Wolf Tales II

by Kate Douglas

  “Yep. Gorgeous, tough as nails. Takes her role as alpha bitch to heart, from what I’ve heard. She’s a landscape architect, but she’s decided to get out of the city and live way off in the woods in Montana. She was assaulted, badly hurt about a year ago. I think she’s had it with the big city.”

  Tia shuddered. “I don’t blame her. With all the weird stuff happening in my classroom and apartment, I can understand not wanting to stay in the city. You said there are four in the pack. Are the others men?”

  “Not all. Two men and two women.” Tinker grinned at Tia. “When Luc told us what your dad said about the Montana pack, we were all jealous as hell. You’re the first Chanku female any of us has ever seen, much less been with. I can see why Jake did what he did, even though I can’t forgive him for it. He was wrong, but after loving you, sweetie, I can’t imagine settling for a plain old ordinary woman. And as much as I love my mates, they’re chopped liver next to you.”

  Tia laughed. She punched Tinker lightly on the shoulder and settled back in the soft leather seat, grinning broadly for the first time today. This long trip down the mountain certainly wasn’t anything like she’d expected when they left the cabin early that morning. She had no right to suddenly feel so lighthearted, even hopeful.

  The skyscrapers of San Francisco loomed in the distance. Sunlight glinted off the bay and fog swirled and twisted over the hills surrounding the city. Maybe Tinker was right. Maybe she did need to give Luc a chance to tell his side of the story. Once they got her dad back, once they figured out who was behind the rash of incidents around Tia, maybe then she’d be willing to listen.

  Ulrich’s apartment was trashed. There was no other way to describe it. Tia’s first reaction was to call the police. Tinker stopped her.

  “Can’t do that, sweetie. There would be too many questions we can’t answer. Too great a risk. We have the man power, the skills, and the training. We handle this on our own.”

  Tinker gave her a quick squeeze and then headed straight for Ulrich’s office, with Tia following. He stopped in front of the computer printer. A single sheet of paper lay in the tray.

  “I figured they would leave something here.” He picked it up and read the single line typed across the middle of the page. ‘Do not call authorities. You will be contacted tomorrow.’”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yep. We wait.”

  Tia nodded and then wandered aimlessly into her father’s bedroom. She hadn’t been in this room since she was a child, but it still felt the same, smelled the same. Her father’s aftershave, the musty smell of books piled on every flat surface, stashed in boxes and on bookshelves.

  The mattress lay halfway off the bed, as though he’d been taken while still asleep. Drawers hung open on the large dresser, and one had been pulled out entirely. It lay on the floor, the wood splintered and the contents scattered.

  Tia leaned over and picked up a small framed picture. The glass was cracked, but she could still make out the smiling faces of her mother and herself. She looked about four years old in the snapshot. Camille’s arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, the fingers interlaced over Tia’s round, little tummy. She wished she could remember when the picture was taken, how it had felt to have her mom’s arms around her.

  She couldn’t. The memories were too vague, the feelings too far away, overlaid by too much sorrow, too many years of loss. Tia continued staring at the picture long after it disappeared behind the watery blur of her tears.

  Strong fingers carefully lifted the framed photo from her hands. Blinking away her tears, Tia turned, expecting Tinker. Luc stood directly behind her, his expression solemn, his eyes wary.

  With a choked sob, Tia threw her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his soft leather coat. He drew her into a warm and comforting hug. She felt the weight of his chin resting on top of her head, took a deep breath, and inhaled his familiar scent.

  His voice sounded rough. It rumbled over her ragged nerve endings, teased her frayed senses. “I’m so sorry. Sorry about your dad, especially about what happened to your mom. I know just saying it isn’t enough. It never will be, but please know I’ve carried this burden with me for more than twenty years. I’ll always carry it.”

  Tia jerked out of his embrace and wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled to the bone. Damn him. Then why his lame apology? Words but no explanations? Tia felt her anger, a lifetime of hurt bursting to the surface, a sense of rage unlike anything she’d ever known. Voice trembling, she glared at him. “I’ve lived with it for just as long. Tell your story to that little girl who lost her mother, who’s wanted to know the truth for all these years!”

  She brushed the back of her hand across her face, smearing aside hot tears and then covering her mouth with her fist. Damn. It hurt worse now than when her mother had died! “Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve known from the beginning how much I wanted the truth. You’ve lied to me. My father’s lied. Just as well he’s not here, because he’s every bit as guilty as you are. You should have told me. If you loved me the way you said you do, you would have been honest with me.” She couldn’t help the bitter edge to her words. Wasn’t sure if she wanted to call them back or not.

  “I couldn’t.” Luc jammed his hands in his pockets, looked anywhere but at Tia before finally turning his steady gaze back on her. His eyes glittered, his normally tan skin was ashen. “I was a coward. There’s no excuse. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me. I hope you will…hope you’ll be able to, someday.”

  Tia heard the hope in his voice. The silent entreaty behind his words. She still didn’t know what had happened, still didn’t know the whole truth, but it was too much, her anger and hurt running too deep.

  What she saw in Luc’s eyes hurt even more. It was obvious that he suffered, that he hurt as badly as she did, but it wasn’t enough. Would it ever be? Tia had to look away before she could find her voice, and when she spoke, her words sounded as cold as she felt.

  “Help me find my father. Please.”

  Luc nodded. His entire body seemed to sag. “We’ll find him. Tinker’s looking for the phone number for the Montana pack. We all heard Ulrich mention them before we lost contact, so maybe they can help us.”

  AJ walked into the room with a single file card from Ulrich’s Rolodex. “Tink found it. Here it is. Anton Cheval. He’s the one.”

  “Thanks.” Luc grabbed the card from AJ’s outstretched hand and headed for Ulrich’s office. Tia stood alone in her father’s bedroom and watched him walk away. A dark wolf raced into the room, his nose to the ground.

  Mik, looking for clues. AJ quickly stripped out of his clothes, shifted, and joined his partner. Tia stood by helplessly, unsure what she should be doing. She stayed out of the way as both Chanku made a thorough search of her father’s bedroom before heading toward the main part of the house.

  Tia followed. Tinker was going through papers on her father’s desk, Luc talking quietly to someone on the phone. AJ and Mik moved on into the front room. Tia walked slowly about the office, picking up papers scattered on the floor, righting fallen lamps, straightening pictures hanging crookedly on the walls.

  Moving from room to room, trying to put her father’s home right again. Trying to clean up the broken glass, find a place for the bits and pieces of her father’s life. All the while, she wondered if she would ever be able to put her own life back together again. If what was broken could ever again be made whole.

  Chapter 14

  A private jet, courtesy of the Montana pack, waited for Luc, Tinker, and Tia on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport. AJ and Mik would stay at Ulrich’s to wait for the kidnappers’ call. They would also be there to fill in Jake on what had happened, should he return. Luc had his cell phone and they all had Anton Cheval’s numbers.

  The flight into Montana was quiet, uneventful, and very tense. Tia sat by herself, claiming exhaustion, but spent the first half of the trip staring out the window at the thick cl
ouds between the plane and the ground.

  She needed sleep, couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. The past forty-eight hours had been filled with Luc’s training, her run with the pack, a night of unbelievable sex, and her horrible discovery about her mother, followed by the long trip down the mountain with Tinker to her father’s empty home.

  Now Tia’s anxious world revolved around worry for her father and an unresolved anger only he could appease. Was Ulrich all right? Had his kidnappers hurt him? Did he have his supplements with him? She’d never asked how long they could go without the essential combination of nutrients needed to become and remain Chanku.

  Tia had no idea what would happen if she missed a pill, and she wasn’t about to take a chance. They went everywhere with her. Would she revert to a plain, ordinary human again? Would her abilities disappear altogether, those amazingly enhanced senses that allowed her to see, smell, and hear her world in the manner of Chanku?

  Why hadn’t her father told her the truth? Looking back, Tia realized her life since her mother’s death had been filled with lies of omission. The fact Ulrich knew she wasn’t even human should have warranted at least a conversation or two.

  Crap. This all felt so unreal. Ulrich knew how much Tia hungered for any information about her mother, yet he’d refused to discuss Camille’s death, had actually befriended the man who killed his wife, and treated him like a son.

  Then he’d gone and put that same man in Tia’s life. He’d thrown Luc at her like bait. Like a fool, she’d fallen for him, taken him hook, line, and sinker. Tia rubbed her burning eyes and tried to ignore the hollow ache in the pit of her stomach, the lump of pain in her throat. Of the two men in the world Tia loved most, both had lied.

  Her chin quivered. She caught her lip between her teeth and held the tears at bay. So many questions without answers. So much to try to understand. Too much, and all of it hurt.

  Sighing, Tia rolled her head to one side, scrunched herself in the comfortable seat, and stared blindly out the window. The small jet sped onward, heading toward the rugged mountains of Montana and a private airstrip belonging to their Chanku hosts.

  Luc wandered to the back of the jet to check on Tia. She slept soundly, her usual tangle of hair appearing smoother, more touchable than he recalled. He searched the overhead rack and found a warm blanket. Tucking it around her shoulders, hearing her soft, sleepy sigh as she snuggled her face against the woven folds, made Luc’s heart ache.

  Would he ever regain what he had lost? He smoothed Tia’s hair out of her eyes, watched her sleep for a moment longer, and then slowly walked back to his seat beside Tinker.

  “Didja find Jake?” Tinker’s soft question caught Luc off guard. He hadn’t even thought of their packmate, still alone at the cabin, for all he knew.

  “No. This thing with Ulrich took precedence. I left him a note, said there’d been trouble, that the boss was kidnapped. I figure he’ll either stay up there or make his way back to the city. It’s up to him.”

  For that matter, Jake could stay gone permanently. Luc felt as if he’d lost a brother. The man he thought he’d loved had never existed.

  Tinker sighed loudly, sounding as exasperated as Luc felt. “He’s one of us, Luc. No matter what he’s done, he’s a part of each one of us. He’ll apologize eventually, and we’re going to forgive him. We have to. We’re all he’s got, and we need him as much as he needs us.”

  Luc swung his head around slowly and stared at Tinker for a long moment. Thank goodness for this guy, sometimes the only reasonable one among them. “How did you get so smart? You’re still a wet-behind-the-ears kid.”

  “I have a lot of experience as the odd man out.” Tinker’s sad smile spoke volumes. “Jake doesn’t. He’s used to being your second, the one who guards your back the same way you watch his. I don’t believe what he did to Tia was planned. I don’t think it was part of his conscious mind at all. If you ask me, what happened scared the shit out of him. That’s why he ran.”

  Tinker scooted around in his seat so that he faced Luc. “Think about it. AJ and Mik have each other. I’ve gotten to know Tia as a friend. Jake sees her as only a woman. An available female. You hadn’t mated her and the wolf in him couldn’t afford to pass up the opportunity. We all have our human roots, but at heart we’re still wolves. We’re nothin’ more than animals. Put yourself in Jake’s place.”

  Luc was still running Tinker’s comments through his head when they touched down at a small private airstrip in Montana. A shiny black SUV waited at the end of the runway, the only vehicle in sight. Long shadows of late afternoon stretched across the smooth asphalt and lost themselves in the thick forest surrounding the runway.

  Luc turned to go awaken Tia, but she was already standing and reaching for her bags. She glanced his direction and then quickly looked away. Luc shouldered his own bag and followed Tinker out the door at the front of the plane.

  A small, dark-skinned man waited beside the vehicle, a large black Hummer. He tipped his baseball cap, introduced himself as Oliver, an employee of Cheval’s, and then opened the back door of the imposing vehicle. His English accent seemed strangely out of place in the midst of the Montana mountains.

  Tia sat in the back beside Tinker, studiously avoiding Luc. Luc took the seat up front with Oliver as they sped away from the airstrip. He lost all sense of direction as they meandered along a series of mountain roads.

  None of them spoke audibly. Mentally, they discussed what AJ and Mik had sensed, the possible number of kidnappers, their ethnicities. Luc had discovered an ability to pick out various ethnic groups by scent when he was in his wolf form. He knew the differences were tied into diet and drink, but the distinct odors often gave him clues a normal human nose would miss.

  The others possessed the same ability.

  AJ and Mik had searched carefully and then shared the information with Tinker and Luc before they left. The unique smells and scents typical of many of their terrorist targets were missing. They’d sensed stale cigarette smoke, bacon grease and onions, and, very faintly, coffee, beneath the rancid odor of sweat and fear.

  It had taken at least four men to abduct Ulrich. That much they knew for certain. They’d obviously had breakfast first and knew enough about Ulrich to realize he would be sleeping late into the morning. Did they know he was Chanku? That he ran through the park for most of the night?

  Where his captors had taken him, and why, remained a mystery.

  Luc turned over the information in his mind. They’d fully expected Middle Eastern terrorists, especially after their most recent raid in Florida. What didn’t compute? What clue was he overlooking?

  Tinker? Didn’t you say AJ smelled bacon?

  Tia’s soft mental question yanked Luc out of his contemplation.

  Yeah. They’d all eaten a big breakfast just before they hit. Sausage, too, I think.

  Pork sausage?

  I think so.

  “Bingo.” Luc snapped his fingers as the missing pieces fell into place. He turned around in his seat and smiled at Tia. For the first time today, she returned his smile with one of her own. “Good job, sweetheart.”

  Tinker looked from one to the other. “Would you mind filling in this poor schmuck on what’s going on?”

  “The hit in Florida, the one blamed on Jordanian terrorists? Damn, I wish Jake was here, because he was the second wolf. AJ and Mik were on two legs, but ya know what they were bitching about, what they smelled in that cave?”

  “Bacon.” Tinker grinned broadly. “Knowing those two and their bottomless pits at breakfast time, I bet they smelled bacon and eggs, and you had to listen to them bitch about it the whole time. Am I right?”

  “You got it.” Luc shook his head. “No self-respecting Middle Eastern terrorist is going to feed his captive bacon…or eat it himself.” His smile was grim. “Something else I just remembered about Florida. There was no scent of fear. Whoever ‘kidnapped’ Secretary Bosworth wasn’t at all nervous. Nerves, fear…pu
t off a stench…a strong, acrid odor.” Luc slammed down his fist on the back of the seat. “Damn. I wish I wasn’t working on secondhand information. I should have been the one sniffing around Ulrich’s place. I might have been able to find a connection.”

  “Between the raid in Florida and my father’s kidnapping?” Tia leaned forward in her seat. “I don’t understand.”

  Luc glanced at Oliver, but the small man stared straight ahead, presumably concentrating on his driving and completely ignoring the conversation around him. “We all had a feeling the kidnapping in Florida was a setup. We never saw any sign of Secretary Bosworth’s captors, though we picked up the scents of others. Bosworth was more interested in Jake and me on four legs than he was in being freed. He kept talking about how we seemed almost human, how we didn’t look like regular wolves. He’s a member of the President’s cabinet but not privy to Pack Dynamics.”

  “You think he’s trying to find out more about the Chanku?” Tia’s glance shifted from Tinker to Luc. “Do you think he might be behind my father’s kidnapping?”

  Luc shook his head. “I’m not ready to jump to conclusions yet, but if Cheval has the connections and the talents Ulrich seems to think he’s got, we’ll put him on it. I’ll get in touch with our Washington contact and put out some feelers as well.” He turned to the driver. “How much farther to Cheval’s?”

  The little man smiled. “We’re here,” he said, turning a long, sweeping corner.

  The home seemed to grow up out of the stone that surrounded it, a huge, flowing structure built of rock and cedar logs, nestled in a dark forest of old-growth fir and pine. Stark mountains rose majestically behind the roofline, and a broad deck appeared to encircle the entire structure.