“I love you, Brody,” she whispered. He drove himself so deeply inside her that she felt as if they were one person. Something exploded in her chest, smashing her walls, and heat spread through her whole body. The air around them looked like it was sparkling.
With one shared primal howl, they were carried off the edge of the cliff together.
A long time later, they lay in each other’s arms, smoothing each other’s skin with slow strokes, trading small soft kisses.
“Tell me about your mother,” Jasmin said. “Do you know what’s wrong with her? Is there anything more you can do to help her?”
He shrugged, twining a strand of her hair around his fingers. “I don’t know. This new drug might help.”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He smoothed the hair back down again. He grew quiet, and Jasmin stayed silent, waiting for him to talk when he was ready.
“I hadn’t seen her in over twenty years. Not since I was six,” he said finally. “And then one day last January, she calls me at work, out of the blue. I don’t even know how she got my number.”
She stroked her hand down his chest, over his heart, as if she could ease its soreness with her touch.
“She convinced me to meet her at this out-of-the-way little café. She was a mess,” he said. “Dirty and emaciated, like she’d been living on the streets for way too long, not eating. And she was paranoid—at least, I thought she was. Talking crazy about labs and men in white coats, and how she couldn’t let them find her.”
“Labs,” Jasmin whispered. Her throat grew dry.
“Yeah,” Brody said. “I thought that shit was just a myth—you know, shifter urban legends. It wasn’t until months later that Sophia and Jesse were taken by Alexander Grant, and we found out places like that really do exist.”
Jasmin nodded. She hadn’t believed it either, until it happened to her.
“But it didn’t matter how it happened,” Brody said. “Not at first. It was obvious something was wrong with her. Drugs, dementia, something they did in the labs—or maybe just because she was a white wolf. Everybody says they’re born crazy.”
Jasmin’s heart skipped a beat. “Your mom’s a white wolf?” she whispered. “Do you have any idea how rare that is?”
Did he have any idea what that meant? What they could do?
“Yeah,” he said. “Rare. And insane. And I have the crazy gene in me. Monster Wolf.”
Jasmin sat up and took Brody’s face in her hands. “You are not crazy, Brody Jameson. You kept Monster Wolf inside for years. You can do it again.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t me that did that,” he said. “It was her. Ma did something to make Monster Wolf stay inside me, back before she left. And when she got back, the barrier started to crumble. The more I’m around her, the worse it gets. And now he’s out. It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late,” Jasmin said. “There are people who can help you. Help your mother.”
Brody sat up, shaking her hands off him. “You don’t get it! I can’t tell anyone about her. You can’t tell anyone either. Swear to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Swear!”
“Okay!” Jasmin gripped his hand. “I swear. Now tell me why.”
“Because she’s a fugitive,” Brody said. “And I’m responsible. Every single fucking thing you saw in that trailer is my fault.”
Brody pulled his hand away and clenched his fists, his chest heaving. “I did it,” he said softly. “She’s this way because of me.”
Jasmin rubbed her hand up and down his back, trying to soothe him. She wanted to say it wasn’t his fault, it couldn’t be, he was a good man, but she knew that wasn’t what he needed to hear.
“Tell me,” she said instead. “Tell me what happened.”
Brody closed his eyes, rubbing his fingers along the scar on his face.
“I was six,” he said. “And I got into a fight with another cub. I don’t even remember what it was about. I just remember how angry I was. So angry, I wanted to kill him. And I felt myself shift, but it wasn’t the way it usually was. I was huge, and furious, and I couldn’t control myself.”
“You were Monster Wolf,” she said.
Brody nodded. “My mom came out of the house,” he said. “I was going for the other cub’s throat. There wasn’t even time for her to Change. I just remember her staring at me, this awful look in her eyes, like I wasn’t even her son. Then she threw her hand out, like she was throwing something at me. But she wasn’t. Nothing physical, anyway.”
He touched his scar again. “I felt like I’d been knifed in the face, and I started bleeding.” He pulled his hand back and clenched his fist. “It hurt so bad, and I let go of the other cub. Monster Wolf went away, and I had this big cut down my face, pouring blood everywhere.”
He raised his head, looking her in the face. “My mother sliced my face open with the power of her mind.”
Jasmin gasped. She touched his face. “She gave you that scar.”
He nodded. “To keep Monster Wolf from killing that other cub. To keep me from being a murderer.”
Jasmin stroked the scar, wishing she could take the hurt away. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to. I could tell from what I saw that she loves you.”
Brody shook his head. “I made her do it,” he said. “And people saw. They saw what she could do, and they came for her. They said she was dangerous. Unstable.”
He dropped his head, his voice going soft. “That’s why she left. The Enforcers were coming for her. I found out later she’d hurt people before, with her powers. Killed someone. That’s why she came to our isolated little village. So she wouldn’t be found.”
Jasmin stroked his back again, trying to calm him down, but the pain kept spilling out. “I’m the reason she got found. I’m the reason she had to leave. If it hadn’t been for Monster Wolf—”
She could see the tears in his eyes, and her heart broke for the little boy who’d carried this burden for so long.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is! Don’t you see? Whatever she’s been through, it’s because of me. I can’t let anyone find out she’s associated with me, or they’ll realize who she is.”
“What about Tristan and Silverlake?” Jasmin said. “Maybe they could help.”
“If it was just her mind, maybe,” he said miserably. “But she’s still wanted by the Enforcers. If I send her to Silverlake, I’ll be turning her in.”
He shuddered, and she rested her hand on the back of his neck, rubbing gently. After a moment, he heaved a huge sigh and rolled his shoulders, as if trying to settle a heavy load back on them after giving it a rest.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said quietly. “I promised her I’d keep her safe, that I wouldn’t leave her.”
“That’s the real reason why you didn’t go to Idaho with Donnie and the others, isn’t it.”
He nodded. “I can’t take her way out there—there’s nowhere close enough that I could set her up where people wouldn’t ask questions. And I don’t have a drug connection out there.”
He sighed. “But I’m not going to be able to keep this up much longer. I have to pay cash for everything—there’s too much chance someone could link her to me if I don’t. I can’t take the money from my regular accounts, even if I had any money left in them. People would notice. And I don’t know how much Bastian and the others saw, the other night. If the Nashville pack leaders find out about Monster Wolf…”
Jasmin nodded. There was a chance Bastian would keep his mouth shut, since it happened at an illegal fight. But they couldn’t be sure. And anyway, he was just postponing the inevitable.
“You’re right, you can’t keep this up,” she said as gently as possible. “Even if you could go back to the fights, you can’t win forever. They’ll just keep throwing bigger opponents at you. What are you going to do then?”
He turned on her. “I don’t f
ucking know, okay? You want to know what keeps me up at night? That. Knowing that the first fight I lose, it’s all coming down like a house of cards. But what the hell else am I going to do? She’s my mother.”
“I know.” Jasmin began rubbing the back of his neck again. She didn’t know what she would have done if it was her own mother. Battered, running from her father, unable to take care of herself… she couldn’t have turned her back.
But she had a crew to back her up. Brody had no one.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said softly. “We’ll do it together.”
Chapter 23
Brody was deep in sleep when he heard the text alert on his phone go off.
He groped for it on his bedside table, trying not to wake Jasmin, but she was already alert—as if she hadn’t ever been asleep.
“What is it?” she asked.
His phone was still in his jeans pocket. He leaned out of bed and snagged them from the floor, and dug out the phone.
It was from Bastian. A photo.
Of the entrance to the trailer park where Adele lived.
“Holy shit.” He was about to jump out of bed, when another message came in. Then another, and another.
A photo of the trailer.
Then one of the front door.
Then a written message. Come on over. We’re having a party.
And finally, a photo of Adele, sitting in her chair, eyes wide with fear.
Brody texted back. You’re fucking dead.
Then he got up and started throwing his clothes on.
Jasmin got out her phone and started punching buttons.
“What are you doing?” Brody asked.
She gave him a confused look. “Calling in the crew.”
“Jaz, they can’t know about Ma. Nobody can know.”
“We need backup,” she said. “If something bad happens and you didn’t call them in, you’ll never forgive yourself.”
Jasmin put the phone on speaker and started pulling on her clothes.
Someone picked up on the other end. “This better be an emergency,” Flynn said.
“It is,” she replied. “Short version, Brody’s mom is on the run from shifter hunters, and something’s wrong with her. He’s been keeping her in hiding, but it looks like her location’s been compromised. Might be Bastian and his crew, might be worse. We need backup.”
Flynn’s answer was one word. “Where?”
Jasmin said, “Xander knows.”
Brody drove faster than he should have on the icy streets, skidding around corners, barely staying in control. Jaz said nothing about the driving, just held onto the armrest and braced her feet.
His gut was churning. There was no way the hunters could have found her. Hell, he didn’t know if there really were any hunters. Her sense of time was so vague—he didn’t know how long she’d been on her own, or how the drugs she’d taken had messed up her mind.
But Bastian would be bad enough.
“Fuck!” He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. “Jaz, she’s gonna be so scared…”
“We’ll get her,” she said. “The crew’s on the way.”
He wished he had her faith. It had been too long since he had anyone to rely on.
Every time he could take a hand off the wheel, he tried to reach Yolanda on his cell phone, but she never answered. Finally, on the fifth try, it went straight to voice mail.
He cursed. “Someone turned her phone off.”
“Good,” Jasmin said. “Then they’re still there.”
That wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Icy fear gripped Brody. Bastian could be hurting them both, terrorizing them. What had he been thinking, trying to keep her safe outside of a pack? All wolves were always told the only way to stay safe was with a pack at your back.
They’d never told him what to do when your pack turned against you.
He began to realize why the magical bonds for packs were so important. Nash Jenkins had given that up when he increased his territory beyond his father’s original boundaries. The pack bond had eroded, and only wealth, power and size had kept them from getting attacked.
That, and business connections. Taking over the pack without being able to legally take over the corporations that funded it would have helped no one.
But it fostered a sickness in the pack—there was no true bond. He’d seen and felt that briefly, with the Silverlake wolves, and unconsciously longed for it.
And he’d seen it in the crazy idiots at the Bad Blood Crew. You could feel the magic in the land, and you could feel it between the pack members. It called to him.
Now this was going to fuck everything up. He was going to have to take Ma somewhere else, somewhere that they could both start over.
He couldn’t ask Jasmin to do that. How could he ask her to give up her crew and the bond they had, to spend her life taking care of a crazy old woman?
He couldn’t.
They skidded around another corner, and then they were at the entrance to the trailer park. Brody blasted through, sliding half-sideways to stop in front of his mother’s trailer.
“Stay here. Wait for Flynn.” He was out of the car before she could answer, running for the trailer. The lights were off.
That wasn’t right.
He pounded up the steps and skidded to a stop at the front door. It was ajar.
Please don’t let them be dead. Please don’t let them be dead.
For the first time, he wished he had a gun.
He pushed the door open a crack and listened. There were people in there; he could feel them, hear their breathing, ever so faintly. Two—no, three. Maybe one more? And the scents…
His mother. Yolanda.
Bastian. And someone unfamiliar. Still here? Or gone?
Jasmin was out of the car, creeping toward him. He shook his head and brought his two hands up, wrists together, and snapped the fingers together like a bear trap closing.
Trap. Jasmin nodded, and made her way around the side.
Brody pushed the door open all the way, then crouched and ducked inside. If anyone were aiming a gun at him, the shot would hopefully go over his head.
But there was nothing.
Just silence, and labored breathing.
He went past the little kitchen, into the living room. His wolf eyes could see fine in the dark, especially with the outdoor lights shining in the windows.
Someone on the floor. Yolanda. A little blood—he could smell it. Not too much. But she wasn’t moving. Head injury? Strangled?
He couldn’t help her now. He couldn’t stop.
Hot fury laced through him, and he held himself back. Too dangerous. Hold in the monster.
Bad people. Kill them.
Hold it in. Hold it back. It’s too small in here. Good people will get hurt.
The monster growled.
Step further in.
His mother was in the living room, bolt upright in a straight chair, eyes glittering in the dark.
“Brody?” she called. Her voice was quivering. She was terrified.
Bastian was a dead wolf.
The question was, did he know what Brody’s mother was? Did he know what Brody was?
Was this just Bastian’s sick personal revenge? Or had he somehow realized what he had here, and turned them in to the shifter hunters?
That lingering scent bothered Brody. The unfamiliar one. Bastian should have his minions with him.
Instead, he had a stranger.
Just as that thought went through his mind, the light snapped on, and Bastian stepped out of the bedroom.
“You ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed, are you, Brody?” he sneered. “You just walked right into a trap.”
Brody barely saw the dart gun in time. He dove forward and rolled, the dart skimming his cheek and leaving a scratch. Fuck. Was that enough to put him out?
He’d surprised Bastian, though, coming straight at him. He went wolf as he came, cannoning into Bastian and knocking him back.
&nbs
p; His mother’s chair fell over and her head hit the edge of the bookshelf. She gave a tiny cry.
Another man stepped out of the bedroom, dressed completely in black, with a ski cap pulled over his face.
He pointed his gun at Adele.
Kill him!
Jasmin had crept around to the window where she’d watched Brody and his mom before. It was dark inside, but her cat eyes were even better in the dark than Brody’s. She could see Adele in her chair, and Bastian standing in the shadows behind her.
She saw the lights coming up, and Bastian trying to shoot Brody, and the other man coming out of the bedroom and raising his gun.
And then she saw something that raised the hackles on her neck.
Brody changed—and then started to Change again. There was the sound of breaking bones, and his body undulated like it had the night Flynn and Tank found him in the woods. His head grew massive—too big for his neck—but his jaws closed on Bastian’s arm and she heard something break.
Brody made a bone-chilling noise, his teeth still clamped on Bastian. The stranger in black swung his weapon around and aimed at Brody.
Chapter 24
Jasmin’s jag was out before she could make a conscious decision. Brody needed her.
She gave heart-chilling scream like only a jaguar can, and attacked the window.
The trailer walls came apart under her claws like a tin can under a can opener. She ripped through them, snarling, but she was too late.
The man in the ski mask shot at Brody—once, twice—and she saw the trank darts bury themselves in his fur.
For a minute she thought they wouldn’t have an effect. Bastian had gone wolf and was trying to defend himself, and she knew she could take down the man in the mask. He was shouting into a radio. “Backup team! Immediate extraction! Additional target outside. Jaguar.”
He turned on her and aimed through the hole in the wall.
Jasmin ducked under the first dart, but she couldn’t get inside. Brody! Brody! Her jag was frantic, but she couldn’t make the hole big enough to get to him.
Then she heard an engine gunning behind her, a squeal of brakes. A black van skidded to a stop just behind Brody’s car.
Bad Blood Wolf (Bad Blood Shifters Book 2) Page 14