“Understood.”
“And, Lamonda? Remember I not only have your children—and such adorable little tykes they are—but Kelly’s sister and mother. I won’t hesitate to kill them one by one if you don’t do as I ask.”
“Point taken.” Repeating the other man’s earlier words, Mac almost disconnected the call. But one thing he’d learned over and over in the Protector Academy came back to haunt him.
Know your enemy.
“Ian,” Mac asked impulsively, trying to catch him before he hung up.
“What?” Ian snapped. “Don’t tell me you’ve already had a change of heart.”
“No, not really.” Swallowing hard, he forced himself to continue. “I just want to know why.”
“Why? Why what?” Ian’s impatience showed in the staccato way he spoke. Mac could picture the man checking his watch to see how much of his precious time this conversation was wasting.
“Why are you doing this?” Mac asked softly. “I don’t understand why. Capturing these women, kidnapping my children, trying to impose a sort of dictatorship on the other Tearlachs. Help me to understand.”
“That’s none of your business,” Ian said, his tone lofty. But one thing Mac had learned about psychopaths was that they couldn’t resist any opportunity to talk about themselves, whether to explain their convoluted rationales or methodology, or to expound on their heartfelt (and often irrational) convictions.
“Look, I know I’m not as evolved as you,” Mac said, struggling to sound sincere. “But I really would like to understand the logic behind all this. It all seems so nonsensical to me.”
On the other end of the phone, Ian sucked in his breath in shock. Mac felt a flash of triumph. Evidently he’d found exactly the right phrase to get Ian to spill.
“Think about this, Protector.” Since this was the first time Ian had acknowledged Mac’s status, Mac found this significant. He believed that might mean that Ian would tell the truth.
“There are millions of regular shifters in the world, but only a few thousand Tearlachs. While you Pack shifters don’t seem to mind your blood being weakened and diluted by marrying and breeding children with humans and creating Halflings, we have seen how these mutts weaken your abilities.” Ian sounded disdainful.
Mac held his tongue, waiting for Ian to continue his diatribe.
After a moment, he did. “As a result of this mixed breeding, you are weak. As we would be, were we to allow such a travesty to occur. This is why we must be vigilant.”
Ian’s words had the tenor of an often used and familiar speech. Mac surmised that perhaps Ian spoke these words as part of an indoctrination of his recruits or whatever he called the others he wanted to convert to his way of thinking.
“Years ago,” Ian continued, warming to his subject, “my father decided the time had come to make new laws for our people. Most specifically, he wanted to purify our race. By selective breeding, he believes we can develop and refine the perfect Tearlach.”
In silence, Mac listened, struggling to contain his mounting horror. He wondered if Ian realized how much he sounded like a certain human someone who’d lived in Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
At least Danny and Ian weren’t attempting to round up others and exterminate them. He supposed he should be thankful for this.
Or were they? Did they kill those who disobeyed their laws? Like Kelly. And Maggie before her.
“Did you kill my wife?” Mac interrupted, his tone low and cold and hard.
This stopped Ian in his tracks. “What?”
“Did you kill Maggie? Simply because she’d married me?”
“I believe she perished in a car accident,” Ian said.
“That’s not a denial. It’s not a difficult question. Answer me. Did you or your people kill my wife?”
Ian’s bark of laughter was answer enough. “You need to understand that we are serious. We will not be deterred from our goal.”
“Understand this,” Mac snarled. “If I ever get a chance, I will make you pay for what you’ve done to me and my family.”
“Really?” Ian sounded unconcerned. “And will Kelly also try to gain retribution for the death of her father? How pointlessly stupid.” He laughed again.
“You son of a—”
“Leave my mother out of this, boyo.” Steel once again hardened Ian’s Scottish burr. “Just remember who holds all the cards.” With that, he disconnected the call.
Mac sat in stunned silence, anger simmering away inside him. He took a deep breath before closing the cell and handing it back to Kelly.
“What’d he say?” she asked, eyeing him with something like concern in her expression.
He gave her a recap, including the part about using their family members as a guarantee, but omitting the mention of her father. Ian hadn’t confessed to killing him and until he did, Mac wanted to spare her the pain.
“He wants us to go to Richland Chambers?” Consulting a map, she frowned. “That’s not in west Texas. It’s a man-made lake southeast of Dallas.”
“So your cousin got her information mixed up. Right now, it’s all we have to go on.”
“Either that, or he’s not letting us get close to the compound.” She regarded him curiously. “What are you planning to do? Surely we’re not going to drive there and just give ourselves over? He’ll kill us or, worse, torture us to exact retribution for my imagined crime.”
“I agree.” Praying she would see his point this time, he put the truck back in Park, though he left the engine running so the air conditioner still worked. “Do you have any ideas?”
Slowly she shook her head. “No.”
“Well, then, I hate to beat a dead horse, but if we are to have any chance of coming out winners in this, I see no alternative. We’ve got to involve the Protectors. One phone call is all it will take.”
For a moment she simply stared at him, her eyes narrowed. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally nodded. “All right. You win. But only because I can’t see any other way. Call them. I’m trusting you on this.”
Shock, followed by crushing relief, had him reaching for her. “Thank you,” he said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her once, then again. “Now we actually have a real chance of succeeding.”
Holding his gaze, she gave him a worried smile and nodded. “Just make sure you trust whoever it is you contact over there at the Protectors. I’m pretty sure Ian and Danny have a mole or two working for them.”
While this should have surprised him, it didn’t. He was also unsurprised to realize he no longer completely trusted his own employer, when once he would have given his life in their service if necessary.
“I’d trust him with my life and yours,” he said simply. “As well as the lives of my children.”
The worry vanished from her face. “Then that’s good enough for me.”
He dialed Simon Caldwell’s private number. Simon had gone through hell and back a few years ago, when he’d had to fight against the evil that had corrupted the very organization to which he, like every other Protector, had dedicated his life.
Simon had won, the Protectors had purged themselves and Simon found his own happy ending. He’d fallen in love and married a formerly Feral shifter named Raven and together they’d settled in Colorado. Though he was no longer officially a Protector, he did consulting work for them and would know exactly who to trust. If anyone could help in this situation, Simon could.
When Simon answered, Mac exchanged a few pleasantries, then told him why he was calling. “I need your help. You remember the stories we used to hear about Tearlachs?”
“Yeah.” Simon laughed. “We put about as much credence to those as we did to Healers. And, since a bona fide Healer turned up a few years ago, I expect you’re going to tell me Tearlachs are real, too.”
“Exactly. They’re more than real, and I’m mated with one.”
Simon laughed. “Congratulations. Now, while I’m happy for you, I know you must
have had another reason for calling. What’s going on?”
Filling him in on the entire situation took several minutes. When Mac finished, he waited in silence while Simon processed the information.
“Why haven’t you contacted me until now? This is not good.”
“I know,” Mac said. “I didn’t want to involve you until I had to.”
“You need my help,” Simon interrupted. “I know you. You thought you could handle this alone. Let me see if I can get a hold of Beck, as well.” Beck was another Protector who’d bucked the system and won. Mac had heard he’d married a vampire Huntress and lived in New Mexico with their daughter.
“I’d—we’d—really appreciate it,” Mac told him, wondering if the other man sensed his desperation. Beside him, Kelly nodded as though she definitely did.
“Let me assemble a team and meet you.” Simon sounded energized. “How long do you have before you’re supposed to meet this Ian guy?”
Checking his watch, Mac saw it was nearly noon. “Four hours,” he said. “Even if you left right now, we’d never make it. It’s an hour-and-a-half to a two-hour drive from the airport. Plus flight time.”
“See if you can postpone the meeting,” Simon urged. “That’ll give me time to gather more information. Can you do that?”
Imagining Ian’s reaction, Mac grimaced. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Great. Keep me posted. I’ll call you with an ETA for me and my team.”
Closing the phone, Mac looked at Kelly. “We’ve got to get Ian to reschedule the meeting for tomorrow.”
She grinned. “That’s an easy one. I’ll pick a fight with you and make you call him.”
“That won’t work. You’re not supposed to know.”
“Oh, yeah?” Raising a brow, she cocked her head. “Then how were you going to get me to agree to drive out to this lake place?”
“I meant you’re not supposed to know about the deal I made with Ian to trade you for the twins. He left it up to me to figure out how to get you to go willingly. If I were doing this for real, I’d probably tell you Ian dropped a hint and I think that might be where he’s holding your sister. We’d head out there with the intentions of rescuing her.”
“But you forget, we’re mated,” she argued. “I can sense something is wrong. Therefore, I don’t believe you.”
“Stalemate.” He grimaced. “In this imaginary scenario of yours, where do we go from here?”
“That’s easy. We can do like they do on television and demand to speak to her. Ian has to produce her or it’s a no-go. I’ll tell him I don’t believe she’s really alive.”
Straightening, he felt a pang of longing as a thought occurred to him. “I wonder if I could ask to talk to my children.”
“You could.” She sounded doubtful. “But in this context, it would seem out of place.”
“Still…wouldn’t you try, if you were their mother?”
He could tell by her expression that he’d hurt her. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” She waved him away. “If you want to talk to them, we can put in the request at the same time I ask to talk to my sister. Who cares what he thinks? We have no reason to trust him.”
Hope glimmered so brightly it was painful. “All right, then. That’s what we’ll do. I think this might work.”
“Of course it will.” This time she smiled, reaching for her cell. “I’ll call him now.”
“Let’s wait until closer to the meeting time,” he said.
“Why wait?”
“Because what if he puts your sister on the phone right away? Then we’re out of excuses.”
She nodded. “Good point. So we’ll wait.”
“That’ll give Simon time to assemble a team.”
“How long do you think that will take?” Her mischievous smile made him smile back.
“Why?”
Leaning in, she gave him a long, lingering kiss. “I don’t know. We could go back to those natural trails and change?”
He suspected she didn’t mean only shape-shifting. When he came up for air, he touched the tip of his nose to hers. “Do you mean…?”
With a throaty laugh, she nodded. “That is, if you’re up for it.”
To his surprise, he realized he’d never been more up for anything in his entire life.
She had to trust Mac. Though, as far as she was concerned, he was her one true mate, she knew in his eyes she’d never live up to the mate he’d chosen of his own free will and lost. Maggie. The love of his life.
Briefly, she closed her eyes, wondering if the hurt at knowing she loved him more would ever lessen. She could only hope it would with the passage of time. Now, though, they actually had a few hours to waste.
“Do you think they’re still looking for us?” she asked, wondering if he was as tired of being hunted as she was.
“I doubt it. We’ve agreed to a meeting. I think they’ll concentrate their resources on whatever trap they’re setting for us.”
“So we have…”
“Time to ourselves?” Smiling, he finished her sentence, which really shouldn’t have surprised her. The more they spent together, the more like true mates they’d become.
“Exactly.”
“You sound so wistful.” Cupping her chin, he studied her. “Where is my fierce she-wolf?”
Amused and enchanted, she held his gaze. “Oh, she’s still here, I promise you. I just need some time to reenergize.”
Releasing her chin, he nodded. “I see no reason why we can’t have a couple of hours to ourselves. Especially if doing so will help us face what is yet to come.”
Walking the nature trails together, they revisited their secret glade as humans and made love again. This time, slowly and unhurriedly. She explored his body with her fingers and her mouth, eager to experience every inch of him. This experience only made her realize how much she’d come to care for this man. She was secretly glad that the binding between them could not be undone.
Even if it meant their deaths? She refused to even consider such a possibility. They’d enlisted the help of the Protectors. Now they couldn’t lose.
After making love, they drove to a local restaurant and had a late lunch. Both of them opted for the specialty of the house, called the Ole Cheeseburger. When their meal arrived, huge juicy burgers seasoned with cilantro and chili powder, topped with thick slices of ripe tomato, lettuce and onion, she knew she’d made the right choice.
Though she could have sworn she’d never be able to eat anything that large, she devoured the entire burger, bun and all, and polished off most of her French fries. Plate clean, Mac finished off the rest of them.
Despite being unbelievably full, she smiled when Mac ordered a blueberry pie for them to share, along with two coffees. As soon as the waitress moved away to get it, he leaned across the table.
“Any place with burgers this good has to have amazing pie,” he told her.
A few seconds later, the waitress carried over their huge slice, the golden crust bursting with blueberries. One bite and she had to agree. “Heavenly,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Once the pie was gone, they lingered over their coffee, both too full to move just yet. Suddenly nervous again, Kelly chattered away about small, inconsequential things. Mac responded in kind, though she saw evidence of his tension in the way he jiggled his left leg under the table. She supposed neither of them wanted to voice their apprehension over the events to come.
When her cell rang, she jumped. Heart racing, she looked. Caller ID showed a private caller from area code 303. Colorado. Mac’s Protector friend. Their too brief time had come to an end.
Wordlessly, she handed him the phone. She listened while he confirmed the time of his friend’s arrival, jotting notes on a napkin.
When he finished the call, he flashed her a huge smile. “They’ll be here in a couple of hours.”
“Do we need to meet them at the airport?”
“Nope. They’re renting a car. We’re goin
g to meet up in Corsicana, at the big home improvement store right off I-287.”
Relieved, she nodded again. Feeling at loose ends, she consulted her watch for the tenth or twentieth time and sighed. “Then all that’s left is for us to call Ian and stall him, right?”
“Right. We’ve got to be convincing.”
Easier said than done. But she didn’t speak her doubts out loud. Instead, she glanced around at the nearly deserted restaurant. “Not here. We need someplace private.”
Signaling for the check, he agreed. “Especially if we’re going to stage a big, fake fight.”
Even full of the delicious meal, her stomach clenched.
“I can do it,” she said, meaning her words. “For my sister and my mother and your children. This will be the most believable fake fight you’ve ever been in.”
He laughed out loud. “It’s nearly two. We need to go.”
After the waitress brought the check, he paid with cash, leaving a generous tip. Arm in arm, they walked to the truck. Kelly wondered if he could feel how fast her heart was racing.
Climbing inside, she froze when a police car cruised slowly past. “He’s checking us out.”
Mac cursed. “Stay calm. I doubt this truck has even been reported stolen yet.” Starting the ignition, he put the truck in Reverse, backing from the slot.
As he pulled out onto the feeder road, the police car did the same.
Chapter 15
Feeling trapped and helpless, which he hated, Mac drove exactly the speed limit, staying in the right-hand lane and hoping the cop would eventually pull past them. Instead, the squad car settled in right behind them, not exactly tailgating but riding their back bumper pretty darn closely.
“Damn.” Mac began to perspire. “Don’t turn around, but I’ll bet he’s running a check on our license plate.”
“Where he’ll see this vehicle has been reported stolen.”
“Exactly.”
“This isn’t good,” Kelly muttered. “Not good at all.”
Behind them, the patrol car turned on his lights and hit the siren once, whoop, making Kelly jump.
Pack 11 - Wolf Whisperer Page 19