by Amy Green
“Sweetheart,” Heath said, stirring his coffee, “no one goes there to watch porn.”
She met his eyes, and he watched her cheeks flush. Just a little—the faintest, sweetest tinge of pink. Subtle enough that only a mate would notice. She liked it when he called her sweetheart in front of the others. It had given her a sting of pleasure.
He held her gaze until she dropped hers first. She poked at the other half of her sandwich. “What the heck do they go there for then?” she said.
“It’s a front for drugs and prostitution,” Brody answered her bluntly. “It’s still open because it was one of our father’s favorite places to do business.”
“Like the Dirty Den, the strip club?” Tessa said. “Your father had strange taste in business practices.”
“That was good old Charlie,” Heath said, the words coming out bitter. “Class all the way.”
Brody jabbed at his chili with his spoon with extra force. “He was getting a cut of the drug and the hooker trade,” he admitted to Tessa, not quite meeting her gaze. “Since you’re a Donovan now, you may as well know.”
“You see why I stayed out of town for most of my life,” Ian added.
Tessa put her sandwich down and looked thoughtful. “I heard that Charlie was into all kinds of things,” she said. “There were always rumors. It’s why we girls were told to stay away from shifters.”
“We’ve stopped all of that,” Brody said, his gaze still on his chili, which he was still stabbing. “As much as we can, anyway. Since Charlie died and the four of us took over. We’ve been cleaning house, shutting down the drugs and the hookers, running some people out of town, getting others out of that life and into a new one. It takes time, but we’re trying.”
Tessa looked around, her gaze resting on Heath. He sipped his coffee and she looked away. “All of you?” she asked.
“Sure,” Ian said, cutting another bite of steak. “We have an amnesty program, where your misdemeanors—if they’re minor—will be forgiven if you commit to the pack and to cleaning up the Falls going forward. A lot of shifters jumped at it. Anyone who wasn’t on board was encouraged, let’s say, to either go legit or move on.” He grinned at her. “We Donovans have a lot of muscle.”
“Ian runs the program for young shifters,” Brody added, putting down his spoon. “Training them to manage their wolf side and keeping them in school, away from crime. We’ve also had to manage, um, some of the strippers and hookers who wanted new lives.”
Tessa sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Let me guess. That’s Heath’s job?”
“No,” Brody replied. “We gave that job to Devon. Women don’t hit on Devon like they hit on Heath.”
“Hey,” Heath felt compelled to say. Being honest with Tessa was one thing, but there were limits. “I’m sitting right here. And that’s my mate you’re talking to. I don’t deal with prostitutes and strippers.”
“Mates get the truth,” Brody said. “If you were in charge of the girls, they’d get distracted and we’d get nowhere. Devon just scares ’em.” He turned back to Tessa. “Heath’s job is to run the intelligence network, which he does through the Black Wolf. Or, he did until today.”
He felt Tessa’s surprise, and to deflect the subject, he added, “I’m part of the muscle, too, when needed. And Brody’s job is to strategize the whole thing.”
“Keep us from killing each other,” Ian agreed.
“Working with Chief Tucker,” Heath added. “Making sure those who insist on breaking the law get what they deserve.”
“I didn’t know any of that,” Tessa said. Her voice had gone quiet.
Heath risked a look at her. She had uncrossed her arms, and had leaned back against the back of the booth. As if she sensed he was looking at her, her gaze went straight to his. It made him strangely uncomfortable. He never talked about what they’d been trying to do since Charlie died, what he himself had been trying to do to make up for the lost years. Mostly because he felt so far from succeeding.
Sex, he could talk about with her. Mating, no problem. But this—this was the first thing that made him uneasy. He wanted her approval, he realized. Not just in bed, though her approval in bed was important. But he wanted more than that from Tessa. More than he’d ever wanted from anyone.
It wasn’t easy, trying to be someone worth approving of. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He picked up his own sandwich—chicken salad on toast, spiced with paprika, which wasn’t on the menu but the waitresses here always had made for him special—and deliberately changed the subject. “So what’s the plan to smoke Xander Martell out of the Sky-Hi?” he asked.
Brody adjusted his baseball cap. “That fucker,” he said. “He’s getting on my nerves. Part of me wants to just finish him off.”
“I promised Tyler we wouldn’t kill him,” Tessa reminded them.
“True,” Heath agreed. “And we decided that killing Xander could start a war with Christian Martell, even though they’re on the outs. So I think we have to find a way to negotiate.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Ian growled. “We aren’t giving up territory.”
“No.” Heath took a bite of his sandwich. The paprika added just the right amount of kick. “We aren’t giving up anything. But he doesn’t know that yet.”
“Keep talking,” Brody said.
“Xander may have burned down my bar,” Heath said, “but he isn’t winning. We burned down his camp and sent him scrambling. Xander had the advantage of surprise, but that’s over now. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s at a disadvantage. Because he’s on our territory. In our town. Right in the middle of it, in fact.”
“Enemy territory,” Ian said. “I’d never pick a fight in enemy territory.”
“Me neither,” Heath agreed. “But Xander is just stupid, or crazy, enough to try it. He thinks we Donovans are weak, that we’re at each other’s throats, that he can walk into Shifter Falls and take it. He’s wrong on all counts. That’s where we’ve got him.”
Their waitress, Alison Masterson, came by the table. “Does anyone need anything?” she asked.
Her eyes were on Brody as she said it, but he was slumped back in the booth, his baseball cap pulled low, his expression deep in thought. Alison, a pretty girl with her red hair pulled back in a ponytail, kept her gaze on him a while longer before pulling away.
Heath gave her a smile. “I think we’re good, Alison,” he said. “The food is amazing, as always.”
Her shoulders relaxed and she gave him a smile, which was what he’d been going for. Alison was naturally shy, but sweet. “You’re easy to please, Heath.”
“A little paprika and I’m your man,” he agreed.
Alison smiled at him again, then caught the steely look in Tessa’s eye and went serious. “Um, I’ll be back with some coffee,” she said.
When she left, Tessa turned her glare on him. Damn. He’d never in his life laid a hand on Alison Masterson, not least because she’d been so in love with Brody for years it was amazing his dumbass brother hadn’t noticed. But he’d forgotten Tessa didn’t know that. She wasn’t a shifter, and she couldn’t scent whether he’d had Alison or not. He still had to get used to certain aspects of this mating thing.
He turned to see Ian giving him a smartass grin. Brody, of course, had missed everything, because he was still lost in thought.
It paid off, though, a few seconds later. “I think I have a plan,” Brody said.
“Does it involve kicking Xander Martell’s ass?” Ian asked.
Brody nodded, slowly and thoughtfully, as if this were a serious question. “Yes, I believe so.”
“Then I’m in,” Ian said.
“So am I,” Heath said.
“Me, too,” Tessa added, and Heath couldn’t help but smile at her. Oh, he’d be making everything up to her later. Many times over, and in any way she wanted.
Brody rubbed his chin. “I’d feel better if Devon was here. Or at least if I knew whe
re the hell he is. Where the Silverman is.” He looked around at them. “But we don’t. Ian, how quickly can you get hold of Anna?”
“Anytime,” Ian said, “but I won’t if she’s going to be in danger.”
“Of course not, you idiot,” Brody said. “I just need her to pick up some more things for Tessa.” He looked at Tessa. “This involves you. I don’t think that surprises you, does it?”
Tessa shrugged. “Just tell me what to do.”
They all went quiet, listening.
And Brody told them.
22
“It’s almost dawn,” Ian said. “Almost time.”
Heath blinked out of his reverie. He’d been thinking dirty things about Tessa—he was always thinking dirty things about Tessa. This particular fantasy had involved having a long, lazy, uninterrupted day with her, to see if he could make her make certain sounds and say certain phrases, all of which were a variant on Please and I’m begging you. He felt fairly confident he could make her say that. It was a matter of trying enough things to see what made those words come out of her mouth.
They were sitting in Heath’s truck, pulled up behind the boarded-up laundromat across the street from the Sky-Hi Theater. They’d been here all night, staking the place out, watching for comings and goings, and waiting for the plan to be put in motion. Heath glanced up at the sky to see the full moon beginning to fade in the gray. Ian was right. It was almost time.
He’d never spent this much time with his brother. The first time he’d met Ian, he’d approached him in a Shifter Falls bar—this was in the pre-Black Wolf days, when Heath actually went to other people’s bars—and told Ian to get the hell out of town. Charlie was newly dead, and Heath was almost certain his brothers wanted to kill him, so he’d decided to take the first shot. Ian had told him off, and they’d ended up in the bar’s back parking lot, trading punches, a fight Ian had won.
Losing that fight had stung, but it hadn’t been a surprise. Ian was cage fighting for money at that time, getting in the ring with other shifters and beating them senseless. He was smaller than Devon, but he was fast and graceful, his hits lethal. Heath had spent his years scheming and using his smarts to stay alive and get ahead, not fighting with his fists. Getting trounced by his renegade half-brother had just been another on his list of disappointments.
It had taken time, but that history finally seemed to be under the bridge. Neither he nor Ian had mentioned the fight in months, and now that the pack’s leadership was settled, neither of them felt the urge to fight again. Which was a good thing, because even though Heath knew he’d make a better showing now than he had then, he was still pretty certain that Ian would win.
“Can I ask you something?” he said into the silence.
Ian had been looking out the passenger side window, taking in his view of the Sky-Hi, but he turned his head. “What?”
“Have you ever thought that our father’s death was murder?”
Ian stared at him, his green eyes blinking slowly.
“It’s just a question,” Heath said.
“You think someone killed Charlie?” Ian asked.
“I don’t know. But everyone hated him, yet no one seems to think someone killed him. I find that strange, don’t you?”
Ian blinked again. “Why the hell are you asking me?”
Heath scratched his chin and thought over his answer. “Probably because, if it was murder, there are only two people on earth that I’m positive didn’t do it,” he said. “One of them is me. The other is you, because you were in prison at the time.”
That made Ian frown. “You think Devon or Brody could have done it?”
“Or one of Charlie’s henchmen. Or one of his women. Or anyone in the pack.” Heath looked out his window again. Charlie had had so many enemies. “Anyone at all, really.”
“I thought he died in his sleep. Isn’t that what the postmortem report said?”
Heath shook his head. “That doesn’t rule out some kind of poison. And do you know who the coroner was who made the report?”
“No,” Ian said, which made sense, since he hadn’t been here.
“Carson Dunne.”
“I thought Carson Dunne left town.”
“He did,” Heath said. “Two weeks after Charlie died.”
He watched as Ian thought about this. Carson Dunne was a wolf shifter, the pack’s medical man, who had been high up in Charlie’s hierarchy. In the chaos after Charlie died, a lot of his cronies had found it wise to leave town, especially the ones who played on the wrong side of the law because Charlie protected them. But Carson hadn’t been one of those. Which made his sudden departure puzzling.
But back then, Heath hadn’t thought much about it. He hadn’t thought much about anything except somehow saving his own skin. He was thinking about different things now.
“So you’re saying,” Ian said slowly, “that maybe Carson lied somewhere in his postmortem report. To cover something up.”
“We’ll never know now, will we?” Heath said. “We can’t even dig up old Charlie, because he was cremated the day before Carson left town.” He watched Ian’s face. “Look, I hated Charlie as much as anyone. I’m not interested in finding who killed him—if someone killed him—and prosecuting the guy. It’s over now, and the evidence is literally ashes. But I lived under that roof for most of my life. I saw things up close. Charlie went to bed one night and didn’t wake up. And sometimes I wonder.”
Ian scrubbed a hand through his dark, longish hair. “You want my advice?” he said.
Heath shrugged. “Sure.”
“Forget about it.” Ian shook his head. “It isn’t going to do you any good, Heath, looking at the past. You have a mate now. Having a mate means you focus on today, on the future. On what you’re doing for her and what you’re going to do. Going over old shit will just hold you back. Besides, you may know of two people who didn’t do it, but I only know one. Me. As far as I’m concerned, you could have done it yourself.”
“Except I didn’t, Ian.” The words came out quietly, and Heath realized he meant them, that it mattered whether his brother believed him. “I give you my word on that.”
Ian looked at him, and their gazes held for a minute, Ian assessing what he saw. Then he sighed, shook his head, and turned away. “Here’s the bus,” he said. “It’s time.”
Heath watched as the early morning bus pulled up to a stop, the door creaking open and a small straggle of passengers getting out. These would be night workers, coming home from their shifts—in restaurants, parking garages, factories, and 24-hour pharmacies. No one else was up and around at this hour of the morning.
Except Tessa. She got off the bus, just as planned.
Anna had found Tessa another outfit to wear. Now she was in snug, sexy jeans, boots, and a wraparound red top that mostly covered her breasts but made them look like delicious Valentine candies at the same time. Her blonde hair was tied in a knot at the back of her head, and she had her full makeup on again—dark lashes, dark eyeliner, the contrast sexy against her perfect pale skin and light hair. Heath had seen Tessa look like this dozens of times when they worked together at the Black Wolf, but after seeing her in toned-down clothes with no makeup for the past few days, the effect was surprising. She looked sexy and lovely, but she didn’t look quite like his Tessa, the one who’d been in his bed with her hair tousled against the pillow.
Still, his wolf roused at the sight of her. He wanted to kiss her and unwrap that top. He hadn’t had a chance to kiss her properly before they had to split up.
She hurried off the bus, looked up and down the street briefly, then hurried across, toward the front doors of the Sky-Hi. Looking a little furtive, but not cowering, her chin up. Exactly the way she was supposed to look.
The Sky-Hi had a marquee, but it hadn’t been used in years. The old letters on it still spelled out NAUGHTY NIGHTS, as if anyone had ever been drawn to a porn theater by the title of the movie inside. Tessa flickered into the shadows beneath
the NAUGHTY NIGHTS and pulled open the theater door. Then she disappeared inside.
It was all according to the plan, but still Heath felt his stomach drop.
She could get killed in there.
His mate.
His wolf wouldn’t rest until she was safe again. He wouldn’t rest until she was safe again. It was going to be his fate, this feeling, until the day he died.
Fuck it.
He pushed open the truck door. “You coming?” he said gruffly to his brother. “Let’s do this. Let’s end this now.”
23
There were wolves in here.
Not werewolves in human form. Werewolves in wolf form. Tessa had never seen a shifter in wolf form before, but apparently today that was going to change, because there were two of them sitting in the lobby, watching her with intelligent, near-human gazes. One was dark gray and was sitting with his tail curled over his hind legs. The other was splotched gray and white and was standing next to his companion, his head down, his upper lip lifted to show his teeth, his gaze sharp and wary.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
The plan was that she’d walk in to the Sky-Hi and demand to see Xander Martell. It wasn’t that she’d walk in and find wolves. Still, she may as well just follow the script, right?
She cleared her throat, blinking to adjust her eyes to the dim light. “I’m here to see Xander Martell. Is he one of you?”
The sitting wolf just watched her and didn’t move. The standing wolf took a step forward, his head lowered, his nostrils flaring. Scenting her.
Tessa felt sweat break out on the back of her neck. She tried not to think of the fact that one of these things could rip her throat out, barely trying. I’m Heath Donovan’s mate. No one will hurt me. Alone, in the dimness of the lobby, that was harder to believe.
She tore her eyes away from the wolves and looked around. The lobby was old, the plum-colored carpet dirty and worn, the ticket stand empty, the lights mostly burned out. There were frames for posters on the walls, but most of them were empty, the posters long taken down. On the back wall, next to an ornate door that probably led to the main theater, one poster was still hanging: it showed a woman with a 1980s perm leaning back, her eyes closed, her mouth open, her bare breasts thrust upward, the nipples hard and pink. WHAT MARLA WANTED, the poster declared the movie’s title to be. Tessa looked away, thinking that Marla wanted a new haircut and maybe a sandwich.