A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) (36 page)

Dewi hugged the man. “I’m glad you didn’t,” she said. She was anxious to get underway again but now knew why this needed to be said.

“Me, too, lass.” He forced a smile. “Poor Collette. And Gillian and Asia. Ye woulda skinned their hides a thousand times over had they tried to raise ye. Ye were no match for anyone but another Prime, even as a toddler. And Peyton here didn’t have time for ye.”

“Hey,” Peyton protested.

“Well, ye didn’t. Ye said so yerself. Thrust into the pack Alpha role, tryin’ to figure out who murdered Charlie and Chelsea. It was a lot to deal with already.”

Badger met Dewi’s steady gaze. “Yer father once told me way back then, in Scotland, after I lost Tahlia. He said to me, ‘Rodney, I know I’m gonna need ye. Ye can’t take the coward’s way out. Tahlia wouldn’t want ye to. We made a pact to each other as blood brothers to watch each other’s backs, and ye canna leave me now.’”

He sighed again. “Somehow, he got me through it. I’m glad he did, but I canna blame Duncan for choosin’ different. All his pups, grown, mated, starting families. I wish he’d talked to me before he did, but I canna blame him.”

“Spread out,” Peyton said, sounding exhausted. “Be careful. Is everyone armed?”

They nodded.

“Stay on two feet,” Peyton ordered. “I don’t want anyone unarmed. As we head down the slope, stay in sight of the others.” He pulled Prime. “
No one
goes off alone.” He directed a pointed gaze at Dewi. “
Not
until we know what we’re dealing with and I say so.”

They started down the slope, carefully working their way through the wet dirt and grass.

When the wrecked Honda came into view, Dewi and Beck both let out strangled cries as they ran for it, and nearly identical sighs of relief as they realized it was empty.

“They survived it,” Badger said, slowly nodding after he’d checked it out for himself. “No scent of blood in the car at all. They were relatively uninjured and got out under their own power.” He looked around, nose to the air. “No blood nearby. They escaped and ran.”

“Okay,” Peyton said. “Everyone get a good sniff inside the car so you have Ken and Nami’s scents fresh in your nose. Start here and work out slowly. Any scent trails you find, ours or the Segura guys, holler and stop where you are so we can check it out.”

It took ten minutes for Joaquin to find Ken’s scent, up on a tree, where it looked like he’d placed his hand to brace himself. While Dewi and Beck and Badger frantically circled for more scents, someone else let out a shout that they’d found the Segura men’s trail heading downhill and away from Ken and Nami’s trail.

“Ken’s fucking smart,” Beck said, sounding triumphant as he swatted Dewi’s shoulder in glee. “I bet he tossed that cup down there deliberately to distract and mislead them while he kept him and Nami moving this way.”

“It could have come out in the wreck,” Dewi wearily said.

“No, I don’t think so,” Badger countered. “There’s coffee all over the back seat, and the windows aren’t busted out. Someone had to take that cup out of the car, and it’s only got Ken’s scent on it.”

“That means they’re alive,” Beck said.

Dewi didn’t want to get her hopes up too soon. “No, it means they were alive when they left here. That’s been over eight hours now.”

“Keep yer hopes up, girlie,” Badger said.

Peyton called for everyone’s attention. “Joaquin, you take at least six guys and go after Segura’s men. After you question them to find out if there’s any new information, or if they did anything to Nami and Ken, terminate them all, unless you…” He glanced at Beck and Dewi. “Unless you need to keep one alive to take you back and show you something. Do
not
shift. I want everyone armed at all times.”

“What about their bodies?” Joaquin asked.

“They’re four drug cartel guys who are not on our land. I could give a shit. Take their phones, wallets, jewelry, everything on them. If you’re close enough to the river when you kill them, strip them and dump the bodies there. If they’re ever found and identified, people will likely think it was a drug-related murder and not associated with us.”

“Roger roger.” Joaquin picked his men and headed downhill.

“Web, you and the others head back to town and sound a cautious all clear. Pass the word about what happened and to keep an eye out for Ben’s truck. If they find the last guy, who’s probably Manuel Segura, shoot to kill. No one runs tonight unless they’re on patrol. No one goes out alone, either. I want our people on the front entrance all night, as well as patrolling the campgrounds and residential areas. Set up a schedule. Have Gillian and Asia help you with the schedule and getting the word out, if necessary.”

Web nodded and scrambled up the slope with the remainder of the men.

Peyton turned to Trent, Dewi, Beck, and Badger. “Let’s go.”

“Finally,” Dewi muttered as she headed back up toward where they’d scented Ken.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The wolf returned about an hour later, much to Ken’s relief.

Ken also felt like an idiot. He was fond of watching all sorts of survival shows on cable since meeting Dewi, everything from people eking out homesteads in the wilds of Alaska, to crazy guys dropped into remote locations and forced to survive on nothing but their wits, bugs, and a knife that did everything but stroke your cock for you.

Yet he couldn’t recall a single damn thing about how to start a fire without matches, a lighter, or a special fire starter.

Despite the risk of being discovered, he knew if they didn’t have a fire, between the cold and the damp, they’d be dead by morning. Finding shelter had helped, but it wasn’t getting them warmed up.

Huddled in the shelter of the rocky outcropping with Nami, he pulled out his phone, even though he knew it was dumb.

No signal, of course.

Before he put it away, a sudden hunch hit him. He swiped to the photo albums, a group family photo taken the evening before, before dinner.

“Why you wastin’ your battery?” she numbly asked.

He stared at the screen, the glow illuminating Nami’s face with an eerie light. A few yards away the wolf sat, intently watching them. The light from his phone reflected off its eyes.

“Wishful thinking,” he said. Then he stared at the wolf and held his phone out toward it as a wild-ass hunch hit him.

“That’s our family,” he said. “Our
pack
. My mate and fiancée, Dewi Bleacke. And Nami’s mate and fiancé, Beck. Dawson Beckett. And Dewi’s brothers, Peyton and Trent Bleacke, and their mates and childr—”

The wolf shifted.

Nami let out a shriek that she cut off by clapping a hand over her mouth. She grabbed Ken and shrank back against the rock, behind him.

Ken fought the urge to let out a triumphant crow of his own. His wild-ass hunch had been right.

The man sitting before them had long, stringy, shaggy dark brown or black hair with some grey in it. A long, thick, unkempt beard and mustache covered his face. In the dark, his brown eyes looked black as well, surrounded by all that hair.

Hell, even in human mode the man looked more like a wolf than he did a human.

As he leaned forward, shock on his face, he stared at the phone’s screen with wide eyes.

“Bleacke,” Ken said. The man flinched. “Peyton and Trent and Dewi Bleacke. The three children of Charles and Chelsea Bleacke.”

The man’s lips moved like he was trying out the words before actually speaking them. “Dewi? They…they said…Chelsea’d have…no more pups.” The man’s voice sounded hoarse, thick, gravelly, as if he wasn’t used to speaking.

Then again, maybe he wasn’t.

“They were wrong, and she did,” Ken said. “One more. Dellis Tadewi Bleacke. Dewi. My mate. She was their miracle baby. She’s a Prime Alpha. They think it’s because she was attacked when she was only six months old, when her parents were murdered.”

The man’s eyes widened even farther, his lips silently forming the word before he was able to speak it. “Murdered?”

Ken nodded, feeling more than a little like a dick, but needing proof. “Chelsea and Charles Bleacke were murdered.”

The man’s eyes grew bright in the light from the phone, apparently near tears.

“Dewi’s twenty-five,” Ken pressed. “Badger Williams raised her. Hopefully they’re all out looking for us right now.”

“Those men…following you. The Mexicans. Why?” His eyes remained focused on the screen, entranced.

Ken noticed the screen starting to auto-fade, so he touched it again and leaned forward, closer to the man. Nami kept Ken between her and the stranger, another soft squeak of fear escaping her.

Ken ignored her, intent on their survival.

“You want to know about the ones following us?” Ken asked.

The shifter nodded.

“They’re bad guys from a Mexican drug cartel,” Ken said. “They want one of Dewi’s Enforcers. Tracked him here, to the pack compound, because he killed one of theirs in Mexico. He’s an Enforcer there and had to take blood because the asshole he killed kidnapped, raped, and murdered the fifteen-year-old daughter of one of our pack.”

More silent forming of words before he spoke. “
Dewi’s
Enforcers?”

“She’s Head Enforcer for the Targhee pack. Has been since she was
twelve
…Duncan.”

Nami and the man both gasped.

Ken realized this might be their only chance for survival. “Duncan Lister. I’m right, aren’t I?”

The man slowly nodded, tears filling his eyes.

“Please, Duncan. I’m sorry I have to be the bearer of bad news. But I’m
begging
you, help us. As your packmates.”

He slumped back onto his ass. “I’m not…of the pack…anymore. I…haven’t been…years.”

“Yes, you
are
. Peyton is the pack Alpha now. You’re their grandfather.
Please
, you
have
to help us. If those men catch up to us, they’re going to kill us. As your grandson-in-law, I’m begging you. Dewi and I are supposed to get married Saturday, on the solstice. Nami and Beck are getting married, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were there to walk Dewi down the aisle instead of Peyton? She’s spent most of her life with only Badger and Beck and her brothers and packmates. It’d be nice for her to find out she has more family.”

Duncan’s jaw worked, as if he was still trying to remember how to make his mouth form additional words.

Ken pressed harder, not wanting to lose the advantage. “I’ve only been Dewi’s mate for a couple of months, but she told me something. She said mates are sacrosanct. That it’s
every
wolf’s duty in the pack to protect the mates at
all
costs, especially when they’re human. Duncan, please. I’m
begging
you. Nami and I are human, not wolves. You can smell that. If not
for
me, at least help
me
protect
Nami
. I swore to Beck that I’d help protect her. She’s his mate.”

Duncan took the phone from him, still staring at the family photo. “How…long?” he asked.

“How long what?” Ken asked, genuinely confused.

“How long…since I…left?”

“You mean since you faked your own death?”

Ken realized after he’d said it that it might have come off sounding more than a little snarky. When Nami made a soft
tsking
noise behind him, Ken confirmed he might need to dial back his tone just a hair. Nami had apparently swung through the pendulum of emotions from fear to family bonding now that she knew this wasn’t just a random wild man who’d stumbled across them.

“I…I was following…the wind,” Duncan said. “I was following
her
. Her voice in the wind. I heard her…in the wind…and wanted to join her.”

“Who?”

Duncan’s heavy sigh nearly bowled Ken over. “My precious Louisa.”

Ken realized how grief-stricken the wolf still felt and tried to shove away thoughts of how grief-stricken Dewi would be if he didn’t make it out alive. How grief-stricken Beck would be.

It didn’t help that he’d just dropped the bomb that one of Duncan’s daughters and sons-in-law were also dead.

“Well, Peyton’s forty-eight. He was, what, about a year old?”

Duncan nodded.

“So do the math. Forty-seven years, your family needed you. Dewi
still
needs you.”

“She’s a…
Prime
Alpha?”

“Yeah.” Ken tried not to let his anger get the better of him. “And I’d
really
like a chance to see what kind of pups the two of us could raise together. So if you could help us out here, that’d be greeeaat.”

He belatedly realized the wolf would have no clue what the snarky reference to
Office Space
meant.

Man, I’m turning into a real dick.

As the screen’s auto-fade kicked in again, Duncan finally saw the phone itself and turned it around in his hands, studying it with an expression of wonder.

“It’s a cell phone,” Ken said, reaching for it. “We’re out of signal range right now, so it’s pretty much the world’s most expensive watch, photo album, and compass. There’s literally a whole new world out there since you opted out of life. Remember the TV show
Star Trek
? No, you wouldn’t, that was after you left. Buck Rogers movies. Half that shit looks like old-school antiques compared to new and existing technology. Now, cars talk more than they should, and people don’t always talk enough. Time to nut up, buttercup. Your pack needs you.
We
need you. Right now, we need a fire, or we’re going to freeze to death out here before our pack can track us.”

The man shifted into wolf form and took off.

Nami snorted in disgust. “Well,
that
worked. What’s your next plan, genius? Think you should insult his manhood, or his horrific family relationship skills? Or you could talk about his hygiene, I guess.”

“Dammit,” Ken muttered, crawling back to where Nami huddled in the outcropping. “I thought that was going to work.”

“Appealing to a grief-crazy dude’s better instincts isn’t usually a sure bet.” She gentled her tone. “But it was a good try.” An snort escaped her. “I can’t believe you figured that out. Who he was, I mean. That was amazing. Hope we live long enough to tell everyone about this. How’d you know?”