Pack Justice (Nature of the Beast Book 1)

by RJ Blain

  My wolf and my cheetah wanted me to paint the warehouse with the man’s blood. With a shake of my head and a little more pressure from my teeth, I could snap his arm. Instead, I held on, jerking my entire body back to knock my prey off balance.

  He fell forward, and I released him, hopping back. I snarled and snapped at them both. When they recoiled, I held my ground. One of them opened his mouth, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying—or screaming—through the cacophony in my skull.

  I hadn’t realized or appreciated how noisy gunfire was at close range until a gun was discharged in front of me. In hindsight, charging two men armed with guns was among one of the most profoundly idiotic things I had ever done in my life.

  At least my shoulder hurt less than when Idette had broken my leg. Standing on all four paws wasn’t pleasant, but I could do it, which I considered a triumph. I barked and growled warnings at my two captives.

  When the police made their appearance, I tried to slink away, but Alice caught hold of my collar. She snarled something at me, which I answered with a whine.

  She took one good look at my matted, bloody shoulder before she planted her foot against my side and knocked me over. She pinned me down with a knee against my side and dug through my thick fur. I had no idea what she was doing, but it hurt like hell. When she was done, she held a blood-smeared bullet in the palm of her hand.

  With a low groan, I covered my eyes with my paws and pretended I didn’t exist. When Captain Ramirez found out, she’d kill me. I didn’t know what Andrea would do, but I didn’t want to know.

  It would probably involve her teeth and not in a way I’d enjoy. I’d deserve it, too.

  Chapter Twenty

  It took the better part of an hour for my hearing to return, and I spent most of it flopped on the warehouse floor while the real police dogs searched the place from top to bottom. I managed to escape the watchful eye of my Fenerec babysitters twice, and both times I barked until someone came to document the location and retrieve the plastic-wrapped drugs.

  My peace offerings didn’t earn me much, although Alice limited her disapproval to glares and a few choice curses.

  The third time I started to get up to to locate the drugs annoying me with their putrid stench, Alice’s partner stepped on my neck and held me down. The pressure didn’t hurt or choke off my breath, but I closed my eyes and trembled.

  “Vince, off,” Alice snapped. “Jab your toe into the gunshot wound if you want, but leave his throat alone.”

  Vince moved his foot to my shoulder, although the Fenerec didn’t put any weight where I’d been shot. “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Sir Spots needs to remember the stay command,” Alice grumbled, nudging my side with her shoe. “I hope you’re happy. You’re going to get us all in trouble.”

  “You haven’t told the captain yet, have you?”

  “Damn fucking straight I haven’t told the captain yet. Think if we take the time to do a few extra sweeps of the place, he’ll have healed enough she won’t notice?”

  “His fur is matted with blood, Alice. Maybe we could run him through a car wash and get it all out, but then she’d wonder why we were bringing him back extra soggy with a new limp.”

  Running away and hiding from Captain Ramirez’s wrath was sounding better and better. While I didn’t know where Andrea lived, I did know the location of her firm.

  I consoled myself with the thought of trying to hide while waiting for the defense attorney to finish her work for the day. The first time someone saw me off leash, animal control would hunt me down as a risk to the public.

  “We could say he rolled in some mud?”

  “Here? Where do you propose we find some mud for him? It hasn’t rained in over a month.”

  “Freak rain storm?”

  “Nice try. There is no way the captain is going to buy that.”

  Alice sighed. “Dry him off really, really well? Come on, Vince. She’s going to kill us all when she finds out he got shot. Forget his mate. Captain Ramirez is going to skin us all. I know. Let’s sneak in a replacement. We’ll stash him in Marcello’s SUV for the rest of the day, dye some other oversized canine black, and pretend we have no idea what she’s talking about when she asks where Sir Spots is and what we think we’re doing.”

  “I think an honest confession would go over better. At least we can tell her we’re pretty sure he’s not submissive. He did do a good job even though he did manage to get shot.”

  Snorting, Alice crouched beside me and rubbed my ears. “Sorry, Sir Spots. We should have done a better sweep of the place before letting you strut your stuff.”

  “You did a damned good job, Sir Spots.” Vince removed his foot from my shoulder, hunted down my leash from the pile of equipment, and clipped it to my collar. “Give the pup some credit, Alice. It wasn’t much more than a graze, and he got them at a two for one special. The captain will probably forgive us.”

  “The keyword here is probably. While we called in shots fired, we neglected to mention Sir Spots got in the way of one.”

  “Hey, at least we don’t have to worry about the body cam recordings. All the audio is going to pick up are a few growls, shouts, and the gunfire.” Vince shook his head. “Speaking of which, we better turn the audio back on and do a really good job pretending there was a malfunction.”

  Alice snorted, but both of the cops adjusted the electronics attached to them, and a hand signal warned the others to watch what they said.

  I had to admit I found the dual lives the Fenerec led interesting.

  Standing hurt, but I couldn’t smell any fresh blood, which I took as a good sign. My shoulder didn’t bother me after a few tentative steps, and I shook, sending a cloud of black fur rising up around me.

  I was grateful looks couldn’t kill, because Alice’s glare promised death and misery. “Oh, look. He’s shedding. Wonderful. Could you not do that, Sir Spots? You’re supposed to be growing your winter coat, not leaving it all over a crime scene!”

  “Hey, be nice, Alice. They sang like canaries for the cameras, as soon as we told our devil dog to back off. This case will last all of ten minutes in court and we all know it. They’ll settle with a plea bargain to avoid the charge for shooting one of our dogs.” Vince snorted and gave my leash a tug. “I vote we find a car wash, hose him down, and claim he played in a busted hydrant.”

  “Really? We’re going with the busted hydrant? She won’t buy it.”

  “What are you betting on that?”

  “Ten bucks,” Alice declared, holding out her hand.

  The two cops shook while I sighed and wondered about the sanity of Fenerec. Then again, I couldn’t talk. I had thought jumping at two armed men was a good idea, which ranked right up there with dive bombing a cop killer and rapist from a tree.

  Sanity, apparently, wasn’t one of my virtues.

  As they had threatened, Alice and her partner took me to a car wash and hosed me down. Both of them stopped laughing when the black dyed fur came out in clumps, revealing the shorter undercoat covered with my cheetah’s iconic spots.

  “Fuck,” Alice growled, shutting off the water with a slap of her hand. “Now what?”

  Vince ran his hand through his hair and scratched his scalp. “Now would be the time to call the captain and confess. Maybe his dark, thick winter coat would have hidden the hole in his hide, but it’s pretty obvious right now. At least it’s not bleeding anymore?”

  “Dye. We’ll buy dye and get rid of the spots again. She won’t notice.”

  “Alice, you’re delusional. He’s gone from a massive, fluffy dog to a sleek beauty. It’s like we’re bringing back a totally different animal.”

  “We could say we left him at the warehouse and exchanged him for a new one.”

  Vince laughed, shook his head, and dug out a towel from the trunk of the cruiser. “I don’t think Captain Ramirez would be happy with us if we did that. Come on, Sir Spots. Shake and I’ll try to get the rest of your fur dry.”

&n
bsp; “We should dye him again.”

  “How long does it take to dye a two hundred and fifty pound dog?”

  “Too long,” Alice muttered.

  I sighed, braced, and shook the water out of my coat, earning dismayed cries from both of the police officers. When I no longer dripped all over the place, I hopped into the cruiser and made myself comfortable on the back seat.

  “You were supposed to wait until I toweled you off,” Vince complained.

  Alice huffed and slid behind the wheel. “I give up. Let’s sneak him back into the station through the back door. I’ll just tell Captain Ramirez we went to the shelter and dumped the idiot for a saner animal.”

  “Whatever you want, Alice. Whatever you want.”

  Alice had a death wish, although trading me for one of the other drug dogs was a stroke of brilliance. My nose informed me my new pair of handlers were also Fenerec. The two men glared at each other until the shorter of them claimed my leash.

  “Nice to meet you, Sir Spots. I’m Matthew. My partner’s Justin. I guess we’ll be your keepers until Captain Ramirez gets tired of Alice’s shit and demands an explanation.” Matthew shook his head and laughed. “You’re keeping things lively around here. You’re gonna give us a collective heart attack at the rate you’re going. Hungry?”

  Stretching made my shoulder ache. A yawn slipped out, and I shook myself in an effort to stay awake.

  “I think he wants his well-earned nap,” Justin said, his tone light with laughter. “Never thought you had it in you, Sir Spots. I’m impressed.”

  I flicked an ear, wondering how I’d ever be able to visit the station as a human again. I’d step through the door and die of embarrassment. I was glad I was still a wolf when every head turned in our direction as we came in through the back entrance.

  Marcello burst into laughter. “Alice claimed she had enough of Sir Spots Senior and exchanged him for Sir Spots Junior. I didn’t think she was being serious. I can’t believe you let her take Twister.”

  Matthew tossed my leash to Marcello. “It’s Alice’s head on the block, not mine. We’re passing Sir Spots around to see who has him when Captain Ramirez finally decides to come hunting him.”

  “Andrea called Ramirez in a panic. What’s going on?”

  Matthew pointed at my shoulder. Marcello crouched at my side. I turned my head and stared at the wall. My wolf and my cheetah were worried about what the defense attorney would do when she found out what had happened. Flattening my ears to my skull, I growled a warning.

  “I could swear that’s a gunshot wound, Matt.”

  “We fucked up, sir. The tip said the warehouse was empty. We failed to clear the building. Sir Spots found two armed perps and had a dance with them. He got hit with a round before he took them both down. Nothing serious. Alice popped the bullet out no problem, and he’s healing well. It stopped bleeding within five minutes.”

  “Fuck. No wonder Andrea was freaking out. Captain Ramirez called me into her office to ask what the fuck we were doing; she could sense something was wrong. It took twenty minutes to convince Andrea to stay at work.” Marcello jabbed me with his toe. “Can’t you stay out of trouble for a single day? Just one?”

  “He did. Yesterday,” Matthew replied before filling Marcello in on what had happened at the warehouse from start to finish.

  Marcello sighed. “I’ll try to keep the bloodshed to a minimum. You’re a dead dog, Sir Spots. I just thought you should know.”

  I echoed my friend’s sigh and hung my head.

  “So much for a smooth transition. But hey, think about it this way, Marcello. If he was going to snap and eat people, he would have.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  The instant Marcello dragged me into Captain Ramirez’s office, the conversation ceased. The woman was on the phone, and cradling it between her ear and shoulder, she pointed at Alice and Vince. “Get back to work.”

  The two cops fled with Twister, who gave me a wide berth, leaving me and Marcello to face Ramirez alone.

  “Sit,” Ramirez hissed.

  Marcello closed the door, slinking to one of the chairs in front of the desk. I planted my rump on the floor and ducked my head to guard my throat. “Ma’am.”

  “I’ll call you back.” Hanging up, Ramirez planted her foot on her chair and rested her elbow on her leg. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me a straight answer, Albano?”

  Marcello lifted his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t present, ma’am. I handed him over to Alice and Vince just like you told me to. I had no idea they were taking him on a live run today until they had already left.”

  “A live run.”

  “Remember the anonymous tip about strong ammonia smells from an abandoned warehouse, and the caller saw a bunch of guys clearing out with a van? Alice and her team hit it, and they took him along for the ride.” Marcello scooted his chair back and propped his feet up on Ramirez’s desk. “Matt mentioned they didn’t do a thorough sweep before letting the dogs loose. Sir Spots found himself two perps and decided to take them out on his own. One of them got a shot off.”

  “How bad?”

  “Matt said it stopped bleeding a few minutes after Alice got the bullet out. All he’s going to have by tomorrow morning is a missing patch of fur. Matt also pointed out if Sir Spots was going to lose his shit and eat someone, he would have. You can probably clear him to go back to work. He didn’t lose it with the firecrackers yesterday, nor did he when he got shot.”

  Captain Ramirez leaned her weight forward to glare at me. “You’re a serious pain in my ass, Sir Spots. You and I are going to have a very long talk tonight. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me this afternoon? Within twenty minutes, I expect a certain someone to be calling me again wanting to know if I had actually confirmed, with my own eyes, that you are all right. I had to tell her you were out doing some sort of training exercise and having the snot scared out of you to test your control.”

  There was nothing I could do except meet her gaze and hope she didn’t come around her desk to take a chunk out of me. The way she growled didn’t fill me with confidence I would escape without her tanning strips off my hide.

  “With all due respect, ma’am, he did a damned good job. Sure, the whole team can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’, but that’s not the point. He got the job done with minimal injury to himself.”

  “I’m aware, Albano. The whole point of having a team is to rely on them to cover your damned back.”

  “Maybe he was covering his team’s back by eliminating a threat. There were two of them and they were both armed. The perps got off a hell of a lot lighter than they should have. Our regular dogs do more damage than he did. He used just enough force to get the job done.”

  “Good. I won’t have to cover that up at least. Did they confess?”

  “Sang like canaries,” Marcello confirmed.

  “You’re killing me here. I’m not going to have any hair by the end of the day, just you wait and see. I’m going home bald, and it’s all your fault.” Ramirez slapped her hand on her desk and glowered at me. The phone rang, and the captain glanced at the display. “Oh, look. Guess who’s calling? That’s right, it’s Andrea.”

  Snatching up the phone, Ramirez answered, “Ramirez.”

  A slow smile spread across Captain Ramirez’s lips. “Yes, Andrea, I can confirm I’ve seen the spotted mutt for myself. He’s in my office, in Marcello’s custody, where he will remain for the rest of the week. You’ll see him on Saturday. Now, go back to work before I change my mind and decide you’ll have to wait until Monday and hope someone sends him down to the courthouse so you can get a glimpse of him.”

  Ramirez hung up. “Despite what she thinks, it really won’t kill the two of you to be separated for a while. Take the mutt home with you, Marcello, and don’t let Andrea convince you she’s going to die if she can’t see him.”

  “Early? You mean now?”

  “Yes, I mean now. Someo
ne has to dye his fur black again, and you just volunteered. Consider it penance for him being shot. Make sure you feed him and both of his animals, too. Let’s not take any unnecessary risks.”

  “And here I thought you were going to kill him for this stunt,” Marcello said, sliding his feet off Ramirez’s desk.

  “I’m going to come knocking on your door tonight, and I expect him to be capable of speaking to me in English so I can thank him appropriately.”

  “Thank him?” The surprise in Marcello’s voice had me perking my ears forward.

  “Thank him. First, I had the pleasure of listening to Andrea come completely unglued on the phone. Her boss will want to meet Sean that much faster, and I love cutting through the red tape bullshit. It’ll solve a lot of problems. Second, he probably prevented someone else from getting shot—and possibly fatally. You all wear gear, but it only takes one lucky shot to the head to kill us. He walked away with the equivalent of a scratch. I can live with that. He can live with that. Andrea’s going to be spitting angry, but she can live with that, too. If someone else got hurt, do you think he would be able to live with it?”

  Marcello sucked in a breath. “I see.”

  “Good. Take him to your place and get him settled. I’ll be over later tonight with dye to cover up those spots and enough meat to feed him for the next couple of days. If Andrea’s lucky, I’ll even bring her along to say hi.”

  “But you already told her Saturday.”

  “Use your nose, Marcello. That’s what it’s there for. I lied. I do it from time to time to keep people on their toes. Get out of my office and take that scruffy, spotted nightmare with you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marcello rented a small house not far from the station, which made it an ideal place to hide a spotted wolf masquerading as a large dog. As soon as we were inside, he closed the blinds to keep anyone from accidentally catching a peek of me.