by Bianca D’Arc
She’d left while Ezra had made the phone call, to grab refreshments for them both. Ezra accepted the cup of coffee she offered him, as well as the lingering kiss that came along with it. He wouldn’t mind getting used to having her around. No, not at all. It was nice to have someone to share the burdens of life and, now, even his work with. He wondered if Beth and Trevor would considering making Thea’s position official so that she could be paid for her efforts. He made a mental note to broach the subject when he spoke to them next.
“Sort of defeated.” He frowned. “But he’s coming over, which is a good first step on the road to recovery.”
Chase arrived a short while later and came straight into the office. Thea thought he looked sad and kind of worn out. She wasn’t surprised. He’d been closest to Sarella and had probably been so deeply under her spell he hadn’t had a clue what was going on. He might even have believed Sarella was his mate or something, which had to be hard for him now that she’d been exposed for the evil bitch she was.
What followed was one of the saddest interviews Thea had ever witnessed. Chase wasn’t just down in the dumps, he blamed himself for everything that had happened. It took Ezra some time to talk the man around into discussing just the facts and not his own feelings of guilt and remorse, but somehow, Ezra managed it and the picture soon became clear.
Sarella had come into town about two years ago and immediately set out to bedazzle the werewolf Alpha. She’d played hard to get at first and, for a long while after, dangled herself in front of him, then retreating on one of her many business trips. Her story was that she was a regional sales rep for some big company, and this town was just one of several on her route.
She came and went with frequency, never really on a specific schedule. She’d stay for a week or two sometimes, only a day or two others. Whenever she was in town, she was sure to sashay into the pool hall to tease poor Chase until, eventually, she had him panting after her. At that point, he was probably fully under her spell.
She also visited the garage each time she was in town, dropping off or picking up shipments of drugs or money, or both. The drug running operation had already been in place for a while, but Sarella had become the new facilitator. Little by little, it seemed she’d put her whammy on the rest of the Pack until the culmination last night. It was pretty clear she’d been building up to last night for the past year or so.
She’d taken a great risk, expending a lot of her energy on that one operation, but she’d probably expected to gain a great deal more from the bloodshed she’d caused. Instead, she’d lost her gamble, thanks be to the Mother of All.
Thea got Chase to focus on the books, and starting with the most recent transactions, they were able to connect Sarella’s appearances in town with happenings at the garage. Little by little, they worked out some of the coded notations next to each entry and decipher Frank’s shorthand into something explicable. Chase turned out to be really good at reading the books, and Thea met Ezra’s appraising gaze over the werewolf’s head.
“Chase,” Ezra said slowly, getting the Alpha wolf’s attention. “Would you be willing to step in here and take over the garage for a while? Frank has resigned, and we’re going to need someone strong enough to deal with any fallout Sarella’s disappearance might cause.”
Chase frowned. “What kind of fallout?”
“Well, it’s possible Sarella’s colleagues might come by to find out what’s happened to their distribution line,” Ezra told him.
“Mages?” Chase said immediately, a dark look coming over his face.
“Not necessarily,” Thea jumped in, knowing what it was like to fear magical interference. “The mage that held me captive had mostly human allies.” She saw the way Chase’s eyes widened as she revealed a bit of her past to him. She felt it was important to let him know that he wasn’t the first shifter to fall for a magic spell, and sadly, he probably wouldn’t be the last. “I got caught up in a human trafficking ring where a group of criminals was kidnapping women and shipping them all over the country—and the world. Most of the women were regular humans, but a few that got caught up in the net were special. I was the only shifter, that I know of, but there were a few other slightly magical women being held captive by the same mage who had me. He was in league with the criminals, working for them in return for his pick of their catch.”
She felt bile rise in her throat just thinking about it, but she pressed on. Chase needed to know that he wasn’t alone in being taken in by a scoundrel.
“As far as I know, Bolivar, the mage who nearly killed me, was the only one involved with that ring. He had a few friends he brought in to show off his power base—his prisoners. Sarella was one of them. That’s how I knew who she was when I saw her. Bolivar would bespell the other women prisoners to a glassy-eyed state like the one you and your wolves were under, but even though I felt the oppressive effects of the spell, I could still observe, and I remembered her.” Thea felt stronger as she talked about this, which was surprising. Maybe last night’s confrontation had helped her overcome even more than she’d thought. “But I definitely got the impression that each of the mages I saw were independent of each other. They were colleagues, of a sort, but they were each running their own scams. Bolivar worked alone. The only time we saw other mages was when he wanted to show us off and gloat.”
“It’s possible that Bolivar and Sarella were both Venifucus agents. If so, they might’ve been dispatched to these tasks. We know from intel reports from the Lords and other sources that the Venifucus is stretched thin right now. They’ve been working for years to bring their Mater Priori—the mother of their Order, Elspeth the Destroyer—back from her banishment to the farthest realms of existence. But, while they’ve been focusing on that, some of their number had to keep the wheels of commerce rolling and money coming in to support the communal endeavor. That’s what Bolivar and Sarella were doing, I believe. Making money for the Order to spend on their main task,” Ezra told them.
“Then, stopping them not only ends the evil they were doing, but also puts a hold on resources for the Venifucus,” Chase said, nodding slowly.
“That’s a really good thing,” Thea added, “but it means that the Venifucus could possibly send another agent of theirs to look into matters here, or they might just leave it up to their non-magical allies.”
“Yeah. Though, once they know that we know about an operation, there’s really no sense in trying to start it back up again because it’s pretty obvious we’ll just send more folks here to stop it,” Ezra put in. “My guess is that if anyone comes to check out what happened here, it’ll be the non-magical sort. The Venifucus have other irons in the fire that we don’t yet know about. Chances are, they’ll tend to those and work on exploiting new avenues of revenue before fighting us for this one.” Ezra leaned back in his chair. “But, either way, you’re going to have to be vigilant. They’re going to know something happened here and that Sarella has disappeared. They may never know what happened to her, but they’ll be able to guess pretty easily. That can work in your favor. They won’t want to risk another of their agents in a place and with people who have already made one of their mages disappear.”
“There is that,” Chase allowed, grimacing a bit. Then, he seemed to come to a decision. “Look. A lot of my people work here, and I want to help protect them. If bad business was happening out of this shop—and looking at these books, I’m certain it was—then it’s my responsibility to clean it up. As long as the rest of the Pack still wants me to be Alpha.”
That last was said with an air of sadness, and Thea looked at Ezra in concern.
“Is there some question about your continued leadership?” Ezra asked quietly.
Chase sighed hard. “Not really. They all say they want me to continue as Alpha, but to be honest, I’m having a crisis of conscience. I was completely bamboozled by that…by Sarella…and I’m not sure I’m fit to lead.”
“Chase.” Thea waited until the man looked her in
the eye before continuing. “I’ve been where you are now. Even worse, I almost died at the hands of Sarella’s friend, Bolivar. And I’m a grizzly. I had gone through life thinking nothing could ever get me down. Certainly not some piddly human mage. I might not have been very Alpha before my ordeal, but I’ve come back stronger than I ever was.”
“All the women in my Pack are talking about the way you faced down Sarella last night, Thea,” Chase told her. “I think they’re starting a fan club for you.” He chuckled softly, and she smiled. “But you’re telling me you weren’t always as badass as you were last night? I find it hard to believe.”
Ezra reached over and covered her hand with his on the desk. “Believe it. I was the first one into the prison where she was being held. She was close to death and weaker than I’ve ever seen anyone who lived to tell the tale. She’d been tortured and bled. Her bear weakened to the point where it was almost gone.”
Chase looked at her with surprise on his face. Surprise and admiration.
“That was just a few months ago,” she told him gently. “You saw how far I’ve come in just a few months. I don’t think this bad experience will keep you down long, Chase. If your people trust you to lead, you should trust them to know your heart. You were duped. So was I. We both have to get past that and move forward, stronger and wiser than we were before.”
Chase looked at her as if he could discover the secrets of the universe from studying her face. Then, he looked at Ezra and shook his head.
“All right,” he finally said. “I’ll do what I can with this shop to bring it back to the righteous path. I’ll look after my guys here and make sure, if anyone comes sniffing around, we learn all we can about them before sending them packing. I’ll stay on until any threat of danger to my Pack is done and the garage is running on the straight and narrow again. After that, you can reevaluate, and if you want me to keep going—and if my Pack wants me to keep going—well, I’ll think about it seriously. For now, I just want to clean up the problems in this town and within my Pack. Since they seemed to have been centered here, then this is where I’ll be, fixing them.”
Ezra nodded slowly. “Fair enough. I’ll let the new owners know and get you on the payroll.”
“Who are the new owners?” Chase asked. “I’d heard the original owner, a human named Zappo, sold out to some kind of West Coast based corporation years ago. The rumor was there were shifters involved, but nobody knew what kind. Zappo’s went from being an all-human enterprise to being run by an old werewolf from my Pack who brought in his own crew—mostly youngsters he was mentoring as mechanics. I had the impression the buyers were from some kind of exotic species, but Frank said he didn’t know exactly what the guy who hired him was. They only met once. Shifter, he said, but nothing he’d ever come across before. I assume the new people are the same, right?”
“Somewhat,” Ezra said. “But also different.” He sighed. “Since you’ll be working for them, I think it’s okay to say that the new owners are a newly mated couple living in Grizzly Cove,” Ezra finally revealed in an even tone.
“That crazy bear shifter town in the Pacific Northwest? Man. I’ve heard rumors about that place, but I had no idea they were that big into business. I thought your kind didn’t like to congregate into Packs,” the werewolf observed.
“Normally, we like our space,” Ezra confirmed, “but the guys who started the town are a special case. They all worked together for years in the military and have formed an extended family of sorts. I’ve seen it, and it really works. Great town. Nice people. They’re just facing a few problems because they concentrated too much bear shifter magic in one place and earned the wrong sort of attention from a number of bad actors.” Ezra frowned. “They’re dealing with it, though. One of the bad guys was the man who had suborned a mer pod and basically stolen all their holdings on land by killing the merman who led the pod and forcing his widow into marriage. That was the fine piece of work who bought Zappo’s and set up the drug distribution ring. After the folks in Grizzly Cove dealt with him, the business empire was turned over to its rightful heir, a mermaid who had mated one of the bear shifters there. They’re running things together, and they hired me to clean up the illegal activities her stepfather had set up.”
“You’re kidding, right? Mermaids? I mean, I can see them on the coast, but here in South Dakota?” Chase looked bemused.
“Yeah, I know,” Ezra agreed with him. “It gets even weirder. The guy who did all that? He was a shark shifter.”
“No way,” Chase exclaimed, shaking his head. “I never even heard of such a thing.”
“Apparently, they exist. They’re kind of rare, of course, but they do exist. The guy who was using Zappo’s to smuggle drugs was a shark—figuratively and literally. He had his fins in the human trafficking ring, too. That’s how I got involved and how I first met Thea,” Ezra replied.
“That is some weird shit,” Chase said, looking around the office. “I thought shifter but had no idea the owners were water-based. It’s unexpected, especially at this elevation.”
“Well, the new owners are half-and-half and trying to restore the assorted businesses in their portfolio to the right path. That’s my job, so if you encounter anything you can’t handle or that you think someone else needs to know about, you can always call me,” Ezra told him.
They spent the rest of the morning going over the books. Thea thought Chase was looking a bit lighter in spirit as the day progressed. She hadn’t shared her story easily, but she sensed that it had done some good in Chase’s case.
Chase invited them to join him for lunch at the restaurant next to the pool hall, which was a base, of sorts, for his Pack. He filled them in on the basic operations of the Pack while they ate, and they learned that the Pack owned not only the pool hall, but also the restaurant where they were enjoying a hearty lunch. Between the two businesses, they were able to employ many of the younger Pack members who didn’t want to pursue higher education, have existing family businesses that could support them, or want to start businesses of their own.
It was clear that Chase cared for his Pack. They were his extended family, and he was a caring Alpha who wanted the best for his people.
“You know, if you get the garage back in shape, I’m pretty sure the new owners would be willing to consider a partnership with your Pack,” Ezra said toward the end of the meal. “It’s something to think about for the future, if you want to expand your Pack’s holdings and build ties with other shifter groups. You’ve got a good start on building a financial base for your Pack already. There’s no reason you couldn’t expand a bit. Make things even more secure for your people.”
Chase seemed surprised but pleased by the idea. “That’s definitely something to think about,” he answered, like a true diplomat.
Thea had to smile. Chase had come a long way from the nearly broken man who had entered the garage just a few hours ago. She felt confident that he’d be fine, given something constructive to do and time to get over what had to have been an emotional blow.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ezra and Thea spent a few more days in town, going through the books and setting things to rights. By the time the rally was breaking up, they were about ready to get on the road, too. They stayed an extra day to say farewell to the bear brothers, who had jobs waiting for them back in Phoenix. They hinted things about their boss that would have to be seen to be believed, but Ezra didn’t pry. He figured they’d tell him if he needed to know. He trusted all three of them enough to believe that.
Chase was coming along nicely, and he’d made amends with the visiting White Oaks Pack. Ezra had asked Arch Hanson to stay on in South Dakota for a few weeks, to act as a special troubleshooter should any of the drug runners come to call. He’d cleared the temporary position with Trevor, who was absolutely thrilled to have someone of Arch’s reputation on board to help, should it become necessary.
So, when the rest of the White Oaks Pack headed home to Iowa, Arch stayed
on at the garage. Trevor and Beth were footing the bill for a small apartment nearby and a generous expense account, as well as a decent salary. Ezra privately thought that Trevor was trying to lure Arch out of retirement and have him sign on full-time as a second troubleshooter, but the werewolf would need convincing, Ezra was sure.
Still, it would be nice to have help. Beth’s stepfather had really fouled a lot of things up during the time he’d had control over Beth’s inheritance. There were a lot of businesses still on Ezra’s list to check out and fix up, but for now, he’d been told to go back to Grizzly Cove for a full debrief. That was a relief, because Ezra really wanted to show Thea the town and see what she thought of it. If she was amenable, he thought they just might be able to build a little place on the edge of town and settle down among their own kind.
It would make a great base of operations, even if he kept going out on the road as Trevor and Beth’s number one troubleshooter. And it wasn’t too far from Thea’s folks, who lived in Sacramento. They could come up and visit or Thea and Ezra could easily scoot down the coast to see them.
The location was close to ideal, and they’d have the strength of an entire town full of bears and mer behind them. Ezra privately thought that might make Thea feel a bit more secure. She’d made incredible strides, but she would probably still be recovering from her ordeal for some time to come.
They took their time heading west to Washington State. The trip was something of a honeymoon for the newly mated couple. They stopped frequently and stayed in fancy hotels in each city they passed through, making love in big, soft beds and taking advantage of stately bathrooms with giant showers and one particularly memorable tub big enough for two.
Ezra spared no expense when it came to his new mate. He showered her with gifts—at least those small enough to fit in their saddlebags. He was making plans as he rode alongside her. Plans for the house he would build for her. A house big enough for the children they had discussed in the dark of the night after the most glorious lovemaking of his life. A little girl with Thea’s eyes and gentle voice. Or a little boy who kept them hopping with his antics. Either, or both, would be welcome if the Goddess so blessed them.