Tearing his eyes away from Sienna, he tamped down on his wolf’s reaction the best he could and walked outside. As he was nearing his truck, his cell phone rang. It was Sage.
“Yeah? Just got a call from Jai at the pack lodge,” Sage said. Brody picked up on the tone in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” Brody growled.
“I’m not entirely sure yet, but last night two of our sentinels caught a coyote shifter on our land. It was the second one in two nights.”
Brody’s beast returned to the surface, this time mad as hell. Interlopers. Coyotes were scavengers and more than one appearing on your land meant more were nearby. That was never good.
“Fuck,” Brody bit out.
“You want to go back?” Sage offered. “Dane and I can stay here and help Sienna look a little more.”
He probably should do that. He should go back and leave the investigation into Liesel’s disappearance and Sienna’s safety in his second’s hands. But fuck that…
“No,” Brody said before he could change his mind. “You and Dane go back and rough them up a little bit. Find out what they’re up to and where their pack is. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Sienna.”
Sage didn’t immediately respond and Brody readied himself to argue. Instead, Sage agreed.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re renting a car and heading back in the next half hour, then.”
“Let me know as soon as you find something out,” Brody replied.
“Of course,” Sage said. “And take care of my sister. She might come across as a pain in the ass, but she’s been through some shit, Brody. Please.”
Chapter Nine
Every single cell in Sienna’s body was tired.
She’d finally floated herself out of the tournament once her target had been arrested during a break. She hadn’t even needed to make it to the final table with the idiot—he’d been that obvious that her quick text to Fallon had been more than enough for them to follow him on the security cameras and catch him.
The guy was human, too. She wasn’t sure how slick he’d thought he was, but it meant an early exit from the exhausting afternoon and Sienna was grateful down to her very tired toes.
Hungry, Sienna had stopped at her favorite all-night burger joint and run into a couple friends from her old job. She’d just wanted to get her bacon cheeseburger to go and devour it on her couch, but Nelly and Tim had persisted until she agreed to sit at their table and play catch up.
Nearly two hours later, she was finally at her exit and was making her way to her condo. Pulling into the community, she waved at the gate guard who let her through. Gregor was nice enough and tonight she appreciated the fact that the guy probably knew four words in English.
Sienna pulled into her assigned parking spot and yawned. After a quick shower and a few episodes of Supernatural, she was going to be in dreamland in no time. As she pushed her key into the new lock Brody had installed, her nose caught the slightest whiff of a strange smell. It was smoke and something else she couldn’t quite place.
Sienna glanced at the buildings behind her but didn’t see anything amiss. No plumes of smoke. No sirens sounding in the distance.
Pushing through the front door, she closed it behind her and turned the deadbolt. She grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge and drank half of it as she walked to her bedroom and turned her shower on, pushing the hot water as far as it would turn. She took her time in the shower and when she was done, she sat on her bed in a pair of soccer shorts and a black tank top brushing the leave-in conditioner through her wet hair.
Supernatural was already an episode in when the distinct sound of shattering glass came from outside. She tensed, but let it go when nothing else came. Less than a minute later, Sienna smelled smoke again, only this time it was much stronger than it was before. She was on her feet and pulled her bedroom door open to see the majority of her living room on fire.
The sharp smell of gasoline and burning fabric hit her square in the face and she coughed. The fire was strong and moving quickly.
She didn’t hesitate. As she ran past the flames, she grabbed her cellphone and her car keys from the kitchen counter, making for her front door.
Outside, she turned to face her condo while she dialed 911, tears from the smoke and her fear stinging her eyes. Within her, her wolf was growling. Seconds later, Sienna’s claws sprang from her fingers seconds too late to save her from the blunt force hitting her at the base of her skull, sending her sprawling forward.
A heavy body sat on her back, holding her down.
“Do it now, Cedric,” the voice on top of her said, the Eastern European accent obvious. Nearly as obvious as the scent of bear shifter she’d recognized too late. When she struggled to push herself up, her assailant hit her on the back of the head a second time, making Sienna’s forehead bounce against the hard cement of the parking lot.
“Watch it, asshole,” a second voice hissed from somewhere behind her. “Castillo doesn’t want her hurt.”
“Well if you’d fucking hurry up and stick her so she doesn’t shift, I wouldn’t have to hurt!”
The body on top of her forced her face back to the ground and half a breath later, she felt the stick of a needle in her right thigh. Sienna’s wolf howled inside her and Sienna let out a screech to wake the dead as she pushed herself up far enough to get enough traction to bring a knee up beneath her.
Whatever was in the needle was moving quickly and the best Sienna was hoping for was to run far enough for one of her neighbors to see her and call the cops before these two strange shifters made off with her.
With a grunt, she launched her head back as violently as she could manage, connecting the hardest part of her skull with a nose and some teeth she heard crack. The man on top of her shouted a curse and fell off her to the side, allowing Sienna to stagger to her feet and try to get her bearings against the swift-moving drug coursing through her system.
Running her hand across her bloody forehead, Sienna decided to let her wolf out and let her deal with this mess before the drugs took Sienna under. She opened the bond between them and…nothing.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She was panicking now and what was worse, her wolf was doing the same thing. Whatever they’d hit her with, it was preventing Sienna’s wolf from shifting to defend herself.
The world swayed in front of Sienna as the two shifters closed in on her. They were huge and dressed in dark clothing. She tried to make out any details in the faces, but the blood from the gash on her head was blurring her vision as it ran into her eyes. For the first time in a long, long time, Sienna was very afraid.
“Now you’ve pissed us off, little wolf,” the second male said. He was smaller than his buddy and wasn’t the one who’d been sitting on her—that guy was holding his forearm over his busted face.
“Eat a dick,” Sienna snarled, the fight not leaving her even as consciousness threatened to. The smaller man moved quick and grabbed her arm despite Sienna’s sloppy protests and threats. With one hand gripping her arm, he painfully fisted a hand full of her hair as he stepped behind her and yanked, snapping her neck up and dragging her backwards on her heels.
Sienna was losing her grip on the world quickly and a few things flashed before her eyes as they slid closed, for what she assumed was the final time. She thought about her brothers--all four of them. How they looked when they were all kids back in their old pack. She thought of their mother, before her stepfather had beaten the light from her eyes, the way she laughed with a wide grin at her brothers’ latest antics. She thought about her twin Sage, mostly. How she had so much she wanted to say to him. How sorry she was for the distance over the past seven years. How much more she wanted for him than the twisted, broken relationship she’d caused. And then she thought about Broody Brody. With his dark hair and those gorgeous deep eyes. She was sorry she never got a chance to push his buttons one last time or hear that low, guttural voice growling her name…
The very same voi
ce growled again in her imagination and she let a sad smile play across her lips. Figures her dying thoughts would be of his moody ass.
“What the fuck was that?”
They’d heard it, too?
Her heart (and wolf) leapt at the thought that Brody was here. Half a second later, the most viscous, menacing growl rippled through the air, raising goosebumps on her skin. Her wolf responded from deep within her to the sound of his own.
Her eyes slid shut again just as the man behind her screamed in agony.
Brody. He’d come for her…
Chapter Ten
Brody paced across the plush carpeting of his suite, wearing a path between the window and the bathroom as he walked.
Whatever those assholes had given her had knocked her out clean and nearly four hours later, she was barely showing signs of trying to come out of it.
He’d lost all rational thought when he saw Sienna in the hands of the bear shifter dumb enough to grab her. With her blood flowing down her face from a blow to the head, he’d gone out of his mind and his wolf sprang to the surface before Brody could think it through. His wolf was always a risk. It was harder and harder to reign him in each time he shifted. His inner beast loved his freedom and fought hard against letting Brody the man take control again.
But when it had seen Sienna nearly unconscious and bloody, Brody and his wolf had become a well-oiled machine, thinking and acting as one. He’d shifted instantly without worry for the consequences. He’d taken the first man down easily and turned to the one who held Sienna, showing his teeth and challenging the bear to move.
The bear had been a fool to attempt to fight Brody’s wolf without shifting and the fight was over before it’d really ever started. Brody ripped the throat from the man’s body in seconds and as the body bled out, his wolf brokered no resistance to Brody when he wanted to shift back to get Sienna out of there.
While she was unconscious in the back seat of his truck, Brody called in a favor from a local pack Alpha who owed him. The bodies had been taken care of and a healer from Rider’s pack had even met Brody at the hotel to check Sienna for lasting damage that her fast healing abilities wouldn’t be able to take care of.
According to the woman, named Anne, Sienna and her wolf were essentially fine. Brody would simply have to wait out the tranquilizer they’d given her.
Brody was terrible at waiting and the longer he had to, the crazier it made both he and his wolf. They both needed Sienna to wake up and as the hours drew out, the more frantic they grew.
A rumbling in Brody’s very core had him ill at ease and no matter how much Brody tried to ignore it, his wolf viewed Sienna as his.
Mate.
The first time his wolf had the thought, Brody scoffed.
Mate? Highly unlikely. Nearly impossible, actually. His wolf was half-feral and dangerous and was the least likely candidate for mating and Brody the man wasn’t much better. In all of his experiences, mates had the ability to make an Alpha weak. They often grew jealous of the commitment being Alpha required and it always seemed to end in broken hearts and anger. It was why mated Alphas were so rare as far as Brody knew.
It suited him just fine.
As they rounded on hour number five, Brody couldn’t stand it anymore. He called downstairs for a change of clothes (or 10), a new cellphone, and a spread fit for a buffet for Sienna when she woke. He scrawled a note and left it on the bedside next to the new cellphone in case she woke up before he got back.
Brody took the elevator to the casino floor and got himself a drink. Sipping on the whiskey as he moved around the perimeter of the floor, he took in the sights with his shifter senses. What about Sienna made her so good at her job? Was it really that hard to find cheaters? Looking purely for amusement while he waited for her to wake up, Brody found himself one of the more crowded Texas Hold ‘Em tables and bought himself a seat.
He plunked the bills on the table and the dealer flicked his cards down in front of Brody, who exhaled slowly and stilled the best he could while the other players made their decisions. He let his wolf sniff at the air from deep inside him to see if the animal could pick up on any other shifters in the area. Sure enough, his wolf sensed a cat shifter at the table behind them.
Brody concentrated on his turn when it came around while still trying to keep tabs on the jaguar playing his hand. Damn, but it was hard to make an intelligent play with your own hand while monitoring every minute reaction and action your quarry was making.
After almost an hour of trying to be Sienna, Brody folded and was out $150, gaining nothing but a splitting headache.
He rubbed his forehead and moved away from the tables, grabbing another drink from the bar before plunking himself down on a leather stool and watching the floor.
Brody begrudgingly admitted that Sienna was really, really good at what she did. And with that, his mind drifted right back to the subject he’d left his own suite to avoid thinking about for too long. He and his wolf still weren’t over the shock of seeing her bruised and bloody, but they were both fiercely proud of how she stood up to the bear shifters knowing she was losing the fight.
When Brody thought just how close he was to being too late to help, his wolf raged and he slammed his drink down.
Mine, his wolf growled for the one-hundredth time that hour.
“Yeah, yeah,” Brody grumbled, picking himself up from the stool and walking back toward the elevator. Apparently, it was time for he and Sienna to have a little talk.
Halfway to the elevators, Brody was intercepted by the same cocktail waitress who’d supplied him with his two whiskeys.
“Hey,” she practically purred as she batted her eyelashes at him. Brody narrowed his eyes a half-second before realizing what she was doing.
Flirting.
Fighting off an inward groan, Brody tried to sidestep the woman, who was surprisingly nimble and quick on her feet despite the loaded tray she was carrying.
“Can I get you anything else?” She demurred.
“I’m good, thanks,” Brody tried to step around her again.
“Are you sure? Another drink? A little conversation? My phone number?” The woman, a busty blonde who looked like she was rarely told no, ran her tongue across her lower lip.
Brody couldn’t help but wince at the gesture.
“I’m good, really,” he put his hands up in front of him, hoping he wouldn’t have to resort to desperate measures to get free of this woman.
“But you’re not,” the woman insisted again, this time placing her hand on Brody’s chest.
Trying his best to be gentle, he gripped her wrist in his hand and let a small wave of Alpha vibes brush against the insistent waitress. She was human, Brody could tell that much, but his Alpha vibes could usually work on non-shifters, too.
“But I am.” The words vibrated in his throat as the growl ripped out. The woman paled and pulled her lips in a thin line. The fear was obvious to Brody, but so was the anger. She wasn’t used to being rejected.
Stepping away with a huff, he heard her mutter as she walked away.
“Asshole.”
Brody laughed and made his way up to his suite. If he was being perfectly honest, there was only one woman he and his wolf wanted touching him and he was about to go wake her ass up.
Chapter Eleven
Sienna’s skull was split in two, she was sure of it.
A large gaping ravine down the center of her skull was the only explanation she could come up with as to why her head was throbbing so violently.
Blinking her eyes, she moaned in pain as the light assaulted her from the window beside the huge bed she was on. She paused. Her bed wasn’t huge. Her bed was a queen. This bed was bigger than any king she’d ever seen. And that smell…
In a flash, she was up on her elbows, searching the room for Brody. He was here somewhere, she and her wolf could smell the spicy, woodsy scent that belonged to him.
“Hello?” Sienna’s voice was broken and raspy. Holy
shit, what had happened to her?
Nobody answered. Looking around, Sienna noticed a note and a cellphone beside the bed. She snatched up the paper and squinted at the writing as her eyes adjusted.
Went downstairs to kill time. Call me when you wake up. Will explain everything. –B
Sienna rolled her neck and shoulders and winced. She was sore as hell. She stood and ventured to the bathroom and gasped when she realized she didn’t have a single stitch of clothing on. Where were her clothes? And why was there dried blood on her?
The memories of the bear attack returned in an instant and Sienna inhaled sharply. The bastards had nearly killed her and she’d blacked out just as they were dragging her away. Had Brody saved her?
Sienna let out a shaky breath as the warm water of the shower relaxed her. She’d call Brody as soon as she was dressed and he’d tell her everything. Her wolf, who would usually have been beyond cagey at this point, was somehow calmer because of Brody’s scent all over the room.
Mine.
Sienna froze as the water continued to stream over her body. What was that? Did her wolf just claim Brody as hers? Or was it Sienna herself?
A knot formed in her chest and made it hard for Sienna to breathe normally as she rushed through her shower and wrapped a towel around herself.
Her mind was a mess. Her wolf was confused. Her condo was destroyed. Only one thing could make her world seem less off kilter right now—Sienna’s wolf needed to run.
She was considering her options (The dam? The nature conservatory?) as she walked back into the bedroom when she stopped short. Brody’s scent was suddenly much stronger than it’d been before her shower and her eyes darted around the room before spotting him in the chair in the far corner.
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