Wild Love (Wilding Pack Wolves 2) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (5 page)

“Half the morning? And no leads in all that time?” That was Piper again. As if Noah and Emily weren’t really trying. They were, but he’d left because he was mostly getting in her way. She was a wizard with the tech, obviously super smart, but there was an electric charge between them that made focusing on the actual work damn near impossible. He’d spent most of his time trying to talk himself out of “accidentally” touching her.

Of course, he didn’t want to report
that
to his siblings.

“There’s a lot of data,” Noah tried. “It’s not like Emily’s dragging her feet on this. You don’t know this girl—”

“And you
do?”
Piper’s look of surprise was genuine this time, and it flushed embarrassment through Noah. He was the youngest, used to having his judgment always questioned by his older brother and sister. And after allowing himself to be duped by the Colonel once again… and landing in the experimental cages because of it… the last thing Noah wanted was to be overly trusting. Of anyone. Or to make a stupid choice, especially when shifter lives were on the line.

The accusation hung between all three of them.

Noah put up both hands. “Okay, so I don’t really know her. But I did check out her background, and it’s freaky clean. Not so much as a parking ticket or overdue library book. But maybe you’re right—maybe the sweetness and innocence are all an act, and I’m an idiot who can’t judge people. It’s possible.”
Not likely,
he thought to himself, but he sure didn’t want to get caught with his pants down on this. “All the more reason for me to stay on the case. She no doubt thinks she has me fooled at this point. So she’ll be more likely to slip up if she’s really the mole.”

Piper gave him a pinched look, like she wasn’t buying this bullshit either, but Daniel was nodding. He always was the easier one to lie to, being the straight arrow in the family.
Dad’s favorite.
Noah knew Daniel had been instrumental in stopping their father, not to mention taking a personal interest in keeping dear-old-Dad behind bars in a military prison, but old habits died hard—both in Daniel’s presumption that he was always right, and Noah’s chafing against being bossed around by him.

“All right,” Daniel said as if that settled it. “Watch her for now. But we need access to WildLove’s database to do our own analysis.”

“I’ll work it,” Noah said roughly.

Piper was still appraising him. “Either
you’re
being emotionally manipulated in this… or she will be by the time you’re done. I hope for your sake, Noah, that it’s not you.”

Noah sighed. “Or maybe we’ll just work together and find the bad guy.”

“That’s an option, too.” But she didn’t look like she believed it.

Noah loved his sister more than anyone else in this crazy, fucked-up world—she was the one responsible for getting him out of the cage he managed to get himself locked away in—so he knew she was just looking out for him. It still rankled, though.

“I’ll try not to get my heart completely obliterated or, you know, become actually dead.” He said it in that soft voice he saved just for her. It was the voice that got them through all the hard times when they were kids—the one that said,
I know you care. I love you, too.
Those weren’t words the three of them ever said out loud, but they were known anyway.

“Now you’re talking,” Piper said, but there was a shine in her eyes. She pulled him into a rough hug and then shoved him away. Then she shocked him by actually wiping at her eyes. “Damn hormones.”

Noah grinned. “Hey, that’s my future niece or nephew you’re cursing at! You’re going to have to clean up your language before the baby comes, young lady.”

“Fuck you.”

Noah burst out laughing, and it felt damn good to release the tension.

Daniel just shook his head.

Right then, Jace River, Piper’s mate and husband, waved to her through the living room window, beckoning her.

She gave him a nod, then said to Noah and Daniel, “My hot husband needs me. See you losers later.” She headed for the front door.

“You’re already pregnant, Piper!” Noah called after her with a laugh. “You can stop having sex every five minutes now!”

She threw him a look like he was insane and disappeared into the safehouse.

He was still chuckling in her wake, but Daniel’s serious look killed all his smiles.

“I wanted to talk to you, Noah,” he said.

Oh shit.
This couldn’t be good. “Yeah?”

“How are you doing?” Daniel asked, his voice grave.

Damn.
This was about the experiments. “Great! Better than Jimmy, I imagine. How’s that guy doing?”

Daniel scowled at his dodge. “He’s fine. Lost a lot of blood. Concussion. Nothing he won’t heal from by the end of the day.”

“That’s good to hear,” Noah said lightly. “Maybe I should go say
hi
and give him some moral support—”

“Noah.”
His brother had that look—the
I’m the big brother, you’re going to listen to me
look.

Fuck.
“Daniel, I’m fine.”

“You’re not
fine.
You underwent a whole shit-load of experimentation and washed out of the Army on a medical leave.”

“I didn’t
wash out,”
he ground out between his teeth. “That was just an excuse to come home. Thought you guys could use some help, for fuck’s sake.”

That excuse was at least plausible. There were multiple, active investigations going on related to the hate group’s activities. His cousin Nova’s pack had bagged one of the bad guys—a sick fuck who liked to make videos about dismembering wolves and had actually kidnapped her—but the Wolf Hunter was someone else. It was hard to tell if there were multiple people involved in the hate group or if it was just random vigilantes who were inspired by the Wolf Hunter’s videos. Some of both, probably. Right now, Riverwise was focused on putting the WildLove bomber out of business. As a result, a lot of Riverwise business got done here at the safehouse, where everyone was, well,
safe.

But Daniel obviously wasn’t buying this idea that Noah had returned just to help out.

His brother narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t voluntarily come within a hundred miles of the Colonel, not if you could avoid it,” he said. “You’re not fooling me, Noah. Something happened in Afghanistan. What is it?”

Noah sucked in a breath and avoided Daniel’s piercing stare. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Which was true. He could keep his beast under control, shift when he needed to, just like when he demonstrated his wolf nature to Emily. He just didn’t want anyone in the shifter community to know what he’d become.
A white wolf.
She was right about them being legend… only that legend was part of his family. His grandfather’s generation, to be precise, where the beta who broke up the Wilding pack by fucking the alpha’s mate was a white wolf. Only white wolves weren’t really wolves at all… they were some kind of male witch. Bobby Wilding was the beta, and the secret family shame was that the five sons born to the alpha, Gary Wilding, might actually have been fathered by Bobby. Only no one knew for sure if any of them had.

Until now.

Noah was pretty damn sure his father, the Colonel, was actually the son of the white wolf, Gary Wilding. The Colonel was one of those five brothers who scattered to the winds and formed the sprawling Wilding packs. He also messed around with Noah’s genetics with his experiments. Once Noah had returned to Afghanistan, it became abundantly clear that his genetic code had something from the white wolf buried deep inside it.

His grandfather was, in fact, Bobby Wilding—which was so fucked up, it wasn’t funny. Because being a white wolf meant Noah wasn’t a wolf at all, not really. And the things he could do, the things he’d discovered in Afghanistan… that shit needed to stay buried, just like the secret family shame that it was.

“Noah, I’m trying to help you,” Daniel said, finally breaking the awkward silence between them.

“Don’t need your help, bro,” Noah said tightly. “How about you just leave me alone?”

Daniel just glared icily at him. Thankfully, that was interrupted by Piper re-emerging from the safehouse.

Noah gave her an overly wide smile. “Hey, sis, I thought you getting busy—”

The dead serious look on her face cut him off. “There’s been another car bomb.”

“What?”
Daniel said, his face twisting up.

Dammit. “I was hoping we had the guy,” Noah said.

“You better come inside.” Piper disappeared back through the doorway.

Daniel grabbed his arm before he could follow his sister. “We’re not done talking about this.”

Noah wrenched his arm free. “Actually, we are.” He strode toward the front door and hurried inside, where Jace, Piper, Jaxson, and several other wolves were gathered at the far end of the great room. It had been turned into a war room of sorts—maps of Seattle pinned to the wall, a bank of computers set up on tables to the side, pictures of the grisly aftermath of the car bombings, suspects, and other evidence. Jaxson, the alpha of the River pack and one of the River brothers who ran Riverwise, was nominally in charge of the operation, but everyone was pulling their weight.

Jaxson lifted his chin to acknowledge Noah striding up. “We’ve got a copycat.”

“I thought we were keeping this quiet,” Noah protested. “How can we have a copycat, if no one knows what’s been happening?”

“Well,
someone
does,” Jaxson replied. “How’s it going at WildLove? Any leads?”

“Not yet.” Noah grimaced. “In fact, they’re completely shut down now. Are we sure this is a WildLove hookup?”

“Yeah,” Jaxson said grimly. “Jared’s on the scene—he was in the area—and the girl is freaking out. The shifter is in critical condition. The girl says she made the connection last week, originally planned a hookup last weekend, but it got rescheduled to this afternoon.”

Shit.
“So there could be more hookups out there, waiting to happen,” Noah said, “even though WildLove’s shut down. Previous connections who are just now getting together.”

“Right,” Jaxson said. “There have to be tons of connections out there that have already been made. I think we need to open WildLove up again but carefully control it. Stake out each and every hookup.”

“There’s no way we can do that,” Jace spoke up. “There are too many of them. Plus, it’s just too dangerous for the parties involved.”

“Then find me a better solution,” Jaxson said with a taut stare around at the gathered wolves.

Daniel spoke up. “If we shut WildLove down permanently, eventually the hookups will drop off.”

Noah frowned. That wouldn’t be the end of the world, although it would mean Emily and her co-workers would be out of jobs. And there would be a lot of horny wolves not getting any action… also not a tragedy, not compared to people dying.

“Not fast enough,” Piper said. “And what if people die in the meantime?”

She had a point.

Noah gave her a nod of support. “Besides, the hookups could just go underground. People will find each other another way, maybe on the other apps that are out there. Ones we won’t have access to. Besides, we don’t know for sure if it’s the app that’s leading the bomber, or
bombers,
to the couple, or if the humans are somehow involved.”

“It has to be the app. There’s no connection between the women that we’ve been able to find.” Jaxson rubbed his hand over his face. “And I don’t really think this is a copycat. Two
separate
lunatics don’t randomly decide to car bomb hookups on WildLove, especially when it hasn’t made the news. They have to be working together, probably part of the hate group.”

Noah frowned. “You’re probably right about that.”

Jace added, “And if they’re both part of the same organization, it’s possible they can lead us to the Wolf Hunter himself.”

“Exactly,” Jaxson said. “If we can catch this second guy, we can connect the two bombers and find the rest of the network.”

“All right,” Noah said with a sigh. “I’ll head back to the agency. See if I can talk them into opening up WildLove again so we can try to entrap this second bomber.”

Jaxson nodded. “Report back when you’ve got a plan for us.”

“Copy that.” Noah spun around and headed for the door.

Daniel tried to catch his eye on the way out, but ignoring his brother’s pointed looks was a skill Noah had honed long ago. And besides, he’d much rather be back at the agency working with their hot lead programmer, trying to catch the bad guys, than hanging around the safehouse getting interrogated by his all-too-strident brother. And not just because Noah didn’t want to spill his secrets. In a way, he loved Daniel just as much as he loved his sister, Piper, although he’d rather take a bullet than say that out loud. But Daniel didn’t need to know the truth about their grandfather. He didn’t need to know that all three of them—Noah, Piper, and Daniel—were descended from a white wolf.

It would tear his straight-laced brother apart.

“No way! A wolf gave you his number?” Sophie asked with awe in her voice. She was Emily’s best friend, a fellow programmer for WildLove and, at the moment, she was attacking her salad like it had committed a personal grievance against her. Then she leaned forward. “This is your chance, Emily. You’ve totally got to do this.”