A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) (37 page)

“I didn’t. It was just a hunch. Why else would there be a lone wolf shifter out here and not back at the pack compound, one who wasn’t aware of who we were, and who didn’t expose his identity to us sooner? Unless he had a reason to be out here alone, staying concealed, and with no knowledge of who we were?”

A few minutes later, a noise in the dark had Ken brandishing the tire iron again, but the shape of the wolf emerged from the gathering gloom. Duncan carried something in his mouth and spit it out before he shifted and held out a hand for the tire iron.

Ken reluctantly passed it over. If the guy had meant to hurt them, he would and could have done it long before now.

Duncan picked up the object he’d spit out, which Ken realized was a rock. Looking around, Duncan pointed at Nami’s purse. “Paper?”

Ken realized what he was looking for. “Tinder?”

Duncan nodded.

Nami pulled the strap over her head and rooted through her purse, producing the wedding notebook. She ripped several blank pages from it and handed them over.

“Need more,” Duncan said. “Dry.” He looked around and pointed to a nearby deadfall. “Check underside for bark. Leaves. Needles. Moss. Twigs. Anything dry. Kindling.”

Ken scrambled to do it while Nami ripped several more pages from the notebook and passed them to Duncan. He crumpled the paper and started striking the rock against the tire iron.

At first, Ken thought Duncan was trying to get them killed making noise…until Ken spotted the sparks. Obviously, the rock must be flint.

Ken was returning with an armful of moss and bark when he spotted the small flame catch and flicker. Duncan dropped the rock and the tire iron and protected the fragile flame with his cupped hands as Ken sank to his knees next to the man and unloaded the armful of leaves and bark.

In a few minutes, Duncan had a small, steady flame going, one strong enough to start catching the smaller twigs and branches Ken was bringing back. The wolf dragged several large rocks over, placing them around it, forming a half-circle with the flames open toward the outcropping, helping reflect the warmth toward them and protecting the fire from the wind at the same time.

Nami huddled close, her hands outstretched. “Duncan, thank you so much.”

“They’re not close,” he said, his voice still sounding gravelly, but not quite as strained. “When I left earlier…tailed them for a while to make sure…waited until they stopped for the night. They’re not close enough to spot the fire. I’ll stand watch while you two rest. Be ready to move if I awaken you.”

Ken reached out and caught the man’s arm. He looked down at Ken’s hand, then his gaze slowly traveled up to meet Ken’s.

“Thank you, Duncan,” Ken said. He hoped if he kept using the wolf’s name that it would help anchor Duncan to them as packmates and he wouldn’t disappear into the woods again.

Duncan let out a deep sigh before laying his hand over Ken’s and gently squeezing. As with Dewi, Ken sensed the wolf holding back, perhaps afraid to harm him. “Thank
you
, grandson.”

* * * *

Duncan shifted into wolf form and positioned himself between Ken and Nami so they could use him for additional warmth. It still felt miserably cold and damp, but at least with the fire, and with Duncan’s warm fur, Ken knew they would survive the night now.

Nami fell asleep almost immediately, stress and exhaustion allowing her to do what Ken couldn’t.

Duncan was a Prime.

Let’s see if it works like it does with Badger.

Ken sent a thought to Duncan.
“Can you lead us to safety?”

There was a long, silent moment where Ken thought maybe the wolf either hadn’t heard him, or wouldn’t reply.

“She needs sleep or she won’t be able to move at all and we could get caught in a far less defensible position. We have to set a trap in the morning. Make a stand here.”

“They have guns.”

“Doesn’t matter.”
Duncan sent a mental image to Ken, of a deadfall trap. Primitive, but effective.

“I can’t build that by myself,”
Ken told him.

“You won’t have to. Get some sleep.”

Ken didn’t know—and didn’t care—if it was renewed hope that finally allowed him to rest, or if it was a Prime suggestion to him to do so.

* * * *

After an hour of desperately slow going, Peyton finally stopped them and had Dewi and Beck strip and shift, making it easier for them to cover more ground and more easily follow the faint scent trails. She and Beck balled their clothes into Dewi’s overshirt and tied the sleeves around the bundle to keep it together. Badger carried it for them while Trent and Peyton carried their guns and phones.

Dewi and Beck raced along, zig-zagging back and forth to find the scent, moving slowly enough Trent, Badger, and Peyton could keep up on two legs. She couldn’t sense Ken close by with her mind.

Please, please let them be safe!

She’d never forgive herself if something had happened to him, or Nami.
 

Especially since she’d been the one to send them to Spokane in the first place. The pain of losing Ken would kill her, but the guilt of Nami dying would destroy her.

It would seem Ken had gotten them safely out of the wreck and on the run, because they kept scenting both humans, and no blood at all. The snow shower had complicated the tracking, though, slowing them down, but they were tenacious.

They continued for another couple of hours when Beck pulled up short. Dewi plowed into his hindquarters and actually tripped and went rolling tail over teacup a few yards down the slope.

She shifted back and bounced to her feet, stalking back. “Dude, what the
fuck
?”

He shifted back as Peyton, Trent, and Badger caught up. “Ken took another piss right here. And something else.”

She sniffed. “Okay, it means he was still alive.”

“You’re not following what I’m saying.”

“What, Beck? Just say it!”

“You don’t smell it? It’s another wolf. I thought I kept smelling something, but it wasn’t always directly on their trail, so I thought it was a stray scent.”

The other three wolves gathered around, noses to the ground. Dewi shifted back into wolf mode and trotted over, shoving her nose close to the ground before letting out a low, deep growl.

“Calm down, Dewi,” Beck said.

She shifted into human mode again. “Calm
down
?
Seriously
? Did you
just
say that to me? You did
not
just say that to me.”

Badger wore a frown. “He’s right. Mebbe one of ours. Smells vaguely familiar. Mebbe someone come out lookin’ for ’em while we were tied up at the compound. I ain’t been around enough recently to recognize everyone.”

Peyton shook his head. “No,” he slowly said, “I don’t recognize the scent, either. Although, like you said, it’s vaguely familiar.”

“Segura didn’t have wolves working for him, did he?” Trent asked.

“They had no idea
we
were wolves,” Dewi said. “They were clueless. This was simple revenge on their part over what Joaquin did. I wish we’d caught that last sonofabitch.”

“We going to stand here all night, or find them?” Trent asked.

“Hold on,” Peyton said. “If there’s an unknown wolf out here, and his trail is following theirs, we need to be ready.”

“If he’s shifted, he isn’t armed,” Dewi argued. “Let’s fucking
move
. It’s five against one, for chrissake.” She stared at Badger, who hadn’t moved. “
What
?”

Badger squatted on his haunches, staring at the ground where they’d been sniffing. It was too rocky to hold prints.

“Ye know, this is gonna sound crazy.”

“Say it,” Peyton said.

Badger looked up at them. “I think I might know who this wolf is. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s the scent of a ghost. Cause the man’s been dead damn near fifty years.”

* * * *

Manuel Segura didn’t stop until he reached Spokane. He ditched the truck several blocks from his hotel and walked. He could get a hotel shuttle to the airport, where his private plane awaited him. He couldn’t risk spending the night there in case those people got info from his men that would tie him back to the hotel.

First, he needed a shower. And a stiff drink.

A
very
stiff drink.

He was used to cruelty and being a hard-ass in his line of work, but what he’d seen that day…

That was something he had never come across before. The people he’d watched were not the slightest bit worried about what they were doing. They’d made no attempted to hide their actions from anyone.

As if they knew anyone who saw them wouldn’t give a shit that they were running four bodies through a wood chipper.

Or, maybe they’d done it plenty of times before.

Maybe what he’d thought had been stress had been closer to the truth than his sane mind wanted to believe. He’d been raised on superstitious myths about shape-shifters, but they weren’t real.

Or, maybe they were more real than he’d ever wanted to believe.

It would explain how someone had tracked down Raul after his indiscretion.

And it would explain their impunity, how they nonchalantly rid themselves of the bodies of his men.

Ruthlessly.

Like wolves were wont to do.

After hitting the minibar in his room, he sat in a deep, hot bath and stared at the ice in his glass. Obviously, they’d been ready for them.

I fucked up.

How was he going to make this right? Ten good men, dead. His best men.

And it was his fault.

Add to that he’d failed to make things right for Raul. How would he look his mother in the eyes when he got back? Raul’s widow and children?

How would he look himself in the mirror?

He laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Three

In the pre-dawn hours, Ken awakened. Duncan no longer lay between them. Nami had huddled against Ken for additional warmth even though the fire looked like it had been recently built up and their cozy nook felt comfortably warm.

At least the sky had cleared. A brilliant carpet of stars sparkled across the darkness above them. He’d thought they had a great view from the house in Florida, but this made that tropical starscape look dim by comparison.

He spotted Duncan about fifty yards down the slope. He was shifted into human form and already working on the trap. After Ken untangled himself from Nami and stepped off to the side to relieve himself, he headed down the slope.

Duncan held out a hand. “Stay back.” He pointed at the rig, which if you weren’t a skilled outdoorsman and not expecting a trap, looked like a tangle of branches under a leaning log in the middle of the ravine.

“How do you know they’re going to come this way?” Ken asked him.

“Because we’re going to lead them here.”

“We?”

“Me. We’ll build up the fire so they see it and the smoke. I’ll shift and lead them up through here.”

“There were four of them.”

“Still are. About a half mile that way.” He pointed to the north and west. “They were already down to the main stream bed when they stopped for the night. They’re lost, too. Angry. Hungry. And more than a little scared, which will make them especially dangerous.”

“We wouldn’t be better off running and staying ahead of them, then?”

Duncan shook his head. “We’re done running. Nami is too exhausted. Her ankle can’t take it. It’s more swollen now than it was last night. We have to protect her. We make our stand here.”

“I know we didn’t talk long last night, but I have to tell you something. I’m not much of a fighter.”

Duncan slowly turned to stare at him, disbelief clearly painted on his face.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not. I was working at USF as a professor when Dewi met me. University of South Florida. I’m a computer geek. A nerd. Which, okay, you might not know what that means, but—”

Duncan made a universally understood gesture, one Ken had seen Dewi make before, pinching his fingers and his thumb together.

Ken’s voice fled.

And not in the willing way, either. It eerily reminded Ken of the night he first met Dewi, when she silenced him.

The slight, wry turn of Duncan’s lips was probably the closest thing the man had made to a smile in…decades. He waved his hand. “Prime,” he said.

Ken cleared his throat and realized he could talk again. “Then why the trap? Why can’t you just overpower them with the Prime mojo?”

“Because it’s been a while,” Duncan said, turning back to his preparations. “My heart and soul are weak from disuse. And there’s more than one. I don’t trust my powers right now. We need to distract them long enough I can take them all quickly. If it was only one, I would have gone and found him last night and killed him while he slept. But after…”

He cleared his throat. “After the revelation last night, I knew I couldn’t leave you two alone that long and risk getting myself hurt or killed going after them. We’ll take them out, then we will get Nami out of here.”

“How do you know they’ll come under the trap and not go around?”

“Because the easiest trail runs this way. Through this ravine. Path of least resistance.” He showed Ken by tracing the path in the air. “I’ll move some more logs. They’ll follow me through it.”

“How do you know?”

“There used to be a TV show about a dog. A collie.”

“
Lassie
?”

“You know about it?”

“Uh,
everyone
knows about it. And they’ve remade it like a bazillion times. So you’re going to get Timmy out of the well, huh?”

Another of those sad smiles. “Sort of. I’ll lead them this way. And we’ll lay bait.”

“Bait?”

He pointed at Ken. “Your shirt. They’ll see the fire, see your shirt propped up next to it, and hurry. Get careless. They have guns and anger and think they have the upper hand. They know you don’t have guns or you would have fought back earlier. They’re hungry and tired and angry and just want to find you and get out of here.”

Ken slowly nodded. “Okay. I trust you.”

“Thank you, grandson.”

* * * *