I went...but I vibrated with anger. Tank thought he could force me to mate with him and use that bond to protect me. This was why I’d steered clear of packs and alphas for the last decade. This was why I’d done everything I could think of to achieve independence from other werewolves.
So why was the worst part seeing the trauma Marina had inflicted on Rowan’s pack and knowing the same could strike Kira and her family? Why was the worst part being forced out of the Samhain Shifters’ strike?
“Wait here,” Tank told me. We’d reached the boathouse, the dark shape towering above us. This was the weedy backside that I’d never had time to explore previously. Multiple Jeeps waited, old and dilapidated. Fallen leaves slicked their interiors.
But when Tank entered the boathouse and emerged with a key, the engine of the one he tried sprang to life.
There was no top, but Tank rustled up two knitted caps, one for each of us. Mine physically warmed me, but did nothing to soothe the fury whipping through my veins.
This was bullshit. I wasn’t going to be taken away like my sixteen-year-old sister, locked in a room for my own safety until Halloween was past.
If I’d spoken, my words would have cut like daggers. So it was probably a good thing that the fabric and the wind made it impossible to speak.
Impossible to do anything, really, other than dwell on my failure. Yes, Butch was alive, but only barely. And I was drawing Tank away from the battle, forcing him into the role of bodyguard to the Samhain Shifters’ weakest link.
Marina would win, and it would be my fault. Well, my fault plus Lupe’s and Tank’s for being idiots....
As if he could feel my thoughts rising to a boil, Tank pulled over. Shut off the engine.
The silence was as dark as the night.
“You need to go back...” I started just as Tank said:
“What do you know about...?”
We both stopped, waiting for the other to continue. And even though I wanted to slap him, I swallowed down my anger and ceded the floor. “You first.”
I expected Tank to tell me where I was being taken, why this was all for the best. Instead, he rumbled out a question. “What do you know about the McCallister pack?”
His eyes reflected moonlight. Not lupine. Entirely human.
I cocked my head. “Why?”
Tank coughed out the faintest hint of a laugh. “I got the impression you weren’t ready to be done with this.”
He was making no sense. “And I got the impression you were willing to let the fae cross over in order to protect me.”
“I am. I will. If that’s what you want.”
But...it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. “No,” I shook my head. “I want to win this.”
And Tank smiled, all twisted scars and glinting wolf teeth. He was big and scary and completely magnificent.
“Alright then. What do you know about the McCallister pack?”
Chapter 35
What I knew was that their compound was a fortress. Rowan ruled with an iron fist and most of his pack obeyed without question. Still, my time there had uncovered a single weak link.
I waited to make the call until we were ensconced in a railway sleeper car. A safe haven that kept us moving and out of Marina’s reach while providing a little breathing space.
By this point, it was long past midnight. But my contact answered on the first ring anyway.
“McCallister residence. How may I help you?”
As I’d suspected, Jasmine was in charge of the landline listed in the phone book in addition to monitoring internal phone calls. Now, the question was, had I misread her annoyance with her brother’s management of the clan?
“Jasmine. This is Athena.”
Beside me, Tank waited in absolute silence. He hadn’t argued for or against this tactic. Had merely bowed his head when I suggested it and swung into Walmart in search of a burner phone.
A burner phone...that could still give away our location if Jasmine possessed the know-how to trace satellite linkages. Sure, we were currently an hour’s drive from Rowan’s center of operations. But we were still within pack territory. For all I knew, he had wolves stationed this far out.
Ten seconds ticked by. Twenty. I pulled the phone away from my ear, preparing to hang up and cut my losses....
“No, I’m afraid we didn’t plan a delivery for today,” Jasmine said at last.
“Someone can hear you,” I observed. “But they can’t hear me?”
“Yes, exactly.” Her voice was as warm as I remembered it. And, this time, it vibrated with mischief.
So I took the chance. “You can’t be happy with what’s going on in your pack.”
“I’m not happy with it.” Jasmine’s initial words were fierce before she scaled them back for the benefit of her eavesdroppers. “But that’s acceptable. I can work with that.”
“It’s going to get much worse Wednesday night,” I warned her. “Tank and I want to make it better. But we need your help.”
Another pause, during which I wondered how I’d ever thought myself able to talk this woman around during a five-minute phone conversation. I was asking her to betray her pack and her brother. Of course she’d turn me down flat.
Instead, she hit me with a question. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you help Tank enter your compound. If we have eyes inside, we might be able to end this before Samhain. Shut down the harem. Turn your clan into a cohesive pack.”
Could werewolves smell truth over the phone? I held my breath, hoping my earnestness had transmitted.
And, whatever the reason, Jasmine agreed with me. “I can pick up the package tomorrow. Just tell me the time and place.”
THE SEATS IN OUR SLEEPER compartment folded down into a bed. One bed. Barely large enough for two, if you liked each other very much.
There was no couch to retreat to this time. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Tank slipped back into the shoes he’d unlaced the moment we entered our compartment. “I’ll be in the dining car.”
That would have been the safe route. The smart route.
But I was feeling neither safe nor smart.
Instead, I reached up and grabbed his lapels, halting his forward momentum. “Wait.”
His eyes struck mine like a physical blow. My breath caught in my throat.
“I’m not that much of a gentleman,” Tank growled. “Last time, you were exhausted and wounded. This time, if you ask me to stay....”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling.”
The words carried us all the way to the bed.
Once there, I expected him to pounce, to push, to hurry us forward. After all, Tank’s eyes were full of wolf. His skin smelled wild.
Instead, he trailed broad fingers down my chin, my neck, pausing when he reached the barrier of my clothing. His voice was even deeper than usual, desire rolling over me, as he growled: “I’ve wanted to undress you ever since you sent those girls hunting for naked statues.”
“You knew?” I wasn’t sure which was more seductive. Tank’s hands sliding down to my belly, barely grazing the skin as he suited actions to words, peeling away my clothing. Or the fact he’d been familiar enough with the museum to understand my art-history joke.
He hummed an affirmative, reaching behind me. I expected his hand to cup me somewhere interesting, but it didn’t. So I twisted sideways, saw what he was aiming for.
My fingers landed on top of his fingers, bringing us chest to chest. I breathed my admonition into his collarbone. “No.”
“You don’t want the light off?”
“If you’re shy,” I told him, “you’ll have to get over it. I want to see my prize.”
“Your prize?” His face twisted into a smile that sent a tremor through me. Not a tremor of fear, though. A tremor of heat.
Then his hands were cupping those more interesting places. Light and color and emotion cascaded over and through me.
There was nothing cold and st
atic about Tank now. He was the opposite of the statues I’d sent those teenagers hunting. Fire and motion. Seduction and heat.
“A masterpiece,” I murmured.
“You are,” he agreed. “We are.”
It was the last word either of us managed before we lost ourselves in the creation of something more tangible than art.
HOURS LATER, I WOKE to find Tank’s index finger stroking my bare shoulder. Remembered heat suffused me. Tingles slid all the way down to my toes.
But Tank didn’t take it up a notch. Not this time. Instead, he breathed into my ear. “Tell me about your family.”
“My family?” I pulled back a few inches so I could peer into his face.
The train clacked past a lone streetlight. The glow flickered across his scars, one streak then gone. Despite my best intentions to keep my fingers to myself, they rose to trace the uniqueness of Tank.
He didn’t flinch back the way he had the first time I touched him there. Instead, he leaned into my hand while replying. “I want to understand all of you. Where you came from. Where you’re going.”
It had been days since Tank had admitted to ripping apart his own face for the sake of his pack. During that time, I’d shared the barest of tidbits about my own heritage. And yet, Tank hadn’t asked until he thought I was ready.
Patience—another asset to add to his long list of appealing traits.
And he was right. My defenses had been ripped away along with my clothing. So I told him. The good parts, most of which centered around a single mom who took me to art museums. Who berated security guards for trying to shoo me into the children’s section. “My daughter knows how to behave,” Mom had promised as I peered up at a Vermeer, nose inches from the painted canvas. The implication, not voiced but heard by all involved: “I’m not so sure I can say the same about you.”
“Your mother sounds like a firecracker.”
Over Tank’s shoulder, the first hint of dawn softened the horizon. Soon, it would be morning and this perfect interlude would be over. Soon, I’d be sending Tank into battle without me. My stomach lurched.
“And your father?” Tank continued, drawing me back to our shared moment.
This part I was less proud of. But he deserved to hear it. So I took a deep breath and went on.
“When Mom died, I tracked down my dad to ask for his help with Harper. I didn’t expect much. I mean, I was conceived during a one-night stand. Ace had no intention of becoming a parent. Still, I’d hoped he’d accept responsibility on paper at least.”
Tank’s hand slid over my skin, warm, supportive. I closed my eyes and finished the story.
“Ace wouldn’t even speak with me when I went to find him. His alpha—Rowan—had laid down the law.”
Tank’s jaw muscles clenched beneath my fingers. The hand on my spine tensed. “Your father’s an asshole,” he rumbled. “You’re better off without him.”
“He’s a pack wolf,” I corrected, even though I didn’t entirely believe that. Had seen inklings that there might be different ways of being part of a pack.
“We’re not all like that,” Tank promised, his huge hand rising to cradle my skull.
He drew me closer, his breath fluttering across my forehead. “When all of this is over,” he promised, “I’m bringing you back to meet my alpha. You’ll like him. You’ll like everyone in my clan.”
There was no question there, but I answered anyway. “That sounds good,” I murmured. Then I leaned the rest of the way in for what felt like our first and last kiss.
WE WAITED FOR JASMINE in a crowded food court. A neutral location, close enough to the car we’d rented so we could make a run for it if she ratted us out to her brother. Plenty public so she wouldn’t worry we’d take her hostage and use her as a pawn.
But the flaw in my plan became apparent as people whirled around us. A quarter of them were the right age and gender to be Jasmine...and I didn’t know her well enough to recognize her in a crowd.
Tank, to my dismay, didn’t recall meeting her. Of course not—she’d been a limpet stuck to my side during the few hours he’d been in residence. Tank and I, in contrast, had been kept far apart by our minders. I was about to suggest we give up when a voice rose above the clatter of plastic food trays.
“Athena.”
I turned to the woman whose face was unfamiliar but whose voice was unforgettable. “Jasmine.”
She nodded, all business. Ignored Tank’s extended hand and continued to speak to me. “There’s no time for pleasantries. They expect me back in two hours.”
And we were over a hundred miles away from the McCallister compound. I nodded, expecting her to turn on her heel and lead Tank out of my life. Instead, she continued gazing at me, wolf alert behind her eyes.
“I want your promise you won’t injure my brother.”
Could I promise that? Should I promise that?
“Our purpose is defanging the fae,” I told her truthfully. “As best I can tell, your brother is an honest victim. But if he allies with them....”
“Then he’s an idiot who deserves what’s coming to him.” Jasmine nodded. “If he doesn’t, though, I want everyone off McCallister land by noon on November first. I’m not stabbing my clan in the back. I’m helping them.”
“You are.”
“Alright then.” Now she did turn on her heel, swiveling away from me.
And it hit me fully what I was setting up. Yes, a strike that might win the day...but also a nearly impossible situation for Tank to tiptoe through. My own experience within the McCallister compound hadn’t been good, but Rowan had kept me alive because he’d wanted something from me.
He wanted nothing from Tank.
“Be safe,” I murmured, hating the way my voice caught on the final word.
Tank heard, though. Heard and understood. Rather than following his guide, he pulled me into a bear hug. Wolf hug. Whatever. His bulk and scent enfolded me.
And, like I’d done with Harper, he made a promise we both knew was out of his power to keep.
“I’ll be fine.”
Chapter 36
I waited all day for Tank to contact me. Paced in my hotel room until management called to request I cool it. Bit my fingernails to the quick.
Or, rather, my wolf did. She wanted out. She wanted to follow Tank. She wanted. She wanted. She wanted.
“I want too,” I growled, swallowing down fur that tried to creep up my throat every time I inhaled too deeply. “I want to go back in time and fix the holes in our plan. Go in beside him. Go in instead of him. But we can’t. We can only move forward.”
Forward. Yes. Rescue. Now.
My fingernails, I realized, had thickened into claws while I wasn’t looking. I clenched my fists. Bit back the wolf. Calmed her with the rational, human understanding we both needed to nurture if we intended to help Tank.
“We have to wait.”
How long?
Her demand or mine? I couldn’t tell.
Wherever the thought came from, it had definite merit. Tank should have contacted us long before now. His silence said it all.
Still, I forced us to pause and consider what might have gone wrong. When taken at face value, the proposed timeline had been simple. Jasmine would smuggle Tank into the McCallister compound, sword and all. He’d find a way to send Marina back to the fae Otherworld. Then Jasmine would get him out of the compound and he’d give me a call for pickup.
Only, Tank hadn’t called. Not that evening. Not overnight. Not by dawn on Samhain itself.
No more waiting. Rescue, my wolf repeated.
“We can’t rescue him alone,” I rebutted. The wolf stilled long enough for me to reassemble the few belongings I’d scattered around the hotel room. The whole time, my mind whirled with options, not all of which terminated in dead ends.
Tank and I had agreed that I wouldn’t return to Rowan’s compound alongside him. It was too dangerous when the gifted bracer meant Marina knew where I was at all times.
“The question is—how much will it cost?”
Doesn’t matter. Do it.
My wolf’s strength prompted me to dial one of the numbers I’d memorized. Tank’s friends. Harper’s keepers. The phone rang half a dozen times before anyone answered, long enough to raise a niggle of worry. The fact the speaker was out of breath when he finally picked up didn’t ease my concern.
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“Athena. Harper’s sister.”
A rustling as if the phone was being transferred. Then the same voice, more muffled as if from a distance. “Say something.”
Harper’s voice when she obeyed was clearer than his had been...and more feral. “You’re just trying to make me lose.”
Lose? “What are you losing at?”
“Athena?” Harper’s voice softened. “I’m winning at arm wrestling. Kira and I both are.”
A hoot in the background confirmed her assertion. Then a grumble emerged from the male as he took back the phone. “They’re cheating.”
Given what I knew about Kira, I wouldn’t be at all surprised by that fact. But I sidestepped the issue. “You believe I’m Harper’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“Then will you give me your alpha’s phone number?”
“Sure. Would have given you Gunner’s digits anyway. All you had to do was ask.”
He rattled off a series of numbers while I tried to work my head around the fact he hadn’t called his pack leader “alpha.” Still, I managed to commit them to memory. “Thanks,” I offered.
His answer was muffled as if he was speaking to someone away from the microphone. “I saw that!”
This time, the peals of laughter came in the unmistakable tones of my sister. I smiled as I hung up the phone.
MY SMILE DIDN’T LAST long. Going to an alpha for help was the last thing I’d ever thought I’d be doing. There would be strings attached when I made my request. No, not strings. Make that ropes. Huge, thigh-thick ropes like the ones I’d seen dangling from the sides of ocean-going ships.
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