by Lacey Thorn
“None of us thought about it,” Adrian offered with a shrug. “We all agreed Mitch and his group were an asset we didn’t want to abuse. We take care of each other. We’re fucking alphas. We’re the ones others call for help.”
“Maybe, that’s what our enemies counted on.” Derrick sighed. Everything was a fucking mess, and his main concern was one dynamo of a woman who’d come into their lives and showed them exactly what they’d all been missing. Who they’d been missing. “I don’t want Jess heading into whatever this is. She has to stay safe.”
“Michael and Cody will leave her…” Adrian stopped with a long sigh.
“Yeah. It’s naïve of any of us to think she’ll agree to be left behind. That woman has more than proven she’s a force of nature.”
Jess would do anything to protect them. It scared the hell out of Derrick.
“She fits us perfectly,” Adrian agreed. “I’m only glad you mated her first. I’m not sure any of the rest of us would have been strong enough to understand the true gift she is. To all of us.”
Derrick nodded, and making a decision, he handed Adrian the keys. “Listen to me. I’ll go up to the door, see if I can get a feel for who this is, and what they’ve done with the real David Mueller. I want you to stay in front of the SUV. Open your senses. Signal if you pick up on anything. Our priority is protecting Jess, and that means her father also.”
“If he’s betrayed her?” Adrian asked.
Derrick shook his head. “I don’t see that. Not the man she’s described. Not the man we’ve spoken with.” They’d all spoken with him at this point, individually and as a group. Jess was always including them in her conversations, and her father was no different. She hadn’t told him she’d mated all of them, but Derrick had the impression the other man suspected. There’d been no attempt to hide the affection they all shared, and her father didn’t strike him as a man who missed much.
Adrian nodded. “I don’t like this, though. I can feel the tension pouring off this guy. I really wish we’d had Michael or Cody sneak out and come around to the back of the cabin. Catch whoever’s inside off guard. They can clearly see two of us in here, and that limits our fucking options right now.”
They stepped out, letting the doors shut behind them. Derrick tested the wind and almost gagged at the overpowering stench of rancid decay and blood. Some animal had been slaughtered and left to rot. His gaze skimmed around again, and he caught the flash of gray fur. Alisha maybe. He couldn’t be certain as the odor permeating the air made it hard to sniff across the distance. Still, he spotted the lone gray wolf, nose barely visible in the copse of trees.
“Three o’clock,” Adrian whispered, picking up on her, as well. His nostrils flared, and Derrick knew he was struggling against the stink fouling the air.
Derrick gave a jerk of his chin then signaled with his hand to remind Adrian to wait by the vehicle. Something was definitely off, but they’d have to play this through. It was the only way to figure out what was going on, and whether or not Jess’ father was still alive.
“Professor Mueller?” Derrick asked as if he didn’t know the man before him was a fraud. He moved forward slowly, using it as a question. The other man never moved, but his lips widened into a smile that made the hair on the back of Derrick’s neck tingle.
“Yes,” he answered, the tone sharp and filled with an arrogance Derrick didn’t imagine her father showing. “And you are?”
If there’d been any doubts there was an imposter on the porch, they’d be gone with that question. Her father knew who they were, but he’d obviously told them otherwise. Smart move. It served as the warning her father had intended. If they were hunters, then they already knew who he was, who Adrian was. If they weren’t, then it didn’t matter if they had his name.
“Miles. Derrick Miles. I’m a friend of Jess’.”
“And your friend?” One brow winged higher than the other, and Derrick felt it then. Disdain. No, disgust. The man was disgusted by him.
“Another friend.” He smiled, all teeth and felt the disgust tinge with fear.
“Where is my daughter? She was supposed to meet me here.”
“I’m afraid she’s been detained.”
“Cut the shit.”
The command came from inside the door before the look-alike was shoved aside. This man he knew. Not personally but his ilk. A hunter. It practically seeped from his pores to mix with the pungent odor surrounding them. Now, they knew what the threat was. He really hoped Michael put that call in to Mitch. They’d definitely need the back up. Hunters traveled in groups. Large groups. Alphas or not, he and Adrian were two people against a group of well-armed people set on wiping them from existence.
Before he or Adrian could share more than a quick glance, men stepped around the sides of the house, guns pointed at the ready. AR-15 assault rifles. These guys weren’t fucking around. That type of fire power meant they didn’t give a shit if he and Adrian were dead or alive. Not the norm lately. Instead, hunters seemed to want to have some fun before they went for the kill. After all, what was torture when dealing with animals?
Derrick kept his hands loosely at his sides and clamped down on the beast rising within him. It wouldn’t do to let his wolf take over. Not now. Not when they had too much to lose.
“You and I are going to have a conversation, Mr. Miles.” His name was spit out as if the mere syllables left a sour taste in the hunter’s mouth. “I knew this stupid plan wouldn’t work. Figured a big bad alpha like you would scent the lie a mile away.” He grinned. “Or would have if I hadn’t caught some of your friends, slaughtered them, and left them to rot. It was awful nice of them to come looking for you.”
Derrick kept his face devoid of expression. No one would have come looking for him here. He ignored the little voice trying to remind him that Alisha had come to Three Sisters looking for him. That a group had followed the alphas closely enough to hit Michael. Maybe others had followed. He shoved all that aside. That line of thought would lead him nowhere. He kept his senses open, though he reined in his sense of smell as much as he could.
“Then they were stupid and deserved to die.” Cold. Callous. He forced the words out. It worked to make his enemies see him as just that. Not to respond in any way would give them an even greater advantage.
The man laughed. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you.”
Derrick shrugged as if he didn’t care, but in his mind, he calculated minutes, hoping they were under the half hour mark. The last thing he wanted was for Cody or Michael to come looking for them and stumble into their current predicament. Especially, if Jess had convinced them to bring her with them or worse had followed on her own.
Derrick forced his focus on the man in front of him. Dark eyes, heavy with malevolence. Muscled but not overblown. Experience. It showed on his face. In the way he stood with confidence before a man who, under any other circumstances, could rip him apart bare-handed.
“Round ‘em up boys,” the lead hunter called out. “We’ll show ‘em how the Huntleys treat filthy animals.”
Huntley. Now, they had a name. He wished Adrian would jump for the truck, plow through them, and get the hell out of dodge. Adrian wasn’t that type, though. He’d never leave Derrick behind. And while he admired it, he hated it, as well.
“Where’s the real professor?” Derrick asked as Adrian stepped up beside him, and they were closed in.
“Sleeping.” A casual shrug. “Maybe. Could be dead. Jack gave him a pretty hard knock on the head.”
“Bastard tried to shoot me.”
Derrick picked out the one who’d spoken and memorized his face, his scent. If his mate’s father was dead, Jack would die. Slowly. If he wasn’t… Jack would still die, but maybe, a little more quickly.
“Driven! Get out here!” The bellow brought forth a nerdy guy, who looked way out of his element.
“You didn’t say people would die.”
The guy visibly swallowed as he pushed his glasses up hi
s nose. He was disheveled and ill at ease. Obviously, he’d been sold some story he’d easily bought into. Driven? Why was that name so familiar?
“Dr. Driven?” Adrian asked, speaking up for the first time.
“I see you’ve heard of him, which means you’ve met our little scientist. I want to know where to find her.”
Derrick wasn’t buying it. Thankfully, neither was Adrian. Jess didn’t work for this man and never would. Huntley, whichever one of them he was, would never get his hands on her.
“Dr. Mueller’s mine. You promised me she’d be able to go back to the lab and working with me.” Driven squeaked when the other man sent a quelling look his way.
“You’ll get what you get when I’m through. Now, shut up and move. You ever seen wolves tear their prey apart? It’s vicious. Rip the flesh right off the bone until there’s nothing left.”
Driven swallowed, his gaze bouncing between the Huntley in charge and Derrick and Adrian as if he didn’t know who to fear. Idiot. Jess had actually considered this guy intelligent?
“Load ‘em up.” The order flew again, and this time, several of them moved toward him and Adrian, guns raised and ready. “Driven get in the van. If you’re quiet, I’ll let you ask the talking animals some questions before I’m finished. Jack, go get the girl’s father. I might need him later.”
“What about me?” the look-alike questioned.
“Well, now. You didn’t manage to keep up your end of the bargain, did you?”
The little guy swallowed. “That’s not my fault.” He pointed at Derrick. “He knew I wasn’t that man. The professor. He must have seen him before.”
Huntley shrugged. “Dirk.”
“Wait!” Fear perfumed the air. “You need me. I’m a doctor. A man of science. You need me—”
A big guy stepped up, wrapped his arm around the fake’s neck while he was mid-sentence, and snapped it like a twig. Derrick made sure not an ounce of recognition showed when he glanced at Jonah, one of Mitch’s team, who was apparently going by “Dirk” with the Huntleys. They wouldn’t need to put in a call to Mitch. If Jonah was in place, then Mitch and his group were already here. Derrick and Adrian just needed to be ready when the other man made his move. No matter what the Huntleys did.
“Make sure he’s unrecognizable. When he’s found, I want them to believe it’s Mueller. Leave him in the dirt. Torch the cabin. If we’re lucky, the smoke will spread and scare out any other shifters hiding in the woods. If we’re really lucky, the flames will spread and burn them out.”
Derrick hated him even more for that. More than shifters called these woods home. Though his kind would be able to relocate, it wasn’t so easy for the native wildlife. They’d be left with no place to go.
“I thought you were a wildlife professor?” Driven questioned.
“Oh, I am. I’ve spent my whole life studying these animals. Hunting them. Ran across your Dr. Mueller enough times in the same areas to make her a person of interest to me. She’s not a shifter, but she’s definitely someone worth keeping an eye on. Thought maybe she was a watcher at first, but if so, she wasn’t very good at it.”
“What’s a watcher?” Driven asked as the imposter was thrown over a shoulder and carted behind the house.
“Nosy, little busybodies who try to thwart the natural order by interfering in our work,” Huntley snapped, sharing a hunter’s perspective.
Watchers were actually people who kept track of shifters, noted their lineage, their lives, and recorded everything. Some only did that. Some did more or at least, tried to. They stepped in to protect those they watched. He’d come across the bodies of more than one who’d been tortured and killed simply because they’d tried to save the life of a shifter. Other’s succeeded, and hunter blood was spilled, instead.
“You’re not a watcher are you, Driven?”
The man swallowed, glancing in the direction Dirk had gone as he’d headed around the back of the house. Driven’s head jerked rapidly back and forth.
Right then, Derrick took the strike of a gunstock against his side as he was ordered to move. His gaze met Adrian’s. They needed to figure out how to stay alive until they could escape or Jonah could get word to Mitch that they had been captured by the Huntleys. Derrick would stay the antagonist, pulling all eyes toward him as much as possible and giving Adrian the opportunity to be silently vigilant.
“We got a problem, Mason,” Jack said as he came around the back of the house, passing not quite close enough to Derrick. One quick lunge and he could have snapped the man’s neck, but he needed to know the problem they’d encountered. Most importantly, if it was a problem for him and Adrian or if it was an ally. Derrick had one thing Derrick had needed, though. The name of the man in charge. Mason.
“What?” Mason snapped.
“Professor guy’s gone.”
“What the hell do you mean he’s gone?” Mason demanded.
“Just that. He snuck out the back when you called everyone around. He’s gone.” Jack shook his head. “He’s fucking gone.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Jess paced while Michael watched multiple screens, and Cody went back and forth between them. He was torn between wanting to comfort her and assure her everything would be okay, watching over Michael’s shoulder and staring at the clock. It was close to the half hour mark and no word yet. Cody couldn’t shake the unease skating along his spine.
“You already made the call?” he asked Michael.
“Left the message. Mitch will get in touch as soon as he gets it,” Michael stated, gaze still watching the monitors.
“Mitch is one of the other resources Adrian mentioned to me, right?” Jess asked.
“He’s a friend. One with the ability to offer help when it’s really needed,” Cody volunteered.
“He’s willing to fight to protect shifters. There’ve been times when we’ve been pulled in too many directions. Mitch and his crew are willing to step in when we can’t for one reason or another.”
“But he’s human?” Jess seemed stuck on that point, and Cody practically felt her mind’s wheels spinning.
“Special Forces trained,” Michael tossed out then leaned closer to one of the screens. “What’s that?”
Michael’s question had Cody and Jess moving closer as they looked where he pointed. A man stumbled into the clearing, and at Jess’ gasp, Cody had no question of who it was.
“That’s my dad. Is he bleeding? Is that blood on his face? Oh my god! Where’s Derrick? Adrian?”
Cody stared at David Mueller, studying him. Then a woman stepped into the clearing behind him. Alisha. She reached for the man, and Cody growled at the thought of her beating Jess’ father while Jess would be forced to watch. He knew short of knocking her out, they’d never get her away from the video surveillance system now. But Alisha surprised him by wrapping her arm around David’s shoulders and doing her best to hold him up. She appeared to be helping him. Which made no fucking sense. The woman was a cold-hearted bitch at best. A stone-cold killer at worst. Cody wasn’t fucking buying it.
“What’s she up to?” Michael asked, voicing the question bouncing through Cody’s head.
“Nothing good,” he muttered then regretted it when Jess spoke up.
“Did she hurt him? Do you think she’s the one who hurt him?” There was worry, but the anger bled in. Their mate was winding up.
Cody watched the screen as Alisha seemed to scan around them. She glanced back the way they’d come and put her finger to her lips as she pulled Jess’ father to the side. Her head was cocked as if she were listening, but Cody wasn’t picking anything up through the audio. After a long moment, she glanced around again.
“If any of you are listening, we’re in trouble here. Hunters. They took the wolves with me and…” She swallowed, and there was no missing the horror that crossed her face. Cody didn’t need her to spell out what had happened to them. They were all familiar with hunters and what they did. “They have Derrick and Adrian
.” She glanced at Jess’ father. “This one says he’s with you guys. Said his daughter is Michael’s mate.”
Cody glanced at Jess while Michael grinned.
“He asked me if the sex had worked for Michael, and apparently, he assumes Michael and I mated.”
“Nah, I told him we’d mated,” Michael offered with no remorse. Any other time, it would have had Cody laughing at the look on Jess’ face.
“Michael!” she scolded. “I wasn’t going to tell him over the phone that I’m mated to all of you. That’s a conversation best had in person.”
Cody nodded. He understood the need to have that conversation face-to-face, where her dad could openly see she was cherished and loved. They hadn’t hidden their affection during conversations with her father, but other than Michael, Cody didn’t think any of them had shared anything about their relationship.
“Please help us.” Alisha turned back to David Mueller. “I don’t know if they can hear me. Hell, I wouldn’t blame them if they did and didn’t give a shit. Maybe, it would be best if I leave you here. Let them find you on their own.”
“And leave you at the mercy of the monsters back there?” David shook his head adamantly. “You helped me when I stumbled into the edge of the woods. Helped me get this far. I won’t leave you behind now. Besides, if they’re half the men my daughter believes them to be, they won’t leave us on our own much longer.”
The professor was definitely good. That was just the thing to say to get them moving or have Jess stomping her way out and into the middle of whatever clusterfuck was going on.
“You heard him.” Jess practically vibrated with energy. “We need to go.”
“You need to stay here,” Michael began, and Cody blew out a frustrated breath. Wrong tactic to take with their mate. She wasn’t one for blind obedience. She needed a role to play, and it wasn’t that of frightened female hiding behind the big, strong men. That would never be her.
“The hell I will,” she exploded.
“Here.” Cody handed her the security remote. “We need you to stay here and stay alert. Keep your gaze glued to these monitors while we check out things above ground. If you see anything, anything at all, I want you to push this button.” He showed her which one. “It’ll set off an alarm. We’ll be able to hear it but humans won’t. Can you do that for us?”