GRAY Wolf Mate

by Dianna Love

  Just to throw this out for conversation, Tess said, “As I understand it, one Power Baron mage has voted twice in favor of shifter rulings.”

  “See, that’s it. Why would he do that? That bunch only came out because they wanted to have access to all intel across the board, not because they give two shits about harmony between humans and nonhumans. I don’t trust any of them voting or their intentions. They don’t have a dog in this race.”

  Tess considered that. “Do you trust my intentions?”

  Scarlett pondered on that moment. “Yes, for now, until you give me reason not to.” Leaning back, looking relaxed, but always ready to pounce, she added, “I picked up a rumor that the intern was at the food bank building four hours before it got bombed. I haven’t been able to confirm it but the information came from a good source.”

  Hold everything. That was ... very interesting.

  But rather than jump on that and make Scarlett pull back, Tess switched the direction on her. “That brings up something that I can’t sort out. I keep trying to figure out whether someone was trying to kill SWAT and SCIS first responders with a bomb, which would have happened if any of them had arrived even one minute sooner.”

  “I don’t think that was the intention at all. I think they wanted you to capture that wolf you let escape.”

  Being fingered for what happened to Cole kicked Tess off balance. Before she thought, she said, “How could anyone have known he was going to be there? He said—” She caught herself before she shared what Cole had told her.

  Scarlett’s focus sharpened. “He said what?”

  Checking herself to watch her words, Tess replied, “The prisoner claimed he had nothing to do with the Black River pack. He lost someone in the bomb who was strapped inside a truck and wearing the bomb as ankle cuffs.”

  “Interesting,” the shifter mused.

  Tess had a sinking feeling the thing Scarlett found interesting would not work in her favor. She finished her gin as her phone buzzed with a text from her assistant. The files she’d been expecting had arrived. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Workaholic,” Scarlett accused in a teasing tone.

  “Some of us have ambitious goals.” She smiled, pulling her coat and purse off the chair.

  Playing with a straw from the stock of them on the bar, Scarlett said, “We all work, but in different ways. You go push paper and I’ll poke around.”

  “Be careful,” Tess said.

  Giving her an eye roll, Scarlett pointed to herself. “Shifter here.”

  “True, but I’m sure there are all levels of shifters.” Tess wondered if Scarlett knew about Cole’s team. “By the way, anything on that alpha I asked you to check into?”

  “I have a lead on him. Once I find him, I have to explain that you’re the daughter of the woman who had a heart attack in Richmond where he got into a dustup with that jackal. If he agrees to talk, you’ll know as soon as I do.”

  Tess felt a true friendship beginning. “Thank you. I’ll repay the favor any time.”

  When Tess turned toward the door, Scarlett said, “Cougar.”

  Turning back, Tess frowned. “What?”

  “You wanted to know what my animal was the last time we met. You were polite about it and didn’t ask, just like this time. Mine is a cougar.” The shifter winked in a sassy way and added, “I’m gonna own it for real if I can find me some young thang when I get old.”

  Tess laughed. “Thanks. I did want to know.”

  “If you had an animal, I bet it would be some form of cat.”

  That sounded like a second compliment from Scarlett. Tess smiled, unsure how to respond without screwing up the moment.

  Scarlett added, “Just don’t let curiosity get your tail in trouble.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Tess stepped back out into a light drizzle and lifted the hood on her coat to cover her head. She didn’t like getting wet but with only five blocks to go, this wasn’t enough to warrant the small umbrella in her coat pocket.

  When she reached the corner to get back on the main thoroughfare, she waited for the light to change so she could cross the street.

  Sirens wailed, coming in from her right as the rain started coming down harder.

  A police car screamed up with lights flashing and slowed just enough to be sure no one ran through the traffic light. Tess had stepped back to avoid being sloshed by water pooling near the curb. She sensed a vehicle stopping on her right, but like everyone else, her attention was on the two police cars racing toward some crisis or chasing someone.

  Out of her peripheral vision, a door on a van to her left slid open and two men dressed all in black jumped out.

  Her mind registered the threat at the same moment she lunged away to run and reached for the gun in her purse.

  It turned into one of those bad dreams where it seemed like her body moved slower than swimming through mud and the attackers shot around her at hyper speed.

  The first one cupped his hand over her mouth, stifling her scream even though the sirens drowned her out. He wrapped an arm around her chest, jerking her back. She yanked back and forth, but there was no breaking his hold. The second guy grabbed her legs even though she kicked as fast and hard as she could. She caught his chin with one shove and he snarled at her.

  It took mere seconds for them to contain her and shove her into the van.

  Scarlett wouldn’t get caught like this, dammit.

  Tess had a moment of fantasizing she was a powerful shifter capable of ripping through these guys, but they’d handled her so easily she had a sick feeling they were shifters.

  The van pulled away slowly, turning right, which was in the opposite direction the police cars were headed. The one in the back with her stuffed a rag in her mouth and pulled a black hood over her head.

  Panic settled into her chest, paralyzing her lungs. Every breath became harder to pull through the cloth. She had to calm down or she’d hyperventilate with no help from these guys.

  One of them said, “Don’t jerk around if you don’t want to get hurt, human.”

  Definitely shifters.

  Another voice said, “We get paid to deliver you alive. If you stay calm, you’ll arrive without many bruises. Fight us and you might break one of those fragile little human bones.”

  Someone released a high-pitched cackle that made her skin crawl.

  She’d heard that before around SCIS. Jackals.

  They zip-cuffed her wrists and ankles, pushing her down on her back.

  In less than a minute, her life had changed.

  Her heart pounded at a crazy rate.

  What did shifters want with her? Or were these mercs working for a human? Cole had said they’d do anything for the right price.

  They hadn’t tried to rough her up or molest her, but that didn’t mean the person paying for this wouldn’t. She’d never felt so helpless in her life.

  Her father would go crazy at losing her.

  He would assume the worst, that it was a shifter. Life would repeat itself if they grabbed the first available shifter and threw him in prison. No one would track these guys down.

  Cole would.

  He’d have to know where she was to do that.

  These guys had likely set up the car wreck for the emergency vehicles to come by at that moment.

  She strained quietly but they had her tied up tight.

  This was the whole reason Tess had altered her life. She’d wanted to make sure the guilty were brought to justice, but she was beginning to think Cole might be right about jackals in general selling out their own.

  If she didn’t survive this, would the jackals find some poor soul to hand over for murder?

  Someone who would die in a pit?

  She couldn’t think about that. If someone had sent these guys to bring her in alive, just maybe she’d have a chance to escape.

  Optimistic even if it was unrealistic.

  She would never stop fighting to survive.

>   The van had driven long enough to be outside the metropolitan area of the city. The further it went, the more she lost confidence that she’d walk away from this.

  They were being careful, not driving too fast and stopping at what she assumed were traffic lights. Soon she’d be too far for anyone to hear her.

  If she kicked the wall, would someone walking by think that was the sound of a captive fighting to get out?

  Probably not. Most people kept to themselves. No one would help her. No one would know she was locked inside the van passing by.

  She’d always been someone who didn’t give up, no matter what, but she’d never been kidnapped.

  Despair pooled in her chest and chilled her skin. Tears drizzled down her cheeks.

  She didn’t want to die.

  Didn’t want to leave her father to bury her.

  Didn’t want to miss seeing Cole again.

  Fuck this bunch. A tear slid over her nose, ruining her defiance. She choked back a sob and focused on surviving.

  Tess might not be Scarlett, but if she was going to die, she’d go down fighting.

  Chapter 25

  From the opposite side of the road, Cole shadowed the van as he moved with stealth along the dark sidewalk. He moved fast through the downpour. He thanked the heavy rain for covering his actions in this stretch.

  He’d just gotten back to Spartanburg when Justin sent an emergency text. He and Rory had been watching Tess.

  She’d been grabbed.

  Cole left his vehicle with them and tracked her van, which was thankfully trying to leave quietly and unnoticed.

  When he saw his opportunity, Cole called up his Gallize power, forcing the surge of energy into his right fist as the van slowed to make a turn.

  He shot out of the dark, aiming for the driver’s side.

  At the last second, the jackal shifter driving the van turned toward him. His senses kicked in too late.

  Cole dove forward, smashing the driver’s window and slamming the jackal’s head across both seats.

  The shock reverberated all the way to Cole’s neck.

  A gun flashed up.

  Cole snatched it away as the gun boomed, practically blowing out his eardrums. Fuck, that hurt. He ripped the door open and snapped the jackal’s neck, then yanked him out of the way.

  When he turned to dive into the rear area, he crashed into another jackal shifter in human form.

  Fists slammed his head, chest and side. Cole couldn’t get past the console to get equal footing in the back.

  Tess gave a strangled cry, then shut down.

  He couldn’t divide his attention to check on her yet.

  A third kidnapper had escaped out the rear door and was speeding away into the darkness, disappearing into the heavy rain. Cole needed this last shifter alive for interrogation.

  That meant he had to stay in human form. Gray Wolf would rip the jackal to pieces for harming Tess.

  Cole agreed with the wolf, but he couldn’t allow it.

  Fighting turned into a blur of vicious hits. Jackals lived for battle. The bloodier, the better.

  Cole beat the kidnapper back with rapid hits, waiting for an opening.

  He got it and slammed his pumped-up right fist into the jackal’s throat, crushing his windpipe. The guy fell back, choking. When the kidnapper reached for his throat, Cole saw part of a tattoo on the jackal’s left wrist. A known group of vicious mercs who handled snatch and kill orders.

  The jackal’s eyes turned wild.

  Yeah, you lose, asshole.

  The jackal shifter looked over at Tess curled up on the van floor.

  Snarling, the shifter’s face and jaw elongated as he rolled toward her. He was going to bite her.

  Cole had a half second to land with all his weight on the jackal’s half-changed head with both heavy boots.

  Skull bones crunched. Blood splattered in an arch.

  That piece of shit would have infected her.

  When Cole could think past how close Tess had just come to being turned into a jackal, he cursed under his breath. Damn jackals. The fighters refused to die without taking someone down with them, even a child, as long as someone else suffered.

  His hands were shaking.

  Facing a swarm of terrorists coming at him with automatic weapons hadn’t scared him as much as almost losing Tess. She would lose her mind if she’d been turned into a jackal shifter.

  Any shifter.

  Her whimpering shook Cole from his adrenaline-swamped state.

  Rain splashed against the open rear door. That runner would be harder to track the farther away he got in this downpour.

  For a half second, Cole considered chasing him but he wouldn’t leave Tess alone.

  She was too still.

  He shoved the mangled body aside and dropped to his knees next to her. He touched her shoulder.

  She jerked away with a muffled scream.

  “Shhh ... it’s me, Cole.”

  She quieted long enough for him to cut the ties at her wrist and ankles, then snatch the hood off and jerk the rag from her mouth.

  She launched herself into his arms, shaking and rambling. “They grabbed me ... it was fast ... they were jackals, but I don’t know who ... what ...”

  He held her and stroked her hair. “You’re okay.” Finally, his chest eased from the fear he would be too late or that the jackals had more than he’d estimated inside the van. He cupped her head, holding her to him.

  Even Gray Wolf calmed down.

  Their mate was safe.

  Only with us, Gray Wolf huffed.

  Cole was too exhausted from expending that much energy at one time, particularly calling up his Gallize magic, to argue with his wolf.

  Gray Wolf functioned on instinct alone. His rules were simple. Protect what was his and kill at will when challenged.

  Touching another shifter’s mate was a death challenge.

  Cole had a similar philosophy, but he had to balance shifter laws with human laws.

  Stupid laws.

  Not the first time Cole had heard that opinion from his wolf.

  When Tess calmed enough to pull back a little, her gaze went to the front before he could turn her away.

  “Don’t look, baby.”

  She gagged and shoved her head into his shoulder. “His head is ... backwards.”

  “I know. Let’s get out of here.”

  “We have to call the police.”

  “No, that’s the last thing we need to do.”

  “Cole, they tried to kidnap me and they’re ... dead.”

  “I know, but if we call in law enforcement, the police will go after shifters. These weren’t local shifters. Remember what I told you about jackals? This particular group is rumored to enjoy the protection of someone with significant power and influence.”

  “A Power Baron?” Tess sounded dumbfounded at that possibility, but while she knew about Power Barons, she didn’t really know the preternatural world as Cole did.

  “Could be or it might just be a lone mage. These jackals are paid to kidnap, kill or both. I promise you this has to do with your investigation on the Black River pack, but proving that is going to be tough. My people will deal with this and find what they can—”

  “But—”

  “You have to believe me on this, Tess. Your people will have nothing on record for these guys. No government will. Even the jackal shifters working with SCIS are not in this league. Even if SCIS could bring these guys in, which they can’t, the Black River pack would send an assassin who would get to them. This is going to be a bloodbath before it gets better. Let my people process all of this and I’ll share what they find out. Fair enough?”

  She took a long time answering. So long he was starting to think she’d say no, which wouldn’t matter since he had plans for her that did not include going anywhere near SCIS.

  Tess asked, “If I agree, will you tell me who your people are?”

  He couldn’t do that, not even for her
. “Don’t ask me to betray people who have fought alongside me. They’re the reason I even knew where you were tonight. If not for them keeping an eye on you for me, you’d be gone and ... no one would have been able to find you. This is bad stuff.”

  She stared at him with eyes wide in shock.

  Even though she worked around shifters, this was a lot to take in and he doubted she’d ever been around this type of merc.

  Leaning in, he kissed her forehead and saw headlights on an SUV pull up with a BEAR IT BABY tag on the front.

  Justin’s ride.

  Helping Tess up, Cole walked her out the back of the van, keeping his body between her and the smashed head. He held his hand up for Justin to wait in the vehicle.

  Cole was already putting his own life in jeopardy, but he would not put theirs at risk.

  A low rumble announced the approach of his personal SUV, which pulled up on the other side of the street along the curb. Leaving it running, a figure all in black with his head covered got out and crossed to the van.

  That’d be Rory.

  Cole said, “Thanks,” on his way to the car and Rory lifted a glove-covered hand in response.

  He put Tess in the passenger side, glad to feel heat pouring through the still-running car. Pulling out, he drove past the van where Rory had the engine cranked. They’d take the van to where they could process it properly. Cole would have to find time in the next few hours to send them what he knew.

  He could smell the anxiety wafting off Tess even if he hadn’t noticed her shivering.

  Full-blown shock was setting in.

  He’d driven ten miles before she looked around. “Where are we going? This isn’t the city. My apartment is back the other way.”

  “We’re not going there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because one of the kidnappers escaped. The minute he informs his contact that he lost you, they’ll send a backup team. Those jackals will send however many they need to get a job done, no matter the body count.”

  “That’s insane. How much money can someone pay for that?”

  “A lot, but that’s not the reason. In the paranormal underworld, it’s all about reputation. They can afford to take a financial loss on a job, but not to undermine their street cred. That would cost them ten or twenty jobs.”