Desired By The Pack: Part Three (3 page)

Anders glowered at her. “Maybe if you stop embracing the human, the wolf will feel safe enough to come close.”

Beck cut a hard look at Anders. “That’s enough.”

“Are you my alpha in this, too?” Anders asked.

The tension flowing between her two men was palpable. Not wanting to come between them, she said, “Stop. I’m the one who should leave. Am I a prisoner here?”

“No,” Beck said.

“Then I’d like to go home.”

Anders shoved up from the table and stalked out of the cabin, leaving January and Beck to stare after him. Shaking her head, January started clearing the dishes. Beck grabbed her hand when she reached for his silverware.

“Please.” She met his gaze. “I need space. I have a home, and any decisions we make about bonding should be made without the frenzy of Heat still fresh in our minds.”

Beck squeezed her fingers once before letting them go. “I’ll take you to your car, but don’t expect to be left alone. I can’t stay away from you. I won’t.”

She smiled sadly. “Too bad for you.”

3

Nobody thought to grab her cell phone during the late-night rush to pack a few of her things and get her to the Peace River camp. January didn’t consider her phone an extension of herself but it was still strange, making the drive home without emergency contacts at her fingertips. She didn’t have her driver’s license, cash or credit cards either, so it was a long, cautious trip respecting speed limits.

She reached the farm house minutes before sunrise. Prince’s sporty coupe sat in the driveway.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she parked behind his car. Prince would be a rational sounding board. He had nothing hanging on the decision she needed to make.

As she rounded the parked cars to get to the kitchen door, she made a face at the filthy snow and slush in the yard. The Guardians had made a mess of her property. Nothing short of a spring thaw would clean it up.

Keys in hand, she opened the storm door and froze, staring at the inner door in confusion.

EXTINCTION.

The uneven letters were carved into the wood, underlined with a reddish smear. Nausea rolled through her. Fingers shaking, she jammed her key into the lock, unnecessary because whoever had been there hadn’t bothered to secure the house on the way out.

The back of her neck prickled. She spun, searching the tree line. Nothing moved, not even branches on a breeze, but a chill spread over her. The feeling of being watched chased her into the house. As she turned to secure the door, something crunched under her foot.

Porcelain.
It was everywhere, dishes smashed and spilled over the kitchen floor.

The room was trashed. Someone had overturned the scarred oak table, snapped the legs off the chairs. The refrigerator and freezer hung open, their contents tossed into the debris.

She’d packed boxes for her move to Denver. They were stacked neatly in the front hall when her Heat cycle hit. Now they were torn open. Clothes, medical texts and mementos spilled down the hall.

Blood smeared the front door and smacked the wall in the shape of half-formed handprints. Like someone was grabbing for something to hold onto while being dragged away.

“Prince,” she whispered. Throat burning with the force of her ragged breaths, she searched the house, calling his name as she went from room to room.

He wasn’t in his bedroom but his phone was, fully charged and blinking with unread texts and missed calls. She willed her hands to steady and cleared all alerts until she could access the contact list. Beck had programmed an emergency contact into Prince’s phone, too, bless him. Placing the call, she held the phone to her ear and resumed her search.

A woman answered on the second ring, brisk and to the point. “Name and threat.”

January gave her name. For the second, she hesitated.

“Threat?” The woman repeated.

Swallowing, January said, “I think hunters.” She cautiously opened her bedroom door. Ransacked, just like every other room.

“Any dead?”

Her breath hitched. “I don’t know.”

“Someone’s on the way. Is your location secure?”

“I don’t know that either.” She didn’t bother asking how the woman knew her address.

“If you have to leave, head somewhere public and report back to me. Stay away from group locations.”

In other words, don’t lead the enemy into pack territory. “Okay,” January whispered.

But the line was dead.

Pocketing the phone, she closed her eyes and took a minute to regroup. That question banged around in her head.

Any dead any dead any…

A long, low groan snapped January out of her spiraling misery. Stumbling over the contents of the trashed linen closet, she rushed into the dark bathroom.
“Prince?”

The room stank of soiled water and a potpourri of bath products. Splashing water drew her to the tub, the source of another groan.

“I can’t see anything. I’m going to turn on the light.” She flipped the switch and nothing happened. Remembering Prince’s phone, she dug it out and used the display to cast a weak glow around the room. Her shape in the mirror caught her eye and drew her attention to the empty sockets that should have housed light bulbs but now only contained empty stumps. Shards of glass lay on the vanity and in the sink.

Bracing herself, she pushed the shower door open and aimed the phone’s light into the tub.

“Goddess,” she breathed, staring at the savaged body slumped against the tiled wall. The man’s clothes hung off his limbs, which had been scored by teeth and claws alike.

The phone’s light winked out as the display went idle.

January put her hand over her mouth and backed out of the bathroom. She turned a deaf ear to the tormented cry that followed her.

That wasn’t Prince in the tub.

January was sitting in her car with the engine running when the big silver pick-up turned into her driveway. The driver’s side door flew open and Cross swung out of the cab.
Mav followed on the other side. Easing her clenched fists off the steering wheel, she turned off the car. Cross looked her way, said something to Mav, and headed around the side of the house.

She climbed out to meet
Mav at the edge of the driveway. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her in for a tight squeeze.

“You all by yourself, love?”

She nodded against his chest. He smelled like comfort and she wanted to crawl into his dark green shirt, curl up against his skin, and erase the image of that brutalized body in her house.

“Yeah,” she said. “I snuck out through the doggie door.”

Mav snorted. “Beck wouldn’t have taken his eyes off you long enough for you to sneak anything.”

“
Mmm.” She didn’t have anything to say to that because it was the truth, more or less.

He squeezed her one more time and loosened his hold. “What’s it look like inside?”

“Like a wild pack tore through the house.”

Mav
cut her a sharp look. “Seriously?”

She nodded and hugged herself, angling to face the house. “There’s blood. Furniture broken, drawers turned inside out.
Blood on the back door and in the front hall.”

“Hunters?”

Blowing out a breath, she shrugged. “I thought so but now I don’t know. They left someone behind. Hunters don’t do that, do they?”

Cross reappeared, lips set in a grim line.
“Dead?”

January shook her head. Both men cursed.

“Where?” Mav asked.

“Upstairs bathroom.
In the tub. I thought it was Prince but the guy’s the wrong color. Not that he had much skin intact to see that.”

“There’s a love note on the back door.” Cross spoke to
Mav, not looking at her. “Tracks out here, heading for the road, but those aren’t all. Human prints come in from that farm house behind Jan’s. Then there’s a set of wolf tracks off into the pines. They’re not very old. Six, seven hours.”

“None of us, then,”
Mav said. He looked down at January. “Was your roommate home last night?”

“His phone was charging inside and that’s his car in front of the truck. I didn’t find any sign of him inside. I thought the man in the tub…”

“I’ll go in. Take her back to the river,” Cross said.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to be here alone? I can’t shake this feeling I’m being watched. If they’re still out there…” She bit the inside of her cheek.

“She’s right. Jan, get up in the truck, lock the doors and stay there.” Mav handed her a fistful of keys. “You see anything that’s a threat to you, get out of here and put a new call in to Aunt Margie.”

“You’ll try to find out what happened to Prince?”

At Cross’s nod, she sighed and climbed into the truck. Maverick and Cross rounded the house and dropped out of sight.

Spotting a woven blanket on the passenger jump seat, she grabbed it and wrapped it around her shoulders. The blanket, like the interior of the truck, smelled like Cross, woodsy and rich as suede
..

Prince’s phone vibrated with five incoming texts and calls before Maverick reappeared. He carried a large blanket-wrapped bundle over his shoulder.

January opened the door far enough to talk to him. “Is that…?”

“Our only source of info?
Yes.” He walked past her and heaved his burden into the truck bed.

She flinched at the fleshy thud. “Where’s Cross?”

“Following some tracks.” He cleaned his hands with a rag he pulled out of the storage mounted behind the cab. “I know you want to wait for him but we can’t. I need to get this guy somewhere he can be fixed up enough to talk and I need you somewhere secure.”

“Back to the river,” she said.

“Yeah, lover. Sorry. Is there anything you want from inside?”

“Cross isn’t going to burn it to destroy evidence or something, is he?”

“Not unless we have reason to think it’ll be a target again.” He jerked his head toward the truck bed.

She sighed and scooted across the bench seat, taking Cross’s blanket with her. “If it comes to that, I want a chance to go through the house first. For now, let’s just go. I can’t face it again today.”

“On my honor.” He swung up behind the wheel and started the truck. As he backed down the drive, she rested her forehead against the window and said a prayer for Prince.

Beck folded his arms across his chest and studied the unconscious hunter. Steel restraints pinned him to the exam table in the infirmary. Cleo and a young man who hadn’t yet seen his first change worked to remove the mauled stranger’s shredded clothes.

“Hunter.” Cleo pushed her thick mass of red curls out of her face and pointed at a spot behind the man’s ear. “He has the ink.”

Beck circled the table. “Doesn’t get any more certain than that, does it?”

Cleo used the end of a pen to hold the man’s bloody earlobe out of the way. “I haven’t heard of any wannabes adopting the headless wolf as a gang symbol. As far as I know, it’s still the hunter special.”

“What are we going to do with him?”

Beck glanced up at Cleo’s young assistant. The kid wore his fear on his face.

“We keep him restrained, blind and deaf until he wakes up. Then we interrogate him.”

“Give me a pair of those earplugs.” Cleo pointed the kid to a jar of orange foam pellets. She tore open a plastic eye shield, positioned it over one of the hunter’s eyes, and secured it with surgical tape.

“How long do you think?”

Cleo shrugged. “I don’t know. The wolf that got him didn’t leave a lot behind. Maybe a few hours but I doubt he’ll be responsive to anything except his own pain.”

“Do I have twelve hours?”

“I think so.
Maybe. We can keep him alive that long, anyway.”

Beck headed for the door. “Do that. I’m going to go find out what happened on that farm.”

“Any guesses?” The kid asked.

Beck paused. “Best one is we have a newly-changed wolf to round up.”

Aware of the ticking clock, Beck wasted no time between the infirmary and January’s cabin, which was his up until a few days ago. Convincing his reluctant mate to take her place was a delicate operation. Heat or not, she probably would have bolted if he tried to set her up in his den. Soon, he’d reclaim his place, though that, like anything, was only a temporary measure. Pack was strongest together.