Exploring Alaska (The Juneau Packs Book 3)

by Katherine Rhodes

  “Not well, thanks for asking. You?”

  “About the same. Definitely worse for wear.”

  He sniffed and made the right to follow Garrett. “You two serious?”

  “Seriously stuck in a rut, but she’s missing and I’m not going to let anything happen to her. You?”

  “Smitten. She’s mine.”

  “Looks like we all got lucky at the same time.”

  He coughed. “They say it comes in waves. Tomasina said things are about to change in big ways. This is just the start.”

  “Tomasina?”

  “Grandmother. I can’t…call her that anymore. She’s not that old. Not really. A few dozen years older than your dad. That’s all. She’s also pretty much awesome.”

  I raised an eyebrow and let him drive in silence. This guy needed to be one of our enforcers when my dad stepped down as Alpha. No question. I liked him. He was smart and fast. I had seen how fast he was when Jess was attacked. He was honest, and he meshed with us. He also had been hit by the Alpha effect, so that meant he was a possibility.

  Currently he was the more level-headed of us.

  “You’re calm,” I said.

  Jason glanced over at me and shrugged. “My mate can kick ass and take names. She’s not going to let shit happen to anyone she loves.”

  The words I needed to hear to calm my ass down.

  * * *

  Armed, dangerous. Expert survival skills. Do not approach without backup.

  Seriously? This was the way the Nome police described Charles Hoengaard? Rancid alcohol and liver failure, body odor and bad breath that a plain human could smell a hundred yards upwind?

  Wendell had not been kidding. The dude stank. Even diesel fumes couldn’t hide him, even though the guy in the bad truck tried real hard.

  Quentin, who had joined our search after locking up the bank at three, swore from the back seat of Jason’s truck. “That motherfucker! That’s one of my loan managers!” He pointed to the jalopy that had polluted just some of Chuck’s stink out of the air.

  The jalopy had gone up the hill just a little bit and made a hard right into the tree.

  “Where’d that road come from?” Jason asked.

  “I’ll bet they cut it out and sold the timber illegally,” Quentin said. “Fergus is gonna be pissed. Amos is going to kill someone.”

  The bears and the Turner Lake Coyotes shared a lot of land. They oddly got on famously, and I had forgotten until that moment that Quentin was an enforcer in the Taku River Den.

  Amos was going to be pissed. Fergus was gonna be pissed. And so was the St. Terese pack. No one fucked with our mates.

  Garrett leaned against the window of the truck, Jess next to him. “New track. I think this gives us our plan. Patrick, Jay, we’re going to shift and make our way up to that camp. Jess, Quentin, you guys follow up in the trucks, so we can get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

  Jess paused, then nodded. “Leave the clothes. No more busting out of the jeans. We only need so many rags.”

  Moving the trucks up to the new track, Jason, Garrett, and I stripped out of the clothes and handed them to Jess, strategically making sure she didn’t see anything more than our chests.

  We didn’t need a newly-mated Alpha thinking we were flashing our junk at his female.

  Jason and I shifted smoothly into our wolves, which left Garrett in human.

  “There’s no way we can miss him. Just follow, but not too close. No headlights.”

  Garrett didn’t even seem to shift. He was human one instant, wolf the next. We took off into the brush, following the track closely.

  The stench of gun oil, alcohol, and sexual intentions wafted through the air.

  We picked up our pace.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The headlights flashed through the window.

  Delia walked over and glanced out through the filth she had wiped off before.

  I was still slightly in shock from her confession. She wasn’t just rich. She was grossly, disgustingly, nauseously wealthy. She could literally wipe her ass with hundred-dollar bills and not care.

  But she did care, and that was how we were all doing as well as we were.

  Or, as in our current situation, as badly as we were.

  Because Uncle Chuck wanted all that cash, credit, and off-shore funding. Pronto. He wanted all of the LaPlage money.

  And just to make me feel worse, they would all surrender it to make sure that Delia and I were safe and secure. Goddamn, I was such a fucking liability to everyone around me.

  “It’s not you, Addi,” Delia said quietly from the window. “It’s Chuck. He’s the asshole. It could have been anyone else with me and they’d be in your place.”

  “Are you fucking psychic?”

  She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Sometimes, and sometimes, it’s obvious the only things you can think in a situation like this.”

  The doors of a pickup slammed and Delia watched. “Two men. Motherfu—that’s the guy from the bank today. The manager. I’ll bet that’s how he knew I was here.”

  I walked over and saw that he had a rather thick manila envelope in his hand. “Transfer papers?”

  “Probably. Should be interesting to see. I wonder what they found of mine. There’s a lot more out there than they think there is. I’m not stupid.”

  I smirked. “Five’ll get you ten, Chuck thinks that the lottery winnings were never diversified and that it’s all one bank account somewhere.”

  “I’ll just give you the ten on that one.” Delia chuckled.

  “’Bout fuckin’ time,” Chuck crowed from the living room.

  “Fuck off, asshole. This chick has money hidden everywhere. I had to wait on goddamn Beijing to get back to me for some of it. I’m not even sure we got all of it.”

  “You didn’t,” Delia whispered.

  “Are they here?” another voice asked.

  “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Back room.”

  Oh, shit.

  I snapped my eyes to Delia’s, who paled and shared a terrified look with me.

  “Oh, God.”

  I nearly puked all over the bed. Kidnapped and sold.

  Again.

  I shook my head. No. No, I wouldn’t be used like this again. I would kill them, or myself, before I let either of those men have their way with me. It was not going to happen again.

  I took a deep, deep breath and prepared myself to either kill or be killed. There was nothing in between. I would not be raped.

  The door slammed open and two men swaggered in, both rubbing their crotches already. Delia tried to shield me, stand in front of me, but there was no hiding me from them.

  The banker stepped forward. “Hello, ladies.”

  Delia folded her arms. “Leave.”

  “Ooh, lookit this one. All tough,” the other said. “I think I want to tap that later. But first I want to dig my dick into that pretty little thing behind you.”

  The words did all kinds of weird things to my brain. I wanted to scream, run, cry, vomit, punch things. But mostly, I wanted to crawl into a ball and let Winter save me again.

  Not Winter. Not this time.

  I wanted Patrick. I needed him. I was his. He was mine.

  Never once in all the weeks we shared did he ever make me feel less than welcome, less than alive, less than beautiful. His interactions with his daughter were the window in our future. He would love every child we had with just as much fervor as he did her. He would make the decisions that seemed wrong to keep them safe. He would never back down from how he loved them.

  I wanted him here. Now.

  To save me.

  Because I was either going to kill or be killed.

  The banker shoved Delia out of the way, and her leg shot out and landed a kick to the knee.

  The other guy grabbed her and dropped her on the bed, her hands suddenly tied and hooked on the bed.

  The banker grabbed me, and without a thought, I launch
ed my head into his face. His nose made a satisfying crunch as it started bleeding everywhere.

  The guy who had been tying up Delia grabbed my hair and pulled me back. “No, bitch. You’re gonna take this and you’re going to like it.” His hands were like meathooks into my upper arms, and he was way too strong for me.

  Delia jerked the bed so hard, she yanked it away from the wall and halfway into the center of the room. While they were distracted by her ‘Hulk smash’ moment, I leaned back and started kicking.

  One kick landed in his junk. He doubled over and the second one landed in his face.

  They didn’t like it and I didn’t care.

  But I didn’t have a chance to continue my assault. The banker pulled out a gun and cocked it. “You need some gentling. Then we can break you.”

  “No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, all while trying to maneuver myself into the bullet’s path for a fatal shot. I wouldn’t be gentled. They’d have to put me down.

  But he was fast and steady with his shot, and it went right through my thigh.

  Right through my femoral artery.

  Enough time to fuck me and leave me to bleed out.

  I started screaming. I hauled in a breath and let it out as a shriek. I kept doing that, over and over.

  The banker jerked me to the ground and the other guy searched the room for something. Delia was screaming, but I couldn’t hear her. The sounds in the rooms went dead in my ears, my guts heaved and churned. I kept sucking in breath after breath and just screeching.

  “Shut up! Shut up, bitch,” the banker screamed in my ear. It echoed like a tunnel.

  “Let her go! Let her go! Let her go!” Delia was dragging the bed at this point. I could feel the feet vibrating as she pulled and pulled.

  Things were starting to get fuzzy at the edges.

  I heard thumping that didn’t sound close and ripping and tearing that sounded way too close. My legs were suddenly cold, but was that because I was dying or because I was now being stripped naked?

  Delia broke the hook off the bed. I heard the snap. I watched her, pissed as hell, whale her ziptied hands into the head of the man who was on top of me, ripping my pants.

  The door blew open.

  Wolves.

  Three of them. Garrett’s massive gray, Jason’s sweet caramel brown, and Patrick’s motley red-brown coat.

  Kind of like the calico kitty I’d had when I was very little. Miss Boots. She was old, and I had loved her so much. She was just gentle and sweet and had the most wonderful fluffy tail.

  I missed her.

  I missed a lot of life I had been robbed of.

  Everything was in shades of gray now. Ironic maybe? After all I had fought and won, here I was bleeding out on the filthy floor of an Alaskan cabin. It wasn’t fitting.

  It wasn’t even fair.

  I heard the click of a gun. A moment later, there was a crash of glass. I heard a snarl, a click, a scream.

  “Go with Jason!” That voice I knew. Jess. That touch I knew. Jess. “Go! Deal with the assholes!”

  Two more people left the room and my head was on Jess’s lap, cradled.

  The sounds of fighting and snarling and death moved away from me.

  “Addi.” Jess was quiet.

  “Ssh. I’m dying.”

  “Femoral,” Patrick hissed. His face moved over mine. “Addison.”

  “Hey.” I tried to smile. Looking at him was like looking at a grainy black and white image on an old RCA tube television. I could make him out clear enough, but there was something wrong with the reception. “Glad you could make ii to the end.”

  “You’re not dying.”

  A giggle escaped me. “Could have fooled me. It’s really cold in here. Could we get me a blanket so the last thing I know is being warm at least?”

  “You’re not dying!”

  Jess snapped her eyes up. “Don’t let her die.”

  He stared at her, hard. “I—”

  “She made the call for me. I’m making it for her. Do it. Mate her. Give her a wolf. Give her a chance.”

  The words were getting tinny and everything was going darker and darker. “I think we’re kind of out of time. I love you guys. Sorry about like…everything. I wish I were warm.”

  “Patrick!” Garrett’s voice snapped through the air, all Alpha. I wanted to laugh, but there wasn’t much air left in the room. I must’ve used it up screaming earlier.

  I was jostled a bit and found myself on a new lap. Patrick’s. He was warm. It felt nice. His skin was soft and I wanted to curl up and just be held.

  * * *

  There was blood everywhere.

  Still pumping out of the wound in Addi’s leg, it coated everything in the room. All of her blood. Curling her into me, I felt her sigh.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I wish it could be more.”

  Jess nodded at me, holding her friend’s hand. “Do it. She did it for me. You don’t have time to think about this.”

  She was right. I had no time to think.

  I rolled Addi into my body, so her head was on my shoulder. Without hesitation, I let my wolf drop his fangs and slipped them into the skin on her shoulder. The taste of her was beyond anything I’d had before from her, including the taste of her sex.

  She was dying. I could tell by the taste of her blood.

  Slicing my wrist with my teeth, I rolled her back to my lap. She flopped, like a dead woman. I slammed the bleeding wound onto her lips, prying her mouth open.

  “Swallow, Addi. Swallow!”

  Her breath raced out of her body, and she was limp.

  “Addison!” Jess and I screamed it at the top of our lungs.

  She was dead. We hadn’t gotten to her fast enough.

  “Addi, don’t die! Don’t!” Jess slid to the floor in the blood, wrapping her arms around her best friend. “Don’t go, don’t die…”

  Garrett snarled and stormed out of the room.

  Addison was gone.

  I was empty.

  No, it was worse. There was nothing.

  I shifted my hold on her and Jess screamed, thumping her chest. “You can’t go!”

  Addi’s body shuddered and convulsed.

  She pulled a mouthful of my blood into her throat.

  She shook this time, drawing in a deep, hard breath. And another.

  Jess and I stared, dumbfounded for a long moment, until Jess screamed, jumped up, and ran from the room. She skidded back just a half a minute later with an emergency kit and ripped Addi’s jeans the rest of the way.

  She pulled alcohol and gauze from the kit and washed the horrible, draining wound. With most of Addi’s blood washed away, she could see the weak pulse that was the artery, as could I, and she pinched it together, securing it with two butterfly bandages.

  “I know she’ll heal fast now, but I wanted to help it along. She’s missing most of her blood…”

  “You don’t need to explain,” I whispered. The pale, chilled cheek on my hand was starting to warm again. “Should I give her more?”

  “Yes,” Jess said. “You have the magical blood for now. It will be a while before her body changes over. Yours will help.”

  I pressed my wrist to her lips and she suckled lightly.

  Jess stood and looked around. “Holy fuck, we’re going to have to burn this place. There’s blood everywhere—”

  The screams of someone being torn limb from limb echoed through the trees around us. Jess jerked around, nearly slipping and falling in blood that slicked everything.

  One thing they never told you—blood was like motor oil. It was thick and greasy in more than just a few drops.

  She looked horrified, but I wasn’t sure at what. Catching herself before she fell, she planted her ass on the bed. “Jesus Christ, what is that noise?”

  “Right of Blood,” I said. “Delia can call her rights, as Chuck’s blood relative, to punish him for his misdeeds, up to and equal to the worst he visited upon others.”

&nb
sp; She gasped. “He’s killed people.”

  I looked down at Addi, still breathing slowly, carefully. I tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “Then he’s dead.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I sneezed.

  Which immediately made me sit up and wonder why I was sneezing in the afterlife. Was sneezing a thing in Heaven?

  Or were my parents right and I was now in Hell with Satan and would spend eternity sneezing?

  I flicked my eyes open and slammed them shut.

  Damn. Someone had turned up the sun.

  Or the hellfire. Whichever.

  I slowly opened my eyes this time and found myself in the bedroom at his cabin. It was probably noon, and my bladder and stomach were at war.

  There was no way that peeing was a thing in the afterlife. At least the good one. If bladder and stomach were at war, it was a better case for Hell.

  Swinging my feet off the bed, I could hear the scrape of cloth against cloth. The wind was loud outside even though there was barely a breeze. The birds were screaming, and the crickets were yelling. I could smell dirt, loam, pine, mulch, decomposing flesh, old blood, new blood, Patrick, Jess, Garrett, Delia, Jason…

  I screamed and put my hands over my ears.

  Too much. It was too much.

  The door slammed open and Jess ran in. Her lips were moving, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying not to listen. She sat on the bed next to me and took my wrists.

  I let her pull them away for just a bit. Her voice was quiet and barely a whisper.

  “Calm down, Addi. Calm down. it’s okay. You have to learn to tune it all out and turn it all down. It’s going to take a while. Just listen to me and you can start to turn it all down.”

  “Aren’t I dead?” My words were so damn loud in my head and my ears. I turned down my voice. “Aren’t I dead?”

  Jess smiled. “We thought you were there for a few seconds.”

  “I bled out.”

  She shook her head. “Damn close, though.”

  “Why am I alive?”

  Jess took a deep breath. “Patrick mated you.”

  I stared for a long minute. “He…what?”

  “You made the call for me. So, I had to make the call for you. If you hate anyone, hate me.”