Devil Hills: #1 Scarlet, Lexi & Lily
Page 26
“We are,” she promised, kissing him softly. “We are.”
Lily waited in the light rain, watching Lucas look less than pleased as Scarlet ran to the waiting SUV. She had one of her favorite CD’s in, singing along and waiting.
“He’s not looking happy.”
“He’s worried. Too quiet obviously isn’t a good sign when dealing with slime,” Scarlet shook her head. “I get the whole…we’re letting the council deal with them. They’ve issued a warning that transgressions or acts of aggression will not be tolerated…”
“Lord, it sounds like some government thing.”
“Government and lawyers,” Scarlet sipped her coffee. “As far as they can tell, their council sent back messages to the effect that it was all a big misunderstanding.”
“I’d believe they were afraid since the other pack backed out of their scheme,” Lily said slowly, chewing on her lip. “But…I don’t believe they’re just ending it. There was too much back planning in this whole weird thing.”
“I know,” Scarlet leaned into the seat, staring out the front window at the cold mist falling around them. “We talk for hours trying to think like them. Who would be the weakest to attack…and what the hell is the real plot?”
“Weakest? Of them?”
“Us.”
Lily pushed a long breath between her teeth, her eyes meeting those of her long-time friend at the stop sign.
“You think it’s me.”
“I told Lucas I really didn’t know.,” Scarlet answered honestly. “There’s ways to stop us from shifting. A tranquilizer, long distance. With you, they have to disarm you and catch you off guard. If we just knew why, it would be someplace to start in trying to figure out how to stop it.”
“I’m not sure I’m ever disarmed,” Lily sighed. “I’ve never stopped sleeping without my holster on the bedside or the blade beneath my pillow. I suppose in the shower…”
“Lucas is still tense if we’re out on our own, away from the protection of the town.”
“Lexi is in heaven,” Lily changed the subject, focusing on the slick roads along the mountain passes to Morning Star Lake. “She’s talking geek with that little shop in town. She’s buying half the business and upgrading them. She says they’re a little behind the curve and plans to take over business comp security.”
“I know,” Scarlet laughed. “Nothing makes her happier than geek speak. Except maybe Eli.”
“You gonna be okay to pack? I want to go down to the shops and find some coffee,” Lily had driven around the paved circular driveway outside the Inn. She sat beneath the large carport shielding patrons from the weather as they unloaded luggage and children. The SUV idled silently.
“Oh, yeah, easy. I want to check on a few things, call a couple merchants and friends to empty the fridge,” Scarlet tapped the dashboard, deliberately lowering her voice. “Be careful out there.”
Lily laughed and shook her head. “Jess doesn’t sound like that. He traps me in place with that green glare behind his glasses…” she stopped, shivering but far from fear. Her fingers rose and touched the spot just above her left breast where he’d marked her. “Let’s just say there’s a big difference between the country doctor and the man.”
“Lucky us,” Scarlet teased and slid to the concrete, trotting to the porch and tapping her code into the panel.
Lily parked the SUV just outside the Inn and decided a walk in the definitely crisp morning would be nice. Hands absently adjusted her holsters and zipped the leather jacket, the collar lifted against the wisps of misty rain and winds sweeping in from further north than she’d ever been. Her fingers absently touched the mark Jess had placed on her, a cross between a thick sigh and a shiver ran from her head to her toes.
She’d demanded antiseptic. After all the orgasms stopped finally. Which led to more kissing, because that always makes things better, her doctor told her. Which led to more wrestling on the bed.
But the wildly amazing part was it didn’t panic her. The opposite seemed to have filled her. Peace, settled and belonging. Words she’d never paid much attention to before. Maybe hadn’t felt since her parents were killed.
The weakest link. Lily felt those words in her mind as she sipped the fragrant spiced coffee and walked along the redwood lined path leading out to the lake.
What was it about the three of them that pulled this kind of interest?
Was it one and all were used to pinpoint that one for the maniac?
Or was it really all three of them.
She sat on the bench at the end of the walkway over the churning water and opened the pack from her back. She glanced around. She knew there was a tower here somewhere. She knew Scarlet had wireless in the area.
She laid out the computer and powered up, opening the files she wanted to see.
Lexi and James, she typed into her spreadsheet.
It took almost half an hour but she had the information she wanted up. A long, painful breath of air was forced from her lips.
Morrison was the father of the boy who had raped Scarlet.
Morrison had been forced from the pack and formed his own little band of thugs.
She stared out over the water, more than the chill of the outside flooding into her. It wasn’t hard to access the police files from years ago. She had the names of the people involved and set up a comparison to the packs, her teeth snapping and grinding when the match appeared.
They were humans. Like her. But that’s where the similarities ended.
She had to get back to Scarlet. She closed the computer and was packing it away, the strap on her shoulder and her phone out when she felt the sting in her thigh. She looked down and then up, her palm wrapping around the dart and pulling seconds before she felt herself float to the ground, darkness surrounding her.
Chapter Thirty
Jess couldn’t begin to explain it. Not to himself, not to his brothers, but fortunately, no one questioned the how part.
No one had been able to raise Lily on the phone. No one had seen her once she left Scarlet at the Inn. Lexi fidgeted on the back seat, the tawny ponytail twitching and flicking like it never had before. They couldn’t get an answer on Scarlet’s phone and had called the sheriff.
Two vehicles were screaming along the mountain road and almost in Morning Star Lake. No one had spoken since Lexi read the message from Lily.
Jess’s jaw ached, his breathing barely registering and senses open full.
Lucas was equally tense. His hand clenched, claws digging into his flesh.
Whoever was there, whoever was responsible, they wouldn’t be breathing by nightfall. That, in itself, was a completely new sensation now coursing through the country doctor.
“I should have been with them,” Lexi kicked out at the side of the car, pacing outside the inn.
“And that would have helped how?” Eli didn’t try and contain her, didn’t try and keep her out of it. Pale lashes closed when she pulled her pack from her shoulder and tossed it into the car, her jacket following and shoes next. “Lex….”
“Don’t even think it,” was the snarling hiss, her head up and turning sharply. “Scarlet’s here,” they watched the powerful she-wolf approach from the side of the house, her head lowered, eyes narrowed.
Sage Terrence stepped from his vehicle, senses full open and scanning the area.
“She was taken by a human and a wolf,” Lexi pulled her shirt over her head and shifted, running off into the woods before anyone could say anything.
“A cougar?” Sage looked from Lucas to Eli to Jess. He watched Lucas drop to his heels, his hands on the dark gold tipped fur, their faces touching. He looked at Jess. “You gonna be able to deal with this?”
Half feral eyes spun on him, his features drawn and lips set in a grim line. Lethal canines already slipping his rigid control.
“Yeah…I kinda thought that was the case. She’s human?” He had most of the facts from the gossip around Devil Hills.
“Morrison, J
ames and this human, Hunnicutt. He ran the team that killed her parents. He was a part of one of the purist groups on this side of the mountain. He’s the father of one of the young men she killed as a child,” Eli spoke quietly, clearly, watching his brother with his mate. “All because her parents taught at a shifter school.”
“So the three of them formed some kind of idiot pact to get even?” Sage shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d seen far more ludicrous excuses in his time with the police and then sheriff of Devil Hills. “From shit over fifteen years ago?”
“From Lily’s email, Morrison was after Scarlet for the death of his son when he raped her. Hunnicutt’s son was on the team that took out the humans teaching in the shifter school. Lily had been training with her grandfather since she was little to be able to take care of herself,” Eli looked over to watch Jess skirting the edge of the driveway, his head lifted and nostrils twitching. “James wanted Lexi. I think mostly to get even with her parents for forcing him out of the pack for being an asshole.”
“Look, I know it’s hard to keep control right now,” Sage rubbed a palm over the back of his neck. He was lying. He’d never had a mate. He had no idea the strength behind the demand for the best to protect and kill. “Your father has the pack on alert and watching the town. Are we sure they’re still in the area?”
Jess spun on him. “She’s still here.”
Sage glanced toward Lucas, a thick quilt wrapped around Scarlet.
“Scarlet,” Sage nodded at her as they approached.
“They have her at a cabin off to the north. Lily’s unconscious. I don’t know what they did to her. I smelled some kind of drug. I can lead you there,” she said firmly. “Lex will set up watch and keep them in her sights.”
“Why keep her here? Why not…” He hesitated, not wanting a set of claws wrapped around his throat. “Why not kill her and move on? If he’s after all of you, he’ll be looking for Lexi.”
Scarlet arched a brow at him. “A cougar isn’t as easy to trap as a human. Milly Ventura says Lily was out on the walkway over the water. She saw her fall and two men ran out to carry her back and put her into the backseat of a large pickup truck. They left her pack just lying there. Milly’s holding it for me.”
“I know. I got her call,” Sage paced, hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Then we’d better get up there. I’ll take the roads with everyone’s clothing. Jess? What are you going to do?” He knew pack law. It was his mate taken. The kill was his and nothing better get in his way.
“Kill anything that gets in my way.” He said simply, taking his clothes and tossing them into the back seat of the large SUV the sheriff drove.
He nodded slowly. “Alrighty…good plan. Simple. Effective. Easy to remember.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too.” Jess growled before shifting and breaking into a full, open run in the direction Lexi had gone, following both scents and refusing to think about being too late.
Scarlet drew him a quick map and waited, shifted, while Lucas shed his clothing and joined her. Sage followed the map, parking just outside range of sight of the cabin. He could smell the cougar just before he shifted and went toward the building, a low light flickering inside. It seemed bright against the dark, cloudy daylight outside.
Three vehicles were parked to the side.
But the human wasn’t there. He was positive of that. Lingering scent, definitely. Anger, fear…but fading.
“I don’t know where the fuck she went or even how she got away!” Shouted the one he could identify as a human.
He heard the sound of a fist striking out. He could smell the metallic trace of blood being drawn as he crept around and met up with Lucas, Jess and Scarlet.
Lily kicked at the twigs and leaves as she ran. Ran! She hated running and she definitely hated running from those idiots.
“Stop pushing me!” She growled at the large cat snarling and hissing behind her.
Lily looked at the large tree and snarled back at the cat.
“They took my guns!” She endured another shove against her ass. “I do not climb trees! You…climb trees, damn it!”
She heard the sounds behind her. They knew she’d gotten free. And being wolves, didn’t have the slightest problem finding her. But they couldn’t climb trees. That’s what Lexi was forcing into her head.
Fine. Climb the damn tree.
She gripped the lowest branch and used her boots, growling at the leap the cat made and ended up on a thick, heavy branch above her.
“Show off.”
All she got for her efforts was a snarl that Lily suspected meant climb faster and higher. The thick branches of the huge pine hid them from sight, but sight wasn’t how they’d be found. She knew that. But she also knew they wanted her alive to use as bait.
She hated dealing with shifters this way. It was impossible to hide anything from them. They would know Lexi was with her.
“They tranquilized me just after I sent out the message,” Lily said quietly, still feeling the effects and hating the woozy feeling, the nausea that crept up now and then was the worst side-effect.
And they took her guns!
She looked up at the twitching ears, dark nose and long fangs. “Jess came with you, didn’t he?” She said softly. “He’ll kill them. I can’t let him, Lex…I can’t.”
Bright blue eyes met hers but there wasn’t remorse or regret in them for the men responsible for all this.
“They took my guns, Lexi,” Lily said again, her back suddenly stiffened. “They’re going to use them. They’re going to kill them using my guns! Fuck!”
She made a move to jump to the ground when the mouth closed over her wrist. Just enough to get her attention. Holding her in place with eyes that said no.
“I can’t let them, Lexi,” she whispered. “Jess…Scarlet…”
Lexi held tightly to the branch. Naked and shivering. “They’ll handle it and I can’t stay like this, so you listen to me and just stay up here. They’ll know we’re here but they won’t do anything.”
“They’ll shoot into the tree!” Lily hissed back. “Shift. You’re goose bumpy…I’ll stay for now. You take off and stay out of their range. I’ll be okay here. Go! They might need your help!”
Looking like she was going to regret it, Lexi let loose with a long puff of breath and leaped from the tree, off into the night in the opposite direction. Lily heard the snarl and knew she’d hear about it later.
Especially if things didn’t go well. She puffed up her cheeks and eased herself to the ground, ducking behind the tree and trying to get a fix on the cabin they’d run from. Her guns were there and she wanted them back. Now.
Lily snuck around, a longer path but found her way back to the large vacation cabin. Everyone in the freaking forest could tell where she was because of their abilities and she was going on instinct.
It was just flat out wrong.
She crept behind the building. She couldn’t hear a thing.
No breathing. No talking.
She knew they would be pissed at losing her. She also knew Jess was here and she couldn’t risk him being hurt. He was a doctor, damn it! He didn’t want to hurt people but he would because she’d been threatened. She just hoped they remained human.
If they shifted and she shot the wrong one…she wasn’t familiar enough with any of them but Scarlet and Jess. She could tell Eli and Lucas, but only up close. She swallowed the growl in her throat. Knees bent, she made it to the back door, pushing one finger up and frowning when it silently opened.
Not for the first time in her life she wished for some of that super smelling ability. She dropped to her knees and slipped into the mudroom. Crawling on hands and knees, the single light in the center of the A-frame building still glowed, throwing off a too silent cast of yellow.
Lily sunk with her back against the cabinet, her knees drawn up, trying to orient herself with where she’d been and where she was now.
And listening. She heard the howling outside.
She looked down at her fingernails. Her claws wouldn’t slice through doors and her fangs wouldn’t rip anyone’s throat out, but bullets would sure go a long way to making things a lot more on the even side.
The real prize was still the Daniels’ pack and their territory. They had used them as bait to draw them to one place to make it easier. She had no idea how many were out there.
Or where. It might only be eleven in the morning, but the clouds and mist were too thick for her to be able to see much outside. She wasn’t used to feeling impotent and it made her angry.
Still on her hands and knees, she made her way to the room she’d been in, the duct tape cut through by Lexi’s claws. They should never have put her in a room with a window.
And where were her fucking guns?!
She wanted to scream and throw things.
Instead, she continued creeping through the house, searching, looking. Relief came flooding inside her when she found the main room. No one was in the house, she was pretty sure of that.
No creaking. No breathing.
But she found her holster and slipped along the wall behind the sofa, keeping low. They’d tossed her holster onto one of the chairs without removing anything.
She felt the relief flood her when her fingers curled around the familiar, soft leather and pulled it to her. She decided she was definitely weird as she hugged the holster and two guns for a long minute before shrugging it on and buckling it in place where it belonged.
Then she heard the snarling. And was pretty sure it came from the human.
She stayed down behind the sofa, the door slamming and heavy footsteps on the hardwood floor.
“I told you it was too soon, you stupid asshole!” This voice was rough, hard and low.
“It’s the perfect opening.”