by Maia Dylan
Mate. He growled along the link he shared with his brother, and Tomas flicked him a quick glance and a nod as they continued forward silently. There were no sounds coming from the forest, but Diego’s heart was pounding, his entire body filling with the need to find their mate and protect her, and there was a strong thread of fear and rage to it, too. That delightfully unique fragrance was flavored with the coppery tang of blood. Some of it was definitely their mate’s, and there was no missing the overpowering scent of the male they had been tracking.
Looking down the embankment, they saw a car that had come to rest on its tires, and it was one they recognized.
“So we have a car, a guard, and our mate all from that fucking Parklands facility,” Tomas sent down their link as the two began to make their way down the embankment. “I do not like what this is leading to, Diego.”
“Me neither, brother,” Diego added, just as they got to the trunk of the car. This was where their mate’s scent was the strongest. The latch on the trunk was broken, and they were able to lift the trunk open easily. The sweet and spicy scent hit them, and both he and Tomas growled at the emotions it induced.
Protection. Arousal. Concern. Anger.
All of it raging within them. The red smears against the back and floor on the inside of the trunk had Diego feeling homicidal. Their mate had been secured in that damn trunk when it crashed, and from the looks of the car itself, the fucking thing had rolled at least once, but more than likely two or three times down that incline.
Diego charged over to where the guard’s scent was strongest and grinned fiercely when he saw the fucker impaled on a branch at least four feet off the ground.
“Fuck!” Tomas roared as he slammed the trunk. “The redhead in the back of that truck, the one that dead prick over there”—Tomas pointed behind Diego—“tortured and beat on right in front of us is our mate. We were held in the same fucking facility as her, and those pricks could have done anything to her and we never. Fucking. Knew!”
“But she took care of that prick herself,” Diego said with a grin, nodding in the direction of the bloody carnage behind him. “Somehow she made it out of that car, faced that fucker, and threw him into a tree.”
Tomas stopped his raging for a moment. “Really? How high?”
“Four feet, easy.”
“Huh.” Tomas paused, his expression pleased before morphing back to a scowl. He started stomping around the car, looking in the windows. “But where is she now? She’s hurt, and I do not like to think of her out there on her own.”
Diego growled as he reached for his phone.
“Go,” Hunter answered on the first ring.
“The car is definitely one that belonged to one of Aristos’s men. We spotted it during our surveillance of the Christakos compound.” Diego’s wolf was clear in his voice.
“We’ve searched the car, and there are signs that there was a woman in the trunk, and she’s been hurt quite badly, either in the crash or before she was placed in the trunk. We are pretty damn sure that this is the same redheaded woman who was being held at the compound. The fucker who had been driving, the wolf shifter we were after, is dead, which is just too fucking bad!”
“Why’s that?”
“Because we would have liked the privilege of shredding the bastardo!” Diego was practically snarling down the phone, and he could hear Tomas cursing behind him moments before the distinct sound of metal being ripped open filled the air. Was Tomas ripping the damn car apart?
“She’s our mate, Hunter. The redheaded woman we had to watch being tortured, who was kidnapped and held tied up in a fucking trunk, is our mate, and she’s fucking disappeared.” Diego felt like his wolf was about to rip from him, and never before had he felt so out of control.
“Diego.” A woman’s voice came over the phone. “This is Parris Church, and I think that the woman you are talking about is, for all intents and purposes, my little sister. Her name is Pepper Gallagher, and she’s here at the Grey River Hospital.”
“Fuck!” Diego relayed that information to Tomas in rapid-fire Spanish as he took off for their truck, getting to Grey River as soon as possible the only thing on his mind. “Did someone pick her up? We’re at least eight miles out from Grey River.”
Diego gripped the phone and braced his legs and free arm against the truck in order to stay upright as Tomas released the full power of the Ford Expedition.
“Diego.” This time a male’s voice answered. “This is Jase Wilson. No one picked her up. She turned up at our place earlier this afternoon, and she was hurt. Her injuries were consistent with a crash, but Ty and Trent couldn’t find the car because they were looking closer to home.”
“Cristo, she was in the fucking trunk when that car crashed. It rolled a couple of times. Damn, okay, we’ll come straight there.”
Diego disconnected the phone call and remained silent, letting his brother concentrate on keeping the truck on the road. Then he did something he had not done for many years. He prayed.
Chapter Two
“They still out there, Pep?” Xanthe asked from behind her, and Pepper answered with a nod.
She was staring out the window of the apartment above Xanthe’s store, watching the two men standing across the street who seemed to be staring straight up at her. She knew that they shouldn’t be able to actually see her through the net curtains that covered the window, but she had the feeling that they could. Tomas and Diego Reyes. Two men who had barely left the corridor outside her hospital room when she had been recovering, and who had tried time and time again to get her to talk to them in the weeks that had passed since she had been discharged. If her mind hadn’t been absorbed with the knowledge that Aristos was coming for them, and that he was close, she might have found the strength to speak with them.
Now that she was recovering and had taken to living here, they had started walking past the apartment multiple occasions a day. The sheriff’s office was not far from the shop, and they would often meet the rest of the Grey River pack seniors there for what Xanthe called war game conferences.
“Well, Hunter and Dane were heading over to Ty’s office for another meeting.” Xanthe’s tone turned scathing on that last word. “Sometimes I wonder if they are spending too much time talking and meeting about Aristos and not enough taking the fight to him.”
Grey River was a town comprised of wolf shifters who all belonged to the Grey River pack, and their Alphas were Ty and Trent Jamieson, both of whom worked in the sheriff’s office and protected all that lived within the boundaries of their pack lands. Pepper had been surprised when she first encountered Parris’s mates, who were both wolf shifters, and sensed two strong personalities within the minds of the men. She had been even more surprised when she discovered that Parris was in love with and loved by both Jase and Rhys Wilson.
The shifters of Grey River tended to marry or mate or whatever it was they called it in multiples. Pepper had tried to understand the appeal at first, and it had been difficult. That was until Tomas and Diego entered her hospital room, and she threw them both against the wall, holding them there with her telekinesis. She had expected them both to be angry with her, but they had been more enraged with the fact that the Wilson brothers were growling at her.
Pepper watched as Tomas waved good-bye and pointed to the sheriff’s department, and she nodded. Diego then dipped into a bow that made her think of a television program she had watched recently about four musketeers. The thought was amusing, and made her feel happy, but she couldn’t bring herself to smile.
Numb. That was what she had said to Melaina when she tried to describe what she felt like inside. She had struggled to find the words, but numb was the closest word she could find. Turning away from the window, she walked over to the couch and sat down. Her gaze was locked to the carpet in front of her, and she sat as still as she could.
Parris sat down beside her with a sigh. “Pep, I love you like a sister, despite the fact that we aren’t blood. Just like
I do Melaina and Xanthe. But I am gonna bop you in the nose if you don’t stop walking around waiting for the other shoe to drop. You are out from beneath the iron fist of that bastard, and you are free.”
Pepper raised her gaze to Parris’s. “It’s not that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, Parris. I am simply preparing myself for what is to come.”
Xanthe moved to sit on the coffee table in front of her, and Pepper moved back a little more against the couch. “Stop it! I’m not going to hurt you, Pepper. I simply want to know what you mean by preparing yourself for what is to come.”
Pepper took a deep breath. “I cannot see the exact details, but I know that before this day is through, we will all be called upon to fight. I am simply attempting to preserve as much energy as I can to ensure that when that moment comes, I can do what needs to be done.”
Pepper felt something touch her mind, and she knew that time was growing short. She sent her senses out from her as she built her shields higher within her. She searched the surroundings until she found the toxic aura she feared and loathed at the same time. “Aristos,” was all she was able to say before the psychic attack began, and she drew into herself, leaving her consciousness in the immediate area around Aristos, knowing that the heat of the battle would be fought where he was, and closed everything else down.
She took her mind into the room she had erected within her mind to protect herself, and she waited. It wouldn’t be too long before she would know Aristos’s entire plan, and when she did, she would be able to react. She couldn’t help physically—she was no match for anyone—but psychically she had no equal. Aristos had always underestimated her, and that had always been his biggest mistake. Now was her opportunity to show him just how powerful she really was.
* * * *
Tomas could feel his wolf pacing within him, the constant growl telling him that they were on the same page. Both of them wanted justice for their mate. They wanted to have a role in killing the fucker who had been responsible for everything Pepper had endured, and they both demanded blood be the payment they extract.
Tomas and Diego were in the back of the cruiser being driven at breakneck speed by the Grey River Alpha, heading toward some clearing where Melaina Christakos was standing up against her father with no one but two other women for backup. Ty took a corner into a gravel road that led up into the hills at such a speed the truck rocked, and it felt like they might have actually taken it on two wheels.
“Try to keep us on the road, Ty,” Trent said dryly, and his brother simply flipped him off quickly before slamming his hands back on the wheel and wrestling the truck around another bend.
“How much farther?” Diego asked from beside him.
“Five minutes,” Trent answered.
“Fuck that,” Ty growled, “three tops.”
Tomas grinned. He really liked these Alphas. It was clear why they had been chosen by the rest of the shifter council to serve as the heads of that council. They were stronger than any shifter Tomas had ever met, and both were honest and loyal. They—
Tomas froze when he felt a presence in his mind. He inhaled sharply, and he caught the hint of sweet spice on the air, and he knew it was Pepper. Somewhere, somehow, she was reaching toward him, and from the way Diego had frozen beside him, he knew that he felt her, too. The feeling and the scent were gone too damn quickly, and Tomas felt a wave of despair roll over him. He reached down the weak bond that had formed between them and Pepper, and found nothing, just the same empty black void that had been there from day one. But that didn’t stop him from knowing that something was not right.
Ty rounded into a car park of sorts, and Tomas and Diego were out of the car before it had even come to a complete stop. He could sense Pepper’s presence up ahead. It wasn’t strong, but it was there, and regardless of the fact that he had no idea how she could have come to be there, he sprinted, shifting into his wolf form as he ran. He heard the sound of wolves shifting around him and the roar of Hunter and Dane’s lions as they ran with the wolves.
Coming into the clearing, Tomas knew immediately that his mate was not there physically but growled at the sight that met him. Parris, Xanthe, and Melaina all stood in a clearing facing off against Aristos. Charging directly at them from the other side of the clearing was a group of men, many of whom he recognized as guards from the Parklands facility he and Diego had been held in. Growling and snarling with the blood lust of revenge running through his veins, he leaped into the fray.
He used his size and speed to maneuver the guards into position for a killing blow. The blood of his enemies tasted sweet within his mouth, and his wolf basked in the blood of the men who had tortured and tormented him. He heard the long low note of wolves in pain echoing through the field at one point. It was not the pain of physical injuries, but a loss so profound it was almost a palpable thing in that clearing. He immediately knew that Grey River had lost one of their own. Incensed by the loss, the pack seemed to swarm over the men who remained.
Just as Tomas lifted his head to sweep his gaze over the field looking for more threats, he felt a white-hot shaft of pain tear through him. The intensity was such that it had him dropping to the ground, and the change rushed through him, driving him into his human skin in moments. He groaned and curled tighter into himself as the pain in his chest intensified. It felt like something were being torn from him. Somehow, he knew it was the fledgling bond that tethered him and Diego to their mate.
In desperation, and using every ounce of psychic ability he possessed, he gripped that link and held it tight, screaming to Diego down their familial connection to do the same thing. He refused to let it go. To let her go. The light that was her spirit hovered at the edge of death, and it appeared that their link was the only thing holding her here. He knew, if that bond were to break completely, that their mate would be lost to them for all time, and that was not going to happen. Not now. Not when they had only just found her. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he roared his defiance to the world. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it ended. The pain subsided, and he was left lying stunned upon the ground, desperately trying to draw enough air into his lungs.
When he was able, he scrambled unsteadily from the ground. He cast his gaze around the field until he locked his gaze on his brother. Diego looked just as dazed and scared as Tomas felt. He had no idea what had just happened, but he was fairly certain their mate had just dueled with death, and in that moment, he was unclear who had won.
Chapter Three
“You’re here again, my son.” Diego lifted his head from his hands to look up at the man who spoke. When his gaze met the kind eyes of the priest who must have presided over the chapel, he gave the man a small smile.
“Yes, sir, I hope that I’m not bothering you,” Diego spoke quietly, despite the fact the two of them were the only ones in the room.
The priest was already shaking his head. “Not at all. You obviously need a place to come to try to settle the pain I see in your eyes. This is the place to do it.” The priest smiled and leaned in. “Don’t tell anyone, but that’s kind of why we built the place.”
Diego huffed a laugh and sat back in the pew he’d claimed as his own. He sat in this same spot, asking God for the same thing night after night, and promising anything and everything for it. “Then I guess I definitely am in the right place.”
The priest nodded and sat down on the pew beside him. “My name is Father Graham, and I am told that I am very good at listening.”
Diego nodded. “I guess that’s one of the core skills for someone in your role, huh?”
Father Graham laughed. “You could say that, son, yes. But without sounding overly confident or boastful, because let’s be honest, my boss frowns on such behavior, I am actually very, very good at it. So tell me, what brings you and your brother to my little church time and again?” Diego shot him a look of surprise. “The similarities between you are too much to ignore. And although you have never come here together, I get
the feeling that you both have the same reason for seeking God’s ear.”
Diego sighed as he slumped further into the pew and looked up at the crucifix on the back wall. “You should take up detective work, Father. You are extremely observant.” Father Graham just looked at him expectantly and waited. “My name is Diego, and my brother, Tomas, and I come here because we would do anything to help heal someone who means a great deal to us.”
Father Graham nodded. “Yes, with the church right next door to the hospital here in Grey River, we get a lot of family members looking for answers, or help, maybe a miracle, or sometimes absolution. What is it that you seek, Diego?”
Diego thought about that for a moment. “Perhaps a little of everything. But I pray for the life of a woman who lies in that hospital day after day, and no one can tell Tomas and me when she’ll wake up.” He swallowed hard. “Or if she will wake up at all.”
“It is difficult when a loved one is unwell. She is your mate?” Diego spun to look at the man in surprise. “Son, I live in a town where the majority of the people who call it home are members of Ty and Trent’s pack. Besides, who do you think those Alphas and their lovely mate talk to when they are need of some spiritual guidance? The role of Alpha in a pack such as this is hard enough without them having to now deal with the shifter council and all that comes with that.”
Diego realized that Ty and Trent must trust this man completely for him to know so much. “Yeah, Pepper is our mate. I’m not sure if she knows or understands exactly what that means, but Tomas and I know without a doubt that she is ours.”
“Was she hurt in the fight out near Red Ridge two months ago?” Father Graham asked quietly.