“Oh shit,” I say to no one in particular before hitting answer.
10. HUNT
Theo
I barely hold back from storming into the building. I’m an Alpha, the leader, the protector. Allowing my mate to go upstairs alone to face an unknown danger goes against all my natural instincts. I last five minutes before I can’t take it any longer.
I reach into my pocket and manage to pull out my phone without crushing it in my hand.
Bel answers fairly quickly. “Theo.”
The relief of hearing her voice causes me to lose my control, leaving my phone a crumbled mess in my hand.
“Dammit!” I yell, throwing the useless pieces of phone across the cab.
I try not to slam the door as I get out. I don’t need a busted truck to go with the busted phone.
Once in the apartment block, I take one look at the elevator and know I won’t be able to handle waiting. I storm straight for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I hear the security guy calling me.
“Sir, you can’t go up there. You need to be signed in. Sir!” It doesn’t sound like he’s following me up the stairs. His lazy arse probably took one look at the stairs and decided to leave me to it.
I barge into Misty’s apartment, only calming down when I see Bel standing unharmed in front of me.
“Theo? The call’s not going through,” she says waving the phone in her hand about.
“Yeah. Technical glitch with my phone. I thought I better just come up.” I look around the room and find Misty on the sofa.
“Sorry for just barging in Misty. I wanted to make sure you were all safe.” That’s when I notice the visitor next to Misty. His face is battered and bruised and he looks like he’s been crying too. Bel and Misty might be okay but this guy isn’t. The Alpha in me wants to jump in and help.
“Everything is fine, Theo. This is my cousin, Benji.” She gestures towards the black and blue stranger on the sofa. “He’s been in a spot of bother but he’s safe now.”
I watch her saunter towards me. The sexy sway of her hips makes things stir beneath my jeans.
“Thanks for checking on us.” She leans up on her tiptoes and kisses me on the cheek. If that isn’t a dismissal, I don’t know what is.
“Always,” I reply before taking her mouth with mine. I’m not leaving without tasting her. “See you tonight at the hunt?”
“Oh no. I won’t be hunting.”
“Not hunting, why?” It’s unheard of for a wolf not to join in a hunt on the full moon. Even a lone wolf will hunt alone. We feel closer to our wolves on a full moon because she sings to us, begging us to change. Nothing but pregnancy will stop us from changing on a full moon and sometimes even that doesn’t stop us. That’s why miscarriage rates in werewolves are so high. Sometimes the wolf just takes over and the change is too violent for a foetus to survive.
“I’ve never hunted. The pride would never allow me to hunt with them and they made sure to run their hunts in time with the full moon, no doubt out of spite. I’ll just shift here. I’ll be fine.” She reaches around my neck and pulls me down to whisper in my ear. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving Benji in this state. We’ve only just stopped him crying.”
I hold her waist as she drops back down on her feet. “I’m not happy about it. A wolf in my town should be able to hunt. But I understand your reasons. How about I take you on a special hunt on Monday - just the two of us? I’ll pick you up about noon.”
She smiles gratefully and steps out of my arms. “Yes, that would be great. Monday at noon it is.”
I nod and say goodbye to both Benji and Misty as I head for the door. I can feel Bel following behind me, her energy brushing against my skin. I turn to find her standing in the doorway.
As I reach to pull her into my arms again, the lift dings and the doors open behind me. Glancing over my shoulder I see a security guard with a face like thunder barge out.
“Sir, you need to leave. You can’t just storm into the building like that. We have a security system to keep the residents safe.” He dismisses me and turns his attention to Bel. “Ms McGuiness, I’m sorry about this blip in our security. I will escort this man out and personally make sure nothing like this happens again.”
“It’s fine, Bob. He’s a good guy.” Bel starts to back away out of my reach. “Thanks again, Theo. I best get back in and see to Benji.” She reaches for the door and closes it without even a goodbye kiss.
The lift behind me dings meaning the security guard must have already called it back.
“You need to leave now, Sir.”
Holding my growl in, I turn to the security guard. My wolf is unhappy with being ordered about by this man. He’s just a human. He doesn’t realise the dangers of giving me orders. I keep telling myself that I can’t attack a defenceless human as he glares at me.
I place my hand on the doors and wave him in - my wolf can only take so much. He might not consider the guy a threat, but that doesn’t mean he will give him our back.
It doesn’t take the lift long to make it down to the ground floor, making me think he must have stopped to check all the lower floors before getting to Misty and Bel’s floor.
I head straight for the front door, ignoring the guard behind the desk whom had decided to take it on himself to give me a lecture about signing in and calling up to the residents before going up. I close the door behind me while he’s still mid-rant.
***
I walk around the house when I arrive and head to the back yard. I can hear the pack members fooling around.
Wes is flipping burgers on the barbie. Alyssa, his mate, is lounging on the grass with a couple of other females, Rachel, Chloe and Delly. Eddie and Matthew are throwing a football around. The only member missing is Paddy.
The rest of the pack are all in groups at other locations. It’s too dangerous for us all to hunt together. We can be noisy on a hunt. Humans would notice large groups of us making our existence harder to keep from them.
There are already dangerous groups of humans who grow up knowing that fairy tales and monsters are real. They like to call themselves ‘The Cleaners’. Their mission is to cleanse the human race of all supernatural beings. They’re trained generation after generation to destroy us. If we hunted in one large group we would be giving them the opportunity to wipe out a whole pack at once.
We rotate locations and members so we all get a chance to hunt together. It’s safe and it works so we stick to it.
I reach out for the footy, grabbing it as it soars straight towards my head. "Nice try Eddie but you know I'm too quick for you. I don't know why you bother."
My comment doesn’t stop me from throwing the footy back in Eddie's direction at full pelt, aiming for his arse.
He easily catches it with a laugh and carries on his throwing game with Matthew. It's virtually impossible to catch a wolf off guard. Our reflexes are just too quick.
"Is Paddy on his way?" I ask no one in particular.
Everyone looks at me but not one of them offers a reply.
I turn my attention to Ed and head for Wes at the grill. “Ed, you two are pretty good mates why isn't he here? He's usually one of the first to arrive, he loves the hunt."
"I haven't heard from him today, I just figured you’d sent him to track for the rogue vamp or whoever is kidnapping the vamps. He often goes silent when he’s tracking.” Ed makes his way towards me, digging his phone out of his pocket. He taps the screen and holds it out. We can all hear it without even putting it on speakerphone. The seven of us crowd around as we listen to it ringing out before Paddy's voicemail finally kicks in.
“You’ve reached Paddy. I’m either ignoring you or I can’t answer the phone right now. Depending on which category you fall in, leave your number and I might call you back.”
I speak up knowing he’ll call back immediately on hearing my voice. “Paddy, call me.”
Ed wanders off, redialling his number.
I close m
y eyes and feel for him through the pack bonds. I find him in no time, agitated and scared. I open my eyes.
“Something’s… not right. He’s scared. We need to find him, retrace his footsteps.” I think back to the last time I saw or heard from him. The pack meeting. He left last night with Chloe over his shoulder.
I focus my sights on Chloe. “What happened when he dropped you off last night?”
“I’d come around by the time we arrived at my house. I thanked him with a peck on the cheek and left him in his car. He didn’t drive away until I closed the door behind me. Was I the last person to see him?” she asks sounding devastated at the thought.
“Fuck! He’s still not answering. When I got home and he wasn’t there I thought he’d gotten lucky with Chloe. I should have fucking called him. Some mate I am.” Ed says, pacing around the yard with his wolf riding him. I can feel the energy flowing around him.
Delly steps up to him, placing a comforting hand on his arm. “Don’t beat yourself up Ed. You won’t be any help to him if you turn wolf now. You know turning so close to the full moon means you won’t shift back until morning. We have a few hours before we have no choice but to shift so let’s make the most of it.”
He nods his agreement and they all look to me for direction. The problem? I have no fucking clue how to find him. He was in a car, meaning there’s no scent trail to follow.
“Wes, can you call the other the rest of the pack and make sure no one else saw him after he dropped Chloe off?” Wes wanders off with his phone in hand.
“What if the person taking the vampire’s has him? Are we safe? Could it be Cleaners?” Alyssa asks with a trembling lip.
I pull her petite frame into my arms, “He’s alive, sweetheart. It’s not the Cleaners. We all know they wouldn’t keep him alive. Whoever has him, we’ll get him back. To make sure everyone is safe tonight we’ll bring everyone here for the hunt. It will just have to be a quiet one.”
“What about the Cleaners?” Alyssa gasps as she steps out of my arms. We all know the dangers of hunting in the full pack.
“It’s a last minute decision. Even if they find out about it they don’t have the time to organise an ambush. We’ll just have to be extra alert. Do you think you could organise getting everyone here?” Giving her a job will take her mind off worrying about Paddy and the pack’s safety. Alyssa doesn’t need to worry about those things. That is my job as Alpha.
“Sure.” She nods and runs into the house, probably to use the phone in my office.
“We’ll get some food together for when the pack arrive,” Delly offers, taking Chloe, whose sole attention is on Ed and his phone calls, by the arm and heading into the kitchen.
Matthew and Ed are the only two left in the yard.
“We’ll go see if we can pick up anything at Chloe’s. It’s the last place we know he was so it’s our only option.”
I look closely at Eddie. “Do you feel like you can handle coming with us? Your wolf was riding you pretty hard a minute ago; we can’t have you shifting in the middle of Chloe’s street.”
He takes a solid minute to weigh up his wolf and whether he will be calm enough to allow him to join us. “I’m alright now, boss. He’s settled down.”
Taking him at his word, I turn and head for the truck, hoping for everyone’s sake we find Paddy and this is all some silly mistake.
If someone really has taken him, all hell is going to break loose.
11. CONS OF A TIE
Rosabel
When Theo left, the three of us spent the day catching up. Because it’s a full moon, I need, the night off to change so Misty heads off to work alone, leaving Benji and myself to have a movie night.
"What do you fancy watching, Bel?" Benji asks, flicking through Misty's DVD collection.
I make my way to the bedroom to shift.
"Surprise me," I shout before shutting the bedroom door behind me. I can normally wait until later in the evening before shifting, but I haven’t had the chance to shift since moving here, and my wolf is antsy and ready to come to the surface.
Hoping to ease the shift, I remove my clothes and drop down to all fours. Shifting is not a nice feeling. Essentially your bones are all breaking, realigning again within seconds. The whole process is over in a matter of minutes but it's painful. If you haven't changed in a while, it hurts ten times more than normal. Once I release my wolf she practically pounces out of my skin. I can’t help the grunts of pain coming out of my mouth. The grunts soon turn to a howl. I shake out the last tingles of pain just as the door opens.
"That sounded painful.” Benji winces at the thought as he holds the door open for me to exit, making sure to stay clear. After a painful shift, your skin stays sensitive for a while.
I trot to the lounge, curling up on the floor in front of the sofa. I’m not sure where Misty stands on the animals on the sofa front, so I feel more comfortable sticking to the floor. My eyesight has changed with the shift but I can still see the TV - it's just colourless. I can smell the sage Misty has been burning. She’s always burning something. This morning it was sage for protection against Jared apparently.
Benji follows behind me, plonking his butt down on the floor next to me. He grabs the popcorn off the coffee table and presses play.
Benji chose the movie Rent, which is one of our favourites. We like to sing through the whole thing. It’s not something I can do in wolf form but I won't enjoy it any less.
Halfway through the movie my wolf starts getting agitated. I get up and pace through the apartment, finding myself stopping and staring at the front door every time I pass. She wants out. She wants to join Theo. She feels she should be hunting with them because she has some insane idea about Theo being ours.
"Bel, you aren't normally like this. I don't know what to do for you. If you don't stop whining, someone might come up to see what's happening.”
Whining? I didn't even realise I’d been whining.
“We don't want them to find you. They might not believe you’re a dog and you know I can't lie for shit," Benji says, crouching down between me and the front door. He smooths his hand over my head and down the fur on my back. It does the trick and calms me enough to stop my whining.
Benji stands and heads back to the lounge and the TV. “Come on, let’s go put another movie on. I’ll even let you drool over Brad Pitt in World War Z.”
***
The day after the full moon I find myself walking into work carrying Benji in my arms. He can’t pass Misty’s ward because he’s human. He keeps wanting to turn and run away, even after she mutes it enough for him to go through without dying.
When we open the front doors to the bar Tommy is waiting. He’s like a piece of furniture. The bar wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t propping it up.
As the night goes on I notice it’s nowhere near as busy as it usually is. We actually find ourselves standing around between serving customers.
I wipe the already clean bar down for what feels like the fiftieth time, “It’s so quiet tonight.”
“It always is after a full moon. The werewolves are all recovering from their wild night.” Misty’s voice sounds muffled as she answers while cleaning out one of the fridges behind the bar.
The only customers we have are Tommy, Vera and Mike, all witches. I give them all fresh drinks.
Misty moves on to the last fridge. “Why don’t you and Benji pick a few songs on the jukebox and have a boogie. It’s not as if we’re rushed off our feet.”
We chose a few silly songs to dance to. The first one that starts to play is ‘Stop’ by The Spice Girls. We both know the dance off by heart so we’re pretty entertaining.
Misty, Tommy, Vera and Mike are all whooping and cheering until from out of thin air Dominick appears beside me.
My protective instincts kick in, but not before I jump.
“Here, get a drink, stay at the bar. I’ll be there in a minute,” I say, pushing some money into Benji’s hand. He practically runs to
the bar without argument.
“Rosabel, your little friend is safe with me. I’m not interested in his blood not after tasting yours.”
“What do you want, Dominick?” I grumble. I am pretty sure this isn’t going to end nicely, especially if past encounters are anything to go by.
He grins, reaches out and trails his fingers down my neck. “Isn’t that obvious? You. I want you to become my feeder - my servant.”
“Not a chance, Dominick. I will never be yours. I want you to remove this damn tie too,” I growl, stepping back from his touch. My wolf may want to find a pack to join. When you join a pack you are connected to each and every member. You can feel them. It’s comforting. It’s not that I can feel a connection to him but even the idea of being connected to a vampire is just all kinds of wrong.
“Oh, you know about the tie?” He sounds disappointed, until he speaks again. “The tie can’t be removed. I’m sorry.”
I glare at him, hearing the lie in his apology. “You’re not sorry, and a friend informed me it can be removed with your death.”
He laughs. “Is that a threat, Rosabel?”
I try to be as serious and intimidating as possible, when I open my mouth next. “If that’s the only way to break it, yes.” Being intimidating to a King Vampire, who is two thousand years old, is virtually impossible, at least I thought it was but Dominick’s face is telling me something else. Maybe I did manage to intimidate the good king a little.
“You meant every word of that. You would kill me. I can feel it.” He looks puzzled for a moment.
“Are you an empath?” I ask. It would be the only way he could feel my emotions like that.
“No, but you are,” he says in surprise. “It seems that the tie has given me two gifts that I know of. One, I can materialise wherever you are by just thinking your name. And two, I can use your empathy against you.” His words make me want to punch him. How dare he!
He smirks, stepping toward me again. “Now, now. Don’t get angry.”
Pride to Pack (The Mount Roxby Series) Page 8