by Michele Hauf
“Oh, Ridge.”
“We need to move.” He smacked a fist into his palm with a loud crack. “If a gang of witches has my son, I’ll tear off all their heads.”
She clutched her hands against her pounding heart as Ridge stomped around to the driver’s side. She expected no less a strong reaction, for Ridge to be defensive yet protective about Ryan. But he couldn’t be Ryan’s father. She’d never seen any signs Ryan could be part wolf.
Hell. There was only one way to know who Ryan’s father was. And either way, it wouldn’t go well for Ryan.
* * *
The drive up I-35 to Ely was long, and the steel-strung tension didn’t dissipate until Ridge turned up the radio. When he’d gotten behind the wheel after talking to Abigail, he put on his seat belt and spun out onto the freeway, meeting Maverick’s eyes in the rearview mirror. The wolf had heard it all.
Ridge wasn’t in the mood to talk. Or to explain.
Thankfully, it appeared Abigail had fallen asleep, while Maverick hummed the country tunes and occupied himself with an old copy of Car Craft he’d found in the backseat.
Ridge maintained a firm jaw and tight grip on the steering wheel. He was possibly the boy’s father. It was amazing. Impossible. Incredible. And as Abigail said, probably not true.
But the slightest chance did exist. Minuscule, as she said. And that was all he needed. He’d never been given more than a chance, and look how far he’d come.
He’d go even further if the chance named Ryan was really his.
* * *
By the time they reached Ely he was hungry, and his anger had completely fled. Ridge drove through McDonald’s and ordered a couple of McRibs, a salad, three large fries and a Coke, then turned to ask what the others wanted.
They rolled into the parking lot and ate in silence until Maverick burped, and Abigail laughed.
“Boys,” she said, shaking her head and stealing another fry from Ridge’s meal. “So this is the town?”
“Last pack that is considered citified,” Maverick explained. “Any farther north and you get into the Boundary Waters. The packs are tight there, keep to themselves, and I suspect could care less about vampires. I gotta stretch and go take a leak. Be right back.”
Ridge did not miss Maverick’s wink as the lanky wolf strode inside the restaurant. He was purposely giving them a few minutes alone. The man had an impeccable feel for emotions that made Ridge marvel. Must be what having a wife did to a man. Settled him down, gentled him, made him a master of the emotional arts.
He wouldn’t mind mastering a few of those himself. When he’d kissed Abigail roughly he’d felt her soften in his embrace and pull him closer. As if she’d wanted him to overpower her, and had fed off that connection. And when she’d teased him to let out his beast, she could have had no clue how close his werewolf stood. Just there. A shift away, and wanting, so wanting to claim the female he felt belonged to him.
Now you can claim your family.
If only…
“Sorry,” he said, stuffing the empty wrappers into the bag. “I was harsh back at the roadside. I shouldn’t have come on so strong.”
“Apology accepted.” She sipped the last drops of orange juice with a loud suck. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you. You’re a good man, Ridge.”
“Would you stop saying that?” He smashed the paper bag with a fist. “I am not a good man. I’m a fucked-up wolf with no more sense than to shout at women when they confuse me. I’m not so honorable as you think. So get rid of this stupid scenario about me being some warrior doing the chivalry act for you. There’s a kid in trouble. I’m going to find him. Simple as that.”
“Fine.” She handed him her empty cup. “Not a warrior. Just a wolf. And I’m just a witch. And we’re going to find Ryan.”
“That’s a promise I make to you. I swear it, Abigail.”
She nodded, and smiled. “I know you will.”
Chapter 9
“I can’t do this.” Ridge slammed the truck door and started marching toward the compound across the crunchy snow. Maverick had gone inside to scope out the Ely pack’s grounds. “I can’t stand by and let another man do this by himself.”
“Ridge, no!” Abigail grabbed his arm and tugged, her boots slipping on the snowy ice, as he wouldn’t slow his pace. “Stop it, you crazy man!”
He shook off her feeble attempt to restrain him and, feeling his neck muscles tighten, huffed and smacked a fist into his palm. “Why not?”
“You go in there all aggressive and baring your teeth and they’ll retaliate. Let me do something.”
“What can you do that won’t set the grounds ablaze? No fire magic, Abigail, I absolutely forbid it.”
Affronted, she slammed her hands on her hips and leaned toward him. “You forbid it?”
“Yes, I do.” But he finished on a less than firm tone. “It’s too flashy. We need stealth.”
“But you’re forbidding me?”
“That I am. You don’t like it?”
She crossed her arms and joggled her head back and forth, considering. Her lips were tight. And he could smell her anger, but not for long. Finally she said, “Very well. But what about this?”
She swung her arm out and aimed it toward the compound. The yard light flickered out. A second later, all the lights in the compound blinked out.
“For starters,” she said. “Then we can smoke them out with fire.”
“Oh no.” He grabbed her from behind and shackled her, his hands joining before her breasts. “No fire. You think one lone wolf is going to freak them out? Flames will drive them insane. I don’t want to smoke them out. I want one vampire. Promise me, Abigail. No flames.”
Wrapped within his unforgiving hold, she didn’t feel the need to squirm. In fact, she relaxed and tilted her head against his shoulder. “I promise,” she said on a whisper. “I’ll do what you say.”
And she would because something about his domineering tone plucked every needy string in her body and she was willing to see how well he could play her.
“Wait. Here comes Maverick.”
He released her and jogged to meet Dean. “What did you find out?”
“He’s in there,” Maverick said, swiping the sweat from his brow. “Did you see that? All the lights went out. Everyone is freaking inside.”
Ridge shot Abigail an admonishing glance. She nudged up a shoulder and gave an innocent shrug.
“Oh.” Maverick winced. “Forgot about the witch. They have your vamp.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“Yep, I was told he was taken in a week ago. He’s in a cell, sitting under UV lights. He looks bad, but still sane, from what I can determine. Not that I care about a bloody longtooth…”
“We need to get him out,” Ridge said. “Before the lights go back on. Abigail, is it a fuse, or did all the current get shut off?”
“We’re standing right on top of a leyline.” She surveyed the snowy grounds. “It’ll stay out as long as I want it to.”
“All right, I think I can deal with that. But remember what you promised?”
She made a show of crossing her heart with her fingers. It was a binding gesture no witch took for granted. She would stand by her word.
Ridge slapped Dean across the back. “Maverick, you up for a little stealth work?”
“Sure, but we don’t need stealth. I’ve got free rein inside because they know me. You’re the one who needs to stay out of sight.”
“Will do. So what’s the layout?”
“We’ve got an easy path around back, which I marked. There are only four wolves inside right now; the rest are out carousing in town. Hear there’s a bunch of fresh strippers at the local watering hole. We should stop on the way home.”
Ridge felt Abigail’s admonishing glare, though he didn’t see it. He didn’t need to turn around; he knew she was not delivering love Maverick’s way. At least it was the other wolf receiving her disdain this time instead of him.<
br />
“You’d better do this now,” she said to them, “before they return from the show.”
“If the strippers are new, they’ll be there until closing time,” Maverick noted.
“We don’t care about the strippers. Stay by the truck, Abigail,” Ridge commanded. “Keep it running. We may need a quick escape.”
She saluted him and climbed onto the driver’s seat.
“And keep the lights off!” he yelled as they left.
Behind him the lights blinked out, but the low rumble of the diesel engine wasn’t going to aid their stealth. They’d be quick. And if there were only four wolves that Maverick had noted, this would be a piece of cake.
“You like that witch?” Maverick asked as they trotted through the fresh layer of snow toward the compound.
“Depends on what you’re implying.”
“Well, I’d be a cad if I didn’t tell you I overheard everything you two were talking about outside the truck earlier.”
“We had a one-night stand.”
“I got that. But what happened in Vegas obviously didn’t stay there. You think the kid is yours?”
“I don’t want to decide right now. If I doubt it, then my thoughts will make it so. If I believe it, and I’m disappointed, well…” He let the thought hang. Because truly, he did already believe, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared to accept the disappointment. Life had given him only disappointment. Best not to go there. “You lead, since you know the layout.”
“Will do. If it matters, I hope the boy is yours. Kids are cool. Wouldn’t mind having a couple myself, though I’m not sure Sunday can even get pregnant by a werewolf.”
“Now that would be an interesting kid. Half feline, half wolf? Whoa.”
“Yeah, I’ve considered that,” Maverick said. “Probably best if we adopt, which Sunday seems pretty cool about. Though the pack may not approve. Not like I’m going to be principal much longer anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
Dean tromped over the previous tracks he’d left in the snow, his legs kicking high as his boots sank deep in the powder.
“Sunday wants to move closer to the city. She craves friendship and fancy shoes, she said. Girl stuff. You know how women are.”
Not really, but Ridge did have a handle on the shoe thing thanks to Blu Masterson. That woman went nuts over a new pair.
“And I grew up close to the Twin Cities,” Maverick continued, “so I’m cool with the idea. I’ve already got a man marked to take over as principal of the Western pack. The scion is whip-smart and, like you, he respects all breeds in the paranormal nations. Guess that’ll make me a lone wolf again.”
“You’re welcome to join the Northern pack. I’d be honored to have you as a pack mate, man.”
“Thanks. I may do that. But there are no women in your pack, buddy, so that doesn’t really work for Sunday and her plan to make oodles of friends. I like that word. Oodles. She says it a lot.”
“I’m working on the female part.”
“I can see that. But work harder, Addison. The witch is a tough catch, but the tougher they are, the more it’s worth it when they finally surrender into your arms.”
“What if she wants me to be tough?”
“Like what? She likes it rough?” Dean whistled appreciatively.
“I get that distinct impression.”
“All the better! It’s not easy for us when we need to answer the call of the full moon and all the women flinch and run away.”
“You’re lucky you’ve found Sunday.”
“You’re telling me. But then, every once in a while, she conjures a demon in the middle of having sex with her. I can’t tell you how that dulls the bliss, man.”
Familiars were demon conduits. Witches used them to conjure demons to this realm. “She does it without a witch to summon the demon?”
“Yeah, she’s on her first life. Still getting the hang of the whole demon-conducting stuff. I love her dearly, though I’ve smashed in more than my share of demon heads lately. The hazard of a good sex life with a familiar.”
He loped over a frozen ridge of dirt plowed in the field, and landed near a barbed wire fence. Crouching, Ridge joined Maverick’s side. “Up ahead. I marked the back door with my scent.”
“I can smell that,” he said with a sideways smirk. They walked onward, carefully tracking the darkness to the door. “You open it. I don’t need to step in your piss, man. Lead on.”
Once inside the cool, brick-walled building, it took a few moments for Ridge’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were no windows, and the scent of vampire blood was so strong his bile stirred and his gut reacted with a tight clench. Many were trapped here, he guessed, gauging from the stench and the noises on the other side of the steel doors.
This end of the compound was designed like a jail with steel doors sporting tiny peek holes secured with latches. Amandus had installed similar cells in the basement of the Northern compound, but they’d had bars instead of solid walls.
“They have quite the operation here,” Maverick whispered. “I think the vampire’s cell was ahead. I marked it with my spit.” He sniffed about, and scampered ahead to stand near a door. “Here, this one.”
Ridge tested the door, which felt as if it was barred only, and did not have a padlock or digital locking device. “Just barred?”
“There’s a master control that opens them up front.”
“Did you happen to get the combination for this door?”
“Dude.” Maverick strolled down the hallway, and Ridge couldn’t see anything until the metallic creak of a door revealed tiny green LED lights that glowed across his cohort’s face. Maverick punched in a few numbers that beeped with each selection.
Something in the door before him clicked, and Ridge tried the bar. It slid easily. “I knew I called the right man for this job,” he said when Maverick returned to his side. “Let’s do this.”
“Gentlemen.”
A hazy glow turned around the corner where the master box still beamed green. A man holding a flashlight stepped into view. He growled, and Ridge scented a subtle, yet controlled aggression.
“Addison and Maverick?” the wolf said with astonishment.
A flash of the light beamed across the wolf’s face, and Ridge said, “Severo?”
Chapter 10
“You’re the last wolf I expected to run into in a pack compound stuffed to the walls with half-crazed vampires,” Ridge said to the wolf standing five feet away.
Severo was a lone wolf who occasionally served the Council and never took sides. He was married to a vampire who had once been mortal. His easy personality was mirrored in the worn leather jacket and faded cowboy boots that peeked from beneath faded blue jeans. But his expression was anything but easy.
“I could say the same of you. What are you doing here, Addison? I can guess you’re not carrying an engraved invitation if you came through the back door. And Maverick?”
Dean, hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders straight and back, looked to Ridge to handle the talking.
“We just need one vampire,” Ridge said. “Then we’ll leave.”
Severo crossed his arms, tilting the flashlight toward the ceiling. The low light allowed them to easily see one another’s faces, and he was smirking, and his aggressive scent had dissipated. Though he was the one who should submit to the two pack leaders who stood before him, he carried himself with a pride that demanded respect. “You drove four hours from the Cities to steal one vampire from another pack? What’s up with that? Couldn’t find any loitering in the big city?”
“It’s not what you think. Someone is in trouble. I need the vamp to get her out of trouble.”
“Oh, so it’s about a woman?” Severo dropped the stern-enforcer look and managed a crooked smile. “It’s always about a woman, isn’t it?” He eyed Maverick, who chuckled uneasily, obviously respectful of the elder werewolf’s standing.
“Do you support this pack’s blood sport
?” Ridge asked.
“Not at all. I was in the area, and thought to stop in, and—well, this is what I find. I’m appalled the packs think they can ignore the Council’s ruling on the blood sport. But even more, the cruelties that thrive because of breed differences are unconscionable. I was waiting for the principal to return to discuss a means of putting an end to this without reporting him to the Council. Not that the Council would make a move to threaten anyway. They toss out regulations and rules, and then don’t stand behind the threat. I suspect a more direct approach will be required with this pack. Who’s the woman?”
Ridge winced. He couldn’t give that information to Severo because Abigail wanted to keep this hush-hush from the Council, but neither could he lie to one he respected.
“A witch. A friend.”
“Does this friend have a name?”
“Sure, but it’s not something I can reveal. We’re kinda…” He rubbed his brow and looked to Maverick.
“They just started dating,” Maverick offered. “Want to keep it quiet, you know.”
Severo nodded. “So you are collecting a vampire for a witch? Can’t she get her own source?”
“It’s not for her, it’s— Listen. We’re not going to harm the vampire. We need to turn him over to a person who is holding something over the witch’s head.”
“So that person can then harm the vampire?”
“Severo. Man. Don’t be a hard-ass about this. Haven’t you ever done something for a woman?”
“I would walk the world for the woman I love. But is that what this is about? Love?” He narrowed his gaze on Ridge.
“Do we have to get into this? Because I am willing to stand against you if you force me to.”
Severo straightened, planting his feet squarely. The wolf didn’t growl, but Ridge sensed the implied growl of warning.
“Can you turn and walk the other way while we tuck the vampire under an arm and get the hell out of here?”
The werewolf eyed him carefully. The only interaction they’d had previously was when Ridge had been serving Amandus Masterson, and he knew Severo was aware of the cruel things Ridge had done under that service. Yet he also knew he had killed Masterson. But could he understand why?