by Petra Landon
“I thought …” She stopped, reminded that she would be trespassing into gray territory.
“Yes, I know what you thought.” His voice was very even.
Excuse me, how am I supposed to know that you met her out in the lot?
Unaccountably relieved at not stepping on Elisabetta’s toes, Tasia let herself relax to watch the night fly by. The sports car zipped around, purring up the hilly embankments and narrow winding roads powerfully.
“Hawk will rue the day he’s indiscreet about my personal life again” Raoul remarked into the silence, his eyes on the road. “But he did read me accurately.”
Tasia’s eyes flashed to him. She had not expected any candidness from him on this particular topic.
“I never get involved in the Pack. It’s a principle I always abide by.”
I know. You date humans. You told Sienna that when she asked you.
The car slid to a stop at a stop sign. He turned to her, the gold eyes glittering. “And, if I were ever make an exception, it would not be for Elisabetta.”
“Why not?” The words poured out of Tasia, driven by a mix of curiosity and astonishment.
“Because Elisabetta doesn’t want me.”
“Yes, she does. She’s always hanging around you.”
He looked astonished. “Hanging around me” he repeated incredulously.
“You know what I mean” she muttered sheepishly. “She’s interested in you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “She’s interested in the Alpha Protector of the Northern California Pack. Not Raoul Merceau.”
Tasia stared at him, her eyes wide — this she had not expected.
“Elisabetta is attracted to power. She craves it. An Alpha is a powerful beast.” He shifted into gear to pull the car forward.
Tasia stared at him speechlessly. Despite his lone wolf persona, he read people well. He had absolutely nailed Elisabetta.
“I didn’t become Alpha to have power over others.” He was blunt. “I did it to be the master of my own destiny. No one commands me.”
Much later, as they approached the Golden Gate Bridge, he asked “Did your friend enjoy the party?”
Tasia went down the list in her mind — there had been a few she counted friends at the party tonight.
“Which one?” she inquired eventually.
“The one whose presence caused a flutter tonight.”
“Caro” she breathed.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I hope she wasn’t overwhelmed by the Shifter crowd.”
“Caro is never overwhelmed by anything” Tasia said promptly. “I rather think she took the murmurs in stride.” She turned to him. “Were you surprised to see her tonight?”
“A little” he admitted. “I gather she was Hawk’s guest?”
“Yes.”
So, at least, he’d guessed correctly. Tasia had realized earlier tonight that, since they had all entered as a group, the guests at the party had been unclear about whose guest Caro was.
“You were not too shocked, I think?” There was an unusual note of constraint in his voice.
The note puzzled Tasia. “Sara and I’ve long suspected Hawk’s interest in Caro” she answered candidly. “Although we weren’t sure how the Pack would take it.”
This time, it was his turn to interpret the subtext of her words. “If by the Pack you mean me, witchling, I’ll reiterate that I never interfere in the personal lives of my Shifters. The only exception is if it directly affects the Pack.” He paused, intent on driving his point home. “Who Hawk takes to a party thrown by his grandfather is none of my business” he stated firmly.
Tasia, who had never expected the Alpha to concern himself with such petty matters, remarked quietly “I did mean the Pack per se. Not you.”
“Good.” He swerved into a side street, turning off the main thoroughfare that still crawled with vehicles this late in the night. “Mingling with other Chosen is good for the Pack. We need to be confronted with our tendency to isolate ourselves.”
Companiable silence reigned in the car. The side streets were quiet, as the Alpha had guessed. Tasia relaxed to muse on what he had said.
“What the hell” he muttered under his breath.
Tasia peered ahead to see the silhouette of a garbage truck loom before them. It blocked the intersection. On the narrow street, it would be hard to go around it.
“Hold on.” He braked to a stop a few yards from the truck. Unlike the main road, the side streets, mostly residential, were deserted. It was why he had picked this route.
“Alright?” he asked Tasia, his eyes on the truck blocking their path.
“Yes.”
Something didn’t add up here, Raoul realized almost immediately. His Shifter senses told him that there were men in the truck. Yet, they made no move to allow him passage through or to explain why the truck blocked the intersection. As the premonition of danger kicked into gear, Tasia turned to him urgently.
“There are Chosen in the truck” she whispered, her own radar tingling uncontrollably.
He reached for the gear shift. “How many?”
“Four. No, five.”
“Get down and stay down” he directed calmly. If this was an ambush and bullets started flying, they’d do no damage to a Shifter. She, notwithstanding her magic, was frailer.
Unclipping her seat belt, Tasia slid down her seat with some difficulty, as he revved the engine. “They’re wiz …”
Her words were drowned out by the hum of a pinging sound, followed by the soft thud of the Alpha’s shoulder slamming back into his seat.
He cursed softly. Tasia, doubled down awkwardly, attempted to glance at him.
“Keep your head down” he said sharply. “They’re shooting at us.”
Tasia moved hastily to tuck herself even more snugly in the space between the dashboard and her seat. It was a tight fit even for a petite body like hers.
“Shooting at us” she repeated. There was alarm in her voice.
She felt the car move violently.
“Bullets won’t injure me” he said brusquely, just as a hail of pings rent the air.
Bullets tore into him in quick succession, tearing through the windshield and the window where Tasia crouched on the floor. The deluge of bullets pinned him to his seat.
“Fuck” he swore, under his breath. Should have just backed away, he admonished himself. Now, they were stuck, with the witchling exposed.
Raoul abandoned the attempt to flee, fighting the weight of bullets pinning him to his seat. Throwing off his seat belt, he flung himself over Tasia, trying to shield her from the barrage being shot into the car. Not a moment too soon, as the window on the passenger side shattered with a loud crack and a hail of shards rained down on them. Using his inhuman strength to crush down the gear box, he curled himself over her where she crouched to protect her from the shower of glass and bullets.
“Hold on” he muttered. “I’ll get us out.”
Raoul recognized the mess they were in. He couldn’t fight the men, not while they kept shooting at Tasia. Without her to protect, he’d have a free hand. Instead, all he could hope for was that they’d run out of bullets or that someone in one of the houses would note the gunfight, despite the silencers, and call the cops.
Terrified as she was, Tasia felt a sense of calmness pervade her, even as bullets rained around them. The Alpha was one of the most resourceful and powerful Chosen she knew, and she was not exactly without power, should it come to it.
Then, a trickle of something sticky slid down his shoulder to drip onto her. Blood, she guessed immediately.
“You’re bleeding” she cried, just as the big body over her shook, shuddering with agony as poison spread in him.
He shouldn’t be bleeding like this. His Shifter metabolism should not allow it.
Tasia felt the first spurt of panic blossom in her.
“Silver” he muttered through gritted teeth, his breath coming in pained gasps. “They’re shooting me up with
silver.”
“Silv...”
It was all she had time for as a brilliant flash lit up the car and everything went dark.
Chapter 11
Tasia’s nightmare plays out in technicolor
Duncan glanced at his watch for the fifth time that morning. “Hmm, it’s not like Raoul to be this tardy.”
“Alph’s probably sleeping in” Hawk countered good-humoredly. “After a late night at the party.”
Duncan, who knew that the Alpha had left the party relatively early, frowned.
“Have you talked to Tasia, Hawk? Raoul gave her a ride back to the Lair last night.”
“Nope, haven’t seen her this morning. Shall I go check on her, Duncan?” Hawk was not particularly worried.
Duncan hesitated, a vague uneasiness fueled by Raoul’s uncharacteristic tardiness prompting him. “If you would, Hawk.”
“Be right back.”
Duncan checked his phone for the umpteenth time, hoping for a message or a call from the Alpha.
Ten minutes later, Hawk barged into the Pack Room, his expression alarmed. “She’s not here, Duncan.”
The English Shifter stood up, gesturing at Hawk to follow him. “Let’s take this to the Alpha’s Room.”
Once in the room, he called Joaquim to confirm that neither he nor Evgeny had escorted Tasia anywhere this morning. They had not. Duncan was confident that Tasia would not go anywhere without her Shifter escorts — she would never court danger with such a reckless act.
“Shall I check with Security for the gate logs?” Hawk inquired. “They’ll tell us when Tasia’s card was used.”
“Discreetly, Hawk.” Duncan’s voice was unusually somber.
Duncan spent the next few minutes trying the Alpha’s cell and landline unsuccessfully. Twenty minutes later, when Hawk confirmed that neither Tasia’s nor the Alpha’s card had been logged at the Lair gate last night, Duncan could no longer silence his inner voice. They were in seriously hot water. While Tasia with her kitty of deadly secrets would always be vulnerable, a missing Alpha was a problem of monumental proportions.
“Take Joaquim and follow the route from Atsá’s back to the Lair, Hawk” Duncan directed. “See if you can find any trace of them. Check the side roads — we’d have heard if anything went down on the main route.”
Hawk nodded, his young face unusually grave.
“I’m going to talk to Luis and Atsá” Duncan announced grimly. “If Raoul is missing, we need more Shifters to scour the city.”
Hawk hesitated, his expression uncertain. He was worried, both for Tasia, as well as Alph. But he also knew how Packs operated.
“No Shifter will make a move until they know what has happened to their Alpha” Duncan assured him. “The Were-Alphas will never allow it.”
“What happens afterwards, Duncan?” Hawk asked.
“I’ll deal with it, Hawk” Duncan stated simply.
Hawk studied his Were-Alpha, his young mind restless with concern for his missing friend, alarm at potential challenges to an Alpha he respected very highly, as well as apprehension about potential turmoil in the Pack. Theirs was a large and very fractious Pack with sway over a swathe of prime territory. The Alpha had done a fantastic job of keeping them together by the sheer force of his power, dominance, personality, ruthlessness, and canny leadership. Even a short absence of their powerful Alpha could cause a descent into anarchy the Pack might have a hard time recovering from.
“Focus on finding them, Hawk. I’ll handle the politics.” Duncan was firm.
Hawk nodded, exiting the room after a last glance at his Were-Alpha.
Duncan stared at the room blindly before reaching for his cell. He didn’t give a damn about Pack solidarity. He’d joined this Pack only because of Raoul. He’d find the boy and keep his seat warm until Raoul could handle his Pack again. As for the rest, if the unthinkable had happened, he’d protect his Shifters but he had no appetite whatsoever to lead a Pack.
A low growl awakened Tasia. Her eyes fluttered open. Had the growl been a dream, she wondered drowsily, her eyes blinking in bemusement. In the dim light, thick, widely-placed bars met her eyes. Tasia blinked again to clear her vision. That couldn’t be right. The strange ceiling also seemed too low, she mused. A fog clogged her mind, making it hard to think clearly. Her head felt woozy and her limbs heavy. Everything seemed fuzzy, like a dream. She closed her eyes, allowing her other senses to assist her. She lay on her back in an unfamiliar darkened room, shadowed at the edges, on some type of rough surface that scratched her where her bare skin rubbed against it. Her tongue lay heavy, a metallic taste in her mouth when she tried to speak. Angling her woozy head carefully, Tasia let her eyes wander the darkness, hoping for something familiar, only for her to press up against something big, heavy and hard. That something growled low, a guttural, aggressive snarl that put the fear of God in Tasia. That’s not something, she realized. It’s someone.
Whatever’s beside me, it’s angry.
The awareness acted like a douse of cold water, clearing the cobwebs from her head. Tasia roused herself, driven by exigency. Feeling her way cautiously, Tasia shifted carefully to face it. A hulking body lay beside her, squeezed up close, too close for comfort. In her attempt to turn, her leg hit something metallic and hard.
“Ouch” she muttered, as pain shot up her leg. She’d have a bruise tomorrow.
The pain helped clear her head some more. Tasia found herself galvanized by a sense of urgency and peril. More awake and clear-headed now, she felt her way gingerly, her eyes squinting, trying to pierce the darkness. Suddenly, it struck her that she was enclosed by the same bars she had mistaken for the ceiling before.
I’m in a cage. And, there’s someone in here with me.
The cage was small, barely large enough to hold a petite person comfortably. The harsh floor under her was coarse but flat, while thick metallic bars penned her in on four sides and the top. She reached for the bars above her, trying to gauge their distance. Up on her elbow, with a little effort, her fingers could brush the overhead bars. The pen was too small to even allow her to sit up properly. With the realization came a sense of claustrophobia and foreboding. Jittery now, Tasia peered towards the faint light in the room, trepidation and dread slowly unfurling in her.
Everything around the cage lay in shadow, two patches of inadequate light illuminating a minuscule portion of the room. A solitary lightbulb in a corner of the room cast a yellowish hue on the wall and floor, its outer edges piercing the darkness in the cage just enough for her to see the outlines of the bars. And, some diffused light came through a closed door, seeping under it from a hallway outside. She could see nothing else, no windows or other sources of light. The room was vast, though most of it lay submerged in shadow. She allowed her eyes to wander again, to make out the dim outlines of some silhouettes she couldn’t identify. There was no one else in the room, she sensed, just the two of them in the inadequate coop. Tasia gathered herself, trying to still her jitters. It was time to see who or what lay caged with her.
She eased herself carefully on to her belly, sliding and banging against the bars as she attempted to pivot in the tight space. The body beside her lay unmoving, almost comatose. Even the low growling that had awakened her had ceased now. It took up most of the cage, an amorphous hulking shadow in the muted light.
She brushed against the body gingerly, her fingers skimming over it with increasing confidence as it lay unmoving under her touch. It was large, hard and warm, the muscles rippling smoothly at her touch. Her heart beating too fast for comfort, Tasia pushed herself up on one forearm, now squeezed up close to the body, to peer at it in the dim light. Fright and the effort to hold her alarm at bay forced her to continue on, when all she wanted to do was lay her head down and fall back into blissful sleep. Let this be a bad dream, she prayed silently. Another in a series of nightmares that had plagued her since making the Lair her home.
It was hard going, dragging herself in the constricted sp
ace over the coarse floor while trying to keep herself off whoever was in the cage with her. The abrasive surface scraped her legs and arms, left bare by the sleeveless chocolate-colored dress she’d worn to the party. Abruptly, without warning, she felt hands reach for her. Tasia let out a squeak as a powerful arm seemed to clamp itself around her waist to hold her down. It left her no room to struggle.
It’s awake.
“Let me … go.” Her voice came out in a scratchy whisper, her tongue heavy and inarticulate.
Her cry went ignored. Instead, she felt a hand grasp her shoulder.
“No.” She tried to form the words again, despite her uncooperative tongue. “Let go.”
The clasp on her waist and the bruising grip on her shoulder tightened to physically swing her over the prone body with a brute’s strength. Finding herself dragged inexorably over the stranger’s body, Tasia abandoned her ineffectual verbal protests to beat her fists at him. Her hands encountered hard and unyielding muscle. The pounding fists were ignored like her cries before. But now, Tasia realized that the body under her was masculine — big, muscled and very strong.
The realization served to increase her struggles, but to no avail, as she was lugged relentlessly, like so much dead weight. Helpless in the brutish grip, she swung her eyes wildly around to meet the strong column of his throat. Something stark glowed in the dark, contrasting with his darker and tanned skin. Terrified, she kicked out at him, while continuing to beat at him with her fists. He shifted infinitesimally to anchor her bare legs with his heavy one, leaving her powerless and vulnerable.
Tasia’s panic jumped up a notch.
“Stop it” she cried in her scratchy voice, wriggling madly in the vicious clasp, her hands grabbing handfuls of his clothes for purchase.
In the mad struggle to free herself, her palm slipped, sliding over the hard chest. Her position precarious, she felt herself pitch forward, nosediving into him. Tasia tried frantically to break the fall with her hands, at a serious disadvantage — her lower body trapped under his powerful leg, while the band of steel around her waist left her with little wiggle room.
