by Kari Cole
The rich scents of coffee and bacon filled the air. He led Diego down the central hallway toward the dining room and the sound of familiar voices. Before they even stepped into the doorway, Luke called out, “Coffee’s fresh, Vaughn.”
Luke stood at the sideboard with his back to the door, wearing khaki pants and a white collared shirt that stretched over his broad shoulders and biceps. No aging Alpha for the Kaniksu River pack. He didn’t turn around, but continued filling a mug with coffee from a catering-sized urn. Dean, Rissa, and Izzy sat around the enormous table, full breakfast plates in front of them.
The Alpha turned then and studied Diego.
“Alpha, this is Agent Diego Moreno from the Interclan Authority,” Vaughn said. “Agent, this is Alpha Luke Wyland.”
The males shook hands and Luke introduced him to Rissa and Izzy. Then he said, “I gather you’ve already met my Beta, Dean Simmons. Though why you refused to tell him last night why you’re here in our territory, I don’t know. Your Alpha suggested you may simply have been eager to reconnect with your old friend.”
“My Alpha?” Diego asked.
Vaughn froze like he’d been sucker punched, though he tried like hell to not let it show on his face. Shit, he should have known better than to try to deal with the situation as if he and Diego were just two cops squaring off. Freaking awesome. Just what he needed. Dean was a busybody on a good day. He’d worry this bone for all it was worth, and Vaughn had no intention of ever sharing what had gone down between him and his former best friend.
“Yes,” Luke said. “I spoke to him early this morning, as well as Rose Ellis.” Vaughn almost groaned. “I know you told Dean you’re here on IA business, but I’ve never gotten a straight answer on anything from them. I decided your aeriemates would know you better anyway. Tomas was surprised to hear you didn’t check in with me before carrying out your business. He said you’re usually a male of integrity. Of course, I was leading the pack run last night, but my Beta offered you ample opportunity to observe the common niceties. Care to explain yourself, Agent?”
Vaughn bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Luke was one of the most laidback Alphas he’d ever met, and it wasn’t often he stood on ceremony. Diego had been a dick last night, and going by his flushed face, he knew it, too.
He lowered his gaze. “I apologize, Alpha. My superiors made it clear that I was to keep my assignment as quiet as possible. I thought it best to discuss it with Sheriff Ellis before anyone else.” He looked up at Dean. “I wasn’t sure of the situation given the recent leadership changes.”
Dean snorted, but for once he held his tongue.
Luke considered Diego for another long moment. “You can fill us in now. Yes, all of us. Grab some breakfast, gentlemen. I’m sure you haven’t had time yet this morning, and if today is half as exciting as yesterday, you’re going to be busy.”
“Shit, I hope not,” Izzy said.
Dean stretched his arm across the table for a fist bump. “Your mouth, goddess’s ear, Iz.”
Hell yes, Vaughn was on board with that. He hadn’t even had time to process everything yesterday, between the carnage at the Hendersons’ farm, to the bear attack at Dean’s, to seeing Diego again after all this time. The one thing he wanted to dwell on from yesterday, he couldn’t.
He grabbed a plate from the sideboard and filled it, again not waiting for Diego. That male could do as he pleased. He always had. Never listened to anyone when he didn’t want to.
“I got Cassandra home all right,” Dean said, screwing up Vaughn’s best-intentioned plans. “Jessie was there.”
“Uh, good. Thanks,” he said. He sat next to the male, the better to reach out and strangle him.
Izzy leaned back in her chair, a grin on her face. Shit.
Luke tweaked her ponytail as he passed by to sit next to her at the head of the table. He took his seat and said, “All right, Agent Moreno, start talking.”
Still standing at the sideboard—at least he’d accepted Luke’s invitation for breakfast—Diego seemed startled and torn about where he should sit. Rissa helped him out. She pushed back a chair. “Please, Agent, next to me.” Her honeyed smile relaxed some of the tension in Diego’s shoulders. Sucker.
“Thank you,” he said, sitting down. To his credit, he met Luke’s gaze as he answered. “Alpha, I’ve been tasked with hunting a female fugitive who is wanted for the murders of at least nine people.”
“At least nine?” Vaughn asked. “You’re hunting a serial killer?”
“Not exactly. She doesn’t have a signature or type or anything like that. She’s more of your garden-variety psycho. Gets a burr in her wing and slashes and burns until it’s gone. Literally. She killed the first nine more than twenty years ago. She’d been wrangling with a healer at a medical clinic outside of Madison, Wisconsin, because she was unhappy with her care. She showed up one day, tore up the healer, then burned the place down with the rest of the staff locked inside.”
“Jesus,” Izzy whispered, and Luke tugged her closer.
Diego took a manila file folder from his bag and passed it to Luke. Luke opened it, looked at it briefly, then passed it to Dean. “We have lots of circumstantial evidence to suggest she’s behind more. Most of them were innocent bystanders. She’s not above killing a motel clerk who might ID her when hunters get too close to her tail.”
“Why’s it taken so long to catch her?” Vaughn asked. “She’s a lone wolf, without a pack to protect her. Seems like IA should have been able to corner her by now.”
“Who says she doesn’t have any protection?” Diego asked. “There are plenty of shady humans and shifters who’re more than happy to look the other way for a price.”
“What kind of price?” Rissa asked.
“Over the years, Sharon has become a sort of jack-of-all-trades, good at all sorts of work other people can’t or won’t do.”
“A mercenary,” Vaughn said.
“Yes.”
“And you think this female is here in Black Robe?” Luke asked. “Why?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Diego said. Guess they were done with the sharing part of the meeting.
A hardness entered Luke’s eyes, a look that would send a lesser male into submission displays, but Diego held it together. Wisely, he lowered his gaze again, but he didn’t give Luke the answer he wanted. Vaughn almost sympathized. Diego had his own boss whose orders he had to follow.
Izzy crossed her arms over her chest. “These guys are like the CIA or Army Intelligence. Only want to give you enough info to get the job done for them. Too bad, so sad if it screws you in the end, but they got theirs.”
Luke sighed. “True. Still, I don’t like the idea of someone who has no problem hurting innocents running around our territory. Agent, you have my permission to hunt in our lands, but you’ll keep my Beta and Gamma appraised of your search.”
“Who’s your Gamma? Wait—” Diego looked at Vaughn. “You’re third?” When Vaughn nodded once, Diego looked like he’d sniffed something foul.
“Two more things,” Luke said. “I’ll be informing the other clan Alphas in the area that you’re here. No, don’t interrupt. The fox, black bear, and cougar clans in the territory are small, but we have good relationships with them. I won’t jeopardize the peace we’ve fought so hard for because I didn’t give them the courtesy of a heads-up. If this female is as dangerous as you say, the other clans deserve to know she might be around.”
“Of course,” Diego said through gritted teeth.
Luke continued as if Diego hadn’t spoken. “Second, tread lightly. We have hundreds of strangers in the area. This is my territory. Everyone here is under my protection. Am I making myself clear?”
I.e., I’ll fuck you up, IA or not, if you mess with my territory.
Finally, Vaughn allowed a little satisfaction to leech into his face. It was p
etty. He was as much to blame for the way his relationship with Diego and his sister had ended as they were, but they weren’t the ones who’d been treated like a leper. Diego suffering a little static was not going to keep Vaughn up at night one bit.
Diego’s jaw worked for a few seconds. Finally, he said, “Yes, Alpha. Perfectly.”
* * *
“Have you ever done anything like that before?” Hannah asked.
Jessie set the porch swing in motion again and took a sip of her sweet tea before answering. “Yes,” she said finally. “When I was learning, like you. My mama taught me. I showed Gran and your mama a few times, too. And...”
“And what?”
Jessie sighed. “I shared a vision with my ex-husband. Once.” The salty scent of regret grew around her.
“Didn’t go well, I take it.”
Her harsh laugh startled Frost from his spot in the shade under a maple tree. He stood and trotted up the porch steps to lay his head on her thigh. At first, Jessie didn’t seem to know what to do, but then she scratched him behind an ear and sank her fingers into his soft, thick fur.
“Nutty wolf,” she muttered. In a stronger voice, she said, “Billy, bless his heart, is a simple guy. Sweet as the day is long, but a little rigid. He knew I was a witch. I wasn’t going to hide that from anyone I was serious enough about to marry, but he didn’t like it. He seemed to think of it like it was a bad habit or something.” She deepened her voice in a twangy imitation of a man’s. “Jessie, baby, have you ever tried not doing that magic stuff?” She huffed. “Stuff. Like I was biting my nails or chewing with my mouth open.”
“No,” Hannah said.
“Yeah. But it was okay. At least that’s what I told myself. We loved each other. It didn’t matter if I only helped the plants grow when he wasn’t home. It didn’t matter that he suddenly developed a dislike of fresh tomatoes—which he surprisingly forgot every time we went out to dinner. And it especially didn’t matter that he didn’t want to feed his cows the hay from our very own fields because I’d ‘mucked about’ with it.”
“Jessie, no.”
“Oh yes. I got sick of it and decided to show him how beautiful my abilities could be. He had this afghan his grandmother had knit for him when he was born. It was faded from years of use, but so soft. He loved it and had it draped across the back of his recliner in the living room. One day, he came in from work and I said, ‘I want to show you something.’ So I picked up the blanket, held his hand, and shared the impressions I felt.
“You have to remember, my power is nowhere near as strong as yours. I don’t get a running movie or even clear pictures. Mine gives me the feelings associated with an object, or sometimes vague images or other sensory memories, like his grandmother’s perfume, her joy while making it, the sense of comfort and love when he was wrapped in it as a baby, his love and contentment.”
“That sounds amazing,” Hannah said.
Jessie stood up and set her tea on the railing. She clasped her hands together, her knuckles turning white. “It was. For me. I opened my eyes to see Billy pale as a ghost, his face full of horror. I let go of him immediately. Maybe I should have been a little more delicate about breaking the connection, but I was freaked out. Had I done it wrong? What the hell could he be feeling? I just wanted to stop whatever was making him look like that, you know?”
Hannah nodded. “What happened?”
“He fell on his ass,” Jessie said. “When I crouched down next to him, the look in his eyes...” She shook her head. “Recoiled doesn’t even begin to cover it. He couldn’t get away from me fast enough.” Her eyes were bleak when she said, “He asked me to leave the next day.”
“Bastard!”
Jessie laughed, but it was nothing close to a happy sound. “It was his ranch. Been in his family for generations. It’s not like I was going to make him leave.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” The whole notion of kicking your wife out because of what she was, something you knew she’d been before you married her, made Hannah growl.
“I know. I appreciate your outrage on my behalf, but it was for the best.”
The best? Being rejected and betrayed by the man you love was for the best? Humans and witches may not mate like shifters, but your spouse was supposed to stand by you, have your back no matter what. “How can you say that?”
“Because it led me here,” Jessie said. She looked out over her yard, her thriving business, and shrugged. “It’s not perfect, yet, but it’s as close as I’ve ever come. There are other supernatural beings here. They’re not afraid of me. They don’t resent me. In fact, they appreciate my skills and seek me out because of them. I’m welcomed into the community here. I’ve made friends, good ones.”
She sat back down and took Hannah’s hands into hers. “My marriage ending the way it did hurt for a long time, but now, it mostly makes me mad. Never hide what you are for a man. Not for anyone, Hannah. People should deal with who you are, not what they want you to be. If they can’t—or won’t—screw ’em.”
Hannah laughed. “That’s it? Screw ’em?”
“Right in the ear,” Jessie said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The back parking lot of the Golden Claw was full, cars spilling over into the grassy borders, parked up and down the street. The sunset-painted sky glowed orange. Indigo biting into the edges. Vaughn looked up at all that beauty and scowled.
Diego maintained that he was in Black Robe alone. His scent said he was telling the truth, but this year, Vaughn had learned the hard way that shifters could lie and hide it from their scent. He’d like to think he knew Diego’s tells, knew when he was hiding something, but it had been a long time since he could say he knew the male well. It didn’t relax Vaughn any that Diego was definitely hiding something. Still, he didn’t think it was the incompetent would-be kidnappers.
So, they’d spent the day going door to door to every damn hotel, motel, campground, and property rental agency in the area, looking for anyone who might have seen Sharon Beck or recognized the description of the two men who’d been looking for her. No one they’d spoken to had recognized either Ms. Beck’s picture or the men’s description. There were just too many strangers in the area, too many faces for people to remember anyone unless they stood out for some reason.
Normally, the time spent beating bushes and turning over every stone didn’t bother him. It was part of any investigation. The sooner a cop learned that, the better. Cases rarely were solved in an hour with some fantastic bit of tech. Most of the time, they were solved through time, perseverance, and spent shoe leather. But he didn’t have time to waste on a maybe. Vaughn had his own cases to investigate, and there was no solid evidence that Sharon Beck was even in Black Robe. At least none that Vaughn had seen, probably because Diego wouldn’t share his sources.
When Vaughn suggested they bring the pack in to help, Diego had flat out refused. He suspected the IA agent wouldn’t have even let him know he was in town hunting if he could have gotten away with it. Alphas, though, tended to get upset when you hunted without permission in their territory. The kind of upset that ended in bloodshed.
He found a parking spot behind the dumpster and entered the pub through the kitchen door. He’d already scared the shit out of his mother and aunt’s customers this week—and that had been when he was in a decent mood. In his current state, he’d clear the place out.
The homey scents of fried potatoes, onions, grilling meats, and beer filled his head and brought his temper down a notch. He stepped around a stack of clean glasses in plastic crates and entered his aunt Veronica’s domain. Scrupulously clean, even in the midst of the dinner rush, every surface sparkled. Pots bubbled on the industrial stove, while an older male tended the grill, flipping a cow’s worth of burgers. A squat human woman with graying blond hair prepped plates as she sang along to Kenny Chesney in a Poli
sh-accented voice. A college-age human girl with hot-pink streaks in her hair bustled in with a tray of dirty dishes and passed them off to one of the boys from the pack, who was elbow-deep in soapy water.
Vaughn’s aunt stood in the center of it all at a stainless steel counter the size of an aircraft carrier chopping green bell peppers. Her chin-length black hair was tied back under a red bandana and her strong, willowy arms were bare, displaying several tattoos, including a stylized wolf that looked a lot like his. It should—she’d designed it.
“Aunt Ronnie,” he said well before he came within striking distance of her lethal chef’s knife.
Still, she spun and shook it at him. “Vaughn Ellis, you little shit. Where have you been? Oh, never mind. I know. I have ears and they’ve been filled with tales of you and your exploits this week. C’mere and give me a hug.”
She dropped her knife onto the cutting board and threw her arms around his neck. When he lifted her off her feet and swirled her around, she squealed and made a little more of his crappy day fade away. Aunt Ronnie may be tough, but spin her around, drive her fast, or swing her high, and the little girl came out.
“Have you eaten?” she asked. “What do you want?”
“Not yet, and whatever you’re cooking.”
She picked the knife back up and pointed it at him again. “Good answer.” She finished chopping the pepper on her board and with a quick and graceful turn, she brought the board over to the grill and slid the peppers onto the sizzling heat. In a hushed voice, she asked, “Is Diego Moreno really here?”
“Yup.”
“He’s an IA agent? Did you know that?”
“Yes to both.”
“Huh.” She sniffed one of the pots and added a dash of cayenne. “Don’t suppose you finally want to tell me why you and that male went from attached at the hip to mortal enemies in the blink of an eye?”
“Don’t suppose I do.”
