by Rosko, Mandy
“You’re making a mistake. You know that, right?”
Anna hesitated, then she reached out, her hand sliding along his shoulder, her fingers finding the back of his neck.
No sooner did her flesh touch his did he feel it. The sudden rush of sensation that had him gasping for breath. He held onto the air for many long seconds before he had to release it in a heave. Then he could breathe normally again. Then he could feel the burning in his stomach dimming down to something he could better manage as his healing sped up to Superman levels of intensity.
God, that felt good.
“I’m not making a mistake.” Anna kept her hand right where it was, and her fingers were like a balm over his aching flesh. He had to force himself to keep his attention on the road when every cell in his body pulled towards her.
“You know I’m not.”
Dennis swallowed hard. “I’m ninety-eight years old. You’re twenty.”
“I’m twenty-three, and what does that have to do with what this is?”
“I’m sure your brother will have a lot to say about it.”
She didn’t seem to have a comeback for that one. “I’ll talk to him. I won’t let him hurt you. He’ll know it will hurt me if he kills you.”
Dennis didn’t think he imagined the sudden hitch in her voice when she said it.
Mate or no mate, he was too old for her. He was the enemy of her brother. He’d killed her father, and there was too much baggage he carried for him to want to saddle her with.
But her hand on the back of his neck felt damned good, and he was too selfish to pull away from it.
“We’ll figure this out later. I’m not putting you in Laurence’s way. If Derek is alive and Laurence has him, I don’t care what you say or what you want. I’ll tie you up and phone your brother for a pick up if I have to to keep you away from that. You understand me?”
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she promised.
Which was not what he was asking for, though the offer was still appreciated.
So Dennis kept driving. For now, since his plan to die had gone to shit, he just needed to stay away from Garret, find a place where he could finish resting up, and then try one more time to call Derek’s phone before he figured out his next plan of action.
* * *
Garret let the wolf guide him, let the creature wallow in its anger and rage as he stormed down the stairs of his basement, ignoring Katie’s shocked shouts as he rushed passed her and into the room where Dennis’ little kid waited.
The guy pushed himself to his feet the instant Garret punched the door open. Garret barely saw the look of terror that took over his eyes as he marched forward and grabbed the man around his scrawny little neck, squeezing hard.
“Motherfucker!”
“Garret!” Jax grabbed his arm, but Garret didn’t release the prisoner.
He stared Derek right in the eyes, noting how his skin turned red as his air supply was cut off.
“I had her. I had my sister right there. She was there! Your fucking father took her again!”
The young man clawed at Garret’s wrists. With actual claws. Garret noted the attempt at a transformation, but with the air supply low, it had to be a difficult thing to bring about, and even if he could shift, no omega could ever stand for long against an alpha.
Katie rushed to stand on his other side. “Garret! Stop it! He can’t breathe!”
Who cared? If he couldn’t rip Dennis apart, then he might as well get the chance to tear into his kid. Dennis was a piece of shit, but if he cared even a little about what happened to the man Garret held onto right now, it would be worth it to hurt him. It would be worth it to make that cocksucker suffer for what he was doing to Garret.
The man turned blue. His eyes rolled to the back of this head. He stopped struggling, but Garret only dropped him when the shock of the strike behind him forced his hand.
He spun around, ready to attack Jax for daring to do such a thing.
But Jax didn’t stand before him.
Miranda did. With a baseball bat.
His claws and teeth immediately retracted at the sight of his woman. She stepped back from him anyway, as though terrified he could ever hurt her.
And that sliced him in a way Garret hadn’t expected.
“Miranda, I…”
She pointed the bat at him. It had a wide crack down the wood from where she’d struck him. “You need to cut this out right now. You’re not going to hurt him.”
“I wasn’t going to…” Garret clenched his teeth before the lie could escape his lips.
Of course he’d intended to harm the young man. Watching his eyes roll and his flesh change color had been the only comfort he’d had after losing his sister.
“I would have stopped.”
“I’m not about to take that risk.” Miranda stared him in the eyes, drawing herself up, and clearly forgetting about the bat.
Not that she needed it.
“You told me who you are and some of the things you had to do to survive. This is different. If you kill this guy in cold blood, mating or no mating, I’ll leave.”
She could have knifed him in the heart, and it wouldn’t have stung quite so bad as it did to hear that.
Garret glared down at Derek. The kid stared back up at him with wide, panicked eyes. Garret could see Dennis in those eyes, doing filthy things to his sister, and even the anger of his mate wasn’t enough to make him back off entirely.
He jabbed a clawed finger into the man’s face. Derek flinched back. “You had better hope your disgusting father has done nothing to harm my sister.”
Nothing else to harm her.
“I will take an eye for an eye. Do you understand? Every terrible act he does, every bit of pain inflicted, I will rain down on you a thousand times over.”
Derek growled, though in true cowardly fashion, he wouldn’t look Garret in the eyes. “All right, all right. I get it.”
Garret growled at the man. Derek whimpered, submitting to him.
Small comfort.
Garret turned back to his mate. Miranda still held onto the bat. He looked at it, then at her.
“You’re holding that as if you think you need it. You remember you can come at me with your claws and teeth if you have to, right?”
Her hold on the bat wavered, but she didn’t let it go. “It’s not like being a shifter is helping him out too much, so why should I drop it?”
Again, the sting hit him hard. “Do you really think I would hurt you?”
Miranda hesitated, then lowered the bat. “No. But if I have to crack your skull open to keep you from killing some twenty-year-old kid, then I’ll do it.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“Shut up.”
Miranda’s sharp reply made the wolf instincts within Garret happy.
But it was brief. The anger came back, the sense of helplessness he wasn’t used to and barely knew what to do with.
Garret walked to the nearest wall, and then he put his fist through it.
Heart pounding, he looked back at Derek, a silent warning as the other man stared at him, and then left.
Behind him, he could hear Derek’s terrified words. “Is he fucking crazy?”
From the sound of it, Jax must have slapped him good for that.
Garret didn’t need to be around for the interrogation. He had to clear his mind. Being near the spawn of his enemy wasn’t helping so much.
He growled at everyone who got in his way. Very few people did when their alpha was on the warpath.
Garret wanted to run. He wanted to shift and let the wind rush through his fur, feel the trees as their branches reached out for him, the smell of pine and cedar in the air.
Anything to make him forget that he’d had his little sister right there with him, where it was safe, and because he’d been stupid enough to leave her alone, she had been taken right from under his nose.
He should have left Jax there with her. He should have taken her home
immediately instead of rushing out to hunt for Dennis.
Anna had come to him screaming and crying, and when she’d told him Dennis had just left, that he was out in the woods, he couldn’t stop himself from going.
Until he realized he couldn’t pick up a scent, and when he got back to the motel minutes later, his truck and Anna gone, he’d wanted to do things he’d never thought he would want to do.
As though the wolf inside him had become wild, feral.
Garret had wanted to kill everyone who crossed his path and then light their corpses on fire.
“Garret?”
He turned at the sound of his mate’s voice. Her soothing, sweet voice that was normally enough to make even a wolf purr, now, he felt nothing.
“What is it?”
Miranda came to stand beside him, her fingertips gently touching his arm.
He looked down at her, noting she no longer had the bat.
“I’ll be fine. I just need to think.”
Miranda pressed her lips together, then curled her arms around Garret, hugging him tightly to herself, as though she was trying to heal him of his pain.
“Anna’s smart. And strong. Nothing will happen to her.”
“You didn’t see her when I found her.”
Simply mentioning it was enough to make him clench his hands into fists. “I had her, Miranda. I fucking had her. I left her. Now she’s with him. Again. I don’t even want to think about what that piece of fucking shit is doing to her right now.”
Miranda squeezed him tighter, the moonlight shining down on her hair. Garret touched her hair, kissed it, smelled it, letting the scent of his mate calm him.
“I’m sorry.”
Miranda nodded. “I know, you don’t have to say anything.”
“I need you.”
She looked up at him, those hazel eyes glowing.
The shifter that turned her was a mutt. It gave Miranda both a fox and canine-like appearance whenever those instincts came out.
And he could see that she would let him.
She leaned up, pressing her mouth to his, and Garret groaned as he tasted her. The beast inside him calmed as the softness of his woman pressed against his chest. Miranda in his arms felt right. She felt as though she belonged to him and him alone, and she was the only one in the world who would bring him to his knees like this.
Until Dane showed up and ruined it for him.
“Garret! Hey Garret!”
He pulled back from Miranda’s mouth, an irritated groan escaping him as Dane appeared through the trees. The bear shifter stopped at the sight of them.
Garret stared hard at the man. “This had better be good.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’d say so. Your sister is on the phone right now.”
3
Anna hadn’t wanted to call her brother when Dennis offered his phone. After the trick she’d played on him, the idea of hearing Garret’s voice and answering his questions was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
But Dennis insisted.
“He has to know you’re all right. If you’re going to come along then at the very least you’re going to tell him that not I’m ripping strips off your skin.”
“He wouldn’t think that.”
The way Dennis looked at her made her shudder.
“All right, maybe he would think that.”
She couldn’t believe Dennis had her brother’s phone number in his contact list. Anna didn’t even have Garret’s phone number memorized now that she thought about it. She was so used to pressing his name and hearing his voice during the few times she did have to call him.
It occurred to her that she should probably memorize the number so she at least had it for later. So weird that she’d never noticed she didn’t know her own brother’s phone number until that minute.
She called him.
Dane picked up. He sounded shocked to hear her voice. Then he sounded so angry she thought he would reach through the phone and strangle her.
Or Dennis.
He didn’t curse, and he didn’t exactly raise his voice, but it was there. He was furious.
“Where are you? You tell me where you are right now! I’ll come and get you out of there, and we can put an end to this.”
Anna glanced at Dennis. His mouth quirked. He could clearly hear the not so hidden threat, but thankfully, he said nothing.
“Dane, uh, can you put my brother on the phone?”
“I’m going out to get him right now. He just walked out, but we are going to find you, all right? You don’t have to be scared.”
“I’m not scared.” Which was mostly true. “Dane, Dennis didn’t kidnap me.”
She heard the stunned silence, could imagine him coming to a complete stop before he started walking, or running, again.
“What does that mean? What did he do to you?”
“Nothing, look, I’m all right. Dennis…he’s not in control of his pack anymore. They betrayed him.”
She almost said he lost control of it, but having to tell Dane that Laurence and the others were no longer obeying Dennis while he drove the truck right beside her felt like kicking him in the balls when he was unguarded.
It was bad enough he had to hear her explaining this.
“Where are you now?”
She and Dennis were back on the road, but they were driving along the outskirts of Meadow Springs.
On the opposite end of where her pack was, but close enough to Dennis’ former back that he wasn’t comfortable bringing the vehicle to a complete stop for much of anything.
“Look, just find Garret and put him on the phone for me, please? I need to talk to him.”
Because Dennis was right. She needed to tell her brother she was all right. Garret was probably worried sick right now.
Dane growled low on the other end of the phone, but he did as he was asked.
She heard him get to Garret, call out his name, and tell him Anna was on the phone. Her big brother was talking to her in the next instant, and Anna swore she never heard that particular sound in his voice. He sounded as though he was in real pain, and the guilt burned away at the bottom of her stomach.
“Anna? Anna, listen to me. I’m going to find you, all right? You don’t need to be scared for much longer. I am going to find you, and I’m going to make this right.”
“I’m all right, Garret.” And this was where the guilt was even worse than before. She spilled everything as fast as she could before she could think about what this would do to him. “I’m not Dennis’ prisoner. I’m so sorry. I tricked you to get you away from the motel. He was injured, and I knew you were going to hurt him.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Anna expected him to start yelling. He didn’t. He sounded confused but calm.
“Is he there with you now?”
“Yes.”
“Is he making you say this?”
“No.”
“Is he close enough to hear what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Good. Dennis, I have your son here. If you do not bring my little sister back to me within the hour, I will break one of his fingers. If you’re not back in two hours, I will start working on his fingernails.”
Dennis slammed on the truck brakes so hard Anna was sure she might have flown through the windshield had she not been wearing her seatbelt, the move nearly throwing the phone right out of her hands. She struggled to get a grip on it as though she was playing hot potato with it until she finally caught it.
Dennis was already screaming murder at the phone. “You motherfucker, don’t even think about touching him! You hear me! I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt one hair on that boy’s head!”
Anna was horrified. She put the phone back to her ear. “Garret, you can’t do something like that.”
“He brings you back home, untouched, or I will start making that guy downstairs sing me a symphony of screaming pain.”
“Guy?”
Anna looked at Dennis, but he didn’t seem to notice her confusion.
When he’d mentioned a son, Anna got it in her head that this was a small child they were talking about.
But Dennis was old, as old as her brother was. He didn’t look it, but she knew how old he was before she’d met him just from the stories she’d been told about him. Nearly a hundred.
Why didn’t she see that coming? Of course he would have a fully grown son.
Either way, Anna couldn’t imagine Garret doing something so awful to anyone if he didn’t have to. “Garret, don’t do that for me. I’m safe right now. Dennis didn’t let anyone hurt me.”
“He was the one who kidnapped you, that’s more than enough reason for me to want to kill this asshole.” There was a brief hesitation on the other end before Garret started up again. “And what exactly do you mean he didn’t let anyone hurt you? What the fuck was his pack doing when you were with them?”
“Nothing!” Dennis snapped. “I’ll make the trade. You give me Derek, and he’d better not be fucking hurt, and I’ll drive back and give you Anna right now.”
She looked at him, eyes wide, hardly able to believe she’d heard such a thing from him. Then she was hurt by it. This was supposedly her mate.
But if he had to trade her for his son, why wouldn’t he?
Dennis glanced at her, then back at the road. He growled and pulled over to the side. Garret was talking again, but Anna couldn’t make out much of what he was saying until they were parked and she was able to focus once more.
“All right, all right!” Dennis snapped. “Just shut up and let me think for a minute.”
He rubbed at his face, but Garret kept pressing. “There’s nothing to think about. You will drive back here with Anna, and the kid can go, but you stay. You understand me? You’re finally going to get some justice for what you did to my fucking family, you sack of shit.”
“What?” Anna couldn’t stand these sudden shocks she was being given. “Garret! No!”
Dennis reached over and snatched the phone from her hands. She tried to take it back, but he jerked out of her reach. “You show me Derek hasn’t been hurt, and I’ll get out of the truck. He takes the truck and drives away and then I won’t put up any fight for you.”