Finding the Fire Within

by C. C. Masters

  “That took some balls,” Tony murmured to me quietly. “Someone attacked a group of us in broad daylight.”

  “What happened?” I murmured back to him with a frown.

  He shrugged. “Looks like someone put an IED on one of the vehicles. Everyone is accounted for.”

  A couple of the guys headed over to the parking lot and I started to follow. I wanted to see what happened.

  Mason held out a hand to stop me in my tracks. “I need you to stay here with the group until we have our EOD team check it out.”

  I scowled at him “If it’s dangerous for me, then how is it not dangerous for everyone else who is going over there?” I asked patiently.

  Tony laughed out loud and just shrugged when Mason glared at him. “She has a point.”

  “Fine, but stay close.” Mason grumbled.

  I followed a little behind Mason to pacify him. The parking lot came into view as we walked down the wooded path. One of the vehicles was still smoldering from the damage. It looked like the explosion had been centered in the engine because the hood had been blown off the car, the windshield was broken, and the front seats were destroyed.

  There was debris scattered all over the parking lot and some of the other vehicles were superficially damaged from shrapnel. A used fire extinguisher was sitting near the vehicle. I wondered who carried a fire extinguisher around in their car. Not that I wasn’t glad that someone had one, but still weird.

  Jason and the other guys were prowling around the vehicles and assessing the damage. I saw Henderson still in his wolf form, now searching for signs of the intruder. To say that my pack was pissed would be an understatement.

  “Uh, Mace.” I tugged on his sleeve to get his attention.

  I just got a grunt in response as he was busy texting Austin.

  “Should they be standing so close? What if another vehicle was rigged and they just set off the first one to get everyone here?” I asked worriedly.

  He looked at me with surprise. “Henderson already sniffed around to make sure none of the other vehicles were rigged.”

  He wrapped an arm around me to pull me close and gave me a kiss on the side of my head. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe.” He murmured to me in a low voice that sent tingles down my spine.

  I sighed with frustration. “I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about the guys who are touching all of the vehicles right now. If something else were to blow, they will all be dead. And why wouldn’t Henderson smell it before?”

  Mason wrapped both arms around me so that I was positioned in front of him and he could continue texting on his phone. “He wasn’t looking for it before.” He murmured to me. “But I think it was placed there while we were at the range.”

  I frowned. It was possible that we wouldn’t hear anything over the sounds of the guns, but I found it difficult to believe no one saw anything. “No one was watching the area?” I asked.

  Mason growled. “We had Robbie on security. He said he only stepped away once to take a piss.”

  “Someone can put a bomb on a car that quickly?” I asked doubtfully.

  “It would only take a second to walk up to the car and stick something underneath. But Robbie should never have let anyone near, and he should have immediately scented an enemy that had been on our territory.”

  I looked over to where Jason had pulled Robbie and was intensely questioning him. Robbie looked embarrassed and contrite. I wanted to believe he had nothing to do with this, but Austin had already warned me that the pack had moles.

  What was more believable? That an enemy had snuck up to the vehicle, placed and IED without anyone knowing, and then detonated the explosive once he was far away? Or that Robbie either helped or was aware of the intruder?

  I wondered what the goal of the explosion was? Obviously the primary vehicle that was hit was totaled, but why damage one of our vehicles? What was the point?

  “Why would someone do this?” I asked Mason quietly, leaning back against his chest.

  I felt him shrug against me. “A warning? A distraction? A way to test our response? Just to see if they could? We need to be prepared for any of it.”

  I sighed. Mason pulled away from me and pocketed his phone as Mike and Davis pulled into the parking lot. I started to march towards them, but Mason gave a tug to pull me back to him.

  I gave him a small growl to let him know that he was not going to be able to push me aside or tell me to wait in the car. He looked surprised when I stared him down but grinned and tucked me under his arm so we could walk towards their truck together.

  Mason leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I like how you are letting your wolf instincts to the surface more.” He gave my ear a nip. “Soon, there won’t be a wolf-Anna and a human-Anna. Just Anna.”

  I gave him a warm smile before turning to greet the new arrivals. Mike gave us both a nod of greeting when we approached, but Davis looked a little curious at the affection between us.

  The guys got right down to business and I was quickly bored with all of the technical terms they were using. After examining the damage, they announced they were going to have to bring the damaged vehicle back to their garage to do a thorough investigation.

  Mike assembled a team to go through all the vehicles one by one to make sure that none of them were tampered with. They also checked cars that were damaged with shrapnel to make sure they were safe to drive.

  I was completely useless for all of this. I knew nothing about cars, explosives, or what tampering would even look like. The twins kept me in sight while I texted with Austin, Cody, and Caleb. I had added James to the group text, but wasn’t surprised that he stayed mostly silent.

  Mike gave the okay that the vehicles were safe. Emotions were still high with all of our pack members and I could see that these guys were not going to be dispersing quickly any time soon.

  “Hey!” Jason shouted. “I need everyone’s attention!”

  Mason stood beside him. “Listen up. There was an attack today on us, on our pack. We aren’t going to stand idly by and let the insult stand.”

  More than a few of the guys grumbled in agreement, but looked like they were listening.

  “Mike and Davis are going back to examine the evidence and we will find who did this.” Jason announced.

  I saw a couple guys give Robbie dirty looks. I doubted that he was going to be popular in the pack for a while. I could see why some of them could be angry at him for this. He let them down when he let an enemy slip by him on his watch. The pack was trusting him to keep us safe and he failed. It was going to take a while to earn that trust back.

  “When we do find them, I promise that our retribution will be swift and harsh!” Mason shouted.

  A cheer went up and the mood went from sour and grumbly to angry and determined.

  “For now, we are putting the pack on high alert. I need everyone in pairs and staying in contact with their teams. You will be getting assignments through your team leaders.” Mason told them.

  “I need everyone to check in with their team lead immediately, teams should be assembling tonight and staying close.” Jason announced.

  Everyone in our small crowd nodded and pulled out a phone or headed to a vehicle. To my surprise, Sam was the one driving the tow truck that pulled into the parking area.

  She parked near the damaged vehicle and hopped out of the truck. I gave her a grin and a wave before heading in her direction. A very surly looking Trevor got out of the passenger seat and followed Sam over to the damaged vehicle.

  “Hey, Anna!” Sam greeted me cheerfully. “This is some fucked up shit, right?”

  Trevor cleared his throat and gave me a worried look. Sam caught his look. “What?”

  Trevor shrugged in response.

  “I know Anna has heard the phrase ‘fucked up shit’ before.” Sam rolled her eyes.

  “It’s true,” I laughed. “I’ve even said it before.”

  Sam gave me a mock shocked look and held her han
d over her heart. “Anna! Why I never!” She said in her best southern accent.

  We both dissolved into giggles. “I need to know where you got a tow truck and how you learned to operate one, though.” I told her with a huge grin.

  “I borrowed it. And I learned how to drive one as a kid.” She told me seriously.

  “You need to tell me the story behind that later.” I told her with a laugh.

  Mike and Trevor started discussing the best way to hook up the car to the tow truck. “Let me know when you need my help, boys!” Sam told them with a smile.

  “Is it legal to borrow a tow truck?” I asked her seriously. “Don’t you need a special kind of license for that?”

  Sam patted me on the arm. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that.” She teased me. “I’ll let you have plausible deniability by not telling you.”

  I rolled my eyes but gave her a grin. “Fine. But I want to know all about what’s going on with Trevor.”

  Sam leaned into me and flicked her gaze around to make sure no one else was listening. “It’s not just Trevor.” She told me with a sparkle in her eye and a cheeky grin.

  My jaw dropped a little. “Who else?” I whispered dramatically.

  Sam linked her arm with mine and we walked a little off to the side. “Mike. And Davis. And maybe Rich.”

  I gave a little gasp of surprise. It sounded like her situation was very similar to mine.

  “We need to have a girls-only movie night, so we can compare notes about our boys and what it’s like to manage them.” Sam told me.

  “Yes!” I said enthusiastically. “I desperately need someone to talk to about all this.” I told her honestly.

  Sam nodded. “Some of the guys mentioned you were raised as a human?”

  “Yeah.” I sighed, not sure where she was going with this.

  She bumped her hip into mine. “I just meant that humans are weird about relationships. Shifters are much more open, rely on our instincts, and bond with our mates differently.”

  I looked at her curiously. “Having more than one guy isn’t weird for you?”

  She gave me a smile like the Cheshire Cat. “When a shifter meets our mates we just know deep down.”

  I frowned at her. What did it mean if I had doubts about myself and the guys?

  She must have read my mind. “I know you said you were on the run from other wolves when you met Cody, right?”

  I nodded. I had already told her the whole story about my first day with the guys.

  “So, logically, your brain would have identified Cody as an enemy. But you didn’t feel that way when you met him, did you?”

  “Huh.” I thought back. Yeah, I had been terrified when I met him. But I hadn’t run from him. I trusted him enough to let him into my house, I trusted him enough to get into his car, and I trusted him enough to bring me to his pack master. Deep down, something had told me that he was okay.

  Sam smiled at me as she watched me work through it. “What about when you met the twins? Your new pack-master just handed you off to a couple of strange men and you went with it.”

  She was right. I had bonded really quickly with the twins. I had even let Mason touch me the first day that we met. It had been years since I trusted anyone to get close to me or touch me like that.

  But did we have some kind of magical connection? I don’t know if I believed that.

  Sam watched me. “Guys don’t like to talk about this, and some guys don’t like to admit it to themselves. Sometimes you need another female to work through this stuff.”

  I smiled gratefully at her. “You’re right. We need to have regular girls nights. And I have a feeling that ‘some guys’ might be Trevor?”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “That man infuriates me, but he also knows how to whip me into a sexual frenzy, you know?”

  I blushed despite the fact that I desperately tried not to. “Um, yeah.” I said.

  Thankfully Sam didn’t seem to notice because Jason walked up to us. He gave Sam a frown, but nodded politely at her. “It looks like Trevor and Mike could probably use your help.”

  Sam laughed out loud and strutted over to where the guys were working. Jason watched her go before wrapping me up in a hug. He buried his face in my hair and inhaled deeply. “My heart stopped when I heard the explosion and you were nowhere in sight.” He murmured to me.

  I gave him a squeeze in return. “I’m glad everyone is okay.”

  Jason pulled back to give me a kiss on the forehead. “You had better believe we are going to be keeping an even closer eye on you now.”

  I rolled my eyes and gave him a nudge. “That’s fine. Because I’m going to be keeping a close eye on you. Someone needs to keep you out of trouble.”

  Jason chuckled and let me go. “A couple of the guys caught a scent and followed it through the woods. Unfortunately, whomever it was got on a motorcycle and they lost the trail when it lead back to one of the main roads.”

  I signed. “Did anyone recognize the scent? Was it one of the wolves who tried to attack the house?”

  Jason gave me a nod and his mouth tightened. “It was.”

  Mason and Trevor walked over to us. “We’re taking the vehicle back home to take a look at it. Mike and Davis are picking up any of the debris that might give us clues.” He sighed. “This kind of thing isn’t easy. It’s going to be very labor intensive and we might not be able to get anything useful.”

  I growled in frustration. “This is starting to get ridiculous. Whoever this is just needs to stop messing around and come out of hiding.”

  Trevor did his best to hide a chuckle. The twins both grinned at me. “I like it when your feisty side comes out, Anna.” Mason teased me before mussing my hair affectionately.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Trevor grumbled before walking away.

  Jason sobered up. “I doubt these cowards are going to come out of hiding and face us directly.”

  “I just want to put a stop to this before someone really gets hurt.” I told him seriously.

  They both nodded in agreement. “Let’s help the guys gather up the debris and clean up so we can get home at a reasonable hour.” Mason suggested.

  “I’m going over to the woods first. I want to get the scent of this person for myself.” I told him.

  The twins exchanged looks but I ignored them both and marched over to where I had thought I saw someone. There was no way I was getting naked out here to change into my wolf with all our pack members wandering around, so I plopped down on the ground. Jason trailed after me, keeping me in sight.

  I took a deep breath and focused on expanding my senses. This time it came much more easily to me. I focused on separating all of the scents around me. Jason’s scent was the strongest because he was standing so close to me. His and Mason’s scents clung to me from our embraces earlier.

  I reached out further but got frustrated when too many scents mixed together. A lot of our pack members had come this way to check for signs of our attacker. I didn’t know the scents of everyone in our pack well enough to differentiate them all. I was going to fix that in the future, once I got the opportunity.

  I stood up and walked around, still expanding my senses, searching for anything I could use. I came to an abrupt stop when I picked up on something. I froze when I realized where I recognized that scent from and started to shake with anger.

  I kicked off one shoe and then the other. I wasn’t going to let my shyness stop me from going after this guy. I needed to be in my wolf form right now. I roughly pulled my hoodie over my head and threw it on the ground.

  “Whoa, Anna.” Jason came closer and watched me cautiously. “Normally, I would be the last person to complain about you stripping, but you have me worried.”

  “I know that scent.” I snarled at him. “He was there.”

  Jason approached me slowly, worry in his eyes. “Anna, talk to me.”

  I unbuttoned my pants and let them drop to the ground. His eyebrows rose when he realize
d I wasn’t going to stop.

  My anger was so intense it felt like my blood was on fire. Flashes of the bedroom scene where Evelyn had met her end overtook my vision. This scent was one of the ones that was forever burned into my memory. It was closely tied to the scent of Evelyn’s blood that had splashed across the room.

  I quickly dropped the last of my clothing, way past caring who might see. I was changed into my wolf before the last bit of clothing even hit the ground. The scent was even clearer now that I was in my wolf form. I sniffed around, getting my bearings and determining which direction my prey had gone.

  I heard Jason grumbling curses behind me, but he quickly dropped to all fours beside me and shook out his coat. It looked like he was going to join me in the chase. I was acting purely on instinct when I tilted my head back and let out a howl. It was a call for vengeance.

  I took off with Jason close behind me. I kept a fast pace but had to keep slowing or circling back if I lost the scent. Jason stuck with me the whole time, and several other wolves from the pack joined us. My frustration and rage grew stronger with every set back, but my determination never wavered.

  We came to a clearing and I sniffed around. This is where our prey must have gotten on the motorcycle. His scent was so faint I could barely pick up on it, but it was mixed with stronger scents from the motorcycle. Those I could follow.

  The trail he took was clear and well-traveled, so it was easy to follow. I led my mini-pack down the trail quickly. It was impossible for me to separate his scent from the scent of Evelyn’s blood in my mind. I was being driven by a mindless need for vengeance. I pushed myself to go faster.

  The trail led out to a road and my pack hung back in the wooded area, out of sight from the cars. I didn’t stop. I could care less who saw me. I did wait impatiently for two cars to pass so I could go out into the empty road in search of the scent from the motorcycle.

  I desperately used all of my senses, but there were just too many scents. I couldn’t pick up on the man’s scent or the specific scent of the motorcycle he had been riding. I sat down right there in the middle of the empty road and let all of my anger and frustration out in a howl of desperation and desolation.