“What?”
“Nothing, I’m wearing nothing, but I think that was meant to be your line. I’m about to shift back, and I didn’t bother putting on clothes since it’s dark outside.”
“Oh, wow, fourteen, I’m dating a wolf.”
“Fifteen, I’m mated to a human who’d look much better in nothing at all.”
She yawned.
“You should get some sleep.”
“I should. I’m almost through this flare-up and then I’ll stop being a zombie.” Her eyes wanted to close no matter how much she tried to keep them open.
“Go to sleep, Christa…and I’ll try to hurry up and come home.”
“Mmm. Okay. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too—no Mexico. Sweet dreams. Bye.”
She managed a tired “bye” and to hang up before sleep dragged her under, but she dreamed of a black wolf and a man with dark, dark eyes.
Chapter Eight
The wind rattled the window near her, jerking her awake. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t afraid of the dark—even though Jordan liked his house that way. He didn’t bother with night-lights in any of the rooms. If not for the gas fireplace and actual lights, the whole place would be pitch black. And the fireplace’s shifting light made the shadows move all around the massive room—like the bogeyman was dancing—but it was better than no light at all. In theory. She hadn’t slept with the lights on since she was a child, but everyone had night-lights so they didn’t stumble on the way to the bathroom…except for wolves.
She sat up in bed and said groggily to Lucifer, “We’re living in Hill House…no wonder it sounds like the house is alive.” She never should have read The Haunting of Hill House. It was a misguided attempt at broadening her knowledge of literature that she’d live to regret.
The bushes outside the window rustled.
Okay, so hopefully she’d live to regret it.
“Buck up, buttercup. It’s just the wind. And a dark house. In the middle of nowhere. Where no one can hear you scream.”
In the flickering light from the fire, Lucifer’s tail twitched as he glared with narrowed eyes at the floor-to-ceiling curtained windows. Hissing, he arched his back.
The hair on her neck stood up. “Lucifer?”
Nothing, other than Jordan, had ever bothered her cat. The wind was getting to him, too. Wait, there was no wind. It couldn’t have been the wind this time that startled her awake.
She slid out of the bed inch by inch. On her nosy exploration of the house, she’d found a rifle case in Jordan’s bedroom closet. By the soft glow of the fire, she edged over to the closet and stood on her tiptoes to grab the rifle. She had to hop to grab the ammunition. Jordan had designed his closet for a giant—no one needed a shelf that high. Some of the shelves in his kitchen had required dragging over a stool. Only an alpha male would assume no one under six feet would ever need access to things in his house.
“Our kids would just be out of luck, I suppose.” She tried to keep her tone calm, despite her cat’s continued erratic behavior. His hair standing up all on end was making hers do the same…and the hissing was just eerie. “We’ll be having a discussion about what height normal people are,” she told Lucifer as she loaded the rifle. She walked toward the window. “This is like every bad movie. A crappy landline—we’ll have to get someone out here to Hill House to look at that. I keep expecting to hear the ghost in the machine in that static. Redrum. Redrum. Then there’s no cell reception. And I’m stumbling around using the light from the fire—like the power is out. That’s how they do it, you know, they cut the power and phone and you’re there, all defenseless.” Okay, time to pull back the curtains. Christa took a deep breath and glanced back at her cat. “I guess at least if I’m murdered in my bed, Jordan will be back here right away.” One more deep breath, and she yanked the curtain back while shouldering the rifle.
It took a moment for her eyes to filter out the reflection of fire on the window and…there was nothing. Of course there was nothing.
Behind her, Lucifer stopped hissing.
In the distance, she thought something caught a glint of the light from Jordan’s back porch. When she blinked, it was gone. A shiver raced down her spine. She dropped the gun from her shoulder, snapping on the safety. “I’m just seeing things, Lucifer.” Something brushed against her legs, and she screeched, dropping the rifle.
Lucifer glanced up at her, his eyes sleepy-looking with disinterest.
“You stupid cat, I could’ve shot you.” Christa pressed a hand flat against her racing heart. “Phew. Wow…I guess my heart is in good shape.” After one more scan of the backyard, she jerked the curtains closed again. “Lucifer, you are evil. I’d sell you if I thought anyone would take you!”
Lucifer’s tail twitched as he sauntered back to the bed. He was curled up asleep on the end by the time she slipped back underneath the covers—with the rifle propped up against the wall beside her. There was paranoid and then just plain cautious, and it was a shame when you found out you weren’t paranoid after you were dead.
…
Colby’s scent had been left at his body’s dump site, so the wolf knew the moment he picked it up again. Whether it was his human side or his wolf side, Jordan couldn’t prevent the triumphant howl that escaped. Both sides of him wanted to return home to his mate.
He chased the scent as it wove around trees and through bushes. It was stronger than it should be—and laced with something else. After hours of chasing it around, he stopped near a high concentration and shifted out of wolf form to crouch beside a patch of blood-soaked ground. Early-morning light filtered through the trees, and the blood looked like dark dew. Wet, but not washed away. The convoluted path made no sense. It was like someone had dragged Colby’s body behind a four-wheeler, but Alanna hadn’t mentioned that much damage to his body, and there weren’t any tire tracks. There were, however, wolf prints in the soft mud.
He examined the path carefully.
Travis’s pack had searched and tracked for three days before they’d called him, though—and it was possible that this was one of their prints. None of them had mentioned to Travis that they’d caught the trail, but perhaps they hadn’t recognized what they had when they had it. Doubtful. And it had been raining. They weren’t his prints—he hadn’t chased his tail through here. They were probably large enough to rule out any females in the group.
He dropped down beside the print and inhaled. Too much time had passed. Getting to his feet, he dragged a tired hand across his eyes. The sharp-sweet smell of blood assailed him. “Hell.” His hand and now his face were stained with the rust-colored blood pooled all around him. He wiped his hand on the grass beside him. The dew was crisp from the near-freezing January temps at this elevation, but the blood was persistent. Eerie to have Colby’s blood on his hands. Like the universe was telling him to come clean with Travis.
And he’d picked this over waking up with his new mate beside him. At least hours and hours of tracking had tired him out enough that he’d sleep for a while, even without Christa beside him. Plus, she was safe near Glacier Peak and not in a forest surrounded by the blood of a Lycan.
Forty-five minutes later, he pulled on his jeans and knocked on Travis’s back door. The scent of sausages and eggs wafted from the house, and he inhaled in relief. He was starving after a night of sprinting.
“Well?” Travis asked. “I hope you did better than I did. I gave up about two hours ago.”
“I did, and I didn’t. I think someone is screwing with us. You said rain washed away tire tracks, right?” The ground had been wet, but the result of humidity didn’t always equal rain.
“Yes.”
“I found a trail of Colby’s scent south of here that went in circles and around and over things. If I had to guess, a Lycan drenched himself in Colby’s blood and ran native to mess with our heads. I found a patch of blood-soaked ground about five miles away—maybe he was carrying around a bag of…Colby in his jaws.”
“It can
’t be a Lycan, not one of mine.”
“I found paw prints almost the whole way, and there were some right near the blood.”
“Maybe one of my Lycans followed the trail, too.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows. “And they didn’t mention it?”
Travis growled in frustration, and the wolf shimmered in his eyes before he got it under control. “I can ask, but I can’t imagine them not mentioning it without reason…like maybe one of them wanted to prove themselves. I told them to all stay in tonight at least, and according to their tags, they did. So they weren’t playing games tonight.” He growled again while shaking his head.
Jordan shrugged and dropped into a chair at Travis’s table. “I’m not here to pass judgment…yet. But that’s what I saw. Miles of territory dotted with Colby’s blood and another Lycan’s prints beside it. All of it recent. Nothing your Alanna said about the body or what evidence I’ve seen proves poachers. It suggests someone killed Colby for other reasons, and then either that human had help from a Lycan, or it was a Lycan who dropped the body after making it look like a poacher and then is trying to divert our attention by laying false trails.” He gritted his teeth. “You should know…” He shook his head. “You should know that my brother found someone looking for a black-pelted Lycan in the off-wolf sites. I thought maybe I could track the poachers that way. See if they looked for allies among non-shifters.”
“When was this?”
“A week ago. I thought they wanted me. I asked him to set up a meeting, but they’d dropped off the site before he could.”
“Who do you think it was, and why did they drop off?”
“I thought poacher at the time, but it could have just as easily been a Lycan with a bone to pick with Colby. Garret thought maybe someone had answered and that’s why they disappeared.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s unrelated, and you should watch your back still. It doesn’t seem like you’d need a turncoat or a tracker for a pack’s middle Greek—Colby wasn’t Omega, but he wasn’t anywhere near Beta, let alone Alpha. And it’s not like he was hiding.”
“Maybe it was a mistake.”
“They meant to get you, but ended up killing Colby?” Travis shot him a look. “I don’t think your ego needs feeding, but only a moron would be hunting for you and end up killing Colby. I can’t speak from experience, but I imagine if I was going to carve up someone for sport, I’d make sure it was the right someone first.” He held up his hands. “But I’m not the one in the room with an intimate knowledge of psychopaths.”
Jordan narrowed his eyes, but stopped shy of snarling at Travis over the dig at his history with women.
Travis’s smirk was unrepentant. “If you tell me the site, I can have my hacker break into it.” After he stood, he dished up a plate of food.
Jordan’s shoulders eased up at the lack of accusation in the other man’s tone. “I’d wanted to keep a low profile before, but I guess that doesn’t matter now. Garret can tell you.”
Travis nodded. “He’s divorced, right?”
“Garret? Yeah. Why?”
“Just thinking my pack isn’t scent-matching and maybe I need to drag in some two-footers to go fishing over the summer. Your pack seems to be acquiring more mutt matches than purebreds.”
“Garret’s near purebred. Both my parents are Lycans. Not straight back through the line, of course, but the last three generations. Genetics don’t always give a rat’s ass about that.”
“Still, he understands pack, and he’s got the right genes. I’m thinking it won’t matter as much to anyone.”
Maybe not to them, but it might matter to Garret. Though the fact that Christa was human might help with that rift. He hadn’t really considered that before. “Just don’t let him near Alanna. He has this thing for female Alphas.”
“Alanna might be one of the holdouts on him not being Lycan—I can’t see her going for anything less than an Alpha contender. If she does choose anyone other than me, I think I’ll be facing a challenge right away if they want to keep her.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows. “And that’s who you want?” Alanna was beautiful, but…
“Did Garret go after Cheri?” Travis asked, ignoring the question.
“Nah, she was too crazy for him. Besides, I’d warned him off.”
“Do you think he’ll make a play for the current Mrs. Hill?”
“Not if he values his junk.” Though Christa wasn’t really Garret’s type. Thankfully. He honestly might kill his own brother over Christa. With the other females, it’d been an annoyance and a betrayal. With Christa… He couldn’t even think of it without seeing red.
Travis dropped a full plate in front of Jordan. “You might want to shower first, though.” He nodded at Jordan’s face. “Colby’s?”
“Hell, sorry, Travis. I thought I’d wiped that off. Yeah, I was clumsy and stuck my hand in it.”
Travis shrugged. “Colby was fairly new. Stings to lose pack, but it’d hurt worse if I’d known him a while.”
“Well, hopefully, this is it. Colby seemed a bit hotheaded when I met him. Not that he deserved to die for being an ass, because if you ask Dane, I’d deserve to be dead twenty times over. I’m not one to judge, but it’s an explanation.” He pushed up from the table. “I’ll go shower and be back—don’t eat all my food, lazy. Two hours ago.” He shook his head with a smile. “Is that the way they do it in Rainier pack?”
Travis grinned. “Just testing your stamina, old dog. Your mate will be happy to hear you don’t drop early.”
Jordan glanced at the clock. A little after 8:00 a.m. With her MS still being a factor, he didn’t want to wake her up, but it would be nice to talk to Christa this morning. Maybe after a shower and breakfast, he’d try to catch her before she got on the phone for the day—and he’d find out what that was about.
“And I’ll tell Alanna you have an issue with premature evacuation.”
Travis’s laugh followed him all the way to the shower.
…
“Call off your dogs,” Christa grumbled into the phone. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night to deal with this nonsense. She was cranky and tired, and she missed Jordan.
“What?” Dane asked.
“They’re freaking me out. I know Jordan asked you to have the pack watch over me, but I don’t need them at my window scaring me.” She stood up from a crouch. She hadn’t been crazy. There were a few paw prints in the mud, and she seriously doubted Jordan would stare into his own windows for no good reason. And maybe she was misremembering, but Jordan was huge as a wolf. The giant black wolf had taken up a fair share of the bed that one night—which was starting to feel like a weird dream she’d once had.
“At your window?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t think any of them would actually go on Jordan’s property without permission.” He halfway covered the phone. “Vanessa?”
She barely heard her sister-in-law say, “If they wanted their throat ripped out…sure.”
“Well, maybe they had permission. Jordan mentioned something about the pack watching over me.” She swallowed. “Wait…that whole throat-being-ripped-out was like an exaggeration, right?”
Dane paused for only a moment before saying, “No. Alpha territory is considered as sacred as an Alpha’s mate. I think the only one allowed to breathe on Jordan’s property without permission is me—and now I can piss him off for life.” She heard a smile in his voice. “Finally, an upside. What makes you think someone was there?”
“I woke up in the middle of the night and saw something.” And her cat had freaked out. And she was staring down at a paw print just outside her window. A paw print that might mean someone was anxious about keeping her safe. That didn’t mean they deserved to have their throat ripped out. Damn. This blew.
“You woke up in the middle of the night and saw something?” Dane repeated—in a way that only a brother could—in a way that made it sound utterly ridiculous.
“It was p
robably nothing.” She’d psyched herself out, mostly.
“Jordan has an alarm system, doesn’t he?”
Yeah, but she hadn’t been activating it because she was worried she’d set it off and then not be able to run to the keypad to turn it off. If she let Lucifer go out at night from the bedroom door to the backyard, and she forgot to disable the alarm on that pad, she’d have to sprint the entire football field of a hallway to the master security pad to turn it off before Jordan’s security system called up and asked why some strange female was living in Jordan’s house.
“Yes,” she said. He did have an alarm system. She just wasn’t using it.
“Are you actually using it?” Dane asked slowly.
Crap, her brother knew all her tricks. “I’m afraid I’ll set it off, and I won’t be able to move fast enough to deactivate it.”
“Well, it’s not like they send out the black ops teams and helicopters right away, Squeaky.”
“No, but I doubt Jordan has put me on his list of contacts. I’ll come off sounding like a squatter—like the person who broke in.”
“So call Jordan and tell him to add you to his contacts.”
She groaned. Brothers were such pains. Men were such pains. Not everything had a simple solution, and Jordan’s panic button response seemed to involve her going to Mexico. Actually, Dane’s might too. “If I tell Jordan I want to be added to his security system, he’ll rush home thinking I’m freaking out.” And then he might rip the throat out of some poor Lycan who’d just been checking on her.
“You just called me because you thought someone was at your window—you are freaking out.”
“Look, never mind, how is Nathanial? I was thinking of scrubbing the cat off me and coming for a visit—after I restock the fridge.” It’d be good to be out of this empty house and around people, and Nathanial was easy to please…and smelled nice…most of the time.
“Nathanial is good. He decided last night that nighttimes are for sleeping—which I find hilarious because his mother still hasn’t discovered that.”
“He wasn’t sleeping at all!” Vanessa yelled.
This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) Page 12
