Wolf Unleashed

by Paige Tyler

  He and Remy had stopped by Cooper and Everly’s place after that, hoping he could do a little damage control. Cooper had taken one look at them and frowned.

  “Since nothing good ever happens after midnight, this can’t be good,” the team’s demolition expert said when he’d opened the door. “If you need money to help pay for some bar you and the guys busted up, you’re going to have to count me out. I’m saving every penny I have for the honeymoon in Hawaii. You wouldn’t believe how much the plane tickets alone cost.”

  “Dude, why are you guys paying all that money to go to Hawaii when you’re probably never going to leave the hotel room anyway?” Remy asked. “We could put some fake palm trees and one of those ocean noise machines outside the window of the nearest motel, and you’d never know the difference. It would save you thousands.”

  Cooper gave Remy a wry look. “How is it that you actually get laid? Because it sure as hell isn’t your romantic side.”

  Remy chuckled. “It’s my mad skills in bed.”

  “Okay, Remy. TMI,” Alex interrupted. “Can you try and remember why we came here in the first place?” He looked at Cooper. “It’s Lacey. I sort of fucked up and was hoping you might know how to handle it.”

  He quickly filled Cooper in on the story, highlighting the part where Lacey ran off in complete terror.

  “I tried calling her, but she’s not answering,” he added. “I’m worried she might tell someone.”

  Cooper was still considering that when Everly wandered into the living room, wearing an old Army Bomb Squad T-shirt of Cooper’s that hung down to her knees and a worried expression.

  “Did I hear Alex say that Lacey found out he’s a werewolf?” she asked, pushing her long hair back.

  “Yeah, the hard way,” Alex said, then brought Everly up to speed.

  “Do you guys think she’d go public with this?” Remy asked.

  “No,” Cooper and Everly said at the same time. They gave each other a quick look before Everly continued.

  “I didn’t talk to her that long the other night, but I get the feeling she’s the kind of person who will think about what she saw, maybe even talk it over with someone she trusts. She’s not going to run around screaming it from the rooftops or putting it on social media.”

  Alex relaxed a little at that. “Do you think I should tell Xander and Gage?”

  Cooper shook his head. “I’ll deal with them. You need to back off and give Lacey a little time. If she’s The One for you, she’ll come around.”

  Alex sighed. He didn’t like it, but it was sound advice. “Remy pretty much said the same thing.”

  Cooper looked at Remy in surprise. “Really? I’ll be damned. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

  While Remy and Cooper were snarking at each over who gave better advice, Everly pulled Alex aside. “Maybe when Lacey calms down, I could go talk to her for you and give her another woman’s perspective on the situation.”

  Alex would have hugged Everly right then if she hadn’t been standing there in nothing but a T-shirt with her possessive alpha werewolf mate a few feet away. He settled for a heartfelt thanks instead. “I’d appreciate that.”

  Now in the clear light of day, he wasn’t so sure Lacey would ever calm down enough to talk to anyone about what she’d seen last night.

  Alex hadn’t realized he’d drifted off until his phone beeped at him. He snatched it up, praying it was Lacey texting him back. But it was Remy checking to see if he had heard anything. He shot off a quick text to his friend, saying he hadn’t.

  Maybe tomorrow, Remy sent back.

  He didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he revisited the advice Cooper, Everly, and Remy had given him about backing off and giving Lacey some space. He knew it was the right thing to do, but there was a surprisingly selfish part of him that wanted to go over to her apartment, bang on the door, and demand an explanation. Not about why she’d been scared—he got that part. What he wanted to know is how she could have driven away from him. Didn’t she feel the connection between them as strongly as he did? Hadn’t it ripped out her guts to walk away?

  Alex knew Lacey had some baggage in her past and that she wasn’t the most ardent believer in love, romance, or men, but he was having a hard time reconciling the whole concept of The One with the fact that Lacey had been able to walk away from him so easily. As far as he knew, it hadn’t been like this for any of the other guys in the Pack when they’d found their soul mates. Alex got the feeling it wasn’t like that with Lacey. If it had been, could she have ignored his calls and messages all night?

  He was still contemplating that when the doorbell rang, quickly followed by pounding. He wondered for half a second if it was Lacey but dismissed the idea. She wasn’t the type to bang on any door, especially his. But as he crossed the room to answer it, he picked up an unmistakable scent.

  Shit. It really was Lacey!

  Alex covered the last several feet to the door in a sprint but then hesitated. What the hell was he going to say? He’d wanted to talk to her the whole night, and now he didn’t have a clue where to start.

  Taking a deep breath, he yanked open the door to find Lacey standing there. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, her heart was beating a hundred miles an hour, and she looked exhausted as hell. The urge to pull her into his arms was overwhelming, but he controlled himself.

  She’s here. Don’t screw it up.

  Looking at Lacey, he couldn’t help but think that maybe walking away from him had been as hard on her as it had been on him. Why did that make him feel good and bad at the same time? More important, did it make him an asshole?

  “I’m glad you came,” he said. “I wanted to explain…about what you saw.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not here to talk about that. I don’t know what you are, and I don’t care. All I want to know is whether you’ll help me.”

  Alex felt like she’d kicked him in the balls. He thought she’d come here to talk about what she’d seen—about them. He thought she’d come because she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her.

  “Of course, I’ll help you any way I can, you know that,” he said. “Come in and tell me what’s wrong.”

  She walked into his apartment, her breath coming even faster, tears welling up in her eyes. “Kelsey is missing.”

  He frowned as he closed the door, his werewolf instincts kicking in and making him tense. “What do you mean, she’s missing?”

  “She never came home last night.”

  Alex let out the breath he’d been holding. “She probably just got tired and stayed at a friend’s place. You told me she’s done that before.”

  Lacey shook her head. “This is different. She always leaves me a message when she does that, but not this time. I tried to call her, but she’s not returning my texts or calls. Her friends said they haven’t seen her since last night when she left the restaurant they went to for dinner. They all thought she’d left with someone else. They hadn’t even bothered to check with each other until I started looking for her.”

  Lacey’s heart was beating so fast, Alex thought she was going to pass out. The more she talked, the paler she became.

  “Calm down, okay?” he said. “There has to be a logical explanation for this. Maybe she just met someone…”

  That earned him a sharp look, and he knew without asking that Lacey would never believe Kelsey was simply shacking up with a hot guy she’d met. In Lacey’s world, Kelsey would never do that.

  He was about to point out that they needed to at least consider that as a possibility when Lacey spoke.

  “I called campus security just to see if they knew anything, and they told me that Kelsey sent the registrar’s office an email this morning saying she was dropping out of school to go to California and become an actress.”

  Okay, that changed things. It
sure as hell didn’t sound like Kelsey. That horrible feeling settled in the pit of his stomach again. He gestured for Lacey to sit on the couch, then joined her, asking her to go over everything from the beginning.

  “I talked to her last night before I went to Bensen’s place,” she said.

  Alex didn’t say anything. He would have liked to follow up on that part of the conversation, but it wasn’t important right now.

  “She said she was exhausted from all the studying she’d been doing and had been planning to hit a local popular burger joint with her friends,” Lacey continued. “She wasn’t home when I got there and still wasn’t in her bed this morning. That’s when I started calling everyone.”

  “And what exactly did campus security say?”

  She shrugged in the most heartbreaking gesture he’d ever seen. “They don’t understand why I’m so freaked out. According to them, they have dozens of students who bail each semester without telling anyone. They took a report, but as far as they’re concerned, I’m just making a fuss for no reason. They keep saying she’s a college kid and that’s what college kids do. But they don’t know my sister like I do.”

  “Did you go to the police?” he asked.

  Lacey nodded. “I went down to the police station and filed a missing person report, but the guy at the front desk didn’t seem very hopeful. He told me he’d pass the report to the Missing Persons Squad but admitted he was concerned the email to the registrar’s office would put Kelsey’s case on the bottom of the stack.”

  Alex ached to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but he didn’t dare.

  “Something has happened to Kelsey,” she said brokenly. “I can feel it in my heart. I know I don’t have any right to ask you this, and if I had any other option, I wouldn’t be here now, but I need help. You’re the only one I can turn to.”

  They weren’t exactly the words Alex had been hoping to hear from Lacey when he’d first opened the door, but none of that mattered now. Whatever was going on between them—or wasn’t—he couldn’t turn his back on Lacey or her sister. His gut was saying the same thing Lacey’s was. There was no way in hell Kelsey had run off to California.

  “You don’t even have to ask,” he told her. “I know some people down at missing persons. Let’s see what we can find out down there.”

  * * *

  Lacey hadn’t even realized the missing persons division was a special part of the DPD, kind of like SWAT. She thought that each police station had their own. But they had a separate office on Lamar Street, which was where Alex took her. Even though his SWAT uniform got them in to see a detective who took a second report, the man said they’d look into it but that there wasn’t much they could do without some concrete evidence that Kelsey was missing. Ever since that poor girl Abigail Elliott had disappeared, they’d been swamped with missing person reports. Glancing around at the office packed with worried-looking people, Lacey didn’t doubt it. That made her only more desperate to find her sister.

  By the time she and Alex left, she was so exhausted, she could barely stand. She had no idea what to do or where to turn next.

  “When was the last time you ate?” Alex asked as he opened the passenger door of his truck for her.

  Lacey stared at him, trying to remember. She’d been a complete mess when she’d gotten home from Wendy’s place last night. All she’d wanted was to fall into bed and forget the evening had ever happened. She was wrung out like she’d run a race, and there was an ache in her chest that was impossible to ignore—and just as impossible to explain. She’d lain awake for hours, staring at the dark ceiling, thinking about Alex and everything she’d seen.

  She was having one hell of a time reconciling the amazingly gentle man she’d laughed with, kissed, and made love to with the violent monster she’d seen in that junkyard. There hadn’t been a single gentle quality about that thing. It had been all power, carnage, and violence.

  Yet through it all, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind that Alex had kept her safe. If not for him, she’d be dead. Even so, she never would have come to Alex for help, not if she had a better option. But for her sister, she’d swallow her pride and do whatever she had to do to find her.

  While she was pretty sure she hadn’t eaten since before going to Bensen’s place last night, the thought of food made her stomach turn.

  “I don’t want to eat,” she said, climbing in the seat. “I want to find my sister.”

  “So do I, but we can’t do that if you pass out.” He sighed. “Since missing persons was pretty much a bust, I’m going to ask some of my SWAT teammates to help us find Kelsey. We might as well grab something to eat while we wait for them to meet us.”

  Lacey was too tired to complain as Alex drove her to the nearest diner and led her to a booth way in the back. After they ordered, he pulled out his phone.

  “Hey, Xander, it’s me. Did Cooper talk to you this morning?” A pause. “Good, because I need some help.”

  She sipped her coffee, listening as Alex told him about Kelsey being missing.

  “I could use Remy and Becker, since they have the most experience with finding people,” he said. “But I’ll take anyone else Gage is willing to let me have.”

  Alex gave Xander the address of the diner, then hung up.

  “The guys will be here in fifteen minutes,” he told her.

  She mechanically spread jelly on the whole wheat toast the waitress had brought while Alex was on the phone, then took a small bite and chewed slowly. “You said Remy and Becker have experience finding people,” she said after she swallowed. “What kind of experience?”

  “Remy was a U.S. marshal before joining SWAT. He can track anyone, anywhere,” Alex said, digging into his scrambled eggs. “Becker is good with computers and all things electronic. He’s handy to have around if you need to see video footage or find someone’s digital footprint.”

  That all made sense to her, but for some reason, she could only think of one particular question. “Are they…like you?”

  Alex didn’t say anything for a long time, but she could feel his disappointment—and anger—coming from the other side of the table. “Does it matter that much to you if they are?”

  Lacey looked away. She had no right to be asking any questions, especially since she was the one who’d come begging for help. “I guess not. I just want my sister to be okay.”

  They both fell silent after that, concentrating on their food until they were done eating, then staring at their coffee. Anything to keep from having to look at each other. Lacey shifted in the booth, more uncomfortable than she’d ever been in her life. It was hard to believe that so much had changed so quickly. She supposed finding out your boyfriend was a monster could do that.

  Lacey breathed a sigh of relief when Alex’s teammates showed up. She’d met Remy, Becker, Max, and Brooks at the engagement party but hadn’t given much thought to how big and muscular each of them was at the time. Now that she realized they were like Alex, it made sense. It was difficult not thinking about them having fangs and claws, though. She needed their help, so she’d just have to deal with it.

  Since they wouldn’t all fit in the booth where she and Alex were sitting, they moved to a nearby table. After the waitress poured coffee for each of them, Lacey told Alex’s teammates the same thing she’d told him that morning about Kelsey’s disappearance. They took turns asking her questions after that, mostly about Kelsey’s friends.

  “Can you call them and see if they’ll meet with us?” Max asked.

  She frowned. “Do you think they know something about what happened to Kelsey?”

  Alex exchanged looks with his teammates. “They may know something and not even realize it.”

  Lacey sighed. She wasn’t sure what they could possibly know that they hadn’t already told her, but she dug in her purse for her cell phone and called them anyway.

&nb
sp; * * *

  Alex opened the door to Lacey’s apartment, urging her inside with a gentle hand on the small of her back. The fact that she didn’t flinch and pull away from him was just another indication of how tired she was, not to mention how shell-shocked from everything they’d learned about Kelsey today. He felt for Lacey. It couldn’t be easy finding out she hadn’t known Kelsey nearly as well as she’d thought.

  Lacey walked straight to the couch and dropped down into it with an exhausted sigh. She was falling apart in front of his eyes, and it killed Alex to have to stand all the way on the far side of the room and watch it happen. But he knew she didn’t want him beside her no matter how much he wanted to be there.

  Giving him a sad look, Leo moved to sit on the floor beside her and rest his chin on her knee. Lacey ran her hand gently over his head.

  “How could I have missed all that?” she asked softly, close to tears.

  The urge to pull Lacey into his arms and tell her it was all going to be okay was hard to resist, but Alex managed.

  “How could you have seen it?” he said. “Kelsey never gave you a reason to think she was lying to you, so you trusted her.”

  She let out a sound of frustration. “This is like our mom all over again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Drinking. Clubbing. Guys.” Lacey shook her head. “Kelsey is doing all of that and now she’s going to end up just like our mother.”

  Alex frowned. “No, she isn’t. Because we’re going to find her.”

  Lacey didn’t say anything.

  “Kelsey isn’t like your mom, Lacey. She’s a normal college student doing what every other college student her age does.”

  Lacey didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue. “I didn’t know about anything Kelsey was doing, but you and your teammates figured it out right away. How?”