by Celia Kyle
“Good god. Well, you’re definitely going to that meeting now!”
Despite her shock at Max’s revelation, Trina jumped in front of him and glared up at her brother. “Not without me!”
Neither man seemed particularly eager to argue with her.
Chapter Eight
The only sound in Valerie’s SUV was twanging country music. It was a valiant attempt to stave off the tension that felt like a heavy fog hovering over them, but it only seemed to put everyone in the vehicle more on edge. That was fine by Max. The more riled up they got, the more likely they’d actually accomplish something.
Max sat in the back next to Trina. Zeke rode shotgun, while his mate and enforcer, Val, drove. Val seemed cool. The second they’d met, his gut told him she’d probably see eye to eye with him more than anyone else he’d met in the pack, besides Trina.
“I’ll kill him, you know,” Zeke said, glancing back at Max.
Max raised an eyebrow, and even Val gave Zeke a sidelong look.
“What?” he asked his mate. “I just want Max to know how things have been between McNish and me before we go in hot.”
“Hey, I’m totally on board with that plan,” Max chuckled. “I draw the line at hurting any workers who are just trying to make a buck, unless they’re trying to kill me, of course. But don’t think I didn’t wish McNish was working late in the trailer that night…”
Trina clasped his hand, weaving her fingers between his and cooling his fire slightly. “I understand why you feel that way, but maybe we try to chill out a bit while we talk to the guy who’s got the mayor and who knows who else in his pocket. Huh?”
“Guess it would make things tough for your pack to do business in Tremble if a human got killed over a land dispute,” Max allowed. “Especially if it was the alpha who got the honors.”
“Yeah, probably would. Wouldn’t it?” Zeke admitted begrudgingly. “Well, at least we can’t say the lone wolf doesn’t plan ahead.”
“High praise,” Max said with a snort.
Val pulled into the parking lot of the McNish Development Corporation and parked diagonally across two spaces not far from the brand-new construction trailer. Zeke flashed her an amused smirk over her aggressive parking, and Max decided he’d been right about liking her moxie.
The trailer didn’t look much different than the one he’d blown up. Maybe a bit cleaner, a little shinier, but just as wimpy and weak as the last one. If the Soren pack needed another hard job done fast, he could handle it without almost blowing himself up in the process.
By the time the four of them climbed out of the rig, the mood had shifted from tense to downright bloodthirsty. Even Trina’s eyes blazed with fury, though he doubted her healer nature would actually allow her to take a life—even that of a no-good, piece-of-shit human.
They crossed the lot in formation, each one of them looking as if they were heading to war, as their soles crunched on the loose gravel. Max expected people to watch them warily, maybe scurry off in case something bad was about to go down. But that wasn’t what happened.
Nudging Trina, he whispered, “What’s with these guys?”
“What do you mean?” she whispered back, looking around for something obvious.
“Watch their faces.”
The workers weren’t just courteous. They seemed downright thrilled to see them. Zeke noticed too and shot Max a questioning glance. Val shrugged like she didn’t care, but Max noticed her shoulders tense, as if preparing for some kind of attack. Whatever was going on, Max didn’t like it.
Then his ears twitched at the sound of a familiar voice.
Three men stood near the door of the trailer, chatting and laughing as if they’d just knocked off after a hard day at the mill. They still wore their stupid fucking camo hunting outfits.
“What’s wrong?” Trina asked, already so in tune with his emotions she could sense them before they’d even officially mated.
Overhearing her question, Zeke looked over. Max caught his gaze briefly and then gave a curt, silent jerk of his head toward the trio. Trina gasped softly when she realized the men were the hunters tasked with killing every wolf in the area.
And one of them had shot Max.
The silent revelation hadn’t been lost on Zeke and Val. In fact, it only spurred the alpha on until he stomped up the flimsy trailer steps and threw open the door.
“Dick!” he shouted as he entered, leaving the others to file into the office behind him.
The space was ultimately utilitarian and decorated accordingly. Desks were crammed into the tight space on one half while file cabinets and a long meeting table fit into the other. All gray and beige, all boring as fuck.
As the alpha, Zeke took the lead, and Max worked hard to keep his wolf in line. His situation had literally changed overnight, and as much as his instincts screamed for him to shift and take down McNish before he could hurt anyone else, he had to play by the pack’s rules if he wanted to join it. And as soon as Trina’s hand slipped into his, he truly understood exactly how much he wanted that.
Only once they’d all filtered in and stood glowering at him did Dick McNish finally deign to acknowledge them. Max hadn’t been in such close proximity to the man in years. He looked much the same—tall, almost too thin, and old enough to know better. Standing slowly, he smiled placidly at them all, as if they were just dropping in for a friendly chat.
“Ah, Mr. Soren, what a pleasant surprise,” he said, coming around his desk and reaching a hand out to Zeke. A hand that Zeke ignored. “Would you like some coffee? Marjorie just put on a fresh pot.”
It was an obvious ploy. The more McNish could position himself as the nicest and most reasonable man alive, the easier it would be to throw them under the bus in the eyes of any outside party. Zeke must have realized that as well because he marched right up to McNish’s desk, looking as if he might flip it over.
“Don’t pull that bullshit with me, Dick. You know damn well why we’re here.”
But McNish didn’t pay any attention to Zeke. He peered past him to Max, raising an eyebrow as a smile slowly peeled his lips back until he looked like a corpse.
“Haven’t we met before?” he said. Then his grey eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Ah, yes, how could I forget? You’re Troy Kincaid’s boy. Aren’t you?”
How dare he utter his father’s name! It took every ounce of strength Max could muster to keep from shifting right then and there. McNish gave him a pitying look that almost made Max lose control.
“Such a shame about your father.”
Trina’s hand squeezed his tightly, just a small bit of flesh and bone keeping him from tearing Dick’s limbs from his body. “I want to know why there were hunters on my property, Dick,” Zeke snarled, taking a step closer to the man and drawing his attention back to him.
“Hunters…?” McNish asked, tilting his head to the side with an insipid tone of fake confusion.
“Oh, don’t even,” Zeke snarled. “They were in Wolf Woods yesterday, and they trespassed onto my land today. To top it all off with a big fat cherry, your men have no right to hunt in Wolf Woods until the court case is decided.”
“I admire your passion, Mr. Soren, but I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Almost as if on cue, the leader of the hunting party—Randy—strolled in and headed straight for the coffee pot in the far corner of the trailer. The group watched as he poured himself some java and grabbed a cake donut with rainbow sprinkles to munch on as he watched the confrontation play out.
“Bullshit!” Max shouted, no longer caring if he was out of line. “That’s the leader right there. Jesus, he’s even dressed in fucking camo!”
Randy looked around him, as if there might be someone else behind him he’d missed. Then he pointed at himself with the donut and pretended to be confused.
“Me? I’m no hunter. I’m just a surveyor.”
Randy kicked one booted foot against the wall and leaned back, totally rela
xed and smirking at them.
McNish nodded, a pained expression on his wrinkled features. “Oh, I see where the misunderstanding comes from. Yes, I did give Mr. Leeper here a firearm, but only for his own protection. My last surveyor quit without notice after nearly being devoured by a wolf.”
Max fought a smile of his own. He’d been the one who chased down that surveyor, and he didn’t feel a scrap of remorse. If Zeke hadn’t interfered, he’d have killed the man and not lost a wink of sleep over it. The vultures deserved worse.
His smile turned into a snarl as he took a threatening step toward Randy Leeper, so singularly focused on the bastard that he barely noticed the hair on his arms starting to get thicker. His wolf fought to be released so they could finish what they’d started.
“Listen, you motherfucker. You got lucky, but I swear, if I so much as think I see your doughnut-eatin’ ass is anywhere near—”
Before he could take another step, Val’s large, ripped frame stepped between them. Strangely, she was glaring at Max, not Randy.
“Stand down,” she said in a firm, authoritative voice that broached no defiance. “We’re here to talk. That’s it.”
The slightly feral part of his brain glared at her for a second before realizing that the pack’s enforcer was perfectly capable of taking his ass to the ground in seconds, even if he hadn’t been injured. Trina had told him enough about Val’s history for him to shut his mouth and give her a nod of agreement. As much as he wanted Randy Leeper to pay, he wanted to be a part of Trina’s pack even more. And getting in a tangle with the pack’s enforcer wouldn’t help his case. If there was one thing a lone wolf would always respect, it was quiet strength, and Val was brimming with it.
Stepping back in line with Trina, Max seethed with hate—hate for McNish, hate for Leeper, hate for the big, bad world that had taken everything from him. The one thing he didn’t hate slid her arm around his waist and pulled him into her side, comforting him just a little.
Zeke let the tension in the room float around for a little while before turning his dark gaze on a perfectly serene McNish. And why should he be bothered? If Randy wasn’t packing, Dick probably had a gun tucked in the top right drawer of his desk, just like old times.
Zeke stepped up so close to McNish, they could probably smell each other’s breath. If luck was with them, Zeke would have forgotten to brush his teeth that morning.
“Here’s the deal, Dick. You wanna try jerking us around? Fine, go for it. But let me be crystal clear about one thing. If I discover another so-called surveyor on my family’s land again, I might just feel…threatened.”
Randy Leeper snorted into his coffee, and he grabbed a napkin to clean off his face as he said, “Meaning what?”
Val finally turned her terrifyingly inscrutable face toward Leeper, causing him to blink a few times in surprise.
“Meaning that, in the great state of Georgia, he’ll have the right to stand his ground. And kill your ass.”
Chapter Nine
A sharp, collective rage seethed among them as they made their way back to the SUV. Trina kept catching herself clenching her teeth, grinding them in a subconscious attempt to burn off some of her anxious energy.
Normally, she thought of herself as a fairly even-keeled person. She was levelheaded and not as prone to violent outbursts of wolfish fury as some of her fellow pack members. It was a skill she’d honed over the years, learning to keep her mouth shut and pick her battles. She’d had enough strife and struggle in her life already, no point in seeking out more.
But after their meeting with McNish, even she couldn’t seem to tamp down the anger twisting up her guts. Every muscle stiffened as she climbed into the back of the vehicle, her eyes scanning the parking lot for any humans dressed in camouflage. She’d made it a rule in her life to never turn her back on a hunter—whether she was in wolf form or human—and it was more vital now than ever.
But McNish’s antics didn’t fully explain her emotional reaction. She suspected part of it was a reflection of what her mate was feeling, even though they hadn’t officially mated yet. It was well-known that mated shifters often shared an almost psychic connection, but that she was able to sense the waves of rage radiating off Max’s body before their mating surprised her.
He struggled to hold back his wolf, to control his lone wolf ways, and that worried her. As he slid into the back seat next to her, he positively vibrated with the kind of frenetic energy that made Trina nervous. She instinctively reached for his hand, his pulse quick and insistent at the inside of his wrist. She gave his hand a squeeze as Val drove them back toward the pack house, and he responded with an appreciative smile that looked more like a grimace.
But why was he so ragey about McNish? Dick definitely earned his name, but at the end of the day, he was their problem, not Max’s. Max wasn’t even a member of the pack yet. He didn’t have the same attachment to their lands as the rest of the Soren pack. Was his hatred based solely on the fact one of the guy’s hunters had shot him? That would explain why he hated the hunters, but not McNish. As much as she wanted to ask him about it, the tension in the cab was already so thick it seemed more prudent to let that particular sleeping dog lie.
“You know, I don’t really understand something,” she said. “Why was everyone there so weirdly friendly to us? Being polite is one thing, but it seemed kind of over the top.”
Valerie glanced back at her in the rearview mirror. “It’s a tactic. Ever heard of ‘good cop, bad cop’?”
“Sure,” Trina said. “I’ve watched plenty of guilty-pleasure cop shows over the years.”
Val nodded. “It’s like that. A diversion meant to throw us off kilter. They play nice to our faces so they can more easily plot our destruction behind our backs, thinking we’re too stupid to know what they’re doing.”
“Don’t let those fake smiles fool you, Trina,” Zeke said from the passenger seat. “There’s nothing genuine about any of these guys. They’re all our enemies, whether they act like it to our faces or not.”
Trina hated duplicity. It didn’t come naturally to her, so spotting it was hard. When she did discover someone had lied to her, she always felt like a total fool. Not that she trusted McNish in the slightest, but the world was a slightly darker place knowing all the people working there had presumably been instructed to act nice and sweet to them. Even more unsettling was that they’d been expected.
It was Max’s turn to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. She smiled faintly and he lifted her hand to his lips to softly kiss it. Warmth tingled up her arm like the gentlest electrical current, burning away her anxiety. She’d forgotten about that benefit of having a fated mate. It had been so long since she’d felt the calming touch of her mate, she’d nearly forgotten about it. Wriggling closer to Max, she sank in his warmth.
“Plotting is exactly what McNish is doing,” Max said grimly. “I know you don’t know me, but mark my words, the next thing that asshole will do is break out the heavy machinery.”
Trina frowned up at him. “Heavy machinery? Like what? A tank?”
“Construction equipment,” he elaborated.
Val shot him a look in the mirror. “Sounds like you know that from firsthand experience, Max.”
He pressed his lips together and turned to stare out the window. His body tensed against Trina’s, and she got the sudden but intense feeling he’d just erected a solid brick wall. He was holding something back.
“Nah,” Zeke said, half-turning in his seat to get a better view of them. “Dick wouldn’t dare. He may have won this latest skirmish, but we’re still fully engaged in a war. And the art of war comes with a lot of rules and regulations these days. The NRC has hired a pack of high-powered lawyers to fight the development planned for Wolf Woods. Litigation is a slow, painstaking process. It could take years for it to all be settled.”
Max snorted, catching Zeke’s gaze. “Rules of war… And what are you going to do when you discover your opponent doesn’t believe
in playing by the rules?”
Zeke’s brow furrowed, but before they could continue, Val pointed toward the main public entrance to Wolf Woods. “What the fuck?”
Gathered at the base of the huge McNish Development Corporation billboard announcing Wolf Woods Condominiums! Coming soon!, a group of about a dozen humans milled about, some setting up tents while others carried signs.
KEEP WOLF WOODS GREEN!
STOP CORPORATE GREED!
DOWN WITH DICK!
The last would have made Trina snicker, if not for the dark mood of everyone in the SUV.
The protestors were chanting something and became more animated with every passing car. They clearly wanted to capture the attention of everyone driving by.
“Protestors,” Val noted with a hint of glee in her voice. “Humans, if my new wolfy senses are to be believed.”
“There are humans who actually give a damn?” Max sniped, glowering at the scene.
Zeke nodded and reached for his mate’s hand. “Fucking A, there are.”
Valerie gave him an appreciative smile in return.
“Pull over,” Trina said suddenly, leaning forward.
“Why?” Zeke asked.
“There’s only one woman in the group. I bet you anything she’s the organizer.”
“What makes you say that?” Max asked.
“Because women get shit done,” Val answered, immediately turning into the gravel parking area, about twenty feet away from the protestors.
As soon as the vehicle stopped rolling, Trina unlatched her seat belt and reached for the handle. When Max moved to do the same, she stopped him.
“No, let me do this on my own.”
“Like hell I’m going to let you walk into a group of humans without me there to protect you,” he growled, even as one hand subconsciously moved to his injured side.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, reaching over to give him a sweet peck on the cheek. “If for some crazy reason they decide to gang up on me, you’re right here. But I need to approach her by myself. She doesn’t know who the hell we are—friend or foe. She’ll probably talk to another woman, but she might feel threatened if a big, angry dude comes storming up to her.”