Alphas of Red Moon Ranch Complete Series (13 page)

Miranda pushed the car into drive and sped off. She gritted her teeth and tried not to let it show just how shaken she was. Cayden was her own worst-kept secret—everyone
knew
about him, but everyone also knew not to get
involved
with her son’s business, least they face the wrath of a cougar mother. He was the bastard son of a wayward father, and she didn’t like the idea of Holly being within arm’s reach of him.

“Why didn’t you tell me your teacher was a Westmore?” she snapped.

Cayden shrugged. Looked out the window. “Didn’t seem like a big deal.”

“Didn’t it?” she asked, voice more bitter than sweet. “We’re trying to knock the Westmore clan off the map and it didn’t occur to you to mention that you’ve got one in your classroom?”

“Whatever,” he said. Pouting. Spoiled brat.

“Don’t whatever me, honey,” Miranda said and picked up her Bluetooth, shoving it around her ear. “Call Brent Westmore,” she ordered and her car stereo began to ring.

“’Lo?” Brent. Sweet Brent. Always sounded like he’d woken up from a hangover.

“Brent,” she said, her voice curt, all business. “It’s time to act. I’m tired of waiting for you to make up your mind. Are you in or out?”

A brief silence from Brent before he said, begrudgingly, “Jacob is my Alpha—”

“And your brother,” Miranda interrupted. “Don’t you owe it to your brother to take care of him? Even if that means taking his crown?” She made a sharp turn with her BMW, taking over the road and getting a curt honk from behind. She flipped them the finger. “If he stays Alpha, he’s going to turn one day and never turn back. You know it. I know it. If you want to help your brother, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

Another hesitation from him. His long pauses made her impatience burn. He had been more malleable the other night, with her lips around his cock, but now in the sober light of day he was questioning all of his bad decisions.
Typical man
.

“What d’you want, Miranda?” he finally said, stonily.

Compliance was good, even if he wasn’t happy about it. “Drive him up the Siskiyou Mountain. We’ll meet you halfway up.”

“You ain’t gonna hurt him, are you?”

“I just want to talk to him,” Miranda lied.

“On the mountain?”

“We need privacy,” she said. “Do you want to help him or don’t you?”

Another infuriating languid pause from him before, “We’ll be there.”

“Six o’clock. Don’t be late.” With that, she clicked a button on her steering wheel and hung up the phone. She glanced over at her son—quietly brooding in the passenger seat—and said, “How would you like to play a little game of cat-and-bear tonight?”

Finally, Cayden smiled.
Children are so hard to please
, Miranda thought as she turned down the road.

Brent was met with a dial tone when Miranda cut the call short. He swore under his breath and pulled the phone away from his ear.

“Everything alright?” Brent glanced up quickly and saw Jacob standing at the other end of the truck.

Brent nodded and swallowed back his guilt. He glanced down at his phone and tucked it away. “Yeah. Just the usual. Needy bitches who want what they want when they want it.”

Jacob chuckled and yanked himself into the driver’s seat. “You need to find yourself an honest woman,” Jacob said. “Does wonders for the sanity.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, boss,” Brent said. “Respectfully, I think it’d make me fucking crazy.” Brent looked over at Jacob as he revved up the engine. “I’m guessing all’s well in paradise with you two lovebirds.”

“Yeah. It’s great, actually.”

Brent asked cautiously, “And the bear?”

Jacob shrugged. “Never better.” But Brent could read the tight-jawed lie in his brother’s face.

Goddammit, Jacob.
If the other man weren’t so damn proud, maybe they could’ve actually solved this civilly. “Where to?” Jacob asked.

Any hesitation left Brent’s voice. “We got a job up the mountain. Folks complaining about a leaky roof. Y’wanna check it out?”

“Mountain, huh?” Jacob looked down at his watch.

“Y’got somewhere to be?”

Jacob hesitated, then shook his head. “Let’s just make this quick. I wanna get home before nightfall.”

That’s the idea
, Brent thought to himself, but said instead, “You got it, boss.” Jacob put the truck into gear, taking off towards the mountain looming ahead of them.

It was slow going up the mountain and the roads twisted in a serpentine pattern up the curves of Siskiyou. Jacob had climbed these mountains plenty of times, but rarely for a job. The mountain was covered in acres and acres of red firs and bubbling creeks and it was the perfect place to let the Beast loose without worrying about any collateral damage. Of course, that was back in the day when Jacob could let the Beast run free whenever he wanted. Before he had to keep it locked up inside of him, terrified that any transformation could be his last.

He hadn’t let his Beast out in months. Not since it had burst from his skin in a fit the night Holly turned down his proposal. He was going for a personal record, three months since his last bear outing. Out here, the woods beckoned louder than usual. Familiar haunts chimed in his ears like church bells, warming his blood.

(
Climb that tree. Roll in that creek. Mark your territory. Drag your mate out and fuck her under the shade of the fir trees.
)

Jacob wet his lips and tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the Beast strained at its leash.
Down
. He saw Holly in his mind’s eye, tried to imagine what she was doing now. Probably just finished up the last of her classes and was on her way home. Was she there already, curled up on the porch with a book, waiting on Jacob for dinner? The thought settled warm in his chest as though the sunset herself had pressed her fingertips to his heart, and his Beast quieted again.
As soon as this job is over, princess,
he thought to himself.
I’m coming
.

Brent seemed slightly agitated, fidgeting around in his seat and checking his phone compulsively, but Jacob thought nothing of it. Knowing Brent, he probably had a hot date with a honeypot waiting on him. His brother always did have piss-poor taste in women. His order was always a pretty face with a side of risk. Greedy, sticky-fingered Linda Catz. Belly-shirted Belinda Moore. That pole dancer from who-knows-where. Just another reason why Jacob was grateful for ever-stable, sane Holly. Better to get out of that mess while he still had what was left of his dignity.

The asphalt came to a bumpy finish and the truck growled on, spitting up gravel and sand. When they came up to Wolf’s Creek, Brent said, “Hang left.”

In Wolf’s Creek
? Jacob knew Etna like the back of his hand. “There’s no one up here,” he said.

“That’s what the directions say,” Brent said, but Jacob got an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something didn’t add up here. They rumbled down a narrow path and came to the end of the road in a dense thicket of trees.

Jacob killed the engine. There was no house here and no one waiting for them. His hair stood at the back of his neck, senses heightening instantly.

“Aw, shit,” Brent swore. “There’s supposed to be someone here.”

“It’s a trap,” Jacob said. His eyes scanned the woods for some kind of activity.

“You wanna turn around, boss?” Jacob could feel Brent’s eyes on him, looking for some kind of direction.

“No.” It would be so easy to turn around now. Tuck tail and run. But that wasn’t how Jacob operated. His Beast didn’t back down from a fight. As far as he was concerned, there were two ways around this. The first was run away and pray it didn’t happen again (which it would, because running showed weakness and put a target on the whole clan’s back). The second was to meet his confronter face-to-face and nip it in the bud, even if that meant breaking a few bones in the process. His Beast was alive, running through his blood, and he could hear every small rustle in the trees, smell every little animal that scurried across the muddy woodland floor. He hopped out of the truck and said, “Let’s see where the surprise party is at.”

Brent followed obediently behind. As long as his Beta had his back, Jacob was prepared to face whatever they threw at him.

A snap of twigs made him jerk around and come face to face with…Miranda. And a sleek and svelte cougar at her heels. The large feline weaved through the trees, slinking closer, the muscles like water along its back.
Cougars
. Wonderful. If ever there was a beast that could put up a good fight, it was a cougar.

“Boys,” Miranda said, her smile sharp enough to cut glass. “So glad you could come.”

“What is this, Miranda?” Jacob pressed, less amused. Brent hung quietly by his side, ready to defend his Alpha the second Jacob said the word.

“Call it a redistribution of power,” Miranda said. “Face it, Jacob. Your Beast is eating you alive from the inside out. It has been for a very long time. You’re a danger to yourself and your clan.”

“So this here is a coup,” Jacob said, arms folded over. “You’re cutting the head off the snake. Can you believe this, Brent?”

Brent said nothing. Jacob glanced over at his Beta and felt something cold wash through his veins. “
Brent
.”

“No, boss. Can’t believe it.” But Brent was echoing his words, forcing them out like he was reading from a script.

The sharp sting of betrayal was replaced by a much more palpable anger. Jacob grabbed Brent by his shirt and yanked him forward, growling in his face. “What’ve you done, you brainless coward?”

“Y’don’t know what you’ve been like, Jacob!” Brent snapped, pulling back. “You’ve pulled away from the clan. Y’don’t let anyone in. Every time I try to help, you push me away. You’re losing it, brother. And the clan can’t go down with you. Just say you’ll step down and we’ll walk away. The crown is killing you.”

“I do this for you!” Jacob barked. “For our clan! I wear the crown of Alpha so none of you have to live like this! You wanna tell me again how I’m not doing enough for the clan? You need me to wipe your ass too?”

“Boys, boys,” Miranda cooed. “Don’t kill each other. Let us.”

With that, Miranda let her dress drop to the ground, rustling the dried leaves below. A fluid change fluttered over her form and her bones cracked as she fell to her hands and knees. Her head bowed and, when she lifted it, all her human features had vanished, replaced by a snarling cougar.

Holly felt a sharp pain run down the side of her neck, as though she had been stung. She stopped on her way out of her office and just managed to keep her books from falling as she gripped the side of her throat and winced. The burning pain radiated. As she cupped her mark, she felt it throb under her fingertips.

What—?

She dug her compact out of her purse and flicked it open. Holly peeled her scarf to the side so she could get a better look at the scar. It felt like it had reopened, but it looked fine. Clean, even, no reason it should be hurting like it did.

And then a thought, out of nowhere:
Jacob is in trouble
.

“Dr. Westmore, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Holly said quickly, cutting off the student who had rushed up to her, hands filled with papers. “I have to go. I’ll be in my office first thing tomorrow morning.”

“But—”

Holly rushed to her Buggy and slammed the door. There, she took a deep breath and tried to quell her hammering heartbeat. Her fingers slipped to the side of her throat and, when they hit her mark, they drew back sharply as though burned.

Don’t worry, Jacob. I’m coming
.

Holly shoved her gearshift into drive and sped off, towards Red Moon Ranch.

Miranda’s cougar snarled with a full set of sharp fangs.

Wonderful
. Jacob knew what she was doing. She was trying to get him to change. She was poking the bear in its cage and trying to prod the Beast out of him. Two humans against two cougars didn’t stand a chance, but two bears—

Or
one
bear. “Brent?” When Jacob glanced back, Brent was gone. Instead, he heard the truck rev up and peel away, throwing up rocks and dirt in its wake.

Sonofabitch
. Jacob suddenly didn’t like his odds.
Well
. He didn’t fancy a staring match with two mountain lions. He turned in his spot and took off, quickly running through the woods. Even as a human, he was a strong runner, but not as quick as the big cats. His mind went a mile a minute; he knew these woods like the back of his hand. He needed
somewhere
, a safe place, somewhere he could hole up without having to transform—

But even as his brain ran a scan of the area (
houses?
Not for miles.
Stores?
Back in town.
The road?
Good luck making it there in time), he could feel his Beast stirring inside of him.
Preparing
. Jacob felt branches snap against his legs and cut across his face as he barreled through, throwing all of his effort into reaching the road. If he could get out of the woods, then maybe, maybe…

A sharp pain rang through his body and he doubled over with a shout, grabbing a hold on a thick tree trunk for stability. His Beast was clattering inside him, threatening to spill out.

(
What are you doing?
it hissed.)

(
We don’t run. Don’t run. Turn around. Turn around!
)

TURN AROUND!

Jacob whipped around suddenly and roared, a low, deep, animal bellow. He planted his heavy paws on the ground and reared up, a towering, growling black bear now. He could hear better. Smell them better. And
fight
better.

One of the cougars—the smaller one, Cayden—had been charging full speed, recklessly, and now he was doing his best to bring himself to a stop before he collided head-on with the bear. The large cat let out a yowl as he tripped over his own paws and tumbled flat on the ground in front of the bear.

Jacob’s Beast launched on the cougar immediately, pinning him down and sinking his teeth into the cougar’s soft belly. The cat screeched and swiped its claws uselessly against Jacob’s thick, protective fur, twisting and turning in the large bear’s jaws. Jacob bit down harder, snarling.
They got what they wanted. They got the Beast.
Now they would reap the consequences.

Mama cougar wasn’t far behind. Miranda leapt on his back and sank her claws into Jacob, hissing. She bit into his shoulder and he barked with pain, releasing Cayden. The younger cat slunk away, whimpering, limping.

Miranda held on with her claws as Jacob thrashed around and rose to two feet, slamming his back into a tree, trapping her between bear and bark. The cougar released her grip, which gave Jacob a chance to twist around and fight her head-on. But the second he did, she was gone. He could
smell
the bitch and he growled, frustrated, and whipped around, hunting for her.

Swat!
He felt her claws on his back. The bear quickly jerked around and spotted her leaning against a low-hanging tree branch. He lunged at her, but for all his strength and bulk, she was quicker and she sprung to the next tree. His claws shredded bark as he jumped at the tree and began to climb after her. Her tail twitched with anticipation and, as soon as he was within paw’s reach, she jumped down from the tree, landing with all four paws on the ground. She swatted his hind leg, sinking her teeth into his paw, and then bounced back to the floor and raced off.

Jacob’s bear barked in frustration and dashed after her. Somewhere in the back of Jacob’s mind, the human part of him was screaming that this was a dangerous game of tag. It quickly became evident that she wasn’t trying to
kill
him; she was trying to rile him up. Miranda wanted him to lose himself to the Beast, past the point of no return.

But for all Jacob’s screaming logic, the bear had only one train of thought.
Protect my clan. Claim my land. Don’t back down.

Kill the cat.