“Eve,” I panted. “Eve, I can’t do this.”
“You have to, Elise. You have to do this for both of us.”
The reverend turned to me. “Elise, are you prepared to begin your journey with your new family?”
I went to shake my head, but Eve stepped on my toe. “Yes,” she said for me. “She is.”
Oh, God, I didn’t know if I could handle this anymore.
Where the hell was Jake? Where was my shifter when I needed him most?
Chapter Forty-eight – Jake
I smelled the fires and the people gathered well before I could see them. Hundreds of humans, unwashed, wrapped in the scent of smoke and cooking meats drifting over the winds. When I’d been in my human form, I could hardly smell them. Now, though, now they seemed to fill my nose in the same way that the sun blinds your eyes. It was almost too much.
I loped over the fields, homing in on the smell like a hound, never stopping to even sniff the air. Mixed in with the human and smoke smells, I could feel her as well. Elise. My mate. The smell of succulents and sun and sand in her hair and on her skin, traveling miles and miles to me. Mixed in with it, I could smell her anxiety as well, her nervous sweat despite the cool night air.
The barbed wire fence was nothing to me. I just leapt right over it, all four feet in the air as I sailed above, landing with a soft woof on the other side.
I’d had to camp out far away from the meeting place, to ensure I wouldn’t be seen or heard in this form. I couldn’t have any humans seeing me, at least not ones that I didn't need to see me. Peter would have had a conniption if he’d known what we were going to do.
Of course, he would have had a conniption over the whole mess I’d gotten myself into.
I raced ahead, the gathering drawing closer and closer.
All I had to do was play my part. All I had to do was surprise and excite.
And then I was there, on the outskirts of the fires, moving silently through the grass, my body low, my steps quiet. I settled down on my haunches.
I could hear Fenris’ words clearly. “We welcome you, Elise Moon, we welcome you into our pack.”
That was my cue. I lifted my head to the sky and let loose a true wolf’s howl. Nothing like what the congregation members had sounded. It was a true, deep, wailing howl that rose to the heavens and rolled across the land like thunder.
The whole congregation seemed to jump and move as one, a great wave of white cloaks that gasped and turned to face me.
“A wolf?” Fenris called to the crowd. “A wolf? We called a wolf, my children! We called an emissary of the Great Alpha!”
I walked forward, down the main aisle that led to the stage, practically swimming in the smell of their fresh meat, their trepidation and fear. My mouth began to water, my jaws hanging slightly open on their own as my lips drew back from my fangs.
White-robed men and women gasped at my size as they stepped back, some screaming, whispers rippling through the crowd as I turned my head left and right.
“Dear Alpha, he’s huge.”
“He’s a giant!”
“The size of a horse!”
“How does a wolf get that large?”
Tail straight out behind me, ears slicked back against my head, I made my way through the foaming sea of humans, the crowd spreading farther and farther back to give me room.
“He must be an emissary of the Great Alpha!”
I growled low, sweeping my eyes around until I could find the speaker, a big man. The urge to leap forward, to flash my teeth as I went for the kill surged through me like a shot of adrenaline. But I tamped down my wolf instincts and forced them into a pit within myself. I wasn’t a killer, I reminded myself. I wasn’t a killer.
I. Wasn't. A. Killer.
The large, white-clad man cowered back as I growled again.
I turned my attention back to the stage and continued on, mounting the steps to the stage.
Elise, my mate, stood there in her own white robe, her fear and anxiety thick and heavy in the air, even as she looked at me. I could practically hear her swallow, and I could clearly hear her heart racing. I needed to get her away from here, needed to get her off this stage. The sooner, the better.
Beside her stood Eve, a grin stretching from ear to ear as her eyes fell on me. There was nothing but happiness and utter fascination in that look.
I swept my head right, my eyes falling on the kneeling Reverend Fenris, tears streaming down his face. “The Great Alpha,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion as he reached out for me with trembling hands, “you’re here! You’ve finally heard our calls!”
I stepped forward, my claws clicking on the wooden stage, my eyes drawn to his throat. I could have him. I could have him right here.
“He’s come for our shackles!” Eve cried beside Elise. “He’s come to release them!”
“Our shackles!” the crowd roared. “Release us!”
I walked up to Elise, rubbed my flank against her, nearly knocking her over with my weight.
“What?” the reverend cried. “But she’s a pup! She’s only just joined us this very night! You can’t!”
I wouldn’t be denied my mate. I turned my head, growled right at him, not holding back in the slightest.
Gasping, he fell back a step. “Great Alpha!”
“Reverend Fenris,” Eve said, putting her hand on his arm, “the wolf has chosen. The emissary has chosen his true believer. Give her what she can carry so they can leave together.”
“Yes!” Fenris said, eyes wild with excitement. “Yes! Take the shackles, take the girl.”
Elise’s eyes grew wide, the fear still coursing through her. I nudged her with my body, and forced her over to the pile of drugs and alcohol in the center of the stage. She stooped down uncertainly and gathered up objects. She grabbed the drugs first, but then went for a stack of money as well. I knew she didn’t mean to steal it; she just wanted to play the part as well as she could.
I growled low.
She looked back, the smallest of smiles on her face, an eyebrow raised. “Come on,” she whispered.
I whimpered and tilted my head.
She sighed and tossed the money back on the pile. She then stood, the giant plastic-wrapped brick of cocaine against her chest. To my eye it looked like more than a kilo. Definitely more than Trigger had demanded as his payoff.
I turned to look at Eve as Elise came over to me, and twitched my ears.
“She’s not coming with us,” Elise said quietly, her voice resigned and pained. “She’s going to stay.”
I whined low, the sound carrying over the hushed crowd of nearly two hundred that surrounded the stage.
“Yeah,” Eve said, coming forward to embrace her sister, a tear glittering in her eye like a diamond as it refracted the light of the fire pits all around us. “I’m going to stay. I wish I could go, but seeing this, I just know this might be the right place for me. For once, I need to stay. At least for a while.”
Elise sighed and put a hand on my back. “Come on. Let’s go.”
And, just as her hand touched me, I felt the urges I’d been desperately holding back begin to fade. Like I’d just taken a shot of whiskey, or something, and a smooth warmth spread throughout my body. All the urges to hunt and kill were gone. I sighed deep and low.
“Let’s go,” Elise said again, taking her hand from me.
But that feeling, that feeling she’d given me, it remained. It was like a cloud had lifted from my vision. I turned and followed after her, carefully walking down the steps.
We walked back into the crowd, which pressed in on all sides to touch both Elise and me. Hands ran over us, brushed over her hair, grazed her white robe.
Children’s hands patted my side. A man scratched me behind my ears. A little girl tugged at my tail.
If Elise hadn’t touched me, I think I would have torn their arms off. Now, I felt nothing. I mean, annoyance, of course. No one wants their tail pulled. But nothing else, nothing
hostile.
We pushed through the crowd, Elise polite, but as calm as she could be.
“Please, Elise Moon!” cried one man. “Stay with us! Be our guide!”
“Uh, yeah…no?”
We plowed through the crush of people just as I’d plowed through the snow all those nights ago, moving and pushing until, finally, we were on the other side and free to move again.
Elise glanced back over her shoulder as we left the main crush of people. “Jake,” she mumbled low enough so only I could hear it, “they’re still following us.”
I whined low and tucked my tail between my legs. Shit.
They followed us all the way to the edge of the community. Why, I don’t know. Maybe they were expecting Elise to disappear into a puff of smoke? Or for us to go running off into the sky? Perhaps they just needed a little more showmanship and pizzazz in the exit?
Finally, when we were by the guardhouse, and the people were still crowded behind us, now howling and carrying on, I did something I never would have felt secure with in the past. I rushed up around Elise and sat down in front of her, looking back expectantly over my shoulder.
She stopped dead in her tracks, the package tight against her chest. With one look, she somehow knew exactly what I was trying to communicate, just like one of my pack members. “You sure?” she asked.
I nodded, giving her a tongue-lolling grin.
“Alright,” she said, her tone a little uncertain, like she didn’t know if this was a good idea or not. She climbed on my back and grabbed two tufts of fur as she hugged the package tightly between me and her chest.
Behind us, the crowd gasped in astonishment at the white-robed acolyte sat atop the great wolf. Over all of them, Eve’s howl rose into the crowd as she gave loud, powerful shout that should have been accompanied by beers and shots.
And then I was off, launching me and my mate into a sprint, my legs sending us rocketing over the grasslands of the compound.
I didn’t stop until we were back at the pickup.
Chapter Forty-nine – Elise
“I still can’t believe she’s not coming back with us. Especially after all the shit she put you through.”
Still shivering from the cold and the excitement of riding on his back like he was some sort of carnivorous horse, I curled against Jake as we drove down the dark Wyoming Interstate. We’d blown through Casper a while ago and were headed back to Yellow Rose. Only seven or eight more hours of hard driving to go and we’d be there for our meeting with Trigger.
“I know,” I said glumly. “I’m really torn about it. I’m glad she found something that keeps her from wanting to constantly run. Seems she’d always had that kind of need in her heart. But I don’t think I’m a big fan of why she’s staying, with her thinking my boyfriend is some kind of angel.”
“Are you implying I’m not moral?” he asked, the grin on his lips coming through clear as a summer day in his voice.
“You know what I mean. It just weirds me out that she’d willingly stay with those people.”
“Well, why does that weird you out? People want to belong, babe. It’s in our nature.”
“In human nature, you mean.”
“Shifter nature, too,” he said, his voice quiet. “And, besides, I’m just as human as you are. I’m just, you know, different.”
We sat quietly for a little while, just the singing of the tires on the asphalt accompanying the low tones of the Social Distortion album he’d put on. At least with Eve in one place, I could, in theory, find her again. And, if she did go wandering anytime, maybe it wouldn’t be too far away this time around.
“Glad you found her, at least?”
I snorted. “Glad? The past day has been one of the strangest days of my life.”
“At least you got an adventure in, you know. Lots of people can’t say that.”
“I know, right?” I said with a small smile. “I got to pull a gun on someone–”
“A whole group, actually.”
“Right! And join a cult, and ride a giant wolf!”
He laughed, shaking my whole body.
“So, answer me this question.”
“Shoot,” he said, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.
“I’ve been wondering about this. Do you think Reverend Fenris encountered a shifter out there in the Wyoming badlands? That one of your kind saved his life?”
“The thought had crossed my mind, and it’s likely. I mean, we’re not wild, unchained beasts. For instance, if I’d seen a man with a gun to his head, I might have spooked him into dropping it just so he’d take a moment to reconsider his actions, wolf form or not.”
“Even now? Even knowing it might spawn a crazy cult?”
“Good point. But you saw those people. They needed something to believe in. And, you know, what’s the harm in that? They weren’t hurting anyone.”
I wanted to say something, to contradict him about how they were deluding themselves and how their ideas were crazy. But what did I know? I hadn’t been raised to be religious or anything. Spiritual, maybe, but even that hadn’t taken very well no matter how hard Mom tried. And then I remembered the look on Eve’s face, like she’d found some kind of meaning in this awful world. It couldn’t be bad, could it? All bad? Sure, people did some crazy shit for religion, but there was good in it, too. Like people giving up their drugs and alcohol, the things they felt kept them chained in one place in their life, the things that limited them.
That wasn’t bad, was it?
“I say,” Jake continued after a long pause, “if they’re not hurting anyone, why bother them? This is America, after all. Maybe it’s not the best it could be all the time, but it’s pretty damn good, all things considered. And I fought for it. Sure, you might not agree with everything happening all the time, but at least it’s a big country. You don’t like your neighbors, just move. You don’t like your state, find a new one. Or vote for people who’ll change it to your liking. We’re the people who make this place, right or wrong.”
“Jesus Christ, you sound like Pops.”
He laughed again, his chuckles finally trailing off after a long moment. “Wait. That a good thing?”
“Well, he was a good man.” I reached up and kissed him on the cheek just above his beard line. “And I love him.”
“So yes?”
My consciousness feeling lighter than air, I settled back down in my spot against him, soaking up his warmth as the vents continued to pump out heat. The feeling wasn’t just from the heat from his body or the vents, though. The sensation was more like giddiness, the kind you had when you were a teenager and found out the cute boy from English had a crush on you the same way you were crushing hard on him.
“Yes,” I said, the smile still on my face. “Most definitely.”
Chapter Fifty – Jake
As I spoke the words about belonging and how it was in our nature, I knew it was as true for me as it was for Eve. Or Elise, even. I needed to return to my pack. I needed to return to Frost Security. Peter was my alpha, and even if he’d given me free rein to pursue this little investigation, Enchanted Rock was where I truly belonged. Sure, maybe doing skip trace work wasn’t what I was ideally suited for, but it was still good work.
It was important work, especially to the people who hired us to do it.
I tightened my arm around Elise, and felt and heard her melt with a sigh into my side.
I’d found my mate. I’d found the person I was destined to be with.
Damn, that sounded weird to say, even inside my own head. Never mind the fact that my whole body was singing with delight at the feel of her body pressed into mine, or that all I could imagine was a quiet cabin where we could just be us.
“I’ve got a question,” Elise said after a while.
“Shoot.”
“I’ve been thinking. I have the family farm down in New Mexico. I could lease the land out to someone.”
“I don’t really know much about that kind o
f thing, babe.”
“Well, I was wondering, what would you think of me moving up to Enchanted Rock? I could close up the house and just, you know, move. There’s no reason for me to live there anymore. And I don’t think Eve is going back anytime soon to start farming peppers or kale or anything.”
A smile began to spread slowly on my face. “Move? Up here?”
“Why not?” she asked. “I like the mountains. And I can still go hiking and rock climbing. Honestly, it’s probably even better in Enchanted Rock. After a while, maybe I can start up my own little side business.”
“Yeah,” I said, my fingers twisting in her curls. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
But then, as I drove, my thoughts traveled to the package stuffed behind the bench seat of the pickup, and the man we were meant to deliver it to. Trigger Thomas.
None of this had played out the way I’d expected. Sure, I’d found my mate and together we’d found her sister, but the Denver Mafia hitman and his crew were still going to come out on top. They were still going to get their drugs.
Trigger just walking away from a dead body his buddies had left in the trunk of a car didn’t seem like any kind of justice I’d ever heard of.
That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? The world was sometimes an unjust place, and people didn’t get exactly what they deserved. Fair or not, sometimes you got snake eyes when the universe rolled the dice.
Chapter Fifty-one – Elise
The sun was just rising over the western mountains as we pulled off onto the side road outside Yellow Rose. Trigger hadn’t wanted to make the handoff in a public place. Maybe it was because he didn’t want anyone seeing, or because he was worried we might try and pull a fast one and get the cops involved.
“When we get there, Elise,” Jake said, “I want you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to stay in the car.”
Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 73