Lone Enforcer: An Alpha Shifter Suspense Romance (Wolf Enforcers Book 2)

by Jessica Aspen

  There was another rise of sound as her words sunk in.

  “Quiet!” Chief Howler stood up, not sitting down and her glare targeting one after another of the troublemakers, until the room was again calm.

  Ms. Truewater nodded at her, and started again. “Thank you, Chief. Given today’s broadcast, you are all now ‘need to know’. So, here it is.” She exchanged glances with Chief Howler before looking back at the room. “The CDC does have some mis-information about Lycanthroism, but as far as we can tell, that’s all it is, incorrect or incomplete information. They are using the scientific name pack elders gave it a hundred and fifty years ago. And they understand it has something to do with wolves. But really, that’s all they have. What you may have heard on the broadcast is exactly the information they are dealing with. Someone saw a victim of Lycanthroism act like a wolf. As you all know, this is what happens in the early stages of infection, when the virus takes over the body and is remaking the person into a shifter.”

  The room erupted into noise, questions.

  “Silence!” Wendy Howler pounded a gavel onto the podium. “Let the councilwoman finish speaking.”

  The room quieted down, but not without some pushing and shoving in the back. Someone was escorted out.

  “The good news is that, according to our source, they have not been able to get their hands on anyone who actually has manifested the virus. They are going by hearsay. And that is a very good thing for us. This means that all we need to do is keep anyone who has the live virus away from the CDC. And as you know the only times that we get the virus are at adolescence—when the spelltalkers at our boarding schools administer it through carefully controlled circumstances to our pack youth. And when someone is going through the mating fever. Which, since we mate for life, is only once in a while.”

  “So, what does this mean to you as enforcers? It means that you need to be aware of your friends and family who are entering relationships and make sure they are not running wild in the human population. Keep a careful eye out for anyone exhibiting signs of the fever. As enforcers, you are called out frequently by our pack members in the community for assistance during these times and are uniquely positioned to help us keep these individuals away from the public.”

  Luca glanced around. Overall, the enforcers seemed to be taking the news calmly.

  “Just be aware. Let your superiors know of anything important. And do not, under any circumstances, talk to anyone who might be asking questions.” She paused, making eye contact around the room. Luca ducked his eyes, not wanting her to see the guilt in his expression. “We don’t expect to be targeted by the press. After all, they have no idea we exist. But all it will take is one person getting suspicious and all our efforts to be hidden in plain sight will have failed.”

  Hands shot up, but Luca wasn’t paying any attention. His stomach twisted.

  Natalie had made it clear she would be shining attention on the pack to solve Yvette’s disappearance. This was the worst time to have any attention on Windy Gap. Especially the discovery of a murder scene on pack property.

  He wanted to protect her, wanted to help her, but now, everything she wanted conflicted with what was best for the pack. He had to find a way to keep her quiet. And he had a sick feeling he knew what must have happened to Yvette.

  His stomach churning, he slumped in his chair, letting the rush of questions and answers flow over him, unheard.

  She must have seen someone shift, someone who knew about the CDC and the pack exposure. And that meant that someone on the council, or someone close to the council, had killed her and covered it up. He had no idea what to do next or who he could trust. He couldn’t expose Natalie to murder.

  On the other hand, he had a responsibility to protect the pack from exposure.

  Chapter Seven

  Natalie pulled her car up to the side ranch gate and punched in the code she’d seen Luca use when they’d left the day before. The gates swung open and she drove through. The dirt road wound through a wide valley dotted with fuzzy sheep grazing. Funny, she’d thought everyone in Colorado raised cattle, but what did she, a city girl, know about ranching.

  Nothing.

  When the road branched she took the one to the left that led back to Luca’s cabin. She’d noted that there wasn’t much around his place besides trees, and it would be a good place to hide the car while she hunted for more clues. This was a stupid idea, a wild goose-chase, but no one was going to help Yvette. It was up to her.

  She parked behind the small shed and limped over to the corral where Espresso munched on a pile of hay. Her foot was doing much better. It wasn’t as sprained as she’d feared but she wouldn’t be rock climbing any time soon.

  “Hey boy, remember me?” She pulled out the carrots she had in her backpack and laid one on the flat of her palm. The horse came over and lipped it off, tickling her skin and leaving a bit of hay slobber. “Thanks, bro. Just what I needed.” She unzipped her backpack and searched for her little package of tissues.

  “Bear spray, map, climbing shoes…” She laughed. “Won’t be needing those for a while. Ah, tissues.” She took out the bright orange package and wiped off her hands.

  Espresso’s ears tilted to the side and Natalie heard the growl of an engine coming up the road behind her. She dropped the pack of tissues, grabbed her backpack, and ran for the safety of the trees behind the cabin. She crouched down behind a bush, peering around its green leaves. A big white SUV pulled up, parking next to the corral. The big man, who had been yelling at Luca the day before, got out. Bardolf? Bertolf? Something with a B.

  He put his hands on his hips and sniffed the air.

  “Anyone here?”

  Bertolf frowned, walked over to the horse’s paddock, and bent and picked up the little orange pack of tissues. He sniffed it and his entire face wrinkled like a bulldog’s. He growled.

  Natalie got a weird feeling. Why was he growling like that and swinging his head from side to side, like a dog trying to catch a scent.

  “I know you’re here, missy. You can’t hide from me. Come out where I can see you.” He wiped his gleaming forehead on his sleeve, triggering alarm-bells for Natalie as she recalled her brief foray onto the internet this morning.

  There was a frenzy on social media, right now. Everyone was on the lookout for people with the new disease—people acting like wolves. Most said it was likely an outbreak of rabies and to look for slobbering, panting, sweating crazies.

  But a few had said that growling, lip curling, and howling were the things to look for. She’d totally ignored most of it, searching for anything that might indicate what had happened to Yvette. But now, the craziness on the news and the internet began to make sense.

  This guy looked hot and he was acting weird. Could this Bertolf guy have the new disease? Lycan…Lycanth…?

  Screw it. She couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. He’d be pissed if he found her here. She moved away, deeper into the trees behind the house.

  She stepped back and a branch cracked loudly under her foot. His head whipped in her direction and he stalked towards her, sniffing the air.

  “I can smell you, missy. I’m coming to get you.”

  Natalie’s heart sped up, pounding terror with every thud.

  She yanked her bear spray from her pack and flipped the safety clip off. Then shoved her pack over her shoulder and ran.

  Behind her she heard Bertolf’s larger body crashing through the trees. Man, he was fast for such a beefy guy. With her ankle like this, she was never going to outrun him.

  She darted behind a wide pine tree and pressed her body to the rough bark. A strong smell of vanilla mixed with pine rose around her. She could hear him, his noisy steps getting closer and closer. She wrapped her hands tightly around the canister. It wasn’t for use on humans, but she didn’t have anything else.

  At the last minute she whipped around the tree and pressed the button on the top of the aerosol can. The stuff flew out, missing his
head and spraying just to the side of his face. He went down, coughing, hard, mucus spewing from his nose and mouth, fingers clawing at his eyes.

  The odor of the toxic pepper spray made Natalie cough. Her eyes teared up and she backed away, covering her face with her arm. Bertolf was a mess. Should she call 911? She was trespassing, but he looked seriously hurt. The spray was meant for bears, not people, and no matter how crazy he seemed, he was still a person.

  Then his face rippled. She blinked hard, staring at him. Another ripple ran through his face, and down his neck. Muscle and bone popped out, making grinding noises as he spasmed on the ground. His nose extended into a muzzle. Hair grew on his arms and legs, sprouting out at the same time as his limbs crunched and changed shape.

  Natalie’s body shook hard, the spray can bobbing up and down in front of her. She clutched it and stared at the strange twisting thing happening in front of her, horrified to realize that he was changing from a man into—what the hell was it?

  Bertolf looked up at her, his swollen pain-filled eyes still looking human in the half-man, half-beast of his face. And then his eyes changed, getting rounder and losing all their whites as they morphed into those of an animal.

  He levered himself up on his front paws, his hairy body still twisting and partially human, looking strangled in too-tight pieces of his shedding clothes. This wasn’t a man. And it wasn’t a disease. Natalie froze in panic, her fingers frozen on the bear spray trigger.

  A werewolf.

  He growled.

  Panic took over. Natalie turned and raced back the way she’d come. She ignored the ache in her ankle. If she could just get to the car. But before she made it even a few steps Bertolf was all the way up and lunging for her. She darted to the side, heading away from him and away from the car. The trail that Luca had brought her down the mountain on the day before wasn’t far away. Once she got there, she’d be able to run with no trees.

  From too close behind her she heard his heavy breathing and she picked up the pace, the pain in her ankle forgotten under the full fledged panic of being chased by a pissed off wild thing.

  Instinct had her looking behind her and she saw him lunge. She screamed, and cut left, shifting off her course, running into an area with less trees. And then no trees. Shit!

  She turned fast, hearing him skid on some loose gravel behind her.

  She was running toward the edge of what had to be part of the ravine she’d been in the day before, only the drop looked to be twice as far. There was nowhere else to go. She stopped and turned, holding up the canister of bear spray and confronting what was chasing her.

  She blinked in surprise. The half-man, half-beast was gone and in its place was a massive gray wolf, with full muscular shoulders and much bigger than she thought a wolf should be. His eyes were weeping tears and his nose was wet with snot.

  The intelligent gleam in his eyes as he slowed and took in her precarious location on the edge of the cliff, told her freaking out brain everything she needed to know—this wasn’t a beast. There was a man in there. And he knew who had pulled that trigger.

  Her.

  The wolf curled his upper lip and snarled, revealing sharp white teeth. Natalie looked for someplace to go, but there wasn’t any—behind her was the edge of the ravine. She went to go left, but the wolf lunged. She jerked back, her feet slipping dangerously close to the edge.

  She had no choice. There was nowhere left to run. She aimed the can and pushed the nozzle again. This time her aim was better and the arc of spray hit him full in the face. He made a horrible howling sound and spasmed, twisting himself at the last minute and throwing his huge heavy body toward hers. She instinctively jerked back, coughing from the taint of toxins in the air, and fell off of the side of the steep trail.

  Down, she slid, scraping her fingers into the dirt and roots and landing hard.

  She rolled, and stopped. She dug her fingers into the ground, crying from the pepper spray and staring down through blurry eyes at the forty foot drop only inches away.

  She sat up, blinking and coughing. Her fall had been stopped by a narrow outcrop of mostly flat rock. There were a few scrubby plants clinging to life, and a small dead tree. A few feet above her she could hear pitiful sounds, almost like a puppy crying. Two shots of bear spray and he had to be hurting. But the first shot had barely slowed him down. And this time he’d be really pissed.

  She didn’t have much time. She slid her pack off and took out her phone.

  Damn. No reception. But sometimes, even when you couldn’t get a phone call through, you could text. It was a long shot, but the only one she had. She texted the only person she knew who would be able to find her. Luca.

  Then she sank down on the ledge, gripped the nearly empty can of spray in her hand, and aimed it at the top of the ravine. And waited for the wolf to come over the edge.

  THE COUNCIL’S MEETING had devolved into too many people asking too many stupid questions for Luca, and no real answers from the people in charge.

  Should he say something to the council members? They looked like they were going to be there for hours, and the chief with them. When Gabe and Rico stood up and made their way to the door, Luca quietly followed them.

  Outside, in the large main room with the soaring log beams, Gabe turned to Luca. “Hey Weylyn, have you ever seen so many enforcers with their tails between their legs. You would think the entire human race was coming after us.”

  “Yeah.” Rico rolled his eyes. “It’s only a tiny quirk of our DNA that makes the virus change us. We’re all human too.”

  “Can I ask you guys something?” Luca put his hat back on his head and motioned the other two enforcers to a quiet corner of the room. He needed to tell someone, and Gabe and Rico were some of the best on the force. They waited, looking at him with serious looks on their face. “Ah hell. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Just start at the beginning,” Gabe said.

  The beginning. “Yesterday, I—” His phone buzzed. “Hang on. Bertolf chewed me out the other day for not checking my messages. I need to at least look.”

  He thumbed through to his texts. Natalie’s frantic message was there in white print on a blue bubble followed by some GPS coordinates.

  Help. Cornered totally pissed and drooling big guy. Bertolf? You won’t believe it, but he’s a werewolf. Seriously. He’s going to kill me.

  Inside his wolf growled, and the rise of the shift flowed through him.

  “Luca. What the hell.” Rico waved a hand in front of his face. “Stand down, bro, we’re in the middle of a group of riled up enforcers. This won’t end well.”

  He took a deep breath and his wolf eased back, but the thought of Natalie being hunted by Bertolf had his shoulders tightening with tension. He turned back to Rico and Gabe, looking them over. “Are you carrying?”

  “Something wrong?” Gabe tilted his head at him.

  “Yes. I’ll explain on the way.”

  “What the fuck?” Rico’s brows shot up.

  He headed for the door, both men right behind him. “There’s no time, we have to go now. Do you have your weapons?”

  “Yeah, in the SUV. Why?” Gabe followed him outside. “We have it all. Stun guns too.”

  “Great. Let me grab my stuff. We’ll take your vehicle.”

  He ran to the truck and grabbed his go-bag, adrenaline humming through his veins like electricity down a wire. Natalie was in danger. And there was a good possibility that Brandon was not just the man threatening her, but that he was also Yvette’s killer.

  Chapter Eight

  Anxiety rode Luca hard, pushing him to shift and run instead of taking a car. He took a deep breath, took his hat off so he’d fit, and got into the back seat of Rico’s SUV with the Windy Gap Security logo on the side.

  He could do this. He had to do this. He had no idea why his wolf was so out of control at the idea of Natalie in danger, but he couldn’t focus on that right now.

  “Hey, man, where are we
going?” Rico finished buckling on his weapon belt and got behind the wheel. Gabe had shot-gun.

  Luca punched the GPS coordinates Natalie had sent into the app on his phone and checked out the little red line. “Drive to my cabin.”

  For the first time in a long time he could feel the security of having back-up and he could tell his wolf liked the idea too. Maybe he’d been alone too much, lately. Maybe that’s why his wolf had latched onto Natalie as if she were pack.

  Or maybe it was something else.

  “There’d better be a good reason for this, Luca, or we’re up shit creek with the chief.” Rico cranked the engine and they drove out of the parking lot, wheels skidding to the side and spitting gravel.

  “And the council.” Gabe turned to look at him from the passenger seat. “And those old women are mean.” He whistled.

  Luca rolled down the window and stuck his head out, sniffing the air but not catching the scent he wanted. Natalie. Natalie. Natalie. Inside his wolf howled.

  “Drive faster,” was all he could get out.

  “We’ll be there in five minutes but we need to know what we’re getting into.” Despite his reassurance, Rico sped up a little. “Now talk.”

  This was a hunt and his pack needed information. Luca pushed his wolf down.

  “I met a girl on the ranch yesterday, just off of the trail that runs along the side bordering the state park hiking trail, right near the ravine. She was looking for a friend of hers and had found a kill scene. But there was no body. No bones. No evidence. Nothing but lots of old blood soaked into the dirt. I doubt anyone not looking for it would have even noticed, it was so far off the trail.”

  Rico met his gaze in the mirror. “Someone cleaned up.”

  “Yeah. And get this, the girl’s been missing for a month.” While he talked he dug into his go-bag. He pulled out his gun and holster, stun-gun, and knife. Checking the safeties he buckled all three on.