by Kari Cole
Just last night, the huge house had been filled with Rissa and Freddie’s friends and family, celebrating their upcoming wedding. Now, late afternoon sun streamed through the windows, casting intermittent patterns of light and shadows over the hardwood floor.
It was eerily quiet. So much so, Izzy almost wished her wolf would start buzzing again, just to combat the heavy silence. It was creeping her the hell out.
Rissa pointed at a closed door on the right side of the hallway. Luke’s office, she mouthed. Then she put her nose to the keyhole and sniffed. She shook her head and opened the door.
Izzy pointed the shotgun into the opening and swept it across the space. Rissa was right. Nobody home.
As Izzy reached to re-close the door, Rissa stopped her. “Wait,” she breathed. “Fred, you and Dev stay here.”
Good. Better to leave the two injured men in a fortifiable position. While Izzy hoped there wouldn’t be any need for her and Rissa to make a run for it, she wasn’t willing to bet on it.
The litany of fuck-thats Freddie was about to spew were telegraphed across his face. Then, to Izzy’s utter shock, he looked at his broken leg and whispered, “Fine. Christ, I hate being useless.”
Rissa sidled up to him and stroked his chest. “Never that, baby. You’re just a little gimpy right now.”
Freddie grimaced, then gave Rissa a light kiss. “Be careful.” He turned to Izzy. “Both of you.”
“I’ll find them,” Izzy promised.
He nodded and moved into the office. Dev stepped in behind him, his expression pinched, but he only said, “Luna,” before shutting himself and Freddie inside. The lock clicked.
Impressive. Izzy had expected more of a fight from him, too.
“Benefits of the pack hierarchy,” Rissa said. “Only Luke outranks me. And your brother is a practical man.”
“Great. Let’s go.” Time seemed to be slipping away from them. With each beat of her heart, she grew more anxious.
“How many people live here?” Izzy asked.
“Now? Just Lena. Luke refuses to move into the Alpha’s rooms. But there should be almost a dozen people here today, including my mom and your parents.”
Then where the hell was everyone?
Together, Izzy and Rissa moved through the first floor, clearing rooms as they went. At each entryway, Rissa sniffed before they stuck their heads into the line of fire to visually check for signs of struggle or anything out of the ordinary.
It took only a few seconds to inspect each room, yet to Izzy it felt like an eternity. Despite the quiet, undisturbed state of the house, a looming sense of doom made her palms sweat.
At the back of the kitchen, they reached the stairs that led down to the finished basement.
“We have reinforced safe rooms downstairs,” Rissa said in a hushed voice. “That’s where they would go if they couldn’t get out safely.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d question why a supposedly peaceful group of people required such a thing, but I guess I already have that answer. Don’t I?”
Rissa’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s just go.” Before she’d even made it down three steps, she turned to Izzy with wide, panic-stricken eyes. “Oh, goddess, no.”
* * *
“Dean!”
Luke ran headlong after his cousin, weaving between trees, and ducking under branches that could take off an ear—or a head—given their speed. On his right, Davy kept pace on four paws.
They were miles away from the pack house now.
Too many miles.
His wolf growled low in his head. Where was Nate’s scent? Luke knew the six-year-old’s scent as well as his own. But they hadn’t encountered anyone’s since he’d left Isabelle behind. If he was a proper Alpha like his father had been, he might be able to sense Nate through the pack bonds.
Dean ran on, twenty feet ahead, his long legs eating up the terrain as if there were no fallen branches or shoulders of rock jutting into his path.
“Wait, Dean!” He didn’t. So Luke drew more speed from his wolf and threw some of the power of the Alpha—for all the good it could do—into his voice. “Stop!”
His cousin spun and skidded to a hockey stop as if he were wearing skis, his boots sending up a fountain of snow. “What?” Dean panted. The whites of his eyes showed all around glowing gold irises. “Do you see something?”
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Luke asked. “I don’t smell anyone.”
Davy whined and jerked his muzzle in the direction they had come. Back toward the pack house. He didn’t smell anything either.
The scent of Dean’s fear burned his nose. “I—I...”
“Maybe we missed the trail?” Luke offered. But the way his wolf was pacing and grumbling, he didn’t think so.
Before he could suss out what his beast was trying to convey, Dean said, “Sarah. I—” He rubbed at the center of his chest, where Luke knew he felt the mate bond. The same spot where Luke’s ached like a hollow tooth. “She’s scared...”—Dean’s voice dropped into a barely understandable snarl—“and hurt.”
The muscles in Luke’s neck cranked tight as an inquisitor’s rack. “Where is she?”
Dean took two long strides before stopping with a lurch. “Back at the house, but—” He looked around the woods, his face twisted into a grimace of fear. “Nate,” he moaned, causing Luke’s wolf to surge to the surface.
The image of the pup’s wild blond curls and deep green eyes flashed in his mind. If someone hurt him... Where could he be? They’d have to backtrack.
Pacing in a jerky circle, sniffing and scanning the ground, Dean mumbled to himself, “Where? She said they headed south.”
A nasty, greasy feeling settled in the pit of Luke’s stomach, and he couldn’t rein in his beast’s growl even if he wanted to.
“Who told you they went this way?”
Chapter Fifty
Before Izzy could stop her, Rissa leapt down the flight of stairs. She landed in a crouch and rolled out of Izzy’s field of vision.
Izzy swore loud and long—but only in her head. She couldn’t spare the breath; she was too busy running down the stairs as quickly as her stiff, clawed hip would allow.
“Never be where the enemy thinks you’re going to be,” her first drill sergeant had said. Two steps from the bottom, she crouched and hopped down.
It saved her life.
Something flew past her and smashed into the wall, right where her head would have been. Drywall exploded and pelted her back, leaving an eight-inch hole in the wall and a chunk missing from a two-by-six stud.
Openmouthed, she watched a freaking eight ball roll smoothly away.
Rissa flew past in a blur, crashing into the wall with a solid thump. Her pale blond hair whipped around with the impact, and she dropped to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
Izzy shouted wordlessly, bringing the shotgun around to point at—
Pain detonated in her side like she’d been hit with a round from a .50 cal. She collapsed, gasping like a landed fish. Get up! Get up! But she couldn’t seem to coordinate her flopping arms and legs.
Across the room, a guy with a graying beard held a pool ball in his hand. He tossed it up and down, as if weighing it. “Want another?” He was huge, almost as big as a...bear. He smirked at her and fingered a heavy studded belt wrapped around his stout waist. “Or do you want the belt?”
Uh, neither, thanks. But he wasn’t talking to her.
“Nah.” A hand grabbed the front of her shirt and yanked her up. “I think I’d rather use claws. And teeth.”
A man in his midtwenties with long brown hair and pale-gold cat’s eyes held her, six inches from his face. He curled his lip, and fangs lengthened in his jaws. “You killed my brother, bitch.”
“Today?”
There was
n’t quite enough time to call herself stupid before she slammed into the floor.
The rogue straddled her waist, digging his knee into her injured hip. She tried to punch him, but he caught her fist with ease. He looked at the bandage sticking out from her sleeve and tore both away, revealing the healing bite wound. He licked it and smiled. “My brother gave this to you. His name was Curt Markes. You’ll remember it, because I’ll have you scream it when we’re fucking you to death.”
Great. The other cougar.
Dread raced up her spine in an icy-hot rush, setting off her wolf. Its hum rang in her ears. It wanted out, wanted her to shift. Ants ran under her skin, a trickle of sensation that built into a damn marathon. To hell with that. By the time she shifted, she’d be dead. Besides, she had no idea how to fight on four legs. Mentally, she shoved the wolf back into its cage and locked it.
Markes blinked as if startled. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he held her down and sniffed her neck. He laughed, then casually banged her head off the floor. “Guess the stories are true: a werewolf who’s afraid of her own beast. Pathetic.”
A bright, happy laugh—the kind you’d expect from Disney fairies—jerked Izzy’s attention to the corner where Rissa still lay in a crumpled heap. A woman crouched over her.
For one beautiful, amazing second, hope filled Izzy. Then Markes asked, “Is she dead?”
Bile burned the back of Izzy’s throat when the familiar voice answered, “Not yet. Gimme a sec.”
“Daphne,” Izzy spat, as if the name were the vilest curse she could utter.
Rissa’s younger sister appeared above Izzy. Of course it was Daphne. Hadn’t her mate, Rick, been one of the bastards shooting at them at the airfield?
“Traitor,” Izzy said.
Daphne shrugged. “Sticks and stones.”
Markes stood, dragging Izzy with him. He twisted her bitten arm behind her back, digging his fingers in. Trying to ignore the pain, she hissed, “Where are Hank and Abby?”
She could barely speak past her fear. Her foster parents would have completely trusted Daphne, their soon-to-be daughter-in-law’s family. Just like Izzy had.
God, she was a moron.
Again, but louder, she demanded, “Where are Hank and Abby?”
The enemies’ laughter was the worst sound Izzy had ever heard. More horrible than her mother’s last scream. Even worse than the thump of Bess’s body hitting the floor after she killed herself on camera. Because Izzy was responsible. All her life, she’d avoided werewolves and shape-shifters like the plague. But just when she should have been running the fastest to get her family away from them, she got all cozy with the Alpha.
She couldn’t have failed the Dodds more if she tried.
Or, maybe she could.
Abby appeared in the hallway on the opposite side of the room, an aluminum baseball bat in her hands. “Get your filthy hands off my daughter.”
The three weres turned and laughed again.
Izzy screamed, “Abby, no!”
The big guy stepped toward her foster mother, and Izzy kicked the back of his knee, collapsing his leg and making him stumble. Then she drove her head backward into Markes’s face. Something crunched and he howled, loosening his grip on her arm.
Daphne shrieked as a wrecking ball of blond fur smashed into her.
No time to celebrate Rissa’s return to the fight. With a twist and a knee to the groin, Izzy was free of Markes and diving for the bear’s legs. Wrapping herself around them, she held on. Not the most graceful offensive in the world—more like a toddler throwing a tantrum—but she had to buy Abby time.
“Run, Abby!”
Someone slugged Izzy in the side of the head, and all her muscles decided to take a vacay.
As if picking up nothing more substantial than a wet rag, Markes jerked Izzy up by her throat. Choking, she kicked and raked his hands with her nails. Useless. All useless. Black ate at the edge of her vision.
“Bitch,” he said. “When I get through with you, you’ll wish you’d died in that crash.”
As her sight shrank to a narrow tunnel of light, she heard a snarl and a crack! like a gunshot. Markes’s head whipped to the side just as a gray-and-white wolf leapt toward him, fangs flashing.
Izzy fell into darkness.
Chapter Fifty-One
Izzy regained consciousness like a freight train barreling down the tracks: with a roar and a shudder that shook her from head to toe.
“Easy, Iz,” Freddie said, trying to push her back down.
“Abby?” she wheezed.
Freddie’s face crumpled. “They took her.”
She shook off her brother’s hands and jumped to her feet. A wave of dizziness threatened to knock her on her ass, but she ignored it. Didn’t matter if she fell. She’d crawl if she had to.
She took a lurching step. And another.
“Wait, Iz.”
She didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Swaying, she aimed for the French doors that opened out into the backyard, but Rissa stood in her way, human and naked and streaked with blood.
“Don’t run off half-cocked, alone,” Rissa said, panting slightly. One arm hung awkwardly at her side. The shoulder looked dislocated.
Behind her, someone pounded on a door, and Izzy spun around, fists up. In the hallway that ran deeper into the basement, Dev leaned against a wall. Like Rissa, he was naked and dripping blood from the gunshot wound in his shoulder.
He pounded on the door again. “Sarah, open the door.”
Izzy turned back to Rissa, pissed at more than just being startled by Dev. “Why shouldn’t I go after Abby right now? So more of your pack can show up to help like your sister did?”
Tears leaked from Rissa’s eyes and trickled down her face unchecked. Izzy felt like a bitch. Who knew better than she did that sometimes sisters betrayed you?
To Rissa’s credit, she didn’t try to defend her sister. “Getting yourself killed is not going to help Abby.”
“Come on, Sarah. Please,” Dev said, still talking to a closed metal door. “Are Hank and the boys in there?”
Silence.
“Are they?” Freddie whispered, hopping on one crutch toward the other man. The hope in his voice was a siren’s call and Izzy followed him.
The steel door looked like it could withstand a nuclear blast. Scuffs and scratches marred its surface, and it had a dent near the knob. Weird, muted, high-pitched growling came from within the room, fierce and nasty.
Izzy’s heart rate ratcheted up. God, please let Hank be okay.
Dev exchanged a look with Rissa. He tipped his chin to a control panel mounted next to the door. “The code’s been changed. It’s locked from inside.”
“Are you sure it’s Sarah in there?” Rissa asked.
“I think so.” He pointed to a smear of red near the knob. “That’s her blood.”
Grim-faced, Rissa stepped up to the control panel and pressed a button. “Sarah? It’s Rissa. Open the door.”
After a few seconds, static rasped, then the doctor’s familiar voice said, “Not sure I should do that.”
Rissa’s face registered pain, but her voice was calm when she pressed the mic button again. “Izzy and Freddie are with me. Do you think they’d hurt their dad?”
Another few seconds passed, then click!—the door popped open, revealing Sarah. She was clothed, but looked as bad as Rissa and Dev. One side of her face was swollen and red. Blood stained her tattered shirt. She sniffed, and some of the wariness faded from her eyes.
She opened the door wider and Izzy’s heart fell to the soles of her boots. “Dad!”
Arm in a makeshift sling, Hank was propped up on a bed in the middle of the room, head back and eyes closed. He was pale. So very pale.
Izzy ran toward him, stopping short when two balls o
f fluff reared up on the bed between them and snarled at her. One, a brindled gray with bright white fangs, took a swipe at her with its claws.
“Justin, shh. Stop that,” Hank said, his eyes glazed with pain. He pulled the vibrating fiend back by the scruff of the neck, setting it in his lap, before grabbing the other little werewolf—a werewolf!—and placing it next to its cohort. It was black, with a white strip down his nose and chest. “Don’t be rude. That’s my Izzy-girl.”
For a moment, she thought she’d pass out, before she remembered to breathe. The black spots faded from her vision, and she blinked. She tried to form words, ask an intelligent question. Sounds even came from her mouth. Not a bit of it was coherent.
She sank to her knees next to the bed.
Freddie hobbled around the end of the bed and stood next to her. “Justin? Nate? Holy shit.”
The pint-sized wolves continued shaking and baring their vicious-looking fangs. Their ruffs stood on end. Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed and scooped up the black one, cradling him in her arms. He whined piteously as he snuffled under her chin.
Justin edged closer to her and sniffed before he flopped down as if he couldn’t stand another second.
Hank patted his head. “Poor boy. First change and all this scary stuff. It’ll be okay.”
Izzy reeled. Freddie steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. “Ch-change?” she sputtered.
Hank gave her a look she knew well. The one that said she was being stupid. “Where’s your mother?” he asked. “She heard the commotion and damned if she’d leave her chicks to fight alone. Made Sarah let her out.”
Again, Izzy’s lungs froze in panic.
“They—they took her,” Freddie said. His voice broke. “I could—couldn’t shoot. I didn’t want to hit Mom.”
Izzy didn’t remember standing up or grabbing Hank’s hand, but she had. She looked into the eyes of the man who had taken her and Bess in and cared for them when no one else wanted to. No matter how horrible and crazy they were, he’d always been there with a kind word and open arms. “I’ll get her back, Hank. I promise.”
He held on to her hand when she would have pulled away. “You called me ‘Dad.’”