The driver made a scoffing noise. “Dump him and run? What? Are we doorbell ditching the pound? You’re just a bucket of fun, Mateo.”
“Shut up!” Mateo was getting irritable.
It almost felt as though Orion needed to call out a warning to the driver. The guy wasn’t thinking straight. He wasn’t a shifter and he wasn’t going to heal up from a gunshot wound. That meant the driver needed to keep quiet or risk getting a bullet in the head.
The SUV pulled up to the building with a squeal of tires. At least Orion felt like they must be in front of the building because Mateo got out and ran around to the back of the vehicle. He opened the doors and grabbed the net to drag Orion out through the doors. Orion thumped unceremoniously to the ground. It was almost as though Mateo’s strength could not even begin to hold up the bulk of Orion’s body. How odd. Had the guy forgotten to take his steroids that morning?
“Stupid mutt,” Mateo muttered. He hauled back and gave Orion a kick for good measure as he slammed the back of the SUV closed.
Orion rolled to his belly. His shoulder wound was nearly healed. He no longer felt muddy headed and his senses were sharpening. He had been caught off guard before. Now his quarry was right in front of him.
Mateo started to head around the passenger side of the SUV presumably to get back inside. Then all of a sudden the SUV lurched into motion before Mateo could get in. Orion watched with amusement as the vehicle sped off leaving Mateo standing there in front of the animal shelter with the wolf—dog—that he had expected to ditch before leaving quickly and pretending that nothing had happened.
The long low building was located in a fairly old part of Addison, but it was well kept and tidy. There were barking noises coming from inside the building. It was an utter cacophony of both dog and cat noises that would have given Orion a headache in minutes had he been inside the place.
Orion got to his feet. The net had come loose during the ride to the shelter. It was currently draped half over Orion’s butt and back and bugging his tail, but nowhere near in a place that would actually restrain him.
Mateo was busy running after his ride. At least he made it about ten yards or so. The barking and meowing got louder. There were no people in that shelter even though there were lights on. Orion could smell everything in that odiferous structure and there was little to no human scent at all.
Lifting his muzzle to the sky, Orion gave a howl. One long note ending with a yip that caused absolute silence inside the shelter. If Orion hadn’t known why the animals went silent, it would have been creepy as hell. They sensed a predator. He had announced himself. Too bad Mateo wasn’t smart enough to realize when he was in over his head.
“Bad dog!” Mateo spun on his feet and shouted at Orion. He groped in his pockets, but he had apparently left his gun inside the SUV. “Stay there! Bad dog!”
Orion did not move. He watched instead because there was nothing more amusing than seeing a man like Mateo run to the doors of the animal shelter and start to bang as though he thought he could find help there. Nobody came to the door. That’s because there was nobody there to help.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eleni gasped and sat up in her bed. Something had woken her. She could not decide what it was. A noise? Her heart was pounding and she groped beside her to find Orion. He wasn’t there. The room was pitch black. There was almost no light coming through the window. There were no streetlamps on this side of the house. The moon seemed to be gone. The dull red numbers on her clock read 3:57. It was quite literally the middle of the night. Where could Orion be?
Eleni sat for a moment and listened. She could hear the ticking of the hall clock and the drip of a faucet. Her floors were old and a bit warped. If there had been anyone walking around out in the living room she would have heard the creaking noise. Instead she heard a dog barking outside down the street, but nothing else. It all smelled and sounded normal. It just didn’t feel normal.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Eleni got up and reached for her bathrobe. She pulled the warm soft terry material around her body and tied the belt to keep it in place. Her slippers were right there too. She was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a sleep T-shirt. It really wasn’t that cold and yet she felt absolutely frozen. Somewhere deep inside she realized that it had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with anxiety. Her instincts were telling here that there was something wrong.
Her breath was coming quickly in ragged gasps. It felt as though the darkness in the house was oppressive. Reaching out, she flipped on the hall light just to try and force herself to relax.
“Orion?” Eleni called out his name. He had to be in the house somewhere. He had to be. “Orion, where are you?”
No answer.
She struggled to keep herself from panicking. Down the hallway she went toward the kitchen and the living room. Eleni turned on every single light that she could find. It made things less scary somehow. Or at least she felt like it did. The fear did not recede. It didn’t even abate. It was just as horrible right now as it had been when she woke up. Maybe more so.
Orion was not in the house. It wasn’t like the place was very big. Eleni turned a slow circle in her living room looking for something. A clue. Anything. Then she went into the kitchen and did the same thing. She didn’t know how many times she had turned around before she realized that the kitchen door was unlocked and just slightly ajar.
“I locked this.” She whispered the words to herself just because she needed to hear them. “What happened, Orion?”
Had he left? A sudden panic overtook her and Eleni burst out of the kitchen door into the backyard. She scrambled to turn on the porch light. Her hand fumbled against the wall until she finally felt it flip from off to on.
Light flooded the backyard. There was nobody out there. Nobody. The square cement patio was empty. The chairs were unoccupied. Leaving them behind, Eleni ran around to the gate. That was when she noticed the two enormous footprints on the ground.
The light from the fixture at the back of the house barely reached over here. That meant there was just enough brightness for Eleni to see that something had jumped her gate. Something because the prints were absolutely enormous. She had never seen anything that huge before in her life and there was only one creature she could imagine making such a print.
“Orion,” Eleni whispered.
She scrambled to open the gate. There was no way that she could jump the thing. Shoving it so hard that it hit the side of the house, she sprinted down the side of the house in her slippers and bathrobe. The front of the house wasn’t far. It was a tiny property. A tiny house. Eleni had always liked it that way. Now she could not believe how empty and frightening it felt. Almost as if the entire thing were somehow haunted.
Orion’s truck was still there. But those prints told their own story. Orion had not come out here on two legs. He had been travelling on four. She stopped at the corner of the house and stared out into the yard. Here at least the streetlamps cast their orange glow across the yard. It was enough light for her to see that there was a strange dark shape of something behind her car. It seemed to be sitting on the edge of the driveway just beside her tires.
Eleni’s heart leaped into her throat. She approached the shape slowly. For some reason there was a fear that she could not shake. And then she got close enough to realize that there was something very strange going on.
“A pile of blankets? What the hell?”
Eleni knelt beside the pile and reached out to gingerly touch them. They were cold and felt as though they were made of waterproof or weatherproof material like camping blankets might be. Eleni wasn’t much of an outdoorswoman, but she had seen stuff like this before in hiking or backpacking equipment when the kids went on hikes and such for field trips. This sort of thing was usually included in the emergency gear.
Turning and still crouched near the ground, Eleni realized that from this point she could see the front of her house very clearly. The w
indows anyway. The windows along the side of her house were also visible. Could someone have been crouched here beneath her car watching the house? Had they used the blankets to keep warm and dry because of the unpredictable and chilly damp Dallas winter weather?
The idea of being spied upon was appalling. Eleni realized that she needed to go back inside. She had to call someone about this. Then she turned and put her hand right in the center of something wet that was most definitely not blankets.
Blood. The coppery scent of it permeated her senses and caused her to feel faint and lightheaded. It wasn’t the blood doing that either. It was the probable source of the blood. The only way that it could have come to be there was if someone—either the person spying or someone that had caught that person—had been injured.
Orion.
The thought was horrifying. Had Orion been hurt? Was he gone? What had happened to him and was he in his wolf or his human form?
Stumbling to her feet, Eleni ran for the front door. To her horror it was locked up tight. Tears stung her eyes as she turned to flee back down the walkway, across the driveway, and down the side of the house so she could retrace her steps to the back of the house. She felt frantic. There was panic in her heart and no chance of calming down until she had answers to what was happening.
Down the alley, through the back yard the gate slamming closed behind her. Eleni stumbled up the back steps and through the partially open door into the kitchen. Once she finally made it inside the warmth of her house, she slammed the door behind her. It clicked closed. She locked it. No. She unlocked it. What if Orion tried to come back? How did a wolf open and close doors anyway?
Her mind was spinning around in circles. She was fumbling for her phone. It was on the charger by the planning desk at the far end of the kitchen. It took a moment to grab the phone and then another agonizing moment to find the contact that she needed to call.
Ring. Ring. Ring. The phone kept ringing but there was no answer. The anxiety started to increase until Eleni felt as though she were about three seconds away from calling the police. Except she couldn’t call the police! How did one explain to the cops that her fiancé—it was still terrifying to call him that—might be out there nearby hurt, but that they might actually be looking for a very large dog, a wolf actually. But that the wolf was perfectly friendly.
“Please answer,” Eleni sobbed. “Please. Please. Answer the phone, Skye. Answer! You always answer! Don’t do this to me.”
Finally there was a click on the other end of the line. “What?”
“Skye?”
A yawn. A grumble. It wasn’t like Eleni could blame the woman. It was probably five in the morning. Maybe earlier. Eleni had no concept of time right now. But it was early enough that there was no doubt that Skye had been asleep.
“Skye, this is Eleni. Orion has disappeared. I think he was dressed—oh shit, what do you call it? Shifted! Yes! He was in his wolf form and I think he’s hurt and bleeding and please just help me!”
At least Skye seemed to come to awareness fast enough. She muttered to someone there in the room with her. Hopefully Jason. And then finally Skye’s voice came on and it sounded perfectly coherent. “Okay, stay right there. Are you at your house?”
“Yes.”
“Stay there. We’re on our way. The boys will—uh—dress for the occasion and probably be ahead of me. All right?”
“Yes! Yes!”
The phone call went dead and suddenly Eleni found herself pacing circles in her living room. It did not take long for her brain to start drawing circles around and around the possibilities of what might have happened. In fact, it didn’t take long at all. Very soon Eleni realized that there was no doubt who was behind this incident.
Mateo Canjillon. They had to find Mateo Canjillon and then they would find Orion. Mateo had to be the one spying. Why oh why had Eleni just assumed that the fight in the driveway had been the end of it? Mateo had been tossed into the street. He had been humiliated. There was no way that he was going to just roll over and forget about it.
There was no telling how much time had passed. The sky was still dark when there was a knock at the door. It probably would have been wise for Eleni to wait to answer. What if it was Mateo on the other side of that door? What if he was standing there trying to make even more trouble now that he likely knew Orion was not there to get in the way?
But Eleni was beyond thinking that way. She was terrified. So she threw open that front door and eagerly yanked Skye into the living room.
“What happened?” Skye demanded. “How does Orion just disappear?”
“I don’t know! There was this guy. He was fighting. They were throwing each other around!” Eleni dissolved into tears and barely managed to get the words out. She explained about Mateo Canjillon and about the fight and about the blankets she’d found out front.
“They’ll find Orion,” Skye assured Eleni. What she did not say was what condition Orion would be in when they found him.
Eleni was feeling guilty and afraid. She twisted her hands in front of her and wished that she could somehow rewind the last twelve hours. “What if they kill him? What if Mateo Canjillon brought friends or something?”
“He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who has many friends,” Skye murmured to herself. She snapped her fingers as though she were trying to think. “Do you know of anyone at the school who might help him come over here and make trouble?”
Eleni’s brain was off and running once again. The first name that came to her mind was an easy one. “The janitor. Leonard Welch. He’s a good man, but he’s kind of in awe of Mateo. I guess Leo played football in high school. He never made it to college. Now the two of them waste a lot of time together in the gym when Leo should be cleaning or fixing things.”
“Okay. So how do we find this Leo guy?”
Eleni spun around and made a mad dash for the kitchen. “There’s a school staff buzz book! He has to be in there!”
“Find the address,” Skye urged. She was already following Eleni into the kitchen. “Do you have an address? Or just a phone number? If we know where he is we can run by there. Addison isn’t all that big. Surely the guy would be home. Maybe he at least knows something.”
“Why would he help Mateo do something illegal?” Eleni muttered as she flipped through the book. “Leo isn’t a bad guy.”
“No. But maybe your gym teacher man didn’t tell his friend that they were coming over to do something bad. Maybe this Leo guy thought it was just Mateo trying to get one more chance with his girlfriend.”
The words made sense. Too much sense. And as Eleni found Leonard’s name, address, and telephone number in the staff buzz book, she hoped that they were wrong. Skye already had her phone out. Eleni rattled off the numbers and Skye called.
“The dude probably won’t answer,” Skye muttered. “Nobody answers a number they don’t recognize in the middle of the night. Remember when things were easier and people answered their phones?”
The chatter was at least keeping Eleni’s mind occupied. But then there was no answer and she was once again practically running in circles in her living room.
“Get your clothes on,” Skye barked at Eleni. “We’re going over there and we sure as hell can’t do it with you wearing your pajamas!”
“What about Orion?” Eleni froze. “I can’t leave here!”
Skye waved her hand. “Don’t be silly. Zane, Devon, and Jason are all out searching for their brother. They’ll find him. They have wolf noses. If they can’t find him right away Gemini will come and help and then they’ll find everything. Those men could find a needle in a haystack just because you told them that the needle smelled different. They’re animals, Eleni. So let’s get out of here and go chase down this lead because we have to do something!”
Eleni certainly could not argue with that. Spinning on the heels of her slippers, she ran back to her bedroom and struggled to get her robe and pajamas off so that she could pull on some clothing. Th
ey were going to find Orion or they were going to find out what had happened to him. And then they were still going to find him and Eleni was going to find a way to put Mateo Canjillon in his place for good!
“All right!” Eleni burst into the living room feeling determined. “Let’s go!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Orion had heard stories from his father and his grandfather, even from his brothers, about the moment when the human mind and that of the wolf blended so seamlessly that there was almost no awareness of a divergence between the two. As Orion advanced on Mateo Canjillon he knew that he was sliding into the depths of his wolf mind. The knowledge that this man believed that he somehow had a right to Orion’s woman was enough to bring the beast bubbling to the surface with a taste for vengeance and a desire to establish its dominance.
“Bad dog!” The acrid scent of Mateo’s fear washed over the wolf.
The creature’s enormous charcoal-colored body seemed as though it were part of the night. Mateo huddled in the small ring of light created by the tiny porch lamp in front of the animal shelter. He was staring at the enormous creature with his eyes wide and his jaw slack with fear. His fists were clenched at his sides and his skin was clammy with the cold sweat that had broken the second he realized he was nothing more than prey to this beast.
“Bad dog,” Mateo said again. His tone was weakening. He sounded almost desperate. Yanking on the knob of the shelter’s door, he whimpered and muttered to himself. “My phone. Dammit my phone is in the SUV! Leo, you left me. You left me!”
The words came fast and were all whispered beneath Mateo’s breath. But there was no hiding them from the wolf’s acute hearing. The animal snarled and snapped, its jaws closing only a few feet from Mateo’s feet and getting closer with each passing second.
The wolf stopped. Its prey was close. Right there. He wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into the flesh of this detestable man. He would rip muscle from bone and leave the pathetic being broken and bleeding on the ground.
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