Cole and His Dog

by Edward Kendrick

  “I’m trying to figure it out. Not one of the pack.” She frowned thoughtfully, glancing at Jenna in question. “Do you know who I mean?”

  Jenna shook her head, asking Ky, “Who are you and why are you here? I mean…Okay. You were looking for the pack, right?”

  “Yes and no. We wanted to find it, hoping we’d be able to talk to someone. We have some questions that need answering. To be honest, running into you two was dumb luck. I was afraid the only ones out and about would be males, from what I’ve heard about the way Marsham runs the pack.”

  “We are allowed out, to stretch our legs,” Jenna replied sourly. She pointed to a rickety-looking set of stairs along the far wall. “Let’s go upstairs, where we’ll be more comfortable.”

  The others followed her, one at a time so as not to test the strength of the steps. When they were on the second floor, she took them into a room at the back of the building. To Cole’s surprise, there were two reasonably comfortable chairs and a sofa.

  As soon as everyone was settled, the men in the chairs, Jenna reiterated her question. “Why are you here?”

  “We’re looking for Cole’s mother,” Ky replied.

  Jenna turned her attention to Cole. “She abandoned you? Doesn’t your father know where she is?”

  “She didn’t abandon me. Not the way you’re implying. She left me at a sanctuary. At least we think it was her. I have no idea who my father is, although I know about someone who claims he is.”

  Jenna shot a look at Venus, who nodded. “There are rumors,” Jenna told the men, “that our Alpha, Marsham, is hunting for a boy he says is destined to rule the pack on his death.”

  “A hundred years or more from now,” Ky replied dryly. “And only if this boy can defeat anyone else who thinks they should be the new Alpha?”

  Venus shook her head. “Much sooner than that. Osmond, that’s his given name within the pack, although he calls himself Oliver as a human. Anyway, Osmond is dying. Only two other pack members know this.” She smiled. “Well, four if you count Jenna and me. I found out because the Beta who considers me his mate mentioned it in an unguarded moment of…passion, shall we say.”

  Cole whistled softly, glancing at Ky. “That might explain things. But why would he think I’m the son he’s looking for? Look at me. I couldn’t beat an angry cat, to say the least anyone who wanted to take over the pack.”

  “I think it might come down to who you mother is, or was,” Jenna told him. “You’re certain you don’t know? She didn’t leave any clue went she left you at this sanctuary you mentioned?”

  “She may have,” Ky replied before Cole could.

  ::Before you tell them,:: Cole said, ::how do you know we can trust them? What if they were outside so we’d see them and…take it from there, I guess.::

  ::Good point,:: Ky agreed. “Jenna, Venus, would you please drop your shields?”

  “Don’t you trust us?” Jenna said in apparent dismay.

  “Would you, if you were us?”

  She smiled. “Probably not. There. Better?”

  Cole couldn’t read her thoughts, but he was certain Ky could, since he’d done the same to him often enough—at least the surface ones. Ky had assured him that he wasn’t a deep mind-reader and Cole believed him.

  Ky concentrated on Jenna, then Venus, saying, “Think of anything but Marsham.”

  Venus snorted. “That’s an old trick.”

  “One that works, however,” Ky replied. “You hate him that much?” he asked quietly, a few moments later.

  “I do,” Jenna replied. “He thinks there’s only one reason to have females in the pack—to increase its size. We’re chattel, to be used by any male in the pack as he wishes.”

  “I’m lucky, I suppose,” Venus said. “Quint, the Beta I mentioned who considers himself my mate, protects me from the other males. Not that it saves me from him, but one male is better than many.”

  ::I believe them,:: Ky said.

  ::From their expressions, and the hate in their voices, so do I,:: Cole replied.

  “All right, ladies, you pass,” Ky told them.

  “Thanks,” Jenna replied sarcastically.

  “Sorry, but I had to do it. Go ahead and shield again.” Ky gave them time to do so, then said, “Do the names Rilla or Hallam mean anything to either of you?”

  Venus hissed in a breath.

  “What?” Cole asked, hope and fear warring in that one word.

  “I knew Rilla and her father. I met them when Quint took me with him to visit their pack, a little over eighteen years ago. Hallam was the Alpha. A wonderful man.” Her mouth tightened in anger. “You have to understand, Marsham is a coward—muscular, handsome, and autocratic, but a coward when it came to challenging anyone who is older and stronger than him, which Hallam was. Instead, Marsham sent Quint as what he insisted on calling ‘an ambassador.’ Ambassador my ass. Quint was supposed to find something, anything that Marsham could use to force Hallam to merge his pack with ours.”

  “Rilla,” Cole whispered.

  “Yes. But…” Venus almost smiled. “She was young and beautiful. You have her eyes, Cole. That’s why I thought you looked familiar, I suppose. Anyway, Hallam was not as stupid as Marsham hoped. He quickly figured out what Quint—and Marsham—was after. He treated us well while we were there, which gave me a chance to get to know Rilla. Just before Quint and I left, Hallam had a private conversation with Quint. When it was over, Quint was steaming. He swore Hallam would regret his actions.”

  “What happened after that?” Cole asked.

  “I don’t know for certain.” Venus smiled wryly. “After all, I’m a mere female and not privy to all the facts. What I do know is, Marsham left a week after Quint and I returned, taking two of his enforcers with him. Quint let it drop, in an unguarded moment, that Marsham planned on kidnapping Rilla and holding her until Hallam agreed to step down as Alpha and turn the pack over to Marsham.”

  “Shit,” Cole spat out. “Then I am his son.”

  “No. When Marsham returned, he was furious—ranting to Quint about how Hallam had sent Rilla away and wouldn’t reveal where she was.” Venus leaned over to take Cole’s hand. “She was mated, and three months pregnant, when she left,” she said softly. “Marsham did everything in his power to find out where she’d gone, including capturing and torturing her mate.”

  “Bastard!”

  “Oh, yes. Marsham is definitely that,” Jenna agreed.

  Venus continued. “Rilla’s mate died, without telling Marsham what he wanted to know, and by that point, Hallam had secretly moved his pack.”

  “Do you know where?” Cole asked.

  “I don’t. I presume somewhere very far away.”

  “With the pack gone, why is Marsham looking for me now? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Perhaps it does,” Ky said. “It could have taken him this long to discover where Hallam’s pack is, and now he plans to get his revenge for Hallam’s foiling his plans.”

  “Using me, because I’m Hallam’s grandson. But why is Marsham claiming I’m his son?”

  “I told you why,” Jenna replied, “He’s dying. He wants to leave the pack in the hands of someone he can manipulate into leading it the way he does. Being Hallam’s grandson, and the son of Hallam’s top Beta, Marsham probably figures you would be strong enough to do that.” She looked him over and shrugged. “Anyway, at this point, he’s playing the grieving father whose mate deserted him before their son was born. He says he discovered that you’re somewhere in Denver, and he’s sent out some of his enforcers to find you.”

  “If you think the pack members should have known that was a lie,” Venus added, “they didn’t, because, right after returning without her, Marsham announced publicly that he had mated with Rilla. He told us her father had refused to let her come back with him until his grandson was born. At that point, Marsham said, the two packs would merge.”

  “Your pack bought into that bullshit?” Cole asked in disbelief.
>
  “He can be very persuasive when he wants to be,” Jenna replied. “When she didn’t join him as promised, he claimed that she had gone against her father’s wishes and run off to be with, to quote, a bastard who had convinced her he loved her.”

  Cole turned to Venus, asking angrily, “Why didn’t you call him a liar? You knew the truth.”

  “I value my life. If I’d done that, Marsham would have thrown me to the dogs—quite literally. I’d have become the bitch for every male in the pack and no one, not even Quint, would have done anything to stop them.”

  Cole got up, going over to hug Venus. “I’m sorry. I should have figured that out for myself.”

  She hugged him back, saying, “It’s okay. It’s how life is—in our pack.”

  “The females should rebel!”

  “Should and will are two different things,” Jenna told him. “Unless we left the pack en masse, our lives would become more of a hell than they are already. Two females tried running away a couple of years ago. They were captured, brought back, and then tortured and killed as a lesson to the rest of us.”

  “Ladies,” Ky said. “I hate to break in, but I think it’s time for you to get back. You’ve been gone long enough as it is.”

  “Yeah,” Jenna agreed. “Don’t worry, though. If anyone missed us, we’ll tell them we went for a walk and got lost.”

  Ky cocked an eyebrow. “And didn’t teleport home?”

  Venus snickered. “We’re dumb females. We just kept walking, hoping to find our way back. Trust me, the way the males feel about us, they’ll believe it.”

  “Can they come home with us, Ky? They’d be safe,” Cole said. He hated the idea of them returning to the pack. He’d grown fond of them, even in the short time they’d been together.

  Jenna shook her head. “We appreciate the offer, but honestly we’re safer where we are. If we left, and he found us…Well, I told you what happened to the last two females who did that. Maybe, someday, after Marsham dies, we’ll come looking for you.”

  “Promise?”

  Jenna smiled. “Promise.”

  With that said, they teleported away. Seconds later, Cole and Ky did as well, returning to where they’d left the car.

  * * * *

  They got their things from the motel, then Cole and Ky were on the road back to Denver. For a while, Cole kept looking over his shoulder, afraid Marsham or one of his enforcers had discovered they had been in Grand Junction and might be following them. He eventually convinced himself that hadn’t happened, relaxed, and said, “If Marsham really is dying, this should be over soon.”

  “True,” Ky agreed. “However, until that happens, he’s going to double-down on finding you.”

  “Aren’t I the lucky one.”

  Ky took his gaze off the road long enough to give him an amused look. “Not really. I take that back. You are lucky, in that he didn’t find out where you were until after you came of age. Any earlier and he could have swooped in, convinced the Williamses that he was your father, and dragged you back to the pack to be—” he made one-handed finger quotes, “—properly trained to take over the pack when he died. He’d also have used you to bring Hallam to heel, and forced him to submit to his leadership.”

  “If we could find my grandfather…Maybe my mother’s with him.” That idea both elated and frightened Cole. What if she doesn’t want me?

  “I’ll have Larry do some searching,” Ky told him. “If Marsham has found him, for damned sure Larry can.”

  “I sure hope so.” For a few minutes they both were quiet, Ky concentrating on driving while Cole played everything they’d learned from Venus and Jenna over in his mind. Then he smiled. “I wonder if the people Marsham deals with in his human form know that he’s dying.”

  “I doubt it. If they did, the word would be all over the street. Stock in his hotels and casinos would have nosedived.”

  “You know that they haven’t?”

  Ky nodded. “Remember, I own an investment firm. After I found out Marsham and Hammar were one and the same, I flagged all of his properties.” He chuckled. “I actually suggested to a couple of my clients that they should buy stock in his hotels, a year or so ago, although I didn’t know it was him. I should call to let them know that now might be the time to sell.”

  “And tell them why.”

  “Not until we have something other than Venus’s word that he is dying.”

  “Well, find out.”

  Ky saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  “Smartass.” Cole almost smacked Ky’s shoulder, before deciding that might not be the greatest idea since they were going a good sixty miles-per-hour down the highway at the moment. “I wish Venus had said what Marsham’s dying from.”

  “It has to be something serious. Due to our healing powers, not much kills us in the way of diseases unless it’s cancer or some such.”

  “Our what? You mean that’s true, not a myth?”

  “Absolutely. If you get cut, or banged up, you’ll be fine the next morning. Well, unless the cut slices off, say, a hand. Then you’re up shit creek.”

  Cole snickered. “I’ll try to avoid that. What about tattoos?”

  “Now why would you want one?”

  “I was thinking of getting a heart on my bicep with our initials.” Cole smirked when Ky looked at him in disbelief. “Kidding. Kidding.”

  “Have you been hitting the booze when I wasn’t looking? You’re wired all of a sudden.”

  “I’m happy, I guess. That hasn’t happened much recently. Finding out who my real mother is, and that Marsham’s not my father.” Cole spread his hands.

  Ky reached over to give his leg a squeeze. “I understand. It’s still not over, but we are getting there.”

  Cole put his hand over Ky’s, grinning. “And then I get you.”

  Ky winked. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

  Chapter 12

  Cole and Ky arrived at Domicile mid-morning Tuesday. Larry was busy, so they hung out in the rec room until he was free. Norm came in, looking at Cole in question. “I heard you moved out.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, hoping Norm wouldn’t want to know where.

  Norm didn’t. Instead, he asked, “Where’s Bull? I thought you never went anywhere without him.”

  “Normally, I don’t, but he ate something that didn’t agree with him,” Cole quickly improvised. “Since Ky offered to give me a ride over here, we decided having a puking dog in the car was not a good idea.”

  “Poor pup.”

  Ky chuckled. “More like poor horse, as Cole said one of the guys called him.”

  “No kidding,” Norm agreed.

  Larry came in at that moment. When Ky said they were there to see him, he suggested they go into his office. “Anything new?” he asked once they were seated around his desk.

  “A lot, and we’ve got a couple of things we need you to research.”

  “Okay. Fill me in.”

  Ky did, with Cole’s help. When they finished, Ky told Larry, “First, I need you to find out if Marsham really is sick enough that he’s going to die soon.”

  “All right. What else?”

  “See if you can locate Hallam’s pack. They could be anywhere in the country, or the world I guess, so it won’t be easy.”

  Larry nodded. “Since there are a lot more wolf shifters than Bullmastiffs, it might not be that hard, once I get the word out.”

  “That’s what I was hoping. Warn them, though, that the pack may be keeping a real low profile. We have the feeling Marsham wants to get his hands on Cole to get his revenge on Hallam and Rilla—even more than his possible desire to train Cole to take over the pack when he dies. And that’s presupposing what we were told was the truth—about his dying, that is.”

  “So that should be on the top of my agenda?” Larry asked.

  “Yeah. If he’s not, that changes things.”

  “Meaning I might spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder,” Cole muttered.

  �
�Are you still working at the restaurant?” Larry asked him.

  Cole said “Yes,” at the same time Ky said, “Not until we know it’s safe.” Ky then went on to tell Larry about the two men who almost got their hands on Cole Sunday night.

  “I’m not going to desert Mike,” Cole protested. “Besides, I like the job. If I quit, then what?”

  “We’ll talk to Adam, since he’s Mike’s friend,” Ky said. “I’m pretty sure he can convince Mike to give you a leave of absence because…you have to check out a couple of colleges you’re interested in.”

  “Mike will never buy that.”

  “Why not? It’s going to happen sometime, anyway. You’ll just let him think it’s sooner than later—with Adam’s help.”

  Cole sighed. “I suppose that will work, as long as he doesn’t fire me on the spot.”

  “He likes you. He won’t.”

  “Everyone likes you, Cole.” Larry smiled. “You’ve managed to make several friends since you hit the streets.”

  “It’s my winsome charm.”

  “Winsome?” Ky’s lips quirked up. “I think females are winsome. Men are personable, engaging, chipper…”

  “Chipper charm? How alliterative.”

  “Guys,” Larry said. “Can you continue this somewhere else? I have to get to work if you want me to find all the information you’re looking for.”

  Cole sobered. “Thanks for doing this. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

  Larry nodded. “Don’t thank me until I’ve actually gotten some results. Now, git.”

  “Gitting, um, going.”

  They all laughed, then Ky and Cole took off for The Haven.

  * * * *

  “That’s quite a story,” Adam said when Ky finished filling him in on what they’d learned from Jenna and Venus. “Are you certain they were telling the truth?”

  “I think so,” Ky replied. “We’ll know for certain after Larry checks on the state of Marsham’s health.”

  “If he is dying, then what?”

  Ky’s smile was evil as he replied, “Then I get to screw up his final days by putting the word out that he, meaning Hammar, is in no shape to run his various companies, and that he hasn’t made any contingency plans to keep them going.”