by Jade Alters
Once everyone was quiet and calm, Chelsea began snapping orders.
“Chase, take the baby back up to the house in the Jeep. Cheyenne, are you going to walk nicely or do I have to have Ridge carry you?”
“I'll walk,” she said, pulling out of Ridge's grasp. I felt a tickle of sympathy for my friend. I'd never seen him look so sad. He knew that no matter how this turned out that he'd probably ruined any chance he may have ever had with the woman he was sure was his mate.
Cheyenne
The woman gave Ridge a hard stare and with a huff, he began to follow me. She fell into step with me and said,
“My name is Chelsea. I'm one of the owners of The Pack, Security Services.”
“Well this is a fine way to run a business,” I said, sarcastically.
She looked at Ridge again like she wanted to bite his head off, but in a calm voice she said, “This isn't about our business. Ridge is a...friend, and I came here to help him.”
“Help him? It would seem that I'm the one who needs help. I've been held captive for at least two days and I'm covered in human feces.”
Chelsea wrinkled her perfect little nose and said, “Yeah, sorry about that. I'm here to help you too. But first, let's let you get cleaned up, then, we'll all sit down and talk.”
“And what if I don't want to talk? I want to go home. I don't want to “talk” to my captor and his “friends.”
“We'll get you home safely, I promise. Just give me this much and I'll get you wherever you need to go, unharmed.”
I wanted to scream again, but I controlled it. I walked faster and by the time we made it back to the little house, the...stuff I was covered with began to get hard and crusty. I was feeling sicker to my stomach by the minute. Chelsea opened the door and Chase was sitting there in a rocking chair, holding the baby. The little guy had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
I hated to admit it, but they were kind of cute.
“Go ahead and shower, Cheyenne. There should be everything you need in there. I have some clothes in the jeep. I'll get them for you.” I looked at Chelsea's small frame and raised an eyebrow. She smiled and said, “I'm sure I have something to fit you. Please though, don't take off again. I promise you'll be home very soon.”
I didn't respond to that. If it wasn't a matter of swimming through shit again only to get caught a second time, I might try it again. I went into the bathroom and had to pull the toilet out of the tub before starting the shower. Once the water warmed up, I got in with my clothes on first. I scrubbed my pants and blouse with soap and once they were halfway clean, I peeled them off and showered myself. It felt so good to wash the literal shit out of my hair and off my face. I stayed in the shower until every last drop of hot water was used up, and then I finally stepped out and began to dry off. There was a knock on the door when I was just about finished drying.
“It's Chelsea. I left the clothes on the bed.”
I didn't respond.
What was I going to do, thank her?
I wasn't thanking any of them, for any of this. I was getting angrier by the minute just thinking about it. Chase and Chelsea had not come here to save me. If that were the case, they would have brought the police.
They came here to save him...and that really pissed me off.
I finished drying off and went into the bedroom and found the clothes she'd left for me. There was a red and blue flannel shirt and a pair of gray sweat pants. Not exactly stylish, but warm, dry, and not covered in feces.
I put them on and then reluctantly, opened the bedroom door.
Chelsea had the baby in her lap now.
Chase was starting a fire in the fire place and Ridge was sitting on the couch with a sullen look on his face.
I avoided eye-contact with him and looked at Chelsea. “Okay. Can we get this over with so I can get home, please?”
“Sure,” she said, handing the baby back over to Chase.
“Will you have a seat?”
I looked at Ridge then, narrowing my eyes at him and then walking past him to sit down in the other chair.
I wasn't about to sit next to him on the couch. I sat down and folded my arms across my chest.
Chelsea looked at Ridge and then back to me and said, “You may not believe this, but Ridge is really a nice guy.”
I snorted and Chelsea actually smiled.
“I get that you're not going to believe that, but I promise you there's a lot more to him than what you've seen the past two days. What Ridge really is, is confused. He likes you, and he went about trying to get you to like him back, entirely the wrong way.”
“You think?”
She chuckled at that.
“I'm sorry. I wish this was easier to explain. Ridge was raised in a world where things were done much differently than we consider “normal”.
“Where?” I asked, “In the wild?”
Suddenly the smile was no longer on Chelsea's face.
I wasn't looking at Ridge but I could see him out of the corner of my eye and I saw him shift in his seat. A few seconds passed and she finally said, “Well to be honest, yes.”
I looked at him again.
He was looking at me with those intense hazel eyes of his, but he didn't speak. It was Chelsea who went on and I realized suddenly that she was as crazy as he was, and I was stupid for not taking off again when I had the chance.
“Ridge is a wolf-shifter, we all are.”
“Excuse me?”
“Most lay people think of us as werewolves. It's not quite the same thing...”
“Stop,” I said, putting my palms up. “Please stop. This is your excuse for this man kidnapping me? You're werewolves?”
“Shifters,” Chase said.
“Hush Chase,” Chelsea snapped at him.
“This is crazy.”
“I agree that it sounds crazy. I didn't believe it myself at first...”
“So, you're not a werewolf?” I couldn't even believe I was having this conversation. My head felt like it was going to explode.
“Yes, I'm a wolf-shifter too, but I wasn't always. I met my mates after they had been changed and...”
“Wait, whoa, this just gets crazier. Did you say “mates”?
“Yes. I have four mates.”
I couldn't help it at that point. I started laughing hysterically.
When I finally stopped, I looked at Ridge and said, “Man, can I pick them.”
“Cheyenne...” he started.
“No. I told Chelsea I'd hear her out. I don't want to hear anything else from you. Chelsea, I heard you out. Can I go now?”
“Well, there's the matter of what you're going to tell people. A lot of people are looking for you and probably very worried. They're going to want to know what happened to you. The police were called in from Bali today because it's been 48 hours...”
“What do you want me to tell them?” I asked. These people were genuinely crazy. At that point I would have promised them anything just to get the hell out of there.
“Maybe that you were drunk and you wandered too far from the club, and got lost?” I could tell by the look on her face that she realized how lame that story sounded. But it didn't matter, as soon as I was out of here, I was telling the police everything, before these crazy people hurt somebody.
“Sure, okay. Can I go now?”
“One more thing,” Chelsea said. “We're not bad people. We're not violent people. We just want to live our lives, raise our families and get along the way everyone else does. Ridge is learning new ways to live. Being human was a much smaller part of his life than being wolf was. In the wild if a wolf finds his mate, he just takes her. Ridge knows what he did was wrong though, and he won't bother you again, isn't that right, Ridge?”
We both looked at him. His eyes were on me. I hated that I still felt a tingle in my belly when he looked at me. I stifled a shudder and finally Chelsea repeated his name and he said, “Yes. Right.” He didn't sound convincing, but again, he wouldn't be running aroun
d free after I spoke to the police.
“Fine. Can I go now?”
“Chase?” I didn't even realize Chase left the room. I looked around when she called him and for a few seconds, I thought I was losing my own mind. A big, beautiful gray wolf sauntered into the room from the kitchen. I was sure my face must have been as white as a ghost and my jaw was dragging the floor.
Chelsea was looking at me and she said, “He won't hurt you, but I wanted to be sure before you went home and told your story, that you knew what you were dealing with.”
Suddenly I felt rage again.
She was threatening me.
“How dare you? You send Chase out of the room and he sends in your pet wolf so not only do you believe I'll buy into your threats but I'm an idiot as well...”
Chelsea was standing up as I was going off.
I saw her look at the wolf and then suddenly the strangest thing began to happen to her face. The bones seemed to be stretching and her muscles were rippling. I watched it like a train wreck, unable to turn away as white hair began to sprout all over her body. The whole process only took seconds, but I felt like I'd witnessed it in slow motion. Suddenly a white wolf was standing where Chelsea had been. I turned my head toward the gray wolf and that was when the scream escaped my throat.
Ridge
I thought Cheyenne was going to faint dead away.
I wouldn't have blamed her, having to look at Chase naked. He was whiter than Chelsea's fur. If I didn't know better I would think he hadn't seen the sun in years. Go figure, my mate would get to see him naked first. At least he's no competition.
He cupped his hands in front of his penis and said, “I'm sorry, Cheyenne, I'll put some clothes on.”
Cheyenne's breaths were fast and deep and her eyes were as wide as saucers.
I'm not sure she even heard Chase since she was staring at Chelsea.
Chelsea gave her a minute or two to look her over and then she shifted back into herself.
I automatically took the afghan off the couch and handed it to her. Chelsea is beautiful, but she doesn't belong to me and I shouldn't be looking at her like that. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and told Cheyenne,
“I'm sorry to frighten you, but there's no other way to prove that we're not crazy...we're wolves. Are you okay?”
Cheyenne looked like she didn't know if she should scream again, run, or cry. Instead, she nodded dumbly and after a few more seconds she said, “I won't tell anyone, I promise. Please, just let me go home.”
Chelsea nodded. “I'm sorry for all we've put you through. We'll take you home right now.”
I was surprised that Chelsea was going to let me anywhere near Cheyenne, so I wasn't surprised when I stood up and she said, “You can run home with Chase. I'll take her.”
I wanted to argue.
I desperately wanted a chance to be close to Cheyenne again so that I could see if that spark was still as strong as it was. But, I knew I'd only be getting myself into deeper trouble. I just nodded at Chelsea and tried to look at Cheyenne, but she wouldn't look at me still. I left her there with Chelsea and went into the kitchen where Chase had gone. I wasn't sure what would happen from here on out, but I was sure that if they forced me to stay away from her, they might have to put me in a cage to make sure I complied.
6
Ridge
“I've never been into humans,” the old wolf said as he stuffed another handful of chips in his mouth.
They'd picked up the old wolf around the same time they found Chase. He never told me exactly how old he was, but if I had to guess I'd say around eighty.
We were on a stake out, on a Friday night.
For the past three weeks, I hated Friday nights. I longed to see Cheyenne again and thinking about those nights at the club, just sitting and talking to her and gazing into her beautiful eyes was killing me. Before I even realized what I was doing, I started to talk about her...and I even told my partner for the night, an old guy named Granite, that I'd lost my mind, drugged and kidnapped her.
The rest of the pack didn't know about all that.
The alphas had kept it all between us and I was grateful. As the days passed, I felt guiltier about what I had done. It was the way of my ancestors, but times had changed and I knew I had to grow and change along with them.
“So all these extra shifts you've been doing, and those toilets I saw you fixing on the compound...all that was your punishment for what you did?”
“Yeah. Extra shifts, less pay, dirty jobs and the threat of being expelled if anything like this ever happens again.”
It was infuriating to be told what to do like a child, but these were orders that I was afraid I couldn't afford to defy. Being a lone wolf is about as risky as things can get for one of us. We need our pack to sustain our lives and continue to hide our identities from the humans that would come at us with the figurative pitch forks and torches.
But sadly, if I thought there was any chance I'd still end up with Cheyenne I might take the risk.
I hated to give up, but she had been so incredibly freaked out that day three weeks ago when Chelsea took her home that I was sure she'd run screaming in the other direction if we ever came face to face. I suppose the good news was that she had made up a story about where she was those two days and as far as we could tell, she hadn't told a soul about us.
“I never really knew a human, before Chelsea, Clay, Will, Titan and Manny,” I told him, trying to think of something that would keep me from talking about her...and how badly I wanted her, still.
“I've known plenty of them,” Granite said. “There was this one hooker down in Memphis...human as they come, but this chick was into wolves. She used to give us a fifty percent discount if we'd agree to change for her before we left at the end of the night. I guess everybody has their preferences, and their fetishes.”
I chuckled and said, “So Granite, why don't you have a mate?”
“I had mine, son. My Racine and I were together for fifty years before our pack was discovered and we were forced out of Memphis. We lived for a while in the Black Hills, but the winters were hell and the pack was slowly dying off. Moved from there to Arkansas back in '95, but got caught up in a war between two packs and lost a bunch more of our younger people. Racine got sick there, got a bad case of Lyme disease.
Normally, our immune systems can fight off just about anything, but my sweet Racine was already up there for years and all the travels had caused her to lose a lot of weight...her poor body just couldn't handle all of it.
I lost her on the way to California.
By the time we got to Mexico it was only me and one of the pups left of the pack. We stowed away on a boat and ended up in Australia for a while.”
I didn't question what he was doing with the hooker in Memphis if he had, his “Racine,” not out loud anyways. “You have a pup?”
He looked sad as he said, “I did. You know Australia doesn't have any wolves, indigenous ones, anyways. So the dingoes weren't too happy to see us. The problem with the dingoes are how sneaky they are. The son of a bitches attacked us in our sleep, 8 of them. The boy was amazing. He fought off at least five of them on his own. When all was said and done, there were six dead dingoes and the other two ran off and didn't come back. We were both pretty torn up, but I've always healed quickly and I guess I just assumed the boy would too. He seemed to be healing, but one of his wounds got infected and within days, he was gone. After that I was just lost, wandering the world with no purpose...and then the Pack found me. I tell you boy, you don't ever want to go off alone. It's a harsh world we live in.”
I nodded.
I knew he was right, but at the same time I spent so much of my time feeling alone.
All I ever wanted was a family, besides my pack, a mate and some pups of my own. My thoughts were interrupted by the motion of the door we'd been watching all day.
It was finally swinging open.
We were hired by an insurance company that t
hought there was something fishy about a payout they'd recently made to a widow on the island. The police had done an investigation when the man's car went off the side of a cliff and ended in a fiery crash. His body was burned beyond recognition and he was declared dead. The insurance wrote a hefty check to the widow, and then almost immediately hired us.
According to Clay, they think the man faked his own death. We had been watching his widow for two weeks. She sure didn't seem to be grieving at all. She was busy all the time...spending all that money on having her home redecorated, buying a new car and a lot trips to the mainland to shop for designer clothes and jewelry. But, we hadn't seen any sign of her husband, or any man in her life...at first. Then one day when I was watching the house, the man who tended to the lawns and gardens arrived.
The problem was that he wasn't the same man we had photos of, the same man who had been doing it all along. He was heavier and older.
I pulled up the photo of McAvoy on my phone and started to compare the two. The caretaker had a thinner nose than McAvoy, different color hair and eyes and a scar on his cheek...but I would still swear it was the same man. I ran that by the alphas and after careful scrutiny of the photos, they all agreed.
It was a good day, I think I gained back some respect that I'd lost.
They didn't want to grab him up right away however. They wanted to watch him, and the wife for a while longer and see what kind of case we could build against them, a tight one, that their money wouldn't help them out of.
So tonight, Chelsea and Grayson were watching her, and Granite and I, him. We had found out he was staying in a warehouse down near the docks that was owned by his ex-partner, but so far, he went straight to the warehouse after his days at the mansion and never left until the next day when he headed back over and pretended to be a landscaper. At least not until tonight.
