Immediately, his tone defrosted. “Rigo’s doing it right now. Hang on, Anita.”
Part of her wanted to scream, I can’t hang on! Not after what I’ve seen! Don’t you understand there’s danger? It wouldn’t help, though, and she knew it. Adrenaline-laced impatience didn’t listen to reason much better than an antsy toddler would.
Jake’s answer spurred the anxiety to new heights. “Shane’s not answering. What kind of danger are we talking about?”
“A pack of Ferals. Intelligent Ferals. Jake, the Ferals have some kind of bigass leader. A smart one. He was here, making plans. I got a video of it from where I was hiding.” The words sounded inadequate to her. Simple terms that couldn’t convey the dread, the pure fear she had experienced.
“Where’s ‘here’?”
“The garage. Lou sold Shane out. Hell, Lou sold everyone out. Shane, the Bully Boys, and Coyote Trail.”
A crossroads forked the road in two directions. One would take her toward the highway, toward safer, bigger cities where no one knew her name or her story. The other led back to the little town she’d come to call home, with all its gossip and its uncertainty.
Anita turned the wheel to take the second road. “I’ll call the cops to help wrangle Shane’s neighbors and keep them out of your hair. Call in the Bully Boys and save Shane. I’ve got your back.”
10
Wolfpack
Vibrations from the howling engine shuddered through Jake like the tremors brought by adrenaline through a predator’s veins. Wind rushed around his face, through the locks of hair that escaped his helmet. Scents carried on the air, asphalt and exhaust and the omnipresent smell of the desert mixed with the familiar tang of the pack.
They rode at a speed that defied the posted limits of the road they dominated. Holly and Rigo rode at the head with Jake right behind. As they rode, more packmates joined them, peeling in from side roads and intersections to join the loose cluster of motorcycles that screamed towards Shane’s place.
A present-day wolfpack on the hunt. The modern beast of fur and steel.
Shane lived in an old house from the earliest days of town, one he had restored by hand and upgraded with care. While the town had extended west, toward the popular bastions of civilization that had bloomed up from the desert wastelands, Shane’s house stood as a reminder of another age. One where prospectors had prowled the hills in search of gold, silver, and copper, and where enforcement of the law came at the hands of sheriffs with deadeyes and six-shooters.
Nicole had hated it. Time and again, she’d asked Shane to move to a contemporary neighborhood with new homes and a homeowners’ association. How she thought she’d get the motorcycles and pack parties past them, Jake had never figured out. Maybe that had been part of the point. She’d gotten her way on plenty of matters, but Shane had never budged on his house. Now she was gone, Jake hoped to get the story on both the former girlfriend and the home.
If the pack got there in time to save their alpha.
Sirens wailed from another part of town. Anita had promised to call the police for assistance with the few neighbors around Shane’s house. Humans had an almost unstoppable tendency to stagger into dangerous situations so they could gawk and take selfies. Where one found peril, one found people, usually wielding cell phones like artifacts of invulnerability.
One also found those who wanted to capitalize on the threat. Even Jake could name at least four websites off the top of his head who paid a premium for shots of Ferals in action, and he avoided the internet like he’d avoid an infestation of crotch fleas. Greed multiplied the gawkers by a factor of stupid to come up with dead folks as a product.
A deceptive quiet lingered in the streets of Shane’s neighborhood before the engines drove it off. Headlamps flooded the rough streets with harsh light as the bikes wove their way through the maze of potholes and curving boulevards. As they passed, a few curtains fluttered to show curious faces and inquisitive folk who wondered at the number of Bullies who drove through. The residents here had long since gotten used to motorcycles at odd hours. This many riders at once didn’t happen often, and seldom so fast in a residential area. They knew something was up.
Stay inside, all you tasty little sheep, Jake thought as he leaned through a sharp turn and blew a stop sign at the same time. No better help you can give us than to keep the hell out of the way.
A shadow ghosted through Shane’s yard as they tore around the final street corner. Jake lost sight of it behind the tent pavilion that protected Shane’s bike from the basic elements. Another night, he would have wondered if his eyes had deceived him. Instead, he peered harder into the patches of darkness cast by a dozen oncoming headlights.
Movement near the hedge of oleanders that bordered Shane’s backyard. Tall fronds of green leaves and white flowers swayed violently as an interloper forced their way through the plants. Jake heard Rigo’s engine rev harder, and the scout’s bike shot forward to break away from the pack. He’d seen it, too. The rest of the pack gunned their motorcycles to follow the scout’s lead.
They accelerated up Shane’s driveway and into the yard with their engines howling. Gravel and dirt sprayed from the tires as the pack skidded to an urgent stop. Kickstands had hardly hit the ground before the werewolves bailed off the seats to pour through the side gate into the back yard.
Huge holes gaped in the wall of oleanders. Broken branches and shredded leaves scattered over the ground near the gaps. Jake counted four separate points of invasion. At least four attackers, then, maybe more. No sign of them in the yard. They’d already found their way inside. Jake hoped they weren’t too late.
Rigo pointed to three packmates, then gestured toward the back fence. Guards in case of Feral reinforcements. Three others fanned out at his directive to look for points of entry. Jake had no illusions that the Ferals didn’t know the Bullies had arrived, not with the noise the motorcycles made, but they couldn’t see the pack’s movements out here. No sense tipping them off. They’d already be desperate to finish what they came to do before the pack could foul up the plan.
An odd gleam of glass where it didn’t belong caught Jake’s eye. He waved to get Rigo’s attention, then pointed. The Ferals had pulled the sliding glass door off the track and leaned it against the wall on the porch. Smart. No sound of breaking glass. Bet they cased the joint before they went in. Far different than the Ferals who had attacked Anita, or even the ones who’d gone after Holly. They learned. They planned. They understood the stakes.
Not the sort of Feral Jake preferred. He liked them brutish, dumb, and obvious. The subtle sort changed the game in ways Jake didn’t like to think about.
More sirens in the distance. Far off still, but closing in. The Bully Boys had beaten the police to the punch. Now, they wouldn’t have time to allow law enforcement officers to secure the nearby houses before the pack went in to help Shane. Jake hoped they had all the Ferals closed in, or engaged in the inevitable fight on the double quick, so they wouldn’t go after the innocents who lived in the area.
Shane’s bedroom was on the southwest side of the house. A couple of packmates waited near the open sliding glass door to cover the inside. Rigo and Levi padded on silent feet to stand outside the window. The scout cocked his head, listening hard. Whatever he heard, he narrowed his eyes and gave the signal for the werewolves at the back door to move in.
Rigo caught Jake’s eyes and nodded once. Jake nodded back. Go time.
“Shane, look out!” Rigo shouted.
The cry echoed and died into a tense silence, as if the night held its breath against what would happen next. Heavy thuds rattled the bedroom window. An enraged snarl tore the air, followed by the crash and clatter of broken furniture. Aggressive howls sounded from the back fence as the guards there intercepted attempted reinforcements.
Then the bedroom window shattered outwards in a brilliant shower of glass shards as a Feral flew through it at high velocity. The creature landed on the ground with one arm alre
ady at an unnatural angle, broken before the Feral’s violent eviction from the house. Travis and Kerri set on it in half-wolf form to kill it before it could get its feet again.
Jake tried to climb in the broken bedroom window to join the fray. A blur of motion was the only warning he got. He ducked beneath the sill as a second Feral sailed overhead to land in the yard.
Shane followed it, massive enough in his half-shifted shape to pull the entire window frame out with him as he dove outside. Moonlight gleamed off sharp, white teeth as he bared them in a defiant growl. Blood dripped from his vicious claws already, and Jake knew there’d be more before dawn. Shane had just gotten started.
Two more Ferals piled out the window after their partner in slaughter. Jake grabbed one before it had fully cleared the portal. Strength coursed through him as he called on his inner wolf. His flesh burned as it bulked up, grew fur and claws, took on a predator’s form in reply. These corrupted creatures wanted to take down the alpha while he slept? They could deal with the real monsters instead, awake and angry and ready to kill.
Jake slammed the Feral’s head against the wall. Chips of brick and concrete flew off from the impact site. Others embedded themselves in the Feral’s skin. It screeched an ear-splitting shriek, flailing against Jake’s arm as it fought to escape his grip. Jake tightened his hold by embedding his claws into the Feral’s flesh.
Powerful legs kicked out at Jake. Claws raked over the leather chaps he’d thrown on before he got on his bike. Deep gouges scratched across the surface of the tough hide, but didn’t break through. One leg caught enough of a grip on the wall to push the Feral away from Jake. It scrambled toward the yard. The prey runs! Instinct took over. Jake bunched his muscles and pounced after it. Nothing ran from a wolf.
The Feral flung itself sideways to avoid having its face smashed into the ground. It couldn’t evade Jake entirely, however. He threw himself over the Feral as it rolled, and they tumbled together. Muscles strained as they fought for the dominant position. For a moment, Jake felt the Feral’s weight atop him, held there by power and desperation for survival. Adrenaline jolted Jake with enough of a boost to push at the ground, to command his body to give him one last roll.
He came up with one clawed hand around the Feral’s throat. Heavy breaths shook him as he stared down into the creature’s eyes. To Jake, they looked far too familiar. Like his own when he stared at the reflection of his shifted shape, keen and focused and untamed. Coloration around the brute’s muzzle reminded Jake of a wolf’s markings. Perhaps somewhere in the mangled agglomeration of beasts that seethed within the creature’s body, a wolf lurked, and looked out through the eerie eyes to stare at what it should have been.
The Feral’s lips curled. “Tell me why we are different, wolf,” it said in a guttural voice. “Tell me why you are allowed to live and I am not.”
Words didn’t come naturally to his lupine muzzle, but he managed. “I don’t kill people.”
“No?” Beneath him, the Feral’s body trembled with laughter. “We are not very different, you and me.”
Anger charged through Jake. He clenched his fist. Claws tore through the Feral’s throat to leave a gory ruin behind. The laughter stopped.
A long moment passed before Jake could control himself enough to move. When he looked around, he discovered the pack had dealt with the rest of the attackers. The wolves who watched the fence line had a three bodies sprawled near two gaps in the oleander hedge. Shane, at least nine feet tall in his half-wolf shape and still angry by his posture, stood over the pair of Ferals he had thrown out of his bedroom. Holly dragged one back from the edge of the property. Jake assumed the damn thing had tried to make a run for it.
Screaming sirens and screeching tires closed in on the house. Rigo flagged Jake down from the edge of the property. He shrugged off the last of the existential dread that weighed him down and stood, then walked across the corpse-littered yard to join the scout. “That all of them, Rigo?”
“Si. Holly and her nose are walking the area to be certain, but I think the threat here is over.” Rigo glanced at the holes in the oleander hedge.
Jake understood. The threat here, tonight, was over. The threat elsewhere had only begun. With their attack tonight, the Ferals had tried to win the battle with a quick, decisive strike in the shadows, and the pack had repelled it. We drove off the fast win, but I reckon it means we’re going to have to fight a longer, damn ugly war. “Shane looks like he’s okay. Pissed to shit, but not hurt. We need to tell him what the fuck’s going on.”
“As soon as he is calm enough to listen. He’s a grumpy fuck when he wakes up.” Rigo flashed a wry smile.
“Ain’t nobody I know has sunshine shooting out their ass after they wake up to Ferals in their house,” Jake said, with an answering grin. “Guess we ought to get the man some coffee and a rawhide bone for his wake up?”
“You can give them to him, amigo. For you, I will give up that honor.” Rigo rested his fingertips over his heart, the very picture of sincerity. Or of bullshit, either, and Jake suspected the latter. “He will want to see Anita’s proof.”
Jake understood the hesitant note of inquiry in his friend’s voice. “She said she’d call the cops and talk to me when it was all over. I’ll get the video from her then.”
He tried to sound confident. But the doubt niggled at the edge of his mind, unwanted and insidious. She said she didn’t want to do without me. She said she’d stay. But she said that before, then she ran off. Even if I understand why, it still hurts. Guess I’ll believe it when I see her still in Coyote Trail.
Rigo watched him, eyes crinkled at the corners with empathy. “Good enough. Shane will want to hear the story first anyway. He will want time to think about it. Especially since it involves Nicole.”
“That’s gonna be a touchy subject for a while, I wager.” Jake understood. He had his own brace of topics that he tip-toed around, old and well-worn though they were. Deep wounds took time to heal. “Cops are pulling in out front. I’ll give Anita a ring and let her know it’s all clear here.”
Nerves fluttered in his belly as he dug his phone out of his pocket. Another fight with Ferals, and still no cracks in the screen. This phone’s seen some shit. How about we get a happy ending this time, old phone? He scrolled through the recent calls log to find the number Anita had called him from and hit the button.
It rang. Which confused him for a moment, because it didn’t only ring in the ear he had pressed his phone to. Around the side of the house, he heard the generic, repeated chirp of a phone with the default ringtone still active. Even over the shriek of the police sirens, over the sound of car engines in the front yard and the shout of voices as the police emerged onto the scene, he heard the ringer chiming in time with the call in his ear.
“Hello, Jake.” Anita’s voice came out of the phone, but he could hear her nearby. “Are you all right?”
Then she stepped into the yard through the gate between the front and back. Tired, a bit smudged with dirt, with her purse clutched under one arm as if it contained the rarest treasures in the world, but as beautiful a sight as he had ever seen. She caught sight of him there, with his phone to his ear, streaked with worse than dirt. A happy but hesitant smile bloomed on her lips.
“I am now,” he said.
Before he realized it, they were in motion, trotting across the distance between them. They crashed into each other’s arms. He caught her up, lifted her off the ground to better bury his face against her neck. Beneath the smells of the garage, her car, and her hotel room lurked the scent that was hers alone. The one he recalled when he thought of her, that he would know anywhere as the scent of his mate.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured against his ear. “Jake, I’m so sorry. I was scared, and I was an idiot.”
“You got spooked,” he said, as his hand rubbed over her back with a hunger to simply feel her there. To touch her and reassure himself that she hadn’t run far away. “It happens. But… Let’s not d
o that anymore, all right? Because I don’t think I can take it again.”
She pulled back to look at him. Tears wet her cheeks so they gleamed in the moonlight. “No. It will never happen again. Jake… When you left California, you’d lost everything. Your pack, your home… I couldn’t ask you to give up everything you’ve found here.”
He reached up to brush a tear away from her face. “I would have given up everything to be with you. You’re the only thing in my life I can’t do without.”
Her lower lip wobbled. She bit at it, defiant of the vulnerability it showed. How long has she held that guard up? Like holding your breath every time you inhale, waiting for someone to try to hit you where you live. Fuck Lou for making her believe she wasn’t worth giving up everything for.
Tenderly, Jake leaned forward to kiss her lips and tasted the salt of her tears. “I mean it. Not a damn thing in my life means shit without my mate there to share it. You run, I want to run with you. We’ll ride into the fiery sunset and chase the light until it’s ours.”
A hiccup of a sob forced its way out of her. “No more running. That’s all I’ve done my whole life. My parents- My mom’s a real piece of work. The kind who’ll tear you down your whole life so you can’t surpass her. And my father let her do it, because she’d beat him down before I was ever born. When meeting Lou gave me a way out, I took it. I ran so I’d never have to look behind me. Not this time.”
His heart squeezed as he watched her speak. The words, they meant plenty, but it was the look in her eyes that caught at his emotions. Old fear hid there, settled in like a badger in a stolen den, but on its way out as her determination drove it away. The ghosts of a childhood with parents who couldn’t allow their daughter to grow beyond the limits they had set for her, the specters of a marriage to a man who refused to let her outshine him, they all tried to haunt her into scared complacency.
Dare the Wolf: A Bully Boys Novel of Paranormal Romance Page 14