keep you. Your lawyer should be here soon, or whoever you called. You can find out then.”
Baker gripped the bars tighter. “I wasn’t allowed to make a phone call. I was brought straight down here.”
“Huh,” the man said. That one word worried Baker. It didn’t sound promising. “That’s odd. The cops here are pretty good at making sure you get your call and you are usually processed into the system before being locked in a cell.”
Baker hadn’t gone through any of that. Now that he thought about it, Johnson had brought him in through the back door and down the steps. Baker hadn’t seen another soul since walking through the door. He was starting to suspect that maybe Johnson was stashing him down here.
But why?
What were his intentions?
The guy was creepy as hell, but Baker wasn’t sure what he was up to. Officer Johnson had a strange obsession with Reno, but he couldn’t figure out how being locked up fit with anything going on. Baker needed to get someone down here, pronto. He had a feeling he was down here illegally.
“How do you get the cops’ attention?” he asked.
A soft laughter filtered toward him. “You really don’t want to know, kid.”
Baker shivered at the deep sound. “No, I mean how do I talk to one of them?” Baker glanced around, but there was nothing he could use to draw their attention. There was a bed that jutted from the wall with a thin, plastic mattress on it, a toilet that grossed him out, and a window with bars on it. Nothing else was in the cell with him.
Moving away from the bars, Baker climbed onto the bed and looked out of the window. The parking lot was just beyond the bars. He spotted someone walking to his car. Reaching through the bars, Baker pounded his fist on the glass. It was thick, absorbing the sound. That told him shouting for help would be futile.
But then the dark-haired guy who reminded Baker of someone with Italian in their heritage turned, glancing down toward him, his thick eyebrows furrowing. Baker waved his hand around, telling the man with light-brown eyes to come over to the window. He thought the guy was going to just walk away, but instead, he pulled something from the inside pocket of his brown leather jacket and stared at it. The object looked like a sheet of paper.
Baker damn near cried in relief when the man began to walk back toward the building. He jumped down, hurrying over to the bars. He waited but soon knew that whoever the man was, he wasn’t coming to rescue him. Baker wasn’t sure what the man was doing, but coming down here wasn’t one of the things on the guy’s list of things to do.
Feeling dejected, Baker moved away from the bars and took a seat on the cot, pulling his legs to his chest and hugging them. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he hoped like hell he didn’t spend days down here. He wondered what Reno was doing, if he had even noti
ced that Baker was gone. As he thought about his mate, Baker began to yearn to feel Reno’s strong arms around him, the man telling him that everything was going to be all right. Baker was aching for Reno to tell him that he was here for Baker, and that nothing bad was going to happen to him.
What if Johnson returned and took him from the cell, out the back door, and someplace no one would be able to find him? His stomach knotted at the thought.
Baker’s ear perked up when he heard footsteps getting closer. His heart began to slam behind his ribs, as he thought that maybe Johnson had returned. He would fight the man tooth and nail not to be secreted away. Baker wasn’t going to let the man take him.
But that wasn’t who showed up in front of his cell. It was worse. His father stood there, disappointment in his eyes as he stared at Baker.
“Arrested?”
He wasn’t sure how his father knew he was here. Baker hadn’t been able to make a phone call.
“Miss Fortuna called me,” his father answered Baker’s thoughts.
“The old lady across the hall?” he asked. Baker wasn’t even aware she knew who he was, let alone his father. He had said hello to her in passing, but had never stood there to have a conversation with her.
His father nodded. “She was my grade school teacher. She keeps me abreast of what you are up to.”
Baker was mortified to know the little old lady across the hall was his dad’s spy. He drew in a slow and steady breath, telling himself not to explode. For one, it was his dad. Although the man had become cranky and distant, Baker still respected him. He remembered a man who used to laugh deeply and spend time with him, teaching him things and doing what dads were supposed to do. Since his mom passed, he hadn’t been the same. Baker longed for the relationship they used to have, but told himself that time had passed and not to dwell too hard on what used to be.