Riker did, tossing him in with a big, tattooed wolf who glared at Riker as if he had spoiled the ending to a particularly gripping murder mystery, and a skinny wolf who was hunkered down on one of the bunks, snoring his head off.
He started making his way to the hunters’ quarters, reflecting on how… unsatisfying the hunt had been. Normally, on even the most boring and easy hunt, he still got a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when he brought them in. But today – nothing, nada, zip. He felt restless and annoyed and prepared to punch anything in sight. Where was Lucas when you needed him?
Riker made his way into the bathroom and set the shower running. He needed some soothing so he grabbed his phone and dialed.
“Michael, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Riker smiled and his beast immediately sighed blissfully as he heard Carrie’s voice. Everything about her eased his fractious beast.
“I’m fine, babe. How are you and Mikey?”
Carrie blew out a breath of relief. “We’re fine. Oh, but you know that white shirt of yours – the one you wore to the wedding? Mikey’s been chewing on it – we’ll have to get you a new one. I don’t know - he’s such a demon for chewing things.”
Riker chuckled as he thought of his pup gnawing on his best shirt. “That’s the wolf in him, babe.”
“I think he misses you,” said Carrie quietly. “I miss you.”
His beast growled. “I miss you too.”
“Where are you right now?”
“The council building.”
“Oh.”
He could almost hear her licking her lips nervously on the other end of the line. Hell, how he wished he could be there to see it.
Riker snarled as his work phone beeped.
“What’s wrong?” asked Carrie fretfully.
Lucas - the dick - had already sent him details of another suspect to hunt. With this hunt, there was no way he could get back to his family for New Year’s.
“Just another hunt,” he muttered in irritation.
“Oh. Umm, when do you think you’ll be back?”
“I’m not sure, babe.”
“That’s okay,” she replied, though even the most oblivious person couldn’t fail to detect her disappointment. “Happy New Year then.”
“Happy New Year, babe.”
Even the dial tone sounded sad. Riker tossed his phone into his bag and stepped under the spray of the shower. As he thought about the situation, it became clear where his priorities needed to be. He was going to get back to his mate and pup for New Year’s no matter what.
*
“Are you going to a funeral?” sneered Lucas as he spotted Riker in his suit.
Riker glared at him. Would the dick care one iota if one of the hunters had died in the line of duty? No, he wouldn’t give a shit.
Yes, Riker was in his suit, but having forgotten his shirt – which was now his pup’s chew toy – he was wearing a shirt he had bullied out of Bee. It was a little on the large side, but he assumed as long as he didn’t walk into the council covered in blood and mud, the council would be okay. He had done that once and they were not pleased.
“You look smart for a hunt,” Lucas continued, who wasn’t picking up on Riker’s ‘piss off’ vibes in the least.
His wolf prowled. When would they be allowed to rip this guy’s throat out? Surely, he’d had it coming for six months now?
“Meeting with the council,” said Riker.
“What? Since when? Why wasn’t I informed? I should have been informed.”
Riker slanted him a look. Right, because the council couldn’t do anything without him.
“I asked for the meeting to talk about my retirement.”
“Retirement?” repeated Lucas incredulously. “Since when?”
Since he realized that being with Mikey and Carrie was infinitely more appealing than roaming the country, chasing after deadbeats, and adding to his scar collection when said deadbeats tried to take a chunk out of him.
He asked Bee to liaise with them and get him a meeting, but when he first thought about it, he just wanted to half-retire, and take on a few hunts but do more training. Now, though, given how much he missed his family, and given how unhappy he was to be away from them, he’d decided that full retirement from hunting was the only way to go. How could he hunt when all he could think about were his mate and pup? He’d be no good to the council or anyone if he couldn’t focus on his job. So, yeah, it was time.
“This is about that reindeer and her calf, isn’t it?” snapped Lucas.
Riker stared at him and Lucas flinched. His wolf snarled and Riker thought about saying something, thought about cuffing Lucas around the ear, but in the end, he just walked away.
“Don’t forget you already have a new hunt,” shouted Lucas after him.
Riker ignored him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Come on, little man, time to go home.”
Carrie yawned as she strapped her already sleeping baby into his car seat. It wasn’t midnight yet, but it was time to call it a night. She hadn’t wanted to go to the herd party without Riker, so instead, she settled for spending the evening with Tamra, Trini and their mom, who were babysitting. Carrie was amazed that neither Tamra nor Trini wanted to go to the party, but Trini was apparently trying to show a member of the herd what he was missing, and Tamra had forsworn all men for good – for the fifth time that month.
Tamra and Trini had decided to celebrate the New Year in every time zone, so were already kind of drunk by the time Carrie arrived. But Carrie had loved spending time with Tank and Marion’s girls, who had enjoyed playing with Mikey. They were now asleep, the last one having given up on trying to stay awake at 10 pm, and Tamra and Trini were both snoozing, their hours of celebrating having finally caught up to them. So Carrie had decided to give up and go home. She said goodbye to their mom and was now putting Mikey into the car.
It wasn’t like she was good company anyway. The whole evening she had done nothing but look at her phone or peek through the window into the street, hoping for a call from Riker, or hoping that she would see his truck trundling down the street toward her, but there was nothing. She shouldn’t have got her hopes up, but they had been.
She supposed she needed to get used to this – to Riker being away a lot, to not hearing from him. Carrie wanted him in her and Mikey’s lives so badly; she supposed she would just have to deal with how little she saw him, and how worried she was about him all the time. If the alternative was not having him at all, she would take what she could get. She and Mikey didn’t really fit into his life, but she was sure as sugar going to try and crowbar her way into it in any small way she could.
Her reindeer hooted in alarm as she felt a presence near her. She whipped around to find a hungry-looking wolf shifter glaring at her. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days, and he smelled like he hadn’t washed in weeks. He was a large male, most wolf shifters were, but lean, and while he didn’t look like he was firing on all cylinders, the gun he was holding sure looked like it would make up for any of his deficiencies.
Her eyes flickered between him and the gun, and she made sure her body was firmly between him, the gun, and her pup.
“Just take my car. Take my purse, my phone, whatever; just let me and my pup go and you can have it all.”
His lips twitched as he moved closer. Carrie licked her own lips, considering whether she could shift fast enough and plow into him, knocking him out. Wolves were dangerous and not to be crossed, but she was a reindeer, and while she wouldn’t want to fight his beast, she could seriously damage him in his human form. But, she feared that if she shifted he would shoot before she managed to get to him, and if he started shooting, he could hit Mikey, and she absolutely couldn’t take that risk.
“Please, just let me get my son, and you can go.”
She tossed the car keys to him, but they merely bounced off his stomach and dropped to the ground.
Her fear grew. He did
n’t want the car – so what the hell did he want? He moved a little closer and Carrie squared her shoulders. Her beast prowled, readying to shift. Maybe if he was close enough, she could shift, completely blocking Mikey from any harm, and ramming her small antlers right into his wiry chest.
“I didn’t want to do this,” he rasped, looking mildly apologetic, “I don’t like killing women and pups, but I don’t want to go to prison for the rest of my life.”
He raised the gun and she prepared to shift, steeling herself, thinking of the people she loved most in the world. But, before anything could happen, a growl crackled through the air, and the feeling of anger and power battered her senses. In a flash, the gun-toting madman in front of her was yelping in pain as Riker grasped his arm, twisting it back, and crushing it in his grip. The gun dropped uselessly to the ground.
Her reindeer clomped her hooves in happiness.
Riker held the other wolf with just one hand, his whole body pulsed and rippled as his beast simmered below the surface. His massive muscles twitched as he struggled to stop his inner wolf from escaping, and his eyes flashed furiously as he looked at the male crying out in pain beneath him.
“Babe?” he rumbled, not taking his eyes off the other wolf.
Carrie checked on Mikey and found him still sleeping peacefully; he was happily unaware of what just happened.
“We’re both fine,” she replied in relief. “He slept right through it.”
“My… arm…” gasped the other wolf.
“You threatened my mate and pup,” ground out Riker. “You tried to hurt them.” He squinted at the male. “Where have I seen you before?”
The male swore at him and Riker snarled.
“Don’t use that kind of language in front of my mate.”
Carrie flinched as she heard bones snapping. The wolf turned as white as a sheet.
“Michael?”
Riker dragged his eyes away from the wolf and his murderous expression immediately softened. He dropped the wolf to the ground and bounded over to Carrie, pulling her into his arms. He buried his head in her hair and she wrapped herself around him.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “I mean, thank goodness you’re here, I’ve missed you like crazy, and I love you so very much, but what are you doing here? I thought you were on a hunt.”
Riker pressed a kiss to her neck and pulled back so he could look into her eyes.
“I was supposed to be on a hunt, but I wanted to see you and Mikey – I wanted to come home - so I found another hunter to take over.”
“Your timing is amazing,” she gushed, kissing him soundly, and warming with pleasure at the fact that he called her home his home.
“Should have been better,” he grumbled when she finally allowed him some air. “I was waiting at the house for you to come home and my wolf, he just felt something was wrong, and I knew I had to find you.”
“Thank fudge you did,” she breathed, clutching him a little tighter. “You’re amazing.”
“Some might even say I’m a hero,” he murmured, his anger easing a little, and a playfulness entering his tone.
“Some might say that, but I thought you didn’t like being called a hero,” she teased.
Riker smiled slightly. “I think I wouldn’t mind being your and Mikey’s hero.”
Oh! “Then the position is yours – welcome aboard, sir.” Carrie licked her lips nervously and he groaned. “What?”
“You have no idea how sexy it is when you lick your lips.”
“I just do it when I’m nervous.” Though, if he thought it was sexy, she might do it on purpose a bit more often.
“Why are you nervous?” he crooned, rubbing his cheek against hers.
He was so tactile; it was lovely.
“I’m nervous about what your answer will be, because I wanted to ask you whether you were still going to hunt.”
“No,” he replied immediately. “No more hunting.”
“But don’t you want to think about it? Don’t you want…”
Riker chuckled. “I thought you didn’t want me to be a hunter. Something about it being too dangerous and your world ending if I was no longer in it.”
“Those weren’t my exact words, but you’re right, I don’t like the idea of you being a hunter. But I also don’t want you to make a hasty decision and regret it later.”
He smiled and her heart and body melted. “I haven’t and I won’t. Ever since I met you all I’ve thought about is being with you. Hunting stopped being the most important thing to me the moment I met you. I used to need hunting, but now, I just need you and Mikey. If I couldn’t hunt, I’d survive. If I didn’t have you two, I definitely wouldn’t.”
“Oh,” she whimpered as her reindeer virtually cooed. “For someone who claims not to deal with fancy words, you do say such beautiful things.”
“And besides, I already put a proposition to the council of shifters. They’ve been talking about having a training center for new hunters. I told them if they did build it, I’d train as many hunters as they wanted. They nearly bit my hand off when I offered. Of course, it was on the proviso that they build it here – near my family.”
“That’s wonderful!” she gushed.
Riker gave her a lopsided smile. “Yeah, well, they can see I’m starting to get old and slow – they know I can’t hunt forever. Probably figure it’s best to get me out of the field before I have a heart attack trying to keep up with someone half my age.”
Carrie slapped his chest. “Hey, I love you and I don’t want to hear any mean things about you – even from you. And if you are going to have a heart attack, just know that it’s going to be while you’re in bed, making love and trying to keep up with me. By the way, I bought another fifty-size box of ‘things’ in the hope that you would be back soon, so that heart attack is probably pretty imminent.”
Riker roared with laughter. “Damn, I love you.”
He moved in for a kiss but Carrie flinched as the wolf on the ground made a moaning noise. Riker growled and kicked him – hard.
Carrie glanced up at Tamra’s family home. “You need to get him out of here before the kids wake up and see him.”
Riker grunted in displeasure. “I better take him to a holding facility. Humph. Technically, this will be my last hunt.”
Carrie stroked her fingers over his stubbly jaw, more relieved than she cared to admit, and she kissed him, thoroughly and passionately and as if she hadn’t seen him for months. Around them, fireworks lit up the sky, heralding the New Year.
“Happy New Year,” she breathed. “I think this is going to be an amazing year.”
“It is, babe, it is.”
The wolf on the ground groaned again, something about needing a hospital, and Riker snarled at him for ruining their moment.
Carrie patted his chest soothingly. “At least the council can be pleased that you’re not really leaving. Mal was worried they wouldn’t want to let you go. At least they’re happy about what’s happening now.”
“Well, most of them are.”
He frowned at the wolf on the ground and he snarled sharply.
“What’s wrong?”
“I remember where I’ve seen him before.”
“Hey, what’s going on out there?” called Tamra from the door.
“Did we miss something good?” hiccupped Trini.
Carrie and Riker looked at one another before shouting in unison, “No!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lucas blanched as he found not one, not two, not even three or four, but five hunters in his office. It took him a moment or two to overcome his shock, but when he did, in an imperious voice, he asked, “Did we have an appointment?”
Riker was impressed. The guy almost didn’t sound afraid.
“No,” growled Riker.
“Then I really must ask you all to…”
“Why did you release a wolf shifter from holding and send him after my mate and pup?” asked Riker, in what was a r
emarkably calm way considering everything that had happened.
It had taken a lot of effort on Carrie’s part to calm him and his wolf down when he realized where he had seen the wolf who tried to attack her. It was in the cell when he was dropping off his own suspect. The guy had been curled up and asleep, but he recognized him and his scent.
But, after being soothed by Carrie, and enjoying a little time with his pup, Riker became calm enough to confront Lucas. Bee, Mariska, Mick, and Crow were more than happy to help him, especially if it gave them an excuse to, in any way, shape or form, hurt Lucas.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” sniffed Lucas.
All the hunters snorted or huffed. As if they couldn’t tell he was lying.
Lucas affected a shocked expression. “Did someone attack your poor mate and pup?”
Riker let out a long sigh and exchanged a look of disbelief with Mariska.
“Someone tried, lucky I was there to stop him.”
Lucas’ nostrils flared. “I thought you were on a hunt.”
“Crow took it off my hands. I wanted to celebrate the New Year with my family.”
“Oh, yes, that was lucky,” muttered Lucas before rallying. “But it just goes to show how dangerous it is for a hunter’s family. I mean, even if you quit hunting who’s to say they will be safe?”
“They’re certainly not safe with you around, mate,” chuckled Mick.
“I know you sent a wolf shifter to kill them,” said Riker darkly. “Did you really think I’d still want to be a hunter after I lost them?”
His wolf chuffed. No, he wasn’t sure what he would do if he did. They had fast become his whole world, and living without them didn’t really seem like an option anymore. He certainly wouldn’t just go back to his old life without them. No, without them he was looking at the option of turning into his wolf and staying that way for the rest of his life until he went rabid and a human hunter shot him.
Riker took a step toward him and Lucas flinched. “Were you really so worried about me not being a hunter that you were willing to sacrifice my mate and pup? Is that all it was about – the number of successful hunts going down?”
The Reindeer's New Year Love (Reindeer Holidays Book 7) Page 16
