Savage Loss (Corona Pride Book 2)

by Liza Street

  “I don’t know how to figure it out. I don’t know what to do next.”

  There was a rustling noise in the brush behind Mateo, and Justine stepped forward, naked like Mateo had been.

  “You sure you’re just out here on patrol?” Rafe asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes,” Justine said, laughing. “And I know you’d hear the lie if we weren’t telling the truth. You want my advice?”

  Rafe looked at her. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope. My advice is that you try again, maybe in a different way from before. Maybe she feels the exact same way about you, but she doesn’t have it figured out yet, or she’s hiding those feelings for some reason. Make it safe for her to bring them out and explore them.”

  Hunh. That advice actually sounded good. Rafe smiled. “Thanks, J.”

  “Anytime. We should go in—I heard Marlana ordered pizza.” Justine looked over at her mate. “Mateo, where’d you get the pants?”

  “Rafe gave them to me.”

  Justine jutted out one hip and cocked her head at Rafe. “I notice you didn’t offer me any clothes.”

  “Just trying to do the world a favor,” Rafe said, breaking out into laughter at the newly possessive look on his brother’s face.

  *

  Rafe, Mateo, and Justine joined everyone else inside Marlana and Jeff’s mansion. The grand living room was permeated with the woodsy, feline scent of the pride, and a strained feeling in the air of subtle dominance battles. At odds with the sense of feral tensions, the room was richly decorated, with hardwood floors laid in patterns, and comfortable pieces of furniture that probably cost more than Rafe’s yearly rent for his cabin.

  Marlana stood motionless in front of the gigantic fireplace, her voice carrying across the pride who were scattered about on sofas, chairs, and the floor. “The vampire problem is back.”

  Rafe noted the fear on the faces of the people around him, and he hugged Penny tighter, in case she was afraid. She squirmed out of his grip. Well, so much for being a comforting older brother.

  “Are we going to have another lockdown?” Dristan asked.

  Marlana shook her head. “Not at this time.”

  Nobody else said anything. They were waiting for Marlana’s decision. That seemed to be her way—consider everything carefully, and then present her decision to the pride as an order. Rafe didn’t always agree, but he usually appreciated not having to make any of those decisions.

  Usually he appreciated it, but now he had ideas.

  “I think we should search them out,” Rafe said.

  Everyone’s attention swiveled to him.

  He cleared his throat and continued, “Before they get too entrenched, before they have an opportunity to take more people. As soon as they get comfortable, they could come after us again, like last time. We shouldn’t allow them the opportunity.”

  Marlana shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

  “We take a group of ten, comb the surrounding area where the latest survivors were found. Those people couldn’t have been walking for more than a day—the hideout has to be in that area.”

  “I said no,” Marlana said. “It’s too dangerous to send everyone out—we lose ten people, and the pride is only half as strong as before. We could lose everyone.”

  “But we…” Rafe trailed off. He didn’t know what he was doing, talking out of turn like this. His role was to sit idly by and wait for orders, not question his alpha.

  Marlana’s expression softened. Since her showdown a month ago with Laura, Marlana had been at least attempting to be more conciliatory and listen to other opinions. It might not be her usual MO, but she was trying. “I’ll give you two Guardians,” she said. “It’s more than I want to part with, but I do see your point about not waiting for the vampires to get entrenched.”

  Rafe swallowed and nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Take Laura and Chase. You’ll search only during the day when the vampires are sleeping. You’ll take every precaution imaginable.”

  “Got it.” Rafe looked to Laura, who gave him a thumb’s up. He looked for Chase Channing next. Chase scowled, but that was his usual expression. At least he wasn’t as big of a douche as his younger brothers, Ben and Doug.

  “I cannot emphasize enough that everyone must be careful, especially at night,” Marlana said. “Try to stay in groups or pairs. Meeting’s over. Go get some pizza.”

  Rafe shuffled into the kitchen with everyone else. Someone bumped into him. Nina.

  “Hey,” he said to her.

  “Hey.” She grinned up at him, her hazel eyes bright.

  The kitchen was loud with so many conversations happening around them, giving him a sense of privacy. “Sorry about the other night. Not wanting to dance.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, and her grin became forced, her full lips stretched wide.

  Why was everything so awkward with her lately? He forced a smile of his own. “You looked cozy with Fraze there, when I left.”

  Spots of dark pink graced her cheeks. “Yeah. Um.” She fluttered her hands in front of her, as if erasing something from an invisible window. “Anyway. I wanted to see if you wanted more help, with searching for the vampires. I know I’m no Guardian, but I can help look around.”

  “Thanks, but it’s okay,” Rafe said. “We’ll be fine.”

  “I want to help,” she insisted, bumping against his shoulder again.

  He stepped aside to get a little distance. “I know you want to help. But Marlana gave me Laura and Chase, and that’ll be good enough. Chase follows directions, and Laura—well, you know your sister. She’s one of the best, and she has lots of experience with these bloodsuckers.”

  “I wish you would just listen—”

  “I am listening, but I’m still saying no. Stop trying to butt in where you’re not wanted.”

  “Not wanted?” Her eyes filled with tears, and Rafe reached out to touch her shoulder.

  “Shit, Nina, I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She turned around and walked out of the kitchen. Rafe looked around, wondering what just happened. Nobody else had been paying attention, except maybe Chase, who met Rafe’s eyes and shrugged.

  “Useless,” Rafe muttered.

  “Nah,” Chase said. “You’ll be useful working with me and Laura for the vamp search. Speaking of, when do we leave?”

  Laura looked up at the sound of her name, a slice of veggie pizza halfway to her mouth.

  Rafe said, “Dawn tomorrow.”

  Laura groaned. “You hate us.”

  Right now, Rafe hated everyone except Brigitte.

  Ten

  Brigitte paced the living room in her apartment. This was the third evening since she’d been found in the woods, and she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. Every tiny noise from the old man’s apartment next door startled her, and footsteps outside from people traveling to and from other apartments made Brigitte’s heart beat too fast. It could be…them…whoever they were, coming back for her.

  She wished the Corona Mountains Rescue guy were near. She’d felt safe with him. She’d wanted to kiss him.

  Since coming home, she’d remembered more about the afternoon when he’d tried to ask her out in front of the school—she remembered his shuttered expression when she’d interrupted him. She remembered the firm set of his shoulders as he’d walked back across the parking lot, his little sister skipping at his side. He’d stirred something in her that day, but she’d tamped it down, and those feelings had come roaring back to life in the woods while he carried her.

  But she was a creature of will, not feelings, and she wasn’t going to get herself in trouble because of temporary physical feelings—she was stronger than that now.

  Three nights later, it didn’t matter, because he still hadn’t called.

  Someone thundered along the walkway outside her door, and Brigitte grabbed the giant Maglite she kept near the door, ready to brain anyone with the
intent of taking her captive again.

  The footsteps trailed past, and Brigitte set the flashlight back down. She was too jittery, too jumpy. She couldn’t get used to footsteps going past her apartment door. Every single time, she’d reach for her giant flashlight. She’d taken to carrying it around the apartment with her, liking its cool metal heft in her fist.

  Nanny Mae had believed in magic, but even Nanny Mae had kept an old wooden baseball bat by her bed. “Spells will only get you so far,” she’d once told Brigitte.

  It was ten past eight, and darkness would be falling soon. Brigitte picked up the flashlight again and crossed to the bar dividing the kitchen from the living room. She’d left her phone there. Not wanting to feel so alone, she dialed her cousin Cam in San Diego. Cam picked up immediately.

  “Tell me you’ve had enough of Montana weather and whatever spooky shit happened in the woods and that you’re moving here with me,” Cam said instead of a greeting.

  Brigitte laughed weakly. “No, none of that.”

  “I still don’t understand why you won’t let me come stay with you for a few days.”

  “Because you stayed with me for weeks after Lance died, and you nearly lost all your clients.”

  Cam was a freelance graphic designer but she needed a certain structure and routine in order to get work done. It was one of the reasons Brigitte refused to move in with her, no matter how bad things got.

  Also, Brigitte would miss the Corona Mountains. The way they swept up, one after the other, like jagged teeth.

  Teeth? She’d never thought they looked like teeth before—she’d always compared them to the spires of churches or castles.

  “Brigitte, you there?” Cam asked.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. I got distracted.”

  “You sure you’re doing okay?”

  Brigitte held in her sigh. “Yes. I mean, it’s hard and I’m, you know, spacey and jumpy. But my strength is back and I’ll return to work next week, and everything will improve.”

  She’d wanted to go back to work earlier, but the superintendent herself had begged Brigitte to take more time.

  “You’ve been through a lot, sweets,” Cam said now. “You know you can call me anytime and I’ll be out there in a heartbeat.”

  “I love you, Cam.”

  “Love you too, sweets. Talk again soon?”

  “Definitely.” Brigitte ended the call. Already she felt better—her older cousin had always had that calming effect on her—but she knew as soon as she lay down to go to sleep, her anxiety would come back and she’d end up slumped over the kitchen table with the light on in the morning, having fallen asleep while “keeping watch.”

  Keeping watch for what, though? What was she so scared of? If only she could name the things that terrified her, maybe she’d have a hope of conquering them.

  Eleven

  Two days they’d spent searching, but Rafe still hadn’t made any discoveries about the vampires’ new hideout.

  Scents didn’t disappear like this. It wasn’t normal or natural. And yet every time he’d taken Laura and Chase out to the woods where Brigitte and the others had been found, Rafe could not find the trail. Neither could Laura or Chase.

  It made no fucking sense.

  Rafe brought Laura and Chase back to Dristan’s Deli, where they’d all met up earlier in the day. Nina came rushing out the door of the deli and knocked on Rafe’s window. He rolled it down and tried to keep a friendly smile on his face—it wasn’t Nina’s fault he felt prickly and at odds with the world.

  “Come inside for a sandwich,” Nina said. “You look like you could use one. All of you.”

  Chase punched his fist in the air and trotted inside, Laura trailing after him. She already had a goofy grin on her face at the prospect of seeing her mate, Dristan.

  “What do you say, Rafe?” Nina asked.

  “I gotta head out.” He didn’t want to go into details, but he hadn’t been able to get Brigitte off his mind, and he was finally ready to take Justine’s advice and make his move.

  “Well, I was hoping to talk to you. I wanted to explain what happened with Fraze the other night.”

  “When you two hooked up at Hart’s?” Already he was putting his truck in reverse.

  “It was special, but it was between two friends. I don’t want it to ruin anything between you and me—”

  “Nina, who you hook up with is your own business,” Rafe said. “Not mine. Sorry—I gotta get going.”

  He backed out of the parking spot. Honestly, he didn’t care who his friends hooked up with. Laura and Mateo had been together for years off and on, but things hadn’t gotten weird when Justine came around. Fraze and Nina messing around on the side didn’t matter, either. Hell, Rafe had even messed around with Nina once, back when they were in high school. It wasn’t anything to get so intense about.

  At his cabin, he showered and changed, washing away the grime of trekking through the woods and poking around in caverns. Chase’s theory was that the caverns had provided good cover for the vampires before, so they were bound to try the same kind of thing. Laura hadn’t been so sure, but there was nothing else out in the woods for a big-ass group of vampires to hide in.

  Before leaving the cabin, he grabbed a handful of DVDs. They’d come from his friend Mickey’s collection. Rafe had gathered them after Mickey died in the failed coup when Rafe was a kid. Rafe had figured, dysfunctional as that whole friendship had been, Mickey would have wanted Rafe to have some of his belongings, so Rafe had taken the DVD collection and a framed black and white photograph of a lone mountain lion standing on a rock in profile, surveying a valley below.

  Problem was, Rafe had never felt comfortable displaying the beautiful photo. At the moment, it was wrapped in a sheet and hidden behind boxes in his closet. In a way, it was Rafe’s skeleton in the closet.

  He snorted at the stupid image, then closed the closet door.

  He stopped at the store where he bought a bag of gourmet popcorn—caramel popcorn with white and dark chocolate drizzled over it. He wondered if he should get some flowers, too, but no, that would broadcast his intent too clearly. Justine had said he should make it safe for Brigitte to bring her feelings out of hiding. And to do that, he figured what Brigitte really needed wasn’t a love interest, but a friend.

  Up ahead was Brigitte’s apartment complex. He parked on the street and climbed out of his Pathfinder.

  A friend. He could be a friend.

  So he tamped down his nerves, walked up to her apartment, and knocked on the door.

  Twelve

  Brigitte heard approaching footsteps on the walkway outside her apartment. She clenched the Maglite tight. When the footsteps didn’t continue past her door, when they, in fact, slowed and stopped right outside her door, she raised the flashlight, ready to swing it down on the head of whoever thought to break in and come after her.

  She jumped when the knock came, and nearly dropped the flashlight.

  “Brigitte? Are you okay?”

  The voice was vaguely familiar. Masculine. She wished her door had a peephole; she’d asked the apartment manager to install them but it hadn’t happened yet. So she opened the door, keeping her Maglite at the ready.

  It was the CMR guy—Rafe. His brown eyes were friendly, not a hint of darkness in them, not a hint of secrets. In his arms he held a canvas bag.

  He’d promised her a date, that day in the woods, but she had given up, thinking perhaps he hadn’t meant it when there was no call or anything.

  “I know this is presumptuous,” he said, “but I promised you a date, and I figured maybe you could use a friend? I brought popcorn and some DVDs. My brother told me not to be a prick and to bring a few different genres—that not all women like the same thing.”

  “Taking dating advice from your brother?”

  “Well,” he said, and his tanned face got a little darker, “I don’t have a lot of dating experience.”

  A hottie like him? Brigitte was surprised. He l
ooked like the love ‘em and leave ‘em type of guy, with his panty-melting smile and honed physique.

  “So can I?” he asked.

  “Can you?”

  “Can I come in? Watch a movie with you, eat some popcorn?”

  “Oh! Oh, um…” She paused, considering. Let a near-stranger into her apartment. Just because he was hot and carried popcorn. He’d helped rescue her, though.

  She looked down at her clothes. Her ratty college sweatshirt had seen better days, and the yoga pants she wore didn’t leave much to the imagination—they hadn’t been made for entertaining. As far as everything else, well, her hair was stuck to the top of her head in a messy bun, and she wore no makeup. She looked far from the polished, respectable version of herself she was trying to present to the world.

  Rafe’s face remained hopeful, his smile frozen despite how awkward the moment was growing.

  Suddenly, her neighbor, Bob Kanely, opened his door and stuck his head out into the walkway. “For fudge’s sake, Brigitte, let the poor boy inside. You give a shout if he acts untoward and I’ll sic Clapton on him.”

  Clapton was Mr. Kanely’s parakeet. Brigitte couldn’t help it—she started to laugh. “Fine, fine. I’ll let him in. Thanks, Mr. Kanely.”

  “For fudge’s sake, call me Bob,” Mr. Kanely said, but he went back inside his apartment and closed his door.

  Rafe raised his eyebrows as Brigitte gestured him inside. “This doesn’t have to be a date, you know. We can just be friends.”

  Brigitte nodded. “I could use a friend.”

  “Then let’s do this.”

  As she let him inside, a creepy thought entered her mind. “How did you know where I live?”

  “Would you think I’m a total loser if I said trial and error?”

  She laughed, imagining him knocking on random doors. “Only a little bit.”

  He set his bag down next to the sofa, looking as comfortable as if it were his own place.

  “You haven’t answered my question, though,” Brigitte said.