Rogue Huntress

by Aimee Easterling

  That issue, at least, was easily dealt with. “Here, catch,” I said, tossing the last bite of cake into the air and effectively taking the pressure off myself in the process. To no one’s surprise, my cousins leapt upward as vigorously as a mob of spinsters fighting over a wedding bouquet, all interest in me fleeing as quickly as it had begun.

  Well, they all lost interest except Becca. My favorite cousin continued peering at me with pained eyes, our current lack of a pack bond clearly having come across as a rejection of the relationship we’d spent our entire lifetime forging. “I was only joking,” the kid murmured almost too quietly for me to hear.

  “Of course you were joking,” I answered, twirling Becca around the way I used to when she was only waist high and spent six months refusing to wear anything other than a polyester Disney-princess dress. I could do nothing about our lack of a pack bond, but I could make an effort to lighten the mood.

  “And it’ll probably be a joke too,” I continued, “when Dad short-sheets Sebastien’s bed or balances a bucket of molasses over his doorway to inaugurate him into the family. We need to protect Sebastien from the terrors of Wolfie’s welcome. Who’s in?”

  And above the howls and cheers of agreement, I almost felt my connection to Becca click back into place. Almost...but not quite.

  Chapter 10

  It turned out that Sebastien didn’t require rescue after all. Because by the time I’d found some clothes and led a stampede of cousins into the den a few minutes later, Uncle Chase had interrupted the prior tête-à-tête to drag my father into a discussion about the former’s favorite topic—repair of decrepit vehicles.

  “I can probably swap out a tire from the pickup plus one from Cherry’s SUV then drive the Blazer into town for replacements,” my uncle was saying. “We’ll have to wait on bus tires, though. And we’ll need to make two trips.”

  “Not good to leave the pack stranded with no avenue of escape,” Wolfie growled, his protective instincts having kicked firmly back into gear despite our current safe haven. I understood now why he’d dragged our entire clan along on this mission. Dad wasn’t willing to let anyone out of his sight in case danger came to call in his absence.

  To everyone’s surprise, the sole human present was the one to come up with a feasible workaround for the tires he’d blown out himself. “Or you could just use Malachi’s SUV,” Sebastien suggested, pulling the keys out of his pocket and dangling them helpfully in midair. “If you remove the back seats, there should be enough space to fit a dozen tires inside....”

  I held my breath, knowing the pack was still just as raw as I was over Malachi’s death. But, to my surprise, my mate continued gauging the mood of the room as well as any born werewolf. “He was a good man,” Sebastien murmured, shoulders bowing ever so slightly in very real grief. “I barely knew him, but I suspect Malachi would have wanted his vehicle to help protect his pack.”

  And that was all it took to break through the charged emotions gathering in the air. “I call shotgun!” a cousin pronounced. Then, one after another, each youngster dove into an attempt to outbid the others.

  “Heck no,” Becca’s older sister interjected. “We need to pick up food too and you’re the last person anyone wants in charge of that list. Remember when you tried to make hamburger helper with canned salmon and produced something even Roger wouldn’t touch?”

  “Hey,” Roger complained. “I resemble that remark.”

  But we didn’t get to hear more from the self-proclaimed garbage-disposal unit because another cousin interrupted loudly. “I forgot my cell-phone charger,” Geoff argued. “And I don’t trust any of you morons to pick out a replacement that won’t blow out my battery. So I have to be the one to go.”

  “Are you kidding me?” a fourth cousin added. “Uncle Chase needs someone strong enough to help load the tires.” Then, just in case we didn’t get the point, the male in question flexed his muscles and posed cockily. “That person is me.”

  Before the room could devolve into an endless round of “Me, me, me!”, Uncle Chase rolled his eyes then scanned the upraised faces. “Becca,” he decided after due consideration. “Our newest wolf deserves a treat.”

  And no one could argue with that. Muttering only a little bit, my band of unruly cousins wandered away to wreak havoc upon someone else. Which left me alone with my father, my mother, and my not-quite-mate.

  “COME HERE, BUTTERCUP,” Dad said once the murmur of bickering voices had receded. He patted the sofa cushion beside him, and I willingly slid into the gap with parents on one side and professor on the other. Because, yes, I was bright enough to realize I was about to be faced with an unasked-for lecture. But being surrounded by chosen pack mates was worth any amount of heavy-handed parental advice.

  Only Dad didn’t start in on the birds and the bees...or whatever version of that talk was appropriate for an adult daughter choosing an unlikely mate well after her twenty-fifth birthday. Instead, he drew out the tablet that had been tucked between the couch cushions and tapped an icon to pull up the scene of my brother’s evasion of arrest.

  Details that had been impossible to make out on my cell phone grew abundantly clear on the larger screen. And I got the distinct impression from the hunter-like cant of his head that Dad had perused this video so many times he’d come up with a clue suggesting where we might next search for my missing brother.

  I wanted that information badly. And yet...I found myself strangely disturbed by this clear evidence of Dad’s unrequested intrusion into my life. “You recorded our conversation,” I said slowly, thinking of the many times Derek had begged me not to share his particulars with adopted parents who he swore bore him ill will. I disagreed with Derek’s assessment of Wolfie’s motivation, but seeing my brother’s image cradled in Dad’s broad hands sent a shiver down my spine nonetheless.

  Rather than answering my statement with words, Wolfie merely raised one eyebrow and hummed an affirmative. His wolf could likely smell my ambivalence but at the same time would have no idea why I might be angered by such obviously well-intentioned assistance. After all, we were pack. Of course my father wanted to help.

  A week ago, I wouldn’t have understood this newfound need for independence either. But now, it took serious effort to uncurl clenched fists. And I found myself repeating Dad would never work against me over and over inside my own head, trying without much success to force rational thought into the disappointment that swirled like a blender within my gut.

  In the end, it was Sebastien who calmed my confusion and soothed my inner beast. Reaching over to take one of my hands in both of his, he healed my shattered equilibrium with warm contact alone. Then, murmuring a question to my father, he brought us all back on track. “Can we zoom in further?”

  “Sure can,” Dad answered, as glad as I was to move past our unspoken struggle for power. “Watch.”

  Four heads leaned in around the tablet in tandem, then Wolfie’s fingers slid across the screen to magnify the view. And this time, I realized what my father had meant for me to see. When Man in Black’s face materialized at the end of the video file, I ignored the government agent and focused on my brother’s barely visible figure instead. Derek was poised on the rooftop, ready to flee but seemingly waiting for a cue before he made his escape. The view in the video was grainy and hard to make out, but it almost looked like Derek’s lips were moving. Looked like perhaps he was hanging back in an attempt to relay a message down the phone line....

  “Meet you at Mom’s,” my mate murmured from my opposite side. Then, when I cocked my head in question, he elaborated. “That’s what your brother was saying. So, maybe we should all head back to your home base, Mrs. Wilder-Young, and wait for Derek there?”

  Only none of the rest of us was listening any longer. The blood had drained from Mom’s face as soon as Sebastien spoke. Then Dad’s wolf began pushing through his skin too quickly for human clothing to handle. Within seconds, I shared the sofa with two growling canines and a human
college professor who’d just seen more of my parents’ bare flesh than any of us had counted on.

  “I take it Terra isn’t the mother Derek was referring to,” Sebastien said carefully, his gaze never wavering from my father’s yellow eyes.

  And, yes, Dad’s wolf was ominous in both size and demeanor. His ruff was raised, his fangs bared. But as I eased myself between parents and mate, I paid more attention to Terra than to Wolfie. The latter might be emitting a more overt display of warning, but Terra was the one who’d been harmed the worst by the pack princess who’d carried me within her womb.

  “I doubt it,” I answered once it became evident that neither parent planned to lunge for the professor’s throat in retaliation for events that had happened twenty-five years in the past. “I’m adopted, so I’ve never met the woman. But I assume Derek means our birth parent, Dad’s sister-in-law, the mother who abandoned me the day I was born.”

  Behind my back, Terra emitted the most bone-chilling growl I’d ever heard. Someone wasn’t on board with hunting down characters from my biological past. Which was a shame, because I had a feeling Sarah Young and I might soon meet for the very first time.

  Chapter 11

  Lack of a communication-enhancing pack bond had never felt quite so prohibitive as now, when I stood alone between two wolf-form shifters and a human who possessed no ability to defend himself from my angry kin. “Mom, Dad,” I started, holding out both hands while avoiding the shrill toll of a telephone that was attempting to catch all of our attention. “I know you’re upset. But I have to keep hunting Derek even if that trail leads me to Sarah’s doorstep. There’s no one else to help him. I’m all that he’s got....”

  I would have kept rambling, but the phone was more intent than I was upon being heard. The device had continued ringing long past the point where the caller should have been shunted over to voice mail. And the desperation implied by the repeated redial prompted me to ignore my parents’ snarling faces and turn in a circle in search of the ringing phone.

  Unfortunately, our pack was highly tech savvy and never went anywhere without multiple laptops, tablets, and cell phones trailing behind like digital members of the family. Which is how I came to be crouched down on the carpet, fingers fumbling through the pile of Mom’s discarded clothing in search of the ringing phone, when hairs began rising along the back of my neck. “Ember,” Sebastien warned from behind me, his word a mere whisper of sound.

  Looking up, I had to force myself not to spring backwards as Dad’s monstrous visage appeared no more than three feet away from my nose. The tremendous werewolf was stalking toward me on silent feet, something wild flaring behind his eyes. And, abruptly, I understood why other alphas gave Wolfie a wide berth despite the latter’s supposed submission to members of the regional Tribunal. In fact, my own inner wolf appeared to have lost sight of Dad’s paternal cuddliness and was now scratching at my insides while begging me to roll belly up in a cringing display of absolute appeasement.

  The idea had merit, but I couldn’t do it. Not if submitting to Wolfie’s ire meant accepting my own inability to protect Derek’s skin. Instead, I stood my ground while Dad’s ruff rose higher and higher, fighting against my inner animal so she couldn’t force me to cave.

  In the end, neither of us got our way. Instead, Sebastien ignored the dictates of good sense, walking between wolf and prey until tender human skin separated me from my snarling father. “Sir,” he said calmly. “Is that your phone?”

  Because throughout our prior standoff, relentless ringing had continued to intrude upon the scene. Which left me wondering—who could need one of my parents so desperately while at the same time being unable to simply run into the den and talk to them in person? After all, our entire pack was here, safely sheltered beneath the Pinnacle roof....

  To my relief, something about Sebastien’s calmness must have gotten through to Dad’s human half. Because the latter hesitated only a moment before releasing me from his spell and reaching over to paw through his discarded clothing instead. Then a smartphone was tumbling out of Wolfie’s abandoned jeans’ pocket while the male in question attempted to turn the device on with his slick lupine nose.

  The nose-on-phone technique wasn’t working. But Sebastien had effectively popped the bubble of aggression sufficiently so I felt comfortable squatting down to help Wolfie out. One swipe revealed my uncle’s name, and a weight rolled off my shoulders as I imagined Chase’s level-headed input on the issue that had so profoundly divided me from my parents. Avuncular good sense was exactly what we needed at the present moment.

  Which is why I was smiling when I accepted the call. “Hey, Uncle Chase. What’s up?” I said with real warmth. I couldn’t imagine what the male might need after having only been gone for fifteen or twenty minutes. But I could see why he might opt to run the dinner menu by the pack in lieu of bringing home supplies that would turn him into the butt of an endless string of good-spirited ribbing....

  Only the voice that emerged from the speaker wasn’t my uncle’s. Nor was the caller interested in discussing cookery. “Just the traitor I was looking for,” Dakota murmured, her voice an almost feline purr of satisfaction. “Ember Wilder-Young. You’re surprisingly easy to track down.”

  TO MY DISGUST, I DROPPED the smartphone to the ground, shock turning already slick fingers nerveless and ungainly at what should have been a familiar task. The device bounced once before succumbing to gravity, only to be scooped up by my father’s suddenly human hand before it could touch down a second time.

  “Who are you?” Wolfie demanded, swiping rapidly at the touch screen until Dakota’s face popped into view. The female enforcer looked just as small and unassuming as she had inside the SHRITA compound when tricking me and killing dozens of humans without exhibiting a shred of remorse. And even though Sebastien and I had subsequently slaughtered her pack mates in an effort to ensure our own escape, the female’s warm expression now made her look like an old school buddy merely calling to catch up.

  “Who I am is unimportant,” Dakota countered, the view shifting as she turned the phone away from her face to take in a pitted metal wall. Vaguely, I noted that she must have been waiting for us to enable video from the very beginning. Because now that her audience’s undivided attention was secured, Dakota launched into a carefully choreographed display intended to shock us all to our very core.

  Dakota’s own foot was the first thing that came into focus. Long leather boots encased her calves and ended in hard-pointed tips. And for a moment, I thought Dakota had fumbled the phone the same way I had...until that boot swung back then contacted sharply with the huddled figure curled into a ball at her feet.

  Becca. My cousin’s lupine face was bloodied and swollen, a thin thread of a whimper emerging from her throat. Dakota had clearly decided the youngster was too terrified to bother restraining, because the young wolf shivered as she lay on the hard metal floor without so much as a collar to hold her in place.

  Chase hadn’t gotten off so easily. The phone angle shifted again, and this time I could see my uncle trussed like a turkey as he stood against the wall with a noose tightly cinched around his throat. If Chase shifted into his wolf in an attempt to flee, his shorter lupine body would hang itself to death rather than wriggling out of the ropes that bound him. Or at least so Dakota apparently intended to be the case.

  “What I want,” Dakota continued from behind the phone as the scene panned back to my terrified cousin’s furry face, “is simple.”

  I shook my whole body in an attempt to clear my head. My opponent had given us just enough time to understand the horror of the occasion but not enough time to dream up any solutions. Which was fine. I knew what Dakota was after and I was entirely willing to take the fall for the sake of my innocent uncle and cousin.

  “You want me,” I agreed, stepping into my father’s personal space so the phone was sure to pick up my voice. “You want to trade me for my pack mates. Okay, I agree. When and where?”

&
nbsp; Dad reached out and placed one hand on my shoulder, the contact buoying me up despite the sure knowledge of what was to come. Dakota would take me back to her masters, would throw me at the feet of the local Tribunal, then they would execute me for my crimes. The only question was—would the alphas in question kill me slowly or snap my neck quickly in deference to my powerful father?

  But I was wrong. “You have been granted a stay of execution,” Dakota grumbled, her voice—for the first time—filling with disgust. “Temporarily at least. Killing your own cousin and half of my pack apparently pales in comparison to your brother’s crimes.”

  I didn’t bother arguing that I hadn’t been the one to set up the bomb that blew Malachi to smithereens. Because Dakota was right. I was responsible for my cousin’s behavior and my cousin was now dead. Therefore, all of the crimes she listed could indeed be laid at my doorstep.

  “I’m listening,” I said, unsure where the other female was taking us.

  “Then listen harder,” she retorted, the sting of an alpha compulsion biting into my skin despite the technological barriers that stood between us. “Find your brother. Bring him to me by tomorrow at noon. And I might consider letting this miniature lawbreaker go. If you fail...” She shrugged, a yelp from Becca clear evidence that Dakota’s words had teeth. “...then I’ll deal with this puppy and come after you. Either way, your time is officially up.”

  Chapter 12

  There was no discussion of alternatives, no attempt to think of a way out of Dakota’s trap. Earlier, both parents had been united in their unwillingness to send me to “Mom’s” house. But with both Becca and Chase’s lives hanging in the balance, the mad rush to the driveway lacked a single dissenting voice.