Liam sniffed and looked around. “There’s another scent in here.”
They walked toward the couch, following the scent.
Travis dropped down and dragged a syringe from underneath it. He winced and fought a snarl.
This was bad. This was very bad.
“I don’t think LeAnn left here by choice,” Travis said.
“So Ross grabbed her?”
“He must have.”
His heartbeat picked up, and panic muddled his thinking. He’d done this. He’d told her she couldn’t come earlier because she would cloud his control of the situation. He’d wanted her to be one of the elements he could control rather than letting her make her own choices, like an equal. He’d driven her out of the damn lodge and made her think leaving was her best option, that she meant nothing to him or the pack. He’d practically pushed her out the door. And now she was gone.
It’s all my damn fault.
LeAnn wasn’t another variable in a scenario to be manipulated. She was the woman he loved. Even his Lycan side had realized he’d screwed up—that’s why he’d turned and watched her through the window.
And she’d been upset.
And he’d left.
What an ignorant bastard he’d been…what a jackass…
He breathed deeply, trying to calm down…and not because he was Alpha, because he was LeAnn’s mate.
They moved outside and looked at the dirt near the door. No drag marks. Damn. He’d picked her up and carried her. But then why—
“Would Ross hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
Travis looked down at the note again. Damn.
Concentrate, Travis. She needs you. You can throw yourself at her feet and grovel later.
He wiped a hand down his face. “Okay, this is what we’ll do.” Walking back inside, Travis went to his phone. “I’m going to have a friend of mine run a trace on my cell phone. You’ll go back and gather who you can to send out on search parties…except Alanna. If you can find Alanna, she’s to stay at the lodge—by force if necessary.”
“Alanna? You think Alanna did this?”
He shook his head. “No, but something that LeAnn said yesterday about Ross having Alanna’s lab coat has been stuck in my head, and I keep coming back to it.” Plus, Merilee was shorter and lighter weight that LeAnn. But there’d been drag marks to follow at her house. If Ross had killed Merilee, he’d had someone else dispose of the body. “I’m going to follow this scent trail here. I’ll have my hacker guy call Grant’s phone to check in if he can trace mine.” He nodded at the door. “Go!”
Liam shifted and was gone.
His hand paused on the phone for a second, and he stared after the other man. This switch from enemy to ally was a little quick… Shaking his head, he picked up the phone. He was trusting his instincts.
And his instincts said to dump his pride and make a couple phone calls.
Jordan answered with a groan. “Do you want to come on our honeymoon, Travis? I’m starting to wonder if you can live without me.”
“I need your help tracking Ross in case I can’t find him right away.”
“Your mate is as good as, if not better than, me at tracking. Trust her to be able to drop her emotions and help you.”
I’m an idiot.
He shook it off. He’d have to work out his control issues when he found LeAnn. And he would find her.
“He’s got LeAnn. He grabbed her, and I don’t know where he’s taken her or if he’ll kill her,” Travis said through gritted teeth.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can…but you owe me mileage.” And he hung up.
One call down. One to go. Hopefully Ross hadn’t smashed that phone, too.
…
Moaning, LeAnn tried to ease off her hands, which she was lying on, only to discover they were zip-tied together. It smelled dank and musky like an animal’s pen.
Where the hell am I?
Her head ached, but she opened her eyes. Above her were rafters. No, floor joists. She was underneath a cabin in a cellar, and that scent of animal wasn’t just any animal—it was a bitch she hated and the killing machine she was related to.
Her brother paced beside her.
“You’re okay, LeAnn,” he said, turning to her.
“Everything is so far from okay.” She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. So much for leaving and dragging her brother away from the area. And he’d brought her to a place that screamed he was in league with the person she despised. “Though I’ve always wanted to sleep on a dirt floor on top of my arms in a place that reeks of a woman I’d kill in her sleep. That has its charm.”
Ross stilled. “Alanna?”
“Yeah, Alanna. If she’s here, I swear I will get to my feet somehow and kick her to death.”
“She said you were jealous of her.” He said it curtly, matter-of-factly.
“I am not.” Okay, she was. The woman had that stupid medical degree. You couldn’t really compete with that at the drop of a hat. And even if she was a veterinarian, that worked out great for a group that was half wolf.
“She said that’s why you killed Merilee.”
She squinted at her brother. Granted she was a little groggy, but that made no sense.
She wriggled onto her side, and her arms protested being woken up. Ouch. This blew. Her arms stung as the circulation returned, like they were still being jabbed by needles, and the damn things were zip-tied. She was dirty. Her hair felt like a knotted mess. All while she was in Alanna’s cellar. Could this get any worse?
Wait. It could. Instead of getting out of here and taking herself out of the equation as a source of tension, she was square in the middle, and her big dope of a brother might not realize it, but she did: someone was going to die for this. There was no way Alanna would let LeAnn live now that she’d been here and her brother had opened his mouth. No way Travis would let her brother get away with kidnapping her. Even the pack had a dog in this fight. She hadn’t officially turned down the position of alpha female, so Ross had snatched not only his sister, but the pack’s Alpha, and as much as they hated him, they’d use it as an excuse to kill her brother.
I’ve ruined everything.
She laughed, and it wasn’t a “ha ha funny” laugh; it was a “holy hell, if I’d stayed put like Travis had ordered me to, maybe nobody else would have to die” laugh.
“I didn’t kill Merilee,” she said. “And apparently neither did you. Alanna did.” Which was bad. She could reason with her brother, but there was no reasoning with that other psychopath. How many are we up to now…three? And if Alanna arrived while she was still zip-tied…it was bye-bye LeAnn, and then that freak would pop some popcorn and watch as Travis and Ross tried to kill each other. Why hadn’t she stayed put when Travis asked her? She could have pitched her fit later and gotten the sheriff’s escort to the airport. Not to mention it was a little gutless to dump him and slink off with her tail between her legs. Not that she had a tail.
“It’s not your fault. Travis is filling your head with all these ideas, and I didn’t explain about pack rules like I should have. But you never said you wanted to join a pack.”
“Ross, I didn’t kill Merilee. And cut these damn things and let me loose.” She’d really screwed up. This was what you got for being a coward and running off when things got difficult.
Her brother shook his head. “You did kill Merilee. It’s hard to fight your instincts, and you don’t always realize when you do things, but I got there too late. And I’m sorry. I could have stopped you…explained.”
“Explained what?” she asked, pulling up to sitting…with difficulty. “That you don’t kill people? Thanks. I got that. I didn’t even need to be told that like some people in this room.”
“That was different. And a mistake…I see that now. But Colby wasn’t pack. And Glacier wasn’t pack anymore. You don’t do things like this within a pack. That’s why Dane and Jordan needed to die…why they all maybe should have. S
ammy was pack, and they didn’t try to help her, and they’d let her be killed, and no one cared. But maybe it wasn’t my place to do it, and I never meant for anyone from this pack to go over and be killed. It was mostly about Jordan and Dane. I couldn’t seem to stop it once it started.” He gestured around wildly. “And then the poachers came, and they were much better at planning. And I knew what to do, knew how the pack would act—or how I expected them to act. For once, I was in charge. It was like I was Alpha. But I’d never meant for it to get that big.”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. But I’ve met Jordan, and you’re a moron.” Even if she didn’t understand most of that rambling nonsense, he’d mentioned killing Jordan, and Jordan was—Jordan. The only one she’d be more surprised about being on a hit list would be Travis.
“That’s because you don’t understand what being in a pack is like.”
Okay, that was enough. “And I probably never will. You know why? My older brother is a raging psychopath who murders people. It’s a little hard to recover from that first impression, Ross, but they’ve already voted once not to kill me, so I was starting to do okay.” She had been. In fact, this morning while they’d been making breakfast, that was about the closest she’d ever felt to having a family. They’d been laughing and joking around. It’d been like having a houseful of siblings. For one bright and shining moment, she hadn’t felt adrift and alone. She had the pack, and she had Travis. And then it had all turned to ash in front of her.
“No…no…you don’t belong here, LeAnn. That’s why I’ve had to stay around. Imagine how…aggravating it was to go back for my new ID at my place and to find you. I could have left, but no, my sister had to show up and ruin things. You shouldn’t have come. You don’t belong here.”
No. He wasn’t allowed to say that. She could say that. And Travis could say that. But Ross couldn’t make that decision. “Travis wanted me here…which is pretty damn forgiving of him, even if he didn’t have this scent-match thing forcing the issue.” Maybe he felt something outside the scent-match. He’d acted like he did. And if he did, maybe this morning he’d been trying to protect her from this exact scenario. Maybe he’d understood Ross a bit more than she did.
Ross’d gone back to pacing but he froze again. “So, you have scent-matched?”
“Yes.” And it felt good. She had someone—who belonged with her. They were matched. A matched set.
“Oh, that’s no good. That’s not good at all. Alanna said that, but I was hoping she was mistaken. That means we will need to kill Travis before we leave, or it’ll make you crazy.”
It knocked the breath out of her. No. Not Travis! “What! No, you killing Travis would make me crazy, and I’d kill you first, which would make us some creepy Shakespearean tragedy or something. Maybe. I can’t remember if siblings killed each other in Shakespeare.” Oh, hell, why didn’t I try harder in school? And Travis spends hours studying volcanoes. He was probably wondering if I’d need cue cards in our conversations.
She took a deep breath. “Okay, what the hell did you drug me with? Because I swear this pounding in my head is making me sound even weirder than normal. I don’t even know what I just said.” He was planning on killing Travis? That was…insane. This had to be some sort of nightmare.
She kicked out with her legs, drawing his attention, and ending that eerie pacing he kept returning to. “Ross, you’ve got to cut me loose.”
Shaking his head again, Ross crouched in front of her, and it hurt, even in the dim room, to see the feverish look in his eyes. He’d definitely snapped. “This is not your fault, and we can fix this.”
She sighed. “It’s a little my fault. And we can’t fix this. I don’t know what sort of garbage Alanna has been telling you, but she’s lying. She killed Merilee and staged it so everyone thought I had killed her, so the pack would kill me and she could have Travis. They all seemed to think I was going to pick off the females one by one, and that’s what she wanted. She wanted to be Alpha, and I think she likes death…well, not her own, but that’s tough luck.” It probably didn’t bode well for her own mental health that she was really starting to look forward to killing Alanna. If I can get free… She twisted her hands and jerked them apart, trying to stretch the zip ties, but there was no give. Stupid zip ties.
Ross shook his head back and forth and then kept doing it as he stood up and said, “No…no…no… She wouldn’t have a reason to do that. She was already Alpha if she wanted it. She could have been Alpha when the pack first arrived. She was already here. She’s from here.”
“She’s from here? So she was just hanging out…a lone wolf…waiting for a pack to lead?” That was weird. Maybe the pack showed up and took over her territory, and that’s why she was a psycho freak. Obviously she didn’t play well with others, so there was that.
“Yes, and Travis was interested in her from the beginning. If she’d wanted to be Alpha, she could have been a year ago.”
“Travis was interested in her?”
Her brother nodded.
Ow. She jerked at the shaft of pain in her chest. If he’d driven a spike through her heart, it would have hurt less. She stopped struggling.
And thought back.
Had Travis ever believed her about Alanna? Does he still want that skanky troll, but got stuck scent-matched with me?
It stole her breath, and her shoulders drooped in defeat. That hurt. Even if she’d suspected. Even if she’d known that Alanna would make a better Alpha, it stung like a knife in her heart, and she couldn’t breathe. LeAnn closed her eyes against the tears gathering. She wouldn’t cry. Not here in this basement that smelled like that whore. Not while she was being held captive by her ranting, psychotic sibling.
Her eyes flew open.
In fact… No. She yanked at her restraints again. Even if Travis had been interested in Alanna, she’d ruined her chances with him by killing Merilee. There was no way LeAnn was going to sit back and die so that the local freak show could take control of the pack. No way. And she was going to save her meltdown for when she escaped to someplace more pleasant, and she was also going to punch her brother in the face for bringing her here.
Ross went on as if he hadn’t dropped a bombshell on her heart. “So Alanna had no reason to kill Merilee. We all knew she was Alpha. You were just…a snag, but she said you weren’t pack—that no one would accept you as pack, so I thought we could leave after I’d gathered my stuff. Then Alanna said it was a scent-match, but that Troy had challenged, and we both knew that Troy would kill Travis if he won, so that would solve that, too.” He went back to that stupid, stupid pacing that was making her sick. “But Travis won, and you killed Merilee, and it’s just very screwed up. Maybe if I get you somewhere safe, I can come back and kill Travis.”
She had a wall at her back, and she leaned against it. If the pounding in her head eased up, maybe she’d be able to reason with Ross, but it was doubtful. She was not going to let him kill Travis. Over her dead body would she let him kill Travis. No. No way.
“I am pack,” LeAnn said. “And no one is killing Travis.”
Ross shot her an indulgent look that made her narrow her eyes. Okay, so he didn’t believe her, but she was starting to believe it herself. No one was killing Travis. And she was pack. They’d been eating bacon together this morning—like a pack. Bacon that she’d asked someone to go get and they had. She hadn’t even needed to chip in money for the bacon. You did that for family, for pack.
“So, you’ve been talking with Alanna all this time?” she asked. “She’s known where you are?” It was time to get the lay of the land for when she broke free, because she was going to break free, if for no other reason than to prevent Alanna from getting what she wanted. And to punch that bitch in the face.
Her brother did some sort of nod and shrug gesture combined and kept pacing.
“Are you sleeping with her?” Please no. Please, please no. That was so gross she might need to throw up before they could continue
the conversation.
He stopped. “No. LeAnn, she’s Alpha. She takes care of the pack like an Alpha should.”
“She’s not Alpha. I’m Alpha.” Probably. Close enough.
Ross talked above her. “She should only be with the Alpha, but she wasn’t sure that Travis was right for Alpha, and that’s why she was waiting.” He shook his head. “See, this is what I’m saying. You don’t understand pack. I’m not an Alpha, so I was only meant to serve her.”
Well, that was a small relief. It wouldn’t improve her situation to be surrounded by vomit. It was still freaky that he’d turned minion to the Queen of the Damned, but slightly better than him swapping bodily fluids.
She shuddered. Ow. Hell. That hurt.
“And you’re not Alpha…which is why you messed up and killed Merilee.”
“I am Alpha, and I did not kill Merilee.” She could have taken down Alanna in that fight, even though she’d cheated and shifted…so that was probably further proof she was Alpha.
“I was there, LeAnn. I was there right after you killed her.”
“That was Alanna. Alanna did that and made it seem like I did. Look, whatever. Did she know what you were going to do with Glacier Peak and the poachers?” Her brother had never seemed to be that proactive. He’d never even asked out that chick he was hot for two years ago.
Ross froze and stared at her…and pointedly didn’t answer.
Hell. That hag was going to die.
“It was my idea,” he said finally.
Like hell it was. It was put there by Alanna—who might have seen herself as Alpha, but she hadn’t wanted it until Travis wasn’t available. Alanna was a manipulative sicko. She’d seen an opportunity since Ross was already a bit around the bend, and so she got the entertainment of watching a bunch of people kill each other. If she was there as a doctor, she got ringside seats.
That woman should not be a veterinarian. She had a God complex and a fascination with murder. The poor pets in this area were probably getting crappy treatment—that much was certain. Even if everything else was guessing, she had to be a lousy vet. It was just as well she hadn’t stitched up Travis. She’d probably have done a crappy-ass job.
Crazy Over You Page 23