“I’m going for a ride.” I turn and head out of the kitchen, deciding not to wait for the coffee after all. As I grab my helmet, I hesitate and call over my shoulder, “If he’s not out in an hour, I'll break down his door. I’ll be the first one to say we should go to war with the fae, but if we don’t start treating Scarlet like an alpha, she might not become one, and then we’re all fucked.”
With that, I leave the apartment and take the stairs two at a time. My mind whirls, and I need a V-twin engine between my legs and the open road before me.
Jack Riley might have been a good alpha if he’d taken over the pack by conventional means, but as far as I can tell, Jack is controlling the pack on borrowed power. My beta, Rachel, is working off borrowed power from me, and she says it’s a bitch to keep the younger wolves in line. Jack can’t garner the amount of control needed to keep his pack safe in a war with the fae. Not even close. They’ll be wiped out in a day.
There is only one solution in my mind, and that’s for Scarlet to take her rightful place as alpha. Remembering the story Lance told me last night makes me hasten my steps. My rage toward my eldest brother Jacob has cooled in the years since the man’s death, but it’s reignited by what Jacob did to Scarlet.
As soon as I step out into the chilled morning air, the Earth begins to shake. I rush toward my bike, the parking lot bucking under my every step. A large crack fissures up the middle of the lot and directly toward the front right wheel of a gleaming Ecomarion SUV. The cracking halts just inches away from the small fortune masquerading as a vehicle.
I whistle, looking at how close the Ecomarion’s owner came to having a very expensive mess to clean up. I throw my leg over my bike but freeze, staring over at the gleaming, silver vehicle.
Who in this complex can afford a car like that? If Lance wanted one, which he never would as those types of cars scream “fae bourgeoisie”, he’d have to sell a business.
Taking out my phone, I call Aaron.
He answers, “We’re fine, how are the bikes?”
“Fine. Can you...can you ask Scarlet what kind of vehicle Prince Macklin drives?”
Within the space of five minutes, a frantic and harried Scarlet is sprinting toward me with Aaron close on her heels. She’s crushed the back of her tennis shoes in her panic to put them on. Her hair looks more like a nest of blonde curls on the top of her head than anything else, and I can’t help noticing she’s wearing a thin tank top and her nipples poke up through the material. “They took Mack, not Zane—they must have thought Mack was my boyfriend. They’re...they’re...we have to go!”
Shouldering off my jacket, I wrap it around her the moment she steps up before me. Then I bend to one knee, fix the backs of her shoes, and tie her laces. When Aaron passes over Lance’s helmet, I stand and hold it out to her.
Scarlet barely seems to notice as she stares back at the Ecomarion. “Lance said yesterday there were a bunch of werewolves in the parking lot.”
Aaron inhales slowly through his nose. “Their scent is really faint now.”
“I can’t scent anything,” I say. I’d smelled wolves upon my return last night, but that was nearly eight hours ago. “You change, Aaron, and we’ll ride behind you. Scarlet, you’re going to need to put on a helmet if you want to ride on the back of my bike.”
I’m not sure how it’s possible, but forty minutes later I find myself combing the Eureka steps, looking to save the son of my greatest enemy. Aaron’s sleek brown, lupine form sprints ahead, head outstretched as he runs. We’d stopped by a gas station where Aaron had confirmed their scent by a pump.
“It isn’t good they stopped for fuel,” Scarlet mutters while we idle by the pump. “It means they’re not afraid of Mack escaping.”
“It also means they’re dumb,” I add, mostly hoping to comfort her in some way. “It means they didn’t gas up before heading off to kidnap a fae prince.”
I’d said 'kidnap', but what I’d meant was ‘murder.’ The werewolves had been very clear about what their alpha planned to do with Scarlet’s boyfriend.
Aaron bounds off after that, and I’m grateful for the excuse to focus on our task rather than discuss what probably happened to someone Scarlet loves.
Our search takes us deep into the Eureka steps, around the more prominent ones, and into the areas that sink beneath the city.
I remember the lower steps as the area my father labeled pestilence soup, a swampy mess with wooden bridges spanning from one drugged out homeless camp to another. The sunken area still has the dilapidated remains of houses, most underwater up to their second story. The bridges lead from window to window and between what looks like islands of trash.
Aaron continuously makes hacking sounds as he attempts to scent the ground. I don’t envy my brother; I feel a little like throwing up yesterday’s dinner as well, and my nose isn’t half as strong as Aaron’s.
“There’s no way they live here. I would have smelled this place on them,” Scarlet points out. “Meaning they probably stopped here for something and kept going.”
A sharp, whistling sound speeds by us before a spark lights off the pavement just feet from where Aaron stands. Aaron spins, bearing his teeth toward the trash hovels. Another shot whizzes by, nowhere near us, stinking of lead and gunpowder.
“Not much of a shot,” Scarlet says, not sounding the least bit shaken.
A head pops up from behind an overturned shopping cart that blocks a hole in the wall. A dirty face with a mess of dreaded blonde hair sticking out of the top peers around before aiming what looks like an ancient pistol. He aims again, though the shot looks wide.
“Fuck off, assholes, or I’ll shoot!”
I let out an annoyed grunt. If it was only Aaron and me, I’d just go in there and take the idiot’s gun before he hurt someone, most likely himself. But I’m not going to keep Scarlet in the line of fire just so I can teach the idiot a lesson in gun safety.
“You want to distract him while I take Scarlet out of range? I’m guessing you’d be less likely to be shot staying still with this guy than giving him a moving target. You might jump into his line of fire.”
Aaron grumbles low, sounding almost like he’s laughing, and sits down.
Sure enough, the next shot lands ten feet to Aaron’s left, sparking off the pavement.
I rev my engine but feel the telltale dip of Scarlet hopping off behind me.
“Damn it, Scarlet!” I growl. “What are you doing?”
She ignores me, cups her hands around her mouth and yells, “Jimmie?”
The dirty face pokes out again, peering through the hole in the wall with wide, dark eyes. When the man calls out this time, his voice seems to lose ten years, sounding more childish than anything else. “Scarlet?”
“He’s one of the kids from the shelter I work at.” Reaching out, Scarlet puts a gentle hand on Aaron’s head. She scratches him absently, making Aaron instantly lean into her hand. “He was there two nights ago—I...” She shouts the next part, almost sounding on the verge of tears. “Did something happen at the shelter?”
“No!” the kid calls back.
Scarlet’s shoulders drop as clear relief falls over her features. “Are you okay? Is there something the matter?”
“I’m fine—gotta go!” The kid moves to run for it.
“Wait! Have you seen Mack? We’re looking for him.”
“Not since Thursday!” the kid yells back as he scratches the clumpy knots of sandy hair on his head. “Look, Scarlet, I need to go.”
“Okay, thanks, sweetheart. You should really go back to the shelter, you know? It’s dangerous out here.” Climbing back on behind me, she wraps her arms tightly around my waist.
“Okay,” the kid calls back. His tone sounds a lot like that of the teenage idiots in my pack when I tell them to stop goofing off and focus on getting better grades.
Scarlet obviously reads his false acquiescence as such too, because she sighs. “We’re going to let you go now—but Jimmie, just one m
ore thing, why the hell are you shooting at us anyhow?”
The kid flinches, looking around like we’ve just threatened to call the human cops. “I didn’t know it was you…and I thought you were one of the ones that hunt people. Look, don’t come around here anymore because the people here are going to shoot werewolves first and ask questions never, okay? Maybe I’ll see you at the shelter, okay?”
The boy ducks away, disappearing into the bare ruin that’s little more than a rotten husk. In my peripheral vision, I see another flash of movement, probably another gun wielder. That would be our cue to leave.
“What the hell?” Scarlet whispers.
I lay my hand over Scarlet’s and squeeze her fingers gently. Werewolves hunting people. A man-eater. I have a feeling the different threads of our investigation are tying up together and not in a way I like, but this isn’t the place to discuss it.
“We should go before someone with better aim shows up.”
Aaron catches the werewolves’ scent again just beyond the swamp, and we ride behind him alongside the fault scarp that creates the lowest steps in Eureka.
I pull up before a driveway leading between overgrown hedges and into the forest. As we roll to a stop close to the thick hedge, Scarlet squeezes me and leans in to whisper into my ear.
“I can smell them now. Vanilla cupcakes. It’s pretty strong, just like in the shelter.”
“I don’t smell vanilla,” I say as my brow furrows. To me, these assholes smell like ammonia and sweat.
Near the edge of the bushes, Aaron raises his head and shakes it at us. He doesn’t smell vanilla either, and that is odd in a way that entirely unsettles me. I only know of one other werewolf who some said stunk of vanilla, others smelled nothing, and as I remember it now, others said he stunk of urine.
My brother gives me a significant look, then nods toward the road before squeezing into the bushes and disappearing. I take the exchange to mean Aaron wants us to head out of here already, but I need to ask one more question that’s burning in my mind.
“The men you fought, were they bigger than the average werewolf?”
“Yeah, all of them were and strong as hell,” Scarlet confirms. “But most of them weren’t well-trained, and they seriously underestimated me up until the end.” Scarlet shifts, as if to climb off the bike, but I wrap my hand around hers to stop her.
“The moment you step off this motorcycle, you leave your scent here. And we can’t stay here, not without a plan,” I say. “Aaron will scout the area and return with the information. He’s one of the best trackers in the world, and they don’t have his scent yet.”
She hesitates, but I feel the tension in her arm as she clearly still wants to disembark. “What if Mack is dying?”
“Either they killed him outright and disposed of his body in the swamp, or they’re keeping him alive for something, Scarlet,” I say, even though I’m far from sure in this assessment. But I follow up this statement with information I’m relatively certain of. “The fae are searching the forests, attacking werewolves. Mack is too high profile a prisoner for Jacob to keep alive for some sadistic, slow torture game. My brother is a sociopath, but he’s not stupid.”
The motorcycle shifts as Scarlet finally settles onto the seat.
I slowly blow out the breath I’ve been holding and head off down the road back toward our apartment building.
Chapter Thirty
Scarlet
“Androstenone,” Lance says as he sits behind a wide desk. His room literally holds nothing else besides books. It makes me think the man probably sleeps standing up or hanging from the ceiling, as I always suspected Marie did.
At Darrel and my blank expressions, Lance clarifies, “Androstenone is a male pheromone that, in its condensed form, smells like vanilla to some, stale urine to others, and nothing at all to a third group, depending on a genetic odor receptor named OR7D4.”
“Androstenone? That…doesn’t make any sense. I obviously have that odor receptor that makes it smell like vanilla, and I’ve never smelled it on anyone before. I’m pretty sure you guys don’t smell like cake…I don’t think.” I glance from giant male to giant male in the room. Leaning over to where Darrel sits beside me in a chair pulled up to Lance’s desk, I sniff his neck. The smell of leather and soapy goodness fills my senses. Underneath all that is a little trace of sweat—which for some reason is the most enticing smell. Leaning back, I admit, “I don’t smell vanilla.”
Both men just stare at me with what could be little smiles twisting their lips.
“You want to sniff me next?” Lance asks, cocking a brow.
“Am I going to smell it on you?”
He shakes his head slowly as his smirk grows. “Unlike humans and wolves, werewolves don’t produce the hormones that make Androstenone. We produce a hormone called quandrathrope – your father is actually the expert in this, as he theorizes it plays a part in female birth rates.”
“Alright—just a second.” Kicking off my shoes, I curl my legs under me in the leather and wooden chair and shift until I’m comfortable. “Your chairs are really cushy for being so formal.” Leaning over, I grab the brownie tray I retrieved from the fridge and set it on my lap. When I have a chocolate therapy square in hand, I roll my finger through the air and say, “Okay, I’m ready—how are these assholes producing human pheromones?”
He gives me an unamused look but answers. “Theoretically, the only way for werewolves to produce the hormones that make human pheromones would be for them to—”
“Eat it,” Darrel says as he glowers at nothing.
Lance nods slowly. “It’s more complicated than that, but basically, yes. For some reason, eating humans, male and females, reacts with werewolf chemicals in a way that produces major amounts of hormones that can’t easily be metabolized by werewolf systems. Man-eaters have been reported to be faster and stronger than other werewolves. They’re said to have a higher pain tolerance and—”
“Wait. Hold up...you’re saying that Jacob’s wolves are eating humans?” A sour acid taste shoots up my throat, and I convey my brownie to safety on the desk and cover my mouth in case I’m about to be sick. I whisper through my fingers, “The hell?”
Darrel turns to regard me with his dark-blue eyes. “Remember when you met me on the roof?”
“Yeah.”
“Somebody was watching us—he let off a load of marking scent and obviously wanted me to know you were his. I thought it was your boyfriend, Zane. Aaron and I followed the werewolf’s trail into the forest the next day to find a den filled with corpses and your things…clothing, mostly. Some of the bodies had been partially eaten, while others had just been killed. That was when we’d sent Lance to find you at the youth shelter.”
I sit there gaping for a few long seconds. Everything he’s just told me is a revelation, but the thing my mind immediately sticks on is the fact that I’ve never once questioned why or how Lance showed up when he did. I’d just accepted that he’d arrived like a superhero to save my ass as if that was completely normal.
When I finally manage to speak, I choke out, “Why didn’t you guys tell me this?”
Lance leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his wide chest, making his collar peek open to reveal a sliver of his tattoos. “We didn’t tell you because up until yesterday afternoon, we thought it was Zane.”
“Zane?” I hope they don’t miss how stupid I think that is in my tone. “His favorite hobby is taking selfies in the bathroom with his shirt off.”
“We didn’t remember your boyfriend. And whoever the werewolf was, he was both obsessed with you and felt you belonged to him.” Darrel runs his hand through his hair, pulling it back in a motion that looks stressed. “Obviously with what we learned last night, we have a new suspect.”
“Jacob,” I say as a chill runs through me. “So, what you’re saying is that his followers are eating people, and he’s not only eating people, he’s killing for fun and has his own personal murder den in t
he woods.”
“Only his scent was there, so maybe he’s hiding the extent of what he’s doing from his pack as well,” Darrel adds with a sigh.
“Great. He’s such a sociopath that he has to hide the extent of his murders from his team of man-eating sociopaths.” A headache drives through my forehead, and I rub it slowly to alleviate the pain.
Darrel makes to stand. “You want me to get you something to eat besides brownies? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“Those have literally no nutritional value,” Lance adds unhelpfully.
“They have eggs and dairy and…leave the brownies alone,” I growl, probably a little too intensely for the occasion. “Brownies are a perfectly normal breakfast.”
“Lunch.” Lance lifts his brows.
“Whatever.” In a more measured tone, I say, “I thought my sister Zeezee was the only one with the talent for giving me headaches, but obviously, sociopathic werewolves do the trick, too. There’s no call for taking my food. What I really need to know is, are you telling me Jacob is going to be even stronger than he used to be?” He’d hit me like a wall caving in on top of me two years ago, complete destruction. I literally can’t imagine a stronger person.
Neither Darrel nor Lance answers, but I can do the simple math. Jacob wants me dead, and he has a highly-trained, man-eating pack at his disposal. It all adds up to one very dead Scarlet. “Okay—okay, I’m in too far over my head, obviously—damn it. We need to call the Lycanthropy Council.”
“No,” Lance growls.
“Trust me, the last thing I want is to have this place crawling with NALC agents.” I press my hands into the desk. “But we’re dealing with a pack of man-eating werewolves. The government has teams to deal with that kind of thing. My pack has almost no dominants—your brother saw to that.”
“You’re right, your pack would be slaughtered,” Lance leans over the desk, his bright green eyes burning. “But the NALC is as likely to endorse Jacob and let you stand trial for the illegal alpha challenge than exterminate his pack. It’s going to be even more likely if they learn we’re your mates and unable to challenge you for alphahood. As far as they’re concerned, even your father is both too weak and compromised having a daughter with associations with the fae. Their main priority will be keeping Heartland for the wolves, so much so that they’ll likely be willing to overlook anything.”
Dirty Alphas Page 23