Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3)
Page 10
“Katey!” he bellowed, charging back down the hall toward the bathroom.
“What’s going on?” Dustin asked as he stepped out of his bedroom, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Darren pushed the bathroom door open and found it unoccupied. He called out Katey’s name again and headed downstairs.
He heard shambling feet move quickly behind him.
“I heard her get up a couple of hours ago to get a drink of water,” he heard Ben say as Darren searched the main floor. The full glass of water was set on the kitchen counter, untouched.
When he turned, Logan was practically at his heels while Dustin checked the billiard room.
“Was she sleeping with you tonight?” Darren asked, unmindful of the obvious rage and urgency in his voice.
Logan looked bewildered and shook his head. “No,” he said. “We had a fight last night, and she wanted to sleep alone.”
Ben joined them, and Darren watched his gaze fall on the unfinished water glass. He balled his hands into a fist and the alpha could tell his omega was struggling for composure. “I should have come down here with her,” Ben seethed.
Dustin returned from the billiard room. “I know it’s nearly impossible to tell since she’s been all over the place, but I think I picked up a fresh scent by the back door and in the carport.”
The urge to roar like a wild beast pressed Darren, but he swallowed it back, knowing it would do no good to waste his fury before Katey was back. “I shouldn’t have left her room unguarded.”
“You couldn’t have known she would pull a stunt like this,” Dustin consoled with a string of his own brand of frustration flavoring his words. “What do you want us to do now?”
“I want you and Ben to go after her. The surveillance feed picked up her trail by the creek on the north side of the property. I don’t care if you go as wolves or as men, but get her and bring her back.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. Ben and Dustin rushed out the back door, following Katey’s scent. Logan leaned against the kitchen counter, still somewhat dazed.
“Did she mention anything about running away?” Darren asked Logan, still unable to control the unbridled mix of emotions storming within him.
Logan shook his head with an empty stare. “She mentioned how unfair it was that no one would train her, but other than that, she said nothing.” The boy looked up to his alpha for assurance. “Was she injured? Could you tell from the cameras?”
Darren gave him a mirthless laugh and turned his gaze upward, trying to form the words. When he saw that white wolf cross the screen, he had thought it was a Devian at first. At worst, it was a large stray dog that happened to look a lot like a wolf. If Katey was gone, he knew it must have been her.
He wanted to be furious and stricken with grief for her safety. Under it all, suspecting she had managed to change on her own made him want to puff up with pride. He was unsure why, though. She didn’t change with his help. In fact, she changed despite his refusal to help her. What authority did he have left over her? There was still plenty left to teach her, but would she even listen to him anymore?
“Your fiancé may have just successfully changed.”
Darren looked at Logan and saw the same swirling conflict of emotions in his eyes. He didn’t know how to feel about it either, and all they could do was wait until the guys returned her to the pack.
Al stared at the dozens of surveillance monitors, his eyes burning with the effort it took for them to stay open. Luckily, he had a hot cup of coffee steaming between his hands to get him through the last two hours of his shift. Three more grunts were watching their own set of monitors within the same room, but he knew his job was especially important.
They had hacked into the surveillance feeds of countless stores and establishments within Crestucky. Their team had been combing across the south, searching for the boss’s intended target. Never had finding a single werewolf been so difficult.
His uncle had welcomed him into this business, and somehow, he pictured his role differently. He wanted to be the one out there with guns and tranquilizers, hunting down the beasts that plagued the earth with their evil, but no. He was stuck in a cramped bunker complex and watching empty storefronts at two o’clock in the morning.
Al’s focus wasn’t on the stores or streets. They had also managed to tap into the accounts of several townspeople who had bought themselves security cameras for their properties. There were a few citizens who owned farms or small horse ranches bordered by woods. Those were the surveillance footage reels he watched, and they were the best bet at finding a werewolf if it was roaming around outside of town.
He took a sip of his coffee and let the scalding liquid burn his tongue – anything to stay awake until his relief came.
Al’s eyes passed over a window a few times, but it wasn’t until he marked the time at two-seventeen in the morning that he saw his first sign of movement. A white blur ran across the screen. Thinking he might have truly caught something, he singled out that frame and played it back one more time. It sure looked like a wolf, if not some huge stray dog.
He grabbed the walkie-talkie in front of him. “Hey, I think I found something,” Al said into it. He could feel the curious glances of the other surveyors in the room, but they must have brushed it aside because no one asked him a thing.
His superior, Pat, came into the tiny surveillance room and marched up behind his chair, his heavy boots the only sound in the room besides the hum of the computer equipment. Pat looked at the frozen image of the animal and nodded. “Definitely a wolf,” he said in his gruff voice, hoarsened by years of chain smoking. “Have you seen anything else?”
“No, sir. I was keeping this window blown up so you would see it.”
“You could have missed it again on another feed!” he scolded. Pat snatched the mouse from Al’s hand and brought back the rest of the screens. Sure enough, they almost missed something huge.
In one of the video feeds within the same network, they saw a trio of wolves. From the grainy greyscale image, they could determine that two of the wolves were darker in coloration and larger, accompanying the white wolf they spotted earlier.
“Two grown males and a younger male,” Pat speculated. “But I’ve never seen a werewolf with a pelt that light. Perhaps it’s an older male that’s shrunken with age – if that’s even possible.”
Al swiveled in his seat and stared up in awe at his superior. “You’ve seen a werewolf up close?”
Pat’s expression turned hard and calculating. “Son, I’ve come far too close. You’d soil your pants if you saw what I’ve seen in the last three decades on the force.”
Al looked back and watched the three wolves seem to communicate with one another. The white wolf tucked his tail between his legs, lowering his body in submission to the other two males. One male nipped at the white wolf’s neck and then prodded him forward with his shoulder. All three took off out of sight.
“Would an older male cower like that?” Al asked.
Pat straightened and scratched at his chin that was covered in stubble. “Dominance doesn’t necessarily come with age, but it sure helps. These beasts are as mysterious as they are vicious.” He slapped Al on the back. “Good job, grunt. I’ll be telling the boss about this.”
“What do we do in the meantime?”
“That’s for Andrew to decide. I want the address attached to the owner of those cameras. Use every bit of hacking you can to find it.”
Al, a specialist in hacking and computer technology, nodded. “Yes, sir. Shouldn’t take me too long. We have it on record here.”
A few clicks away and they had the address and name of the owner. “Thomas Hutchinson, sir.”
“I want a copy of his driver’s license or some other photo ID.”
Without breaking a sweat or stumble of his nimble fingers across the keyboard, Al pulled up a copy of Mr. Hutchinson’s identification. Pat leaned over, placing a massive hand on the back of Al’s chair.
“Sir?” Al questioned, glancing over his shoulder at his supervisor.
“Just do it, grunt.”
Al relented, and within moments, they had a match. In fact, they had many matches. “Sir, according to this, Thomas Hutchinson is also Dean Jackson, Kendrick Smith, and there’s plenty more. They’re all dated different with different birthdays. Half of these are from school faculty directories. The most recent one is for the same town where he currently lives. He’s working under the name Darren Dubose at the local high school. The earliest dated photo has him listed under that same name.”
A smile of morbid satisfaction curled across Pat’s scar-riddled face as his eyes skimmed over the many faces. The man’s cheekbones were the same, and the jaw was square and strong. “He’s rotating out names, but the photos are never alike. In this one, he has a full beard. In that one, he’s clean-shaven. They’re all different in one way or another, but it’s the same werewolf.”
“You’re saying the man who owns these security cameras is a werewolf?”
“Either that, or he’s an immortal harboring werewolves on his property. I’m gonna go with the former idea.” Pat grinned from ear to ear, showing his yellow tobacco-stained teeth. “Andrew’s gonna flip when he sees this.”
Chapter Seven
Katey’s body ached from the change and she found it difficult to sit up straight on the sofa. What she wouldn’t have given to pop her stiff joints right then. Clad in her plush robe, she and her wolf had returned to their cage. Although the wolf was satisfied with what they had been able to get away with, it wasn’t enough for Katey. The confining walls around her were too close, too suffocating compared to what she had been able to enjoy for the last few hours.
She looked away, her gaze unfocused and distant. Even now, she still thought about the forest and the open arms of nature. Their time in the woods had been short lived when Ben and Dustin came upon them not far from the creek. There was still so much more Katey longed to do, places she wanted to explore beyond the world she had known.
She thought of that deer and how it had narrowly escaped her grasp. Now she understood why wolves hunted in packs. If she had help, perhaps Ben and Dustin would have found her feasting on the carcass of that doe instead.
The cool wash of gold came over her eyes, and she knew that her wolf would have liked that too.
“Katey!” Darren barked and snapped his fingers just inches from her nose.
As if woken from a dream, Katey looked to her alpha. One only had to look at his wide stance, stern and reddened face, and the engorged vein in his neck to know he was far from happy. Ben and Dustin were standing some distance across the room, not as furious but certainly disappointed. She had barely noticed the droning of her alpha’s voice, and was only vaguely aware she was not alone in the room.
She observed Logan standing in the kitchen, his back turned to her and arms folded. Every line of his strong back told her he was not pleased in the least. Katey wondered if that was because of their fight earlier or the fact she had run away the way she did.
His rejection cut more deeply than any of their dissatisfied stares. Somehow, she had thought Logan would be on her side, standing with her as she faced her judges. Instead, he kept his distance and didn’t get involved. She hadn’t seen his beautiful eyes since she was escorted home.
Katey looked back to Darren and waited for him to speak.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Katey,” he said, a pleading tone echoing in every word he spoke, tainted by his anger. “You knew it was dangerous to go out, especially alone. You could have been killed. What if hunters were out in those woods beyond our property? If you had stayed in the backyard, it might not have been so bad, but you have broken our trust by sneaking around.”
Katey bowed her head, her gaze drifting to the rug under Darren’s feet. If it had been before this night, she might have bucked at his words and defended her choices, but she lost almost every ounce of courage to stand up to him one more time.
The run in the forest had been spectacular, but it didn’t bring her the peace of mind or answers she needed. The secret to being a loup-garou had not been revealed to her in any revelation. If the change couldn’t tell her what she needed to know, then the secret lay with those that had lived longer and had more experience than her. There were four such men who could teach her and she had successfully pissed them all off.
Her wolf had no desire to fight either, as she began to drift into dormancy in Katey’s subconscious.
“What were you thinking?” Darren continued, his voice rising as if that would convince her to answer him. “Was this just an act of rebellion? Were you trying to prove your disrespect for me and this pack?”
“No,” she replied. Her voice was little more than the whisper of a quiet church mouse.
“Were you trying to prove yourself to us? You know you’ve never had to prove your worth around here.”
“No.”
“Then this was just something to do for the hell of it?” Darren boomed.
Katey cringed, feeling her empathic feelers take hold once more. She had tried to numb that part of herself over the last few days, feeling more chaos and confusion to last her a lifetime. “No,” she struggled to say, and the word came out shakily.
“Darren,” Ben gently interrupted, taking a step forward with his hands held out in appeal.
“Stay out of this, Ben,” Dustin warned, barely shifting his stare away from Katey and Darren. The omega edged away and rubbed the back of his neck.
Amongst the fog of anger, Katey could feel Ben’s anxiety. He didn’t want to see Katey disciplined any more than she wanted to be on the receiving end. She should have thought about that before running away. Perhaps it had been a foolish choice, but at the height of her emotional turmoil, there seemed no other option. What else could she do when it felt as if her insides would burst if she didn’t at least try?
“Then why did you do this to us?” Darren demanded. “Why did you put yourself in so much danger?”
Katey paused at his choice of words. What she had done to them? What could she have possibly done? Was he talking about how she had incensed them with her disobedience? Or was this about something else? They didn’t have to come and rescue her. There was no danger. They didn’t have to let her nightly excursion interrupt their sleep. She never meant to hurt them or make them worry.
She lifted her head and locked eyes with Darren, searching for an answer. What she found was not something she expected. Fear. Had it been there all this time and she was too blind to see it? Or had she been so prejudiced against her own plight, that she hadn’t let herself really accept what everyone else had been going through that week?
“I was trying to prove to myself that I could,” Katey replied, feeling her own heart crack under the confession.
Darren crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “That you could do what?”
“That I could change. All I wanted was to keep training.”
“And I had told you we would continue training after the hunters were gone.”
Katey had plenty of comebacks but pressed her lips together to keep from saying any of them. She could have said there were no hunters, that she was never in any danger, but Logan was within earshot. She could have said she was careful, but that was a total lie.
“I honestly don’t understand you, Katey,” Darren sighed. “And I don’t know what to do with you. It’s obvious you have no respect for me or my position of authority as pack alpha.” Katey saw his body go rigid as he steeled himself for what he would say next. “Tomorrow, Logan and Ben will take you out of the state to a safe house where Jacob and his pack are staying. Dustin and I will stay behind to look after the remaining Devian families.”
Katey’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “You can’t just—”
She stopped herself
. She was about to say that Darren couldn’t just get rid of her the minute she started misbehaving. Her wolf even gave her a cautionary growl, telling her to let it go. Darren was completely in the right, not because his decision held merit, but because he was the alpha. At least she would be with Logan. For that, she should have been grateful.
Katey slumped against the couch, letting her tired muscles relax. There was nothing left she could do, nothing left she could say. Perhaps with time, which they had plenty of, Katey would be able to earn back the pack’s trust.
Darren let her near-reprisal slide, and he looked over his shoulder to Ben and Dustin. “Go get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
The others obeyed and filed up the stairs. Logan hadn’t moved, and that fact wasn’t lost on Darren. “You too, Logan.”
Katey watched nervously as Logan turned and hurried up the stairs, avoiding eye contact as he went. His slight against her was like a silver knife in her heart. Nothing could have hurt more than his disregard for her at that moment. Would Katey ever earn back her fiancé's favor too? Or would this one act of defiance ruin everything for them?
Everything seemed to shrivel and die before her very eyes. The pack was mad at her and Logan wasn’t ready to forgive her. Alone and feeling small, Katey wanted to run away again and leave it all behind, even though that would only make matters worse. She had to find that peace again.
She looked back to Darren with a heartfelt expression of apology and sorrow, hoping beyond all else that he would see it and take pity on her. He did not. Darren turned and stood by the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her. There was no way he would leave her alone again.
Katey stood and tightened the soft belt around her waist before meekly making her way up the steps, her feet heavier than they had ever been.
That night, sleep came easily and swiftly for Katey, despite the emotional and mental disarray storming within her. Her tired body knew nothing of these problems and plunged her into the deepest sleep she had experienced in what seemed like forever.