Written in the Stars: Wolffe Peak Book 3

by Knight, Gwen

  “I heard you.”

  “Then pull the fuck over.”

  “Nope,” was all Harley said.

  The alpha’s eyes ignited a blindingly bright gold. But thanks to his own alpha, Harley had seen that look again and again. Especially since he tended to bring it out of Wyatt.

  “This isn’t a game, wolf,” the alpha snarled.

  “Sure isn’t. And Jasmine isn’t a toy you can just take.”

  The alpha curled a lip. “She belongs to me.”

  “Well, that just isn’t true.”

  The alpha’s eyes burned. “She’s a jaguar. She was changed by one of my men. She belongs to me.”

  “Look… George. Can I call you George?”

  The alpha blinked. “What?”

  “I don’t know your name, and it’s getting a little annoying calling you the alpha in my head. So, George then?”

  Even in the rearview mirror, Harley could see the alpha grimace. “My name is Eztli.”

  “Yikes.” Harley shook his head. “Should have gone with George. Anyway, my point is, if you really want to break it down, Jasmine is my mate. So, ipso facto, she belongs to me.”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “Wrong again, George.”

  “Eztli,” he growled, grinding the gun barrel against Harley’s skull.

  “Look.” Harley paused for effect, a sly grin spreading across his face. “You don’t need Jasmine. What’s one jaguar going to do for your pack?”

  “Clan!” Eztli shouted. “Pack is your word. We aren’t dogs.”

  Oo-kay, he’d try not to take that personally. “All right. But my point still stands. Jasmine is just one lousy shifter. How many do you have in your clan?”

  “Two hundred and three now that you’ve killed four,” Eztli sneered, his accent thickening. “She’ll replace one of our losses.”

  “In all fairness, you attacked first.”

  “You stole my jaguar.”

  “Around and around we go,” Harley muttered, seamlessly navigating through traffic. “Let’s try a different tactic. Do you guys have mates? Do you believe in finding your one true soulmate?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right. So, working on that, what would happen if some random shifter stole your mate from you?”

  “I would kill the bastard,” Eztli stated.

  “Perfect. See? We have some common ground.”

  Eztli shook his head, a curtain of gloriously black hair spilling over his shoulder. Harley had to admit, he might hate the guy, but damn he was jealous of his mane. “We have nothing in common. And she belongs to me.”

  “Come on, George. Don’t force me into a corner here.”

  “Stop calling me George!”

  Harley lifted one hand from the steering wheel. “All right. Calm down. But see, here’s the thing. My alpha, he’s a big bad werewolf in Colorado. And if I don’t call to check in with him, he’s prepared to unleash our entire pack on Mexico. Last time you came up against werewolves, you lost.”

  Eztli snarled. “We did no such thing. We left. This is our land. And I’ll be damned if I let your lot take it from me. Now, pull over or I will shoot you.”

  “And then what? Steer the car to safety from the backseat? Odds are you’ll kill yourself and Jasmine.”

  The lack of response told Harley that Eztli had already thought of that. Did that mean he was willing to take the risk? Or that he was bluffing? Hard to say. The man was like stone. Hard to read and equally as stubborn.

  Time to try a different angle. “The jaguar who bit Jasmine… what’d you do with him?”

  Dark brows lowered over Eztli’s brown eyes. “Why do you care?”

  “Humor me.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Ah. Was he one of the ones who attacked us?”

  “No,” Eztli grumbled. “I killed him.”

  Progress. Okay. Maybe this plan would work. “Because he disobeyed you, didn’t he?”

  Eztli’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know that no alpha in his right mind would associate himself with Humans First.”

  Rage bloomed across the alpha’s face at the mere mention of the hate group. Another good sign. They weren’t willingly working with Humans First then. Which meant there was a possibility he could reason with the alpha.

  “What about the fire in San Quintín? Did your people start that?”

  “Of course not! We aren’t terrorists.”

  Humans First, then. But why? Just to cause chaos? To kill him? Probably the latter of the two. He couldn’t imagine Luis wanted him alive to further disrupt his plans.

  “Look—we’re having our own troubles with Humans First. They’re the ones who kidnapped Jasmine. They’re the ones who made one of your men bite and change her. They also likely started the fire. They’ve attacked us back home as well. We want to put an end to them. But we can’t do it alone. Let me take Jasmine home. I’ll talk to my alpha. Maybe we can somehow work together to bring down this organization once and for all.”

  A soft moan jerked Harley’s gaze to the seat next to Eztli. Jasmine stirred, her hands immediately rising to her head. When her fingers came away stained with blood, Harley nearly saw red. He couldn’t lose his cool, though. Things were tenuous enough without him attacking the alpha.

  “Harley?” she murmured.

  Eztli shot her a concerned glance, one that piqued Harley’s interest. He’d seen that look before on Wyatt’s face when worried about one of his people. This alpha actually considered her one of his.

  “I’m going to level with you here, Eztli. Jasmine is the daughter of one of our senators. He knows she’s here. He’s the one who deployed the team to extract her. Meaning, if you don’t release her, he will rain hell down upon you. It won’t just be my wolf pack you’ll have to worry about, but the entirety of the American government. I can’t imagine you want that kind of limelight shining on you.”

  “I’m well aware of her station,” Eztli growled. “But I don’t have a choice in this matter. If I do let her return home, she’ll report to her father that my men attacked her. And that will also rain hell down on me, as you said.”

  “I won’t say a thing,” Jasmine whispered. “I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to tell my father. He can be—”

  “Judgmental? Arrogant? Unforgiving?” Harley supplied.

  Jasmine shot him a stern glare. “As Harley so elegantly pointed out, my father isn’t known for being open-minded.”

  “You would actually keep this secret from him? That you were changed into a shifter?”

  “This isn’t your fault, Eztli,” Harley said. “Your man went rogue. You corrected the issue as best you could, as any good alpha would do. I think we can make a deal here.”

  The jaguar alpha swung his gaze back toward Harley. “What kind of deal?”

  “I’m sure you questioned your rogue jaguar before killing him.”

  A terse nod.

  “You tell me why he did this and what Humans First has planned for Jasmine. And we keep all this from the senator. As far as he knows, Humans First kidnapped her because she supports shifter rights. He doesn’t need to know anything more than that.”

  The alpha slowly lowered the gun as he considered Harley’s words. Truthfully, Harley couldn’t imagine him turning this deal down. There weren’t many other good choices for him. If he turned this down, Harley was quite happy to take his chances and run this car into a guardrail. Maybe the alpha would survive, maybe not. But it’d give them a leg up. Or, he could say yes and this ended with Harley pulling off to the side of the road and them shaking hands. Personally, he preferred option two. Less blood and tears.

  Finally, after a few tension-riddled moments, Eztli nodded. “You have a deal.”

  A grin stretched across Harley’s face. “Excellent! We’re gonna be good friends. I just know it.”

  The alpha lifted a thick brow. “Doubtful, but I will honor my part of the agreement. B
efore I killed him, my jaguar admitted that Humans First was looking to cause a scandal in America.”

  “What kind of scandal?” Jasmine whispered.

  “A bloody one.”

  Harley frowned. He took the next turnoff, relief slackening his muscles when Bale quickly followed.

  “My jaguar didn’t know much, because no one would actually speak to him. He only knew what he overheard. Once Jasmine became a shifter, they had every intention of letting her return home with the hope that she would change, lose control, and murder her family. A high-ranking political family murdered by the senator’s daughter who’s also a secret shifter…”

  “Would upset the entire country,” Jasmine whispered. “Jesus.”

  “There’d be riots calling for registration,” Harley commented, his thoughts immediately dancing back to eleven or so years ago when werewolves had come out of hiding. That hadn’t been a good time for shifters in general.

  “Thank goodness my father sent you, Harley,” Jasmine murmured. “And thank goodness you taught me how to control myself.”

  Harley silently nodded, his mind still whirling around the implications. Had Humans First succeeded, who knew how the White House would have responded. Thanks to Sky, many higher-ups supported shifter rights. But if a political family was murdered, they’d turn faster than a pancake.

  No, they couldn’t let that happen.

  They needed to figure out who was leading Humans First. And when they did, they needed to put an end to all this. Permanently.

  19

  Finally, things were beginning to settle down.

  Jasmine leaned back against the leather seat and sighed. Tired didn’t begin to describe her. She was exhausted. Physically and emotionally drained. And if one more person drugged her, she was literally going to kill them. A warning she’d issued to the jaguar alpha after he and Harley had struck their deal. The shock in his dark gaze had been well worth the anxiety coupled with her nerves. Thankfully, Eztli had used a standard horse tranquilizer to knock her out rather than the shit Humans First had continuously pumped into her. She hadn’t realized it until she’d woken, but this had become a hot button issue for her. Every damn inch of her was trembling, fighting off the aftereffects and the fear of being drugged.

  Thankfully, they were headed back to the embassy now. She couldn’t wait to put this whole mess, and country, behind her.

  Harley pulled up alongside the building and stared out the window. Jasmine grimaced at the sight of the police crowding the sidewalks, questioning passersby about the fight. People merely shrugged and kept walking, oblivious to the earlier events now that some time had passed.

  “Son of a bitch,” Harley growled.

  Without another word, he stormed out of the vehicle. Jasmine peered out the window and watched as he gripped Carlisle by the collar and hauled him into the nearest alleyway. In front of the police. She cursed under her breath and shot out of the car, Eztli hot on her heels.

  “The fuck drugs are you on!” she heard Harley shouting.

  She stole a glance back at the hotel. Thankfully, the police remained unaware of this new event. Somehow.

  “I’m sorry,” Carlisle mumbled, his bruised eyes downcast even as Harley shoved him up against the wall and pinned him by the throat. Jasmine took in the new coloring to his face. Deep bruises darkened his eyes, a split lip, and crooked nose. Someone had beaten the hell out of him. Twenty bucks said she knew exactly who that was.

  “Yeah, you said that. I should rip out your fucking throat right here.”

  “It isn’t his fault, wolf,” Eztli commented. He stood in the middle of the alleyway, his impressive arms crossed over his even more impressive chest.

  For the first time, Jasmine took a good, hard look at him and nearly whistled. She’d met a few alphas in her day, but Eztli put them all to shame. The man was an absolute powerhouse. She was suddenly incredibly grateful Harley had managed to turn them to their side. The thought of Harley facing off against him made her sick to her stomach. Eztli would have murdered him without batting an eyelash.

  “He was the one who handed her off to you. I’d say that’s his fault.”

  “But it worked out in the end, right?” Carlisle asked, his swollen eyes darting between Harley and Eztli.

  “You son of a bitch,” Harley growled, pressing his arm deep into Carlisle’s throat. His face quickly began to purple. “You think that justifies what you did back there?”

  “I made him,” Eztli said. “When I found them in San Quintín, I… convinced them it would be in their best interest to hand the woman over to me.”

  “Jasmine,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “My name is Jasmine. Not woman, not jaguar, not whatever else you have stored in that head of yours. Jasmine. And seriously, you three? How ‘bout you knock this shit off. In case you haven’t realized, we’re all friends here now. So stow your fuckin’ egos and get me home!” Her raised voice echoed through the alley.

  Even Harley turned toward her, his brow rising.

  Jasmine sucked in a deep breath and calmed her nerves. “I’m sorry. But seriously. I’m tired, jittery from whatever the hell Eztli injected me with, and just plain sick of all this effin’ melodrama. I just want to go home. Right now.”

  “My apologies,” Eztli said, his head bowed. “I didn’t realize that drugging you would have such an effect. I simply wished to—”

  “What? Abduct me without any fight? Yeah, I bet my kidnappers said the same thing.”

  “I didn’t mean to harm you.”

  “Then here’s a tip. Don’t go around drugging people, m’kay?”

  “All right,” Harley said, easing off Carlisle. He shook his head and took a step back. “Seriously disappointed in you, man. I don’t care if Eztli threatened to murder your entire family. You don’t hand the person you’re being paid to protect over to the bad guy.”

  “He has Wells,” Carlisle finally admitted.

  “He… what?”

  Shame added a new shade to Carlisle’s cheeks. “He’s holding Wells as collateral. I was to deliver Jasmine to him and then he would release Wells.”

  Harley turned toward Eztli. “You plan on correcting that?”

  “It’s already been done. My men are delivering him to the airport as we speak. He’ll likely be there before you three.”

  Shaking his head, Harley pinched the bridge of his nose and faced Carlisle. “I don’t even know where to start with you. So let’s just go inside and order Jasmine’s passport so we can get the hell out of here.”

  As a unit, they headed inside, Carlisle hanging out near the back. Jasmine didn’t trust him back there, not after the stunt he’d pulled, but right now, she’d take him over nobody. Even though the jaguar threat had been dealt with, that didn’t mean Humans First wasn’t still out there, waiting, watching. She’d feel better once they were in the air heading home. And once they landed on American soil, she was hiring every damn bodyguard she could think of until this whole mess was dealt with, courtesy of her father’s checkbook after the shit he pulled.

  Unfortunately, thanks to their little adventure through Mexico City, the lineup was already fairly long. It took until nearly the end of the day for someone to slap her passport in her hand. But finally, she was going home. She couldn’t describe the level of relief that washed through her at the sight of her passport. Almost as though a missing piece of herself had been returned.

  Harley ushered them all outside. The sun had begun its descent, but she didn’t care. At this point, she’d willingly take a three a.m. flight if it meant getting home.

  As Eztli promised, Wells was waiting for them at the airport. At the sight of his battered face, Jasmine gasped and glared at Eztli. “Is this how you get things done down here?”

  He barely glanced at Wells and shrugged. “It’s the way everyone gets things done here.”

  And all this because she and Harley had left them behind in San Quintín. If they’d stayed and helped, maybe all of them
would have escaped the burning town.

  “It’s fine,” Wells grumbled, though the rage burning in his eyes spoke otherwise. “Let’s just get you home so we can collect our payment.”

  Jasmine twitched at the mention of money.

  “Then this is where I leave you,” Eztli said. “Have your alpha contact me should you require any further assistance with Humans First. I’m not sure what more I can do to help, but I am here if he needs it.”

  “Thanks,” Harley said as he heaved his pack over his shoulder. “I wish I could say it was nice meeting you, but we both know that’d be a lie.”

  Eztli inclined his head. Without another word, he hopped into the car and sped away.

  “Jesus. Can’t say I’m not glad to be rid of that asshole,” Wells said.

  Jasmine nodded then followed Harley into the airport. Luckily, he managed to secure them four seats on the next flight to Denver with an eight-fifteen departure. It would be tight clearing security, but no one had a problem with that.

  Harley paid for all the tickets without batting an eyelash then guided everyone through the airport. They cleared security and customs with twenty minutes to spare. Once onboard, Jasmine purchased the in-flight headphones, put on a movie, and crashed, determined to sleep the entire way home.

  * * *

  Harley had to physically shake Jasmine awake when the plane landed. During the flight, he’d thought the turbulence would wake her. When it hadn’t, he’d thought the shaky landing would. But nope, she’d slept through it all. Part of him was envious. He hadn’t been able to catch a single wink along the way, too busy playing the entire adventure through in his head.

  Eztli had given them Humans First’s intentions. They wanted to turn the entire American government against all shifters, and they believed a murderous scandal was the way to do it. This couldn’t be allowed. And he was starting to wonder just what the hell they could do to put a stop to such an organization.

  After Humans First attacked Maddie’s ranch and nearly killed Axel, Wyatt and Sky had made their best efforts to reach out and befriend every single judge, congressman, senator, and governor they could think of. To sway them onto their side.