by Lauren Dane
“I don’t know how high this thing goes. Both Wardens seem to be pretty good guys, but the shooter is in the top Pack ranks, or he is according to what Tommie told me before he got capped. Until we see what’s on that laptop, how can I know who to trust?”
“Did you turn it on?”
He nodded. “Looks like some heavy security protocol shit, though. I left it alone, figured your expertise was needed.”
She sighed but couldn’t deny the thrill she felt. It had been a very long time since she’d done anything exciting or shady. “Let me get dressed and we’ll go.” She turned and walked into her bedroom and pulled on some jeans and a sweatshirt, gathering her hair into a tight ponytail and grabbing the glasses.
“What, no ugly clothes?” he cracked as she came back into the kitchen.
“It’s in between my disguise and my normal look. Not wearing a disguise is as good as wearing one. Everyone connected with your Pack knows me as the uptight matron with the granny clothes so the jeans and sweatshirt might fool them, but if my neighbors saw, they’d still see the hair pulled back and the glasses.”
“You’re so smart, why can’t I ever think of stuff like that?”
She would have said something sarcastic but he looked so forlorn that she held back and kissed the top of his head instead. “I’m here for you, Gabriel. We’ll get through this together, like always. Let’s go.” She grabbed her own laptop and gear.
She knew she was being watched so they quietly went into the garage. Needing to avoid being seen, Gabriel crouched down on the floorboard in the backseat until they got out of the immediate area.
* * * * *
Her skills were rusty, but being dodgy was like riding a bike. She laughed to herself as she looked in the rearview mirror, seeing it empty. She had a feeling that Lex Warden wouldn’t be so easy to shake the next time. She’d taken advantage of the fact that she knew he’d underestimate her but she also knew he wouldn’t do it twice. Lex Warden was damned good at his job. She admired that about him. It was sexy.
She pulled into the parking lot at the bus station in downtown Seattle and turned to Gabriel. “Stay in the car. We don’t know how many people are looking for you but it’s wise to keep your head down. I’ll be back in a few.”
Leaving Gabriel in the car, she went into the building and did a good solid meander around making sure she wasn’t being followed and finally went to the lockers. She pulled out two keys, one for her locker and one for the one she shared with Gabriel. Out of her locker she pulled out what she termed her running kit. A gym bag with clothes, a cell phone, cash, a laptop and several electronic toys—the tools she’d need to get out of town quickly and to help her set up somewhere else. It had sat there for five years. She’d added to it over that time, extra money, a new toy here and there—it made her feel safe, knowing she had a back door out of trouble. She planned to give most of it to Gabriel and send him far, far away when she got him back to his motel room.
She opened up the other locker, Gabriel’s locker, and saw the laptop case. Grabbing it, she slammed the doors closed, walked out of the bus station and got back into her car.
“Got it. Let’s go back to your motel and see what we can find. I don’t want to take you back to my house, not with Warden skulking around.”
Gabriel nodded. “I don’t think he’s dirty, Nina. He’s a pretty stand-up guy. Maybe I should take this to him,” he said worriedly. “I’m tired of hiding.”
It had only been a few weeks. Her stomach sank. If he couldn’t deal with a little less than a month on the run, how could he survive in the long term? She had to figure out who was behind this shooting so that she could use the information to buy Gabriel’s freedom. There was no other way.
“Let’s see what’s on this machine before we do anything, okay?” She spared a quick glance his way, the street lights casting an orange glow, flickering over his face as they passed by. He wasn’t thirty yet and already he had lived a hard life. Poverty, abuse, lawlessness, neglect—that combined with too much alcohol had given his once sweet face a hardened edge.
She sighed, not for the first time, grieving for what might have been for Gabriel but quickly put it away. She couldn’t afford to wallow, certainly not now.
They turned into the parking lot of a seedy motel near the airport and she pulled in to the back, out of sight of the street. She bit back her instinctual lecture on his choice of motel. The place was in town and within ten miles of the Pack house, but lectures would be pointless.
They went into the room and she put her stuff down. Looking down, she realized she’d left the kit in the car. She headed back to the door. “I’ll be right back,” she called out as she left the room.
“Need help?” Gabriel called out as he followed her outside, wearing a sweet smile. In that face was the Gabe of her childhood, the sweet little boy with nothing to hide, a loving and happy kid who had a family that took care of him. Her heart constricted in her chest at the memories of that very long ago Gabriel Reyes and mourned his loss.
She bent to unlock the car and felt the prickle on the back of her neck. Trouble. Time slowed as she spun around just as they were jumped. Four very large men, wolves she’d be willing to bet, rushed at them from out of the darkness.
Gabriel snarled as his wolf began to surface in reaction to the threat. He called out to Nina to run, to get out of there, as two of the wolves grabbed him. “Get off my sister!” he said in a growl as he attempted to fight free.
One of the wolves had Nina’s ponytail in a tight grip and yanked her backwards. Facing her brother as she struggled, Nina watched, horrified, as one man put a gun to her brother’s head and pulled the trigger. A cry of gut-wrenching grief tore from her as he crumpled to the ground. Sound, time, movement rushed back at her at super speed. She screamed as loudly as she could and delivered an elbow to the jaw of one of her attackers. She spun and gave a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus of the other and a good, solid right hook back to the first one. Both hit the deck and she turned back to where the man with the gun was, expecting to be shot at any moment.
But the shooter suddenly crumpled. She looked up and saw Lex standing there, fury on his face and blood on claws that slowly morphed back into a human hand.
She lost her footing for a moment and then scrambled to her feet. Ruthlessly, she tried to think, compartmentalized as best she could. She didn’t have the time to fall apart! Forcing her thoughts away from how Gabriel’s eyes had blanked, losing their life after he’d been shot, she attempted to focus. But the slice of reality cut through her, she was alone in the world.
No! She would not let that stop her now. Nina Reyes was not a quitter. She would see this through until she found out who killed her brother. There was time to fall apart later, but for now she was in a bad place. Shaking her head clear, she heard men around her, saw people moving bodies quickly.
Lex looked at her long and hard and she backed up a step, glancing right and left, looking for an avenue of escape. She was pale. He could see her pulse beating erratically in her throat. Her hair was partially out of the ponytail she had it in, her glasses were on the ground and he bent to pick them up. Surreptitiously, he wiped off the blood spatters.
“Don’t even think about it, Nina. My brother is right behind you. There’s nowhere to go.” He looked her over carefully. “Are you all right?” he asked in low, soothing tones. He handed her glasses to her. “Here, you probably need these.”
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.” She enunciated each word very carefully. Her lip was swelling where one of the thugs had hit her and she tasted blood. She also had a very sore arm where one of them had yanked on her. She tried to rotate her shoulder without bringing attention to it but of course both werewolves noticed it.
“Do you know who shot him?” The other werewolf came to stand next to her.
“Obviously one of you people. He said it was one of you. That he didn’t know if he could trust you. Now let me go or I’m going to scream my he
ad off. It might be close to midnight but there are plenty of people around.” She said it in a flat voice but it was backed up by steel.
Cade held back a grim smile of approval. She’d just lost her brother and didn’t trust them at all. Despite that, he liked her style. She wasn’t going to give in without a fight. He gave a long look at the legs and ass encased in the jeans she was wearing. She was certainly no spinster librarian that he could tell. Sure, her hair was back tight from her face and her glasses were thick but the way she looked in jeans wasn’t something to overlook. Then again, he had a thing for librarians—he thought they were all sexy.
“We aren’t going to hurt you. We’re on your side.” Cade was straightforward, he saw no need to speak softly. She wanted to know what was going on.
She shook her head. “You’re here, aren’t you? With them. You expect me to believe it’s just a coincidence that you showed up at the same time as werewolf hit men?”
Lex gave a frustrated sigh. “We aren’t here with them. We came here looking for you and saved you from them.” He jammed his hands into his pockets, the failure of letting one of his own die washing over him. Two of his people in a month, the bitter taste of it was metallic in his mouth. “Look, we suspect that some of our own are up to something but we don’t know what. One of the wolves we had looking into it is the one who got killed.”
“Oh, you’re a fucking genius. I can see now why you’re in charge,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. “If you aren’t with them, how did you find me?” she asked, suspicious.
Lex leaned over and pulled a tracking device from the wheel well of her car. She cursed quietly.
“Why don’t you come back to the house with us? We can protect you. You can’t go home. Your house,” he hesitated, “your house was on fire when I doubled back after you ditched me.” He got a sour look. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t do anything. The fire department was pulling down the street when I drove past. By the time I got there it was already too far gone. They used an accelerant of some type, I could smell it. The guy who shot Rey, he has the scent on him.”
Suddenly she surfaced, remembering what had just happened. Spinning, she saw her brother’s body was gone. She surged forward and grabbed Cade’s shirt and heard growling in the background.
“Stand down,” Cade growled back at the men who’d stood forward to protect him. He gently but firmly took her upper arms and looked into her eyes.
“You have Gabriel’s body? Where is he?” she demanded.
He slid his hands gently down her arms and took hers, reading the grief in her eyes. “One of my lieutenants has him. We needed to take him away from the scene. We can’t deal with the cops until we figure out what’s going on. We’ll give him a proper burial, I promise,” he said softly. “He was one of ours, he’ll be buried as Pack.”
Lex felt the need to rip his brother away from Nina. To shield her from all other men. Damn it, but he had to admit it to himself before he went crazy. He’d been feeling that way since that day in her shop when the other man had touched her, kissed her, and it had only worsened when he smelled her room. He’d stopped by the Pack house several times, meaning to find some female company—god knew that there were plenty of females who wanted to share his bed. He’d really tried but not a single one appealed to him.
He knew that if he got close enough to bury his face in her neck, scenting the glands there, that he’d find the scent of his woman. He didn’t want to, he liked being a bachelor, and yet, he yearned for her with every fiber of his being. His cock hardened in response to the thought. Pheromones didn’t lie, not to his wolf. She was the one for him. Her genes called out to his, she was his ideal mate, end of story. He sighed, resigned to it at last.
He stepped forward and put himself between her and Cade. “Let’s get out of the open. You’re bleeding, I can smell it. We need to get that taken care of. Which one was Rey’s room?” Lex asked gently.
She pointed listlessly and Lex put an arm about her shoulders and led her inside. Taking care of her like that, protecting her, felt so right that he realized just how wrong everything had been until that moment. Lex sat her down on the bed and stood back, frowning as he took in the split lip and the beginnings of a bruise on her neck. If he hadn’t already killed the wolf who’d done that to her, he’d be out there right now tracking him. Lex’s wolf paced inside of his body, anxious to lash out and hurt anyone who’d harm his woman.
He got a wet washcloth and she held still while he dabbed at her lip, looking carefully at the marks on her neck to be sure the skin hadn’t broken. Satisfied, he moved to toss the cloth into the sink while Cade rustled around.
Nina took the glass of water Cade offered, grateful to have something to do with her hands. Drinking, she closed her eyes, trying to hold herself together. She had to fight against the numbness that threatened. At the same time, all she wanted to do was bury her face in Lex Warden’s neck and hold on until he made everything all right. That freaked her out almost as much as losing Gabriel did.
Oh, Gabriel, it shouldn’t have been this way! All her life she’d been the strong one. She’d taken care of Gabriel from the time she was twelve and he was eight. Their parents had died in a hotel fire and they’d gone to live with distant cousins who couldn’t have cared less about either one of them. They’d let Gabriel run wild and he’d gotten in with the wrong crowd. Soon they’d gotten kicked out of the house and Nina’d had to hustle to make sure they were able to survive. She learned and ran all manner of street cons to pay rent while she made sure that Gabriel got an education.
She discovered hacking accidentally while taking a computer programming class in the local adult education program. She’d had an innate skill and knowledge of computers and programming, and started hacking for fun when she was working for a woman who’d helped them out and taken them in. She’d realized that she could make money more safely and quickly through hacking than out on the street dodging not only the cops, but the pimps and drug dealers too.
Over the next several years she’d become one of the best. She developed a reputation for quick, clean jobs that were high risk. She had to be good, Gabriel was constantly in trouble and she had to bail him out. They’d moved dozens of times, staying one step ahead of the law. She’d promised Gabriel the day they walked away from their cousins’ house that there was no way she was going to let the authorities break them up.
Her reputation grew to be legendary, as such things go anyway. Shiningstarr was a name revered by fellow hackers and tech geeks. It was also a name that attracted the attention of the authorities.
As her skills grew, she got to the point where she worked on spec for a few people and made enough money to save. Nina wasn’t greedy but she’d wanted money in case she needed it. She took the jobs until it became too risky to continue. She also got tired of being on the run and feeling guilty over breaking the law. When the offer came for a big and very risky job, she took it. It was a big payoff, enough to give them both a new start, and she’d promised herself and Gabriel that she’d go straight when it was over.
She’d taken her money and she and Gabriel had fled Ohio for Seattle. It had been too big a risk to choose a path that had anything to do with computers. She had gotten close to getting caught a few times and hadn’t wanted to chance it. She’d been so tired of running and living on the margins. She’d wanted a normal life, a real job. Security. So she’d enrolled in a floral design program and some business courses at the local community college and then she’d taken part of her nest egg and opened her florist shop. She discovered that working with flowers and plants was something she not only loved, but was good at. It wasn’t the big money game that hacking had been but it wasn’t illegal either. She could relax finally, for the first time since she’d been twelve. While she tinkered around as a hobby with her computer skills, she’d ruthlessly tamped down any use of the internet for anything other than her business.
Things had been going really well unt
il Gabriel had gotten infected with the lycanthropy virus during a bar fight. He’d hit on some guy’s girlfriend and the guy, being a total jerk, had infected him on purpose in the fight. Gabriel very nearly didn’t make it then. Instead of pressing charges against the wolf for intentionally infecting him, instead of turning his life around, he joined the local Pack and became a runner, a man-of-all-work essentially, and had dropped off her radar.
She was so tired. She’d given up running years ago. She had built a life for herself in Seattle. She had friends and her business. Granted she hadn’t had a date in four years, but there never seemed to be much time for that anyway.
Her house was gone, her stuff was gone and her brother, the last bit of family she had any feelings for, was gone. She wasn’t going to leave town, damn it! Her business was her life—the only thing she had left. She wasn’t going to allow some punks to run her off.
“You really can trust me,” Lex said, pushing his brother out of the way. “Me and Cade. If we were planning on hurting you, we could have done so already. Not that you’re not a tough customer, I know you can handle yourself,” he added quickly when her eyes narrowed.
“I’m going to have one of my men take your car and hide it. You can come back with us, our house is safe.”
“Of course it isn’t safe! Someone high up in your Pack hierarchy is the one who shot what’s-his-face,” she hissed, leaning back from Lex Warden’s body. She had this awful compulsion to rub her cheek along his chest, to tug his bottom lip between her teeth. His cologne was obviously doing something to her.
“Did Rey tell you who, Nina?” Cade asked.
She shook her head. “He said it was someone big, that what’s-his-face told him it was someone high up. Gabriel didn’t see anyone’s face, though. God, they killed him for no reason! He didn’t know anything.”
“Damn it! I told you, Cade,” Lex said, and as he moved she saw the big gun in the shoulder holster and she stiffened.