“Are Bracken and Marcus following the van?” Ally asked.
“Yes.” Roni returned her cell to her pocket. “They’d better catch the bastards.”
Derren snorted. “Marcus is driving. He just watched his mate get shot, so, yeah, he’ll catch them.”
Ally leaned forward in her seat. Derren caught her hand before she could touch him.
“No, baby, you can’t heal me yet.”
Her wolf growled. “Why?”
“The bullet isn’t out.”
“Fuck,” Ally snapped. The skin was probably already beginning to heal over it.
“I’ll dig it out when we get back,” growled Nick, enraged.
When they got back to the main lodge, Nick did exactly that using a sterilized pair of tweezers, and, although Derren hadn’t made a single sound, Ally knew he was in agony. After healing him, she cleaned him up, and he put on one of Nick’s shirts—refusing point-blank to have a shower until he’d seen the trigger-happy bastards that Marcus and Bracken did in fact capture.
“I’ll be back soon.” Derren gave a pale Ally, who was nibbling on a sandwich that Kathy had made her, a quick kiss. “Eat all of it.” She’d used up more energy than he was comfortable with. He turned to Shaya, who apparently read his mind.
“I’ll take care of her,” vowed his Alpha female.
Satisfied, Derren accompanied Nick and Eli to the toolshed where their captives were being held. The small building wasn’t far from the main lodge.
Bracken and Marcus met them outside. Marcus, his eyes repeatedly flashing wolf, looked ready to explode with rage. It was understandable.
“We have a problem.” Bracken’s scowl was dark with anger. “They’re speaking in Russian.”
Nick frowned. “Russian?”
“At first I thought they were American but communicating in a different language to throw us off. But we checked their IDs. They’re polar bear shifters from Moscow.”
“They have to speak at least a little English,” said Eli.
“I would think so,” agreed Bracken. “They’re acting like they don’t understand us, but my guess is they’re playing dumb.”
“They’re chatting plenty in Russian to each other,” interjected Marcus, his voice barely human, “but I don’t know what the fuck they’re saying.”
“That’s all right.” Nick straightened his shoulders. “Once we’ve had a little quality time with them, they’ll speak plenty of English.”
“These guys don’t look like the type to easily give up information,” said Bracken. “Both of them are covered in enough scars to suggest they’ve been captives before. And polar bears are tough, tenacious fuckers.” Which meant that Bracken was right: they did indeed have a problem.
As something suddenly occurred to Derren, he said, “Hang on a second.” He returned to the main lodge, finding Ally still picking at her sandwich like a bird. “Baby, you speak Russian, right?” He recalled her telling him how her foster uncles had taught her several languages.
Her brows drew together. “Yeah.”
“Come with me.” Keeping her hand in his and ignoring her questions, Derren guided her to the toolshed.
Roni had joined the others outside the small building, trying desperately to calm her pacing mate.
When Marcus’s manic gaze locked on Ally, he nodded at her. “Thank you for healing Roni. Again.”
Ally gave him a half smile before turning to Derren. “Okay, why am I here?”
“The captives are Russian,” Derren replied. “We need you to translate for us. I’d rather you weren’t here to see this—interrogations aren’t pretty. But they might be able to tell us who put out the hit on us, and we need to know.”
Eli looked at Ally curiously. “You speak Russian?”
“She speaks five languages,” Derren told him, proud. “And that’s not including English.”
Bracken’s brows flew up. “Impressive.”
“Let’s get started.” Nick went to move but stopped as Derren spoke.
“Wait, I have an idea.” Once Nick heard and approved the idea, the Alpha led all six of them inside the shed. Derren guessed that Roni was only there to keep Marcus from slitting the polar bears’ throats before Nick was done questioning them.
Ally studied the heavily built shifters, who were each secured to a chair. They appeared bored as opposed to afraid, but their unease gave her pins and needles in her fingers.
Bracken broke the silence, pointing to the one on the left. “That over there is Andrei. Next to him is Misha.”
With a predator’s grace, Nick slowly walked to stand directly in front of them. “I don’t think I need to introduce myself.” The bears just stared at him. “As you can imagine, I have a simple question for you. Why did you shoot at us?”
Neither answered; both looked confused, as if unable to understand Nick. But Ally sensed no such confusion from them at all.
“I’ll ask one more time,” rumbled Nick. “Why did you shoot at us?”
Andrei flicked a look at Misha and said in Russian, “It would seem he doesn’t know about the hit.”
Amusement briefly glinted in Misha’s eyes. He replied in Russian, “The Alpha’s not so smart after all.”
Nick growled, his voice a crack of thunder. “I know you speak English, so don’t fuck with me. Answer my question.”
“And I suppose he’ll kill us if we don’t.” Andrei oozed exasperation. “Does he think we’d be stupid enough to believe that he’ll let us live if we talk?”
Misha shrugged one shoulder very slightly. “We can handle whatever he does to us. Not like we haven’t been sliced before.”
Nick began to very slowly pace in front of them. “Did you ever hear of a form of torture called ‘The Water Cure’?”
Andrei’s exasperation increased. “How can a cure be torture? This shifter makes no sense to me.”
Misha briefly glanced at his friend. “Like I said, he’s not smart.”
His tone that of a professor, Nick elaborated. “The torturers would secure their captive’s nose and then stick a tube down their throat. Then the torturers would pour either vomit or piss down the tube. Their captive wouldn’t be able to hold their breath for long, so they’d have to ingest what was in the tube.”
Ally almost smiled as both Misha and Andrei tensed.
Nick continued. “The torturers would do it over and over, only stopping when the captive was full. Like that’s not bad enough, the torturers would then use a stick to hit the captive’s stomach until he vomited. Worse, the torturers would then do it again. And again. And again.”
Andrei’s mouth twisted. His exasperation was replaced by apprehension. His eyes momentarily slid to Misha as he said—still speaking in Russian, “I must admit, I have not heard of that.”
Nick smiled at the polar bears. “Merciless, right? But then—as I’m sure you’ve heard—so am I, especially when my pack’s safety is threatened. You shot my sister and my Beta. For that alone, you will die here today. It can happen in two ways. You can tell us what we want to know, and I’ll hand your punishment over to one of my enforcers. As you can see, he’s raring to fucking destroy you since you shot his mate. He’ll make it quick.”
Andrei and Misha cast Marcus a wary glance.
“But if you don’t answer our questions, I’ll deal with your punishment. And I will keep hurting you over and over again. Don’t doubt that for a second. And in the end, you’d eventually tell me what I want to know anyway. In my opinion, it makes sense to just get it out of the way and die quickly. But, of course, the choice is yours. To tell you the truth, I’m more eager to make you suffer than to get answers straightaway.”
Andrei looked at Misha. “Do you think he’s bluffing?”
“I think he’d do it and enjoy it.” Misha didn’t look nervous, but his unease chafed Ally’s skin.
“I suppose the question you have to ask yourselves is this,” began Nick. “Is the person who put out the hit on us worth the
torture?”
Misha stiffened. “He knows about the hit.”
Andrei eyed Nick warily. “Not so stupid after all. How unfortunate.”
Nick danced his gaze from one to the other. “All we want is his name.”
“Sadly for the Alpha,” said Misha, “we plan to escape and kill them all. Do you still have the knife in your boot?”
“No, the rabid-looking one took it.” Andrei shot a glare at Marcus, who did in fact look a little rabid at that moment.
Misha didn’t seem fazed. “No matter, Andrei. We have other ways.”
After a long moment of silence, when it was clear that the bears intended to keep up the “we don’t understand English” pretense, Nick inclined his head. “All right. If that’s how you want to play it. Can’t say I’m all that disappointed.”
“Maybe they really don’t understand English,” suggested Eli, though Ally was pretty sure he didn’t believe that.
Bracken nodded. “Only someone amazingly dense would choose the water cure over a swift death.”
Derren sidled up to Nick. “You know, we could always contact Maxim Barinov and ask if he’s heard of these guys.” Maxim was a Russian polar bear they’d met in juvie.
Misha’s eyes widened. “They know The Sniper.”
Derren continued speaking to Nick. “I talked to him a few days ago. He said he’d try to find out who sent out the hit. Bet he’ll be pissed when he finds out two of his own kind tried to cash in on it.” As Derren had hoped, the Russians looked suitably afraid. Maxim’s reputation as a professional sniper and all-around unforgiving bastard was well known.
“Yeah,” agreed Nick. “Wouldn’t surprise me if he came here to join in on the fun.”
Wincing, Derren said, “He can be a sick bastard when it comes to torture.”
“Maybe we should give them what they want,” Andrei quickly proposed to his friend. “I would rather die at their hands than face Maxim Barinov. He would threaten to go after our families. And, truth be told, I would rather avoid The Water Cure. Something tells me that if the Alpha gets started, he will not stop whether we give him a name or not. Look at the bloodlust in his eyes.”
“But if we give them a name, they will find a way to cancel out the hit,” Misha pointed out. “Then no one will avenge our deaths.”
“That is true. We could give them a false name,” suggested Andrei. “A masculine name. Maybe someone who we’d like to see dead. These wolves would easily buy the lie, as they would never imagine a woman is responsible. I was surprised myself—until I heard it was a Seer. They can be vengeful creatures. We’ll tell them it was the Russian polar who—”
That was all Ally needed to hear. “It’s a woman. She’s a Seer.”
Roni blinked. “A Seer?”
Ally nodded. “They didn’t say her name; they intended to give you a false name—pin it all on some guy they hate.”
Andrei and Misha gaped at Ally, who shrugged at them and said, “What, you think you’re the only ones who speak other languages?”
“You tricked us,” accused Misha, switching to English, looking weirdly impressed.
Yes, they had been tricked. Derren had suggested not revealing that Ally could speak Russian; to let them think they could speak freely to each other because no one understood them. “Not so smart, are you?” she asked them in English, paraphrasing their remarks about Nick. They narrowed their eyes.
“Roni, get me the tubes,” ordered Nick. Roni obligingly retrieved two tubes from a tool bench. Ally had no idea if they were props or if Nick truly intended to use them. Given that she wasn’t sure if Nick was totally sane, and his sister had just been shot, it was possible that it was the latter.
Misha and Andrei both stiffened.
Nick glared at them. “I warned you that if I didn’t get a name your punishment would be mine.”
“You have the truth.” Andrei spoke in English. “The female told you.”
“Exactly, she told me. You intended to lie to me.” Nick gave them a disapproving look. “That’s very disappointing.”
“They don’t want a quick death,” Ally told the Alpha. “They plan to escape.”
Derren arched a brow. “Do they now?”
“That won’t be happening,” Nick stated. He turned to Eli and Bracken. “Secure their noses. Marcus, hang back until their stomachs are full. Then you can hit them as hard as you want.”
“Wait,” said Misha desperately in English, “we will give you a name.” Andrei nodded, just as desperate.
“Why would you suddenly want to do that?” Ally tilted her head. “Before, you said you didn’t want to, because if the hit was canceled there would be no one to avenge your deaths.”
“That sadly means I can’t trust a word you say.” Nick shrugged. “Besides, I don’t need a name. There’s only one female Seer who hates both my pack and the Phoenix Pack badly enough to put out a hit on both.”
“I’ll find her, and I’ll kill her,” vowed Roni.
Beside her, Marcus clenched his fists as he growled. “But first, we take care of these two bastards who dared to shoot my mate.”
Eli strolled toward the bears, obviously eager for vengeance on behalf of his sister. “With. Fucking. Pleasure.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
She either thought he was dumb or she believed that he didn’t know her well.
She’d be wrong on both counts. Derren would wager he understood Ally better than most people did, despite only having known her a short time. You could have someone in your life for years but never really know them; others you could come to know in a matter of weeks.
It would be fair to say that Ally wasn’t an easy person to read. She didn’t wear her emotions on her face. But Derren had come to know her so well that, with a single glance, he could tell if she was tired or hungry or pissed or had something on her mind.
Right now, as he leaned against the counter watching her prepare them lunch, he could sense that something was wrong. “What’s eating at you?”
Her almond eyes landed on him for a mere moment. “Nothing.”
“When you lie, you shrug your left shoulder.”
Ally’s shoulders suddenly locked in place. “If you’re going to bug me while I’m cooking, get out of my kitchen.”
Instead, Derren took a sip from his mug. The woman made excellent coffee. “You’ve been off since yesterday.” After the interrogation, she’d turned uncharacteristically quiet and pensive. When he’d questioned her, she had assured him that she was fine. Of course he’d been fully aware that she was lying, but he’d given her the emotional space she needed, trusting that she’d talk when she was ready. But . . . “I gave you time. That time is up, baby.”
“Time to do what?”
“Time to share with me of your own accord.” He moved to her as she was plating their chicken-fried steaks and mashed potatoes. Not prepared to let her go on hurting, he pressed, “What’s bothering you?”
She swallowed. “My kind caused your pack pain again.”
He cupped her chin and turned her face to his. “Hey, that’s not on you. Kerrie didn’t do it because she’s a Seer. She did it because she’s jealous, bitter, and apparently suicidal. It’s all about the individual, remember?”
Ally was conscious of that. But she was also mindful that it had taken a lot of time to make the Mercury wolves see that. She worried that Kerrie’s actions would undo what Ally had done and would make these people she’d come to respect and care for turn away from her. It would hurt a lot more than she was comfortable admitting even to herself.
“No one is going to blame you for this, Ally. Things aren’t going to go back to the way they were at the beginning.” Derren wouldn’t allow it.
She narrowed her eyes. “For the record, I don’t like how easily you read me.” She comforted herself with the knowledge that he simply had a talent for reading people in general; it wasn’t that she had become an open book to the world around her. Hopefully.
His mouth curved. “Trust me on this: no one in the pack will think any differently of you now than they did before they learned about Kerrie’s involvement. Trust me,” he repeated.
“I do.”
Hearing her say that without missing a beat, having someone in his life who had such total faith in him, was both heady and comforting. And Derren had no intention of giving that up, of giving Ally up. His original curiosity in her had later became fascination, but that fascination had shifted and become an addiction. She was an obsession he couldn’t shake off. She dominated his thoughts, consumed his wolf. Derren found himself hurrying to finish his Beta duties to spend more time with her each evening.
Ridiculous as it was, he didn’t like sharing her with others in the pack. The scent, sight, or thought of her made his cock begin to harden. He wanted her constantly, couldn’t get enough of her—if he was able to, he’d be in her twenty-four/seven. He wanted to be in her right now.
Sensing his intense need for her, Ally shook her head with a smile. “Later. First we eat.”
As usual, they sat on the porch to have their meal. “Have Roni and Marcus located Kerrie?” Ally asked Derren. She knew the mated pair had ventured to Kerrie’s pack that morning, where one of Marcus’s sisters was also a member. Apparently, Kerrie hadn’t been seen by her pack for a few months. Her parents claimed she was going to visit friends in another pack but that she hadn’t been specific as to whom she was visiting.
“Marcus has called every one of Kerrie’s friends that were on the list his sister gave him,” he replied. “They all said they haven’t had contact with her in months.”
“They could be lying.”
“Of course they could, but Nick can’t afford to separate our pack to go hunting. So, instead, he’s done something quite cunning.”
“What?” Ally shoved a forkful of chicken in her mouth.
“An hour ago, he put out a reward for either Kerrie’s capture—making it clear he wants her brought in alive—or for any information that leads to her whereabouts.”
Clever. “Do you think it’ll work?”
“I think there are plenty of people who would want to gain favor with Nick, so it’s very possible that someone could come forward.”
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