“You’re imagining shit.”
“Yeah, my olfactory imagination has a mind of its own.” Zeke rolled his eyes. “Dude, I can smell attraction when it’s right in front of me, especially when it’s pouring off both sides of the equation. She was just as into you as you were into her.”
“No one was ‘into’ anyone.” He took a slug of coffee, but honestly, there wasn’t enough caffeine in the world to help him handle this shit. “Don’t you two have official duties you should be dutying, or something?”
Jaeger shrugged. “I don’t know about Zeke, but I’m officially pointing out what an asshat you’re being.”
That earned the mayor a full-on snarl. “What?”
“You heard me,” Jaeger said. He had that look on his face that said he was just as alpha as the wolf across from him, and Mick had better brace himself for some hard truth. “You’ve got your head wearing a very posterior look right now. The woman tried running from her problems, and that clearly didn’t work. She needs help, and she’s landed in Alpha, so we’re the ones who are going to have to give it. Since she’s a wolf, like you, but clearly not alpha like you are, she’ll need protection and she’ll need the feeling of a pack. You’re our resident alpha wolf, so what are you going to do? Step up, or leave her twisting in the wind?”
“There aren’t any packs in Alpha,” Mick grumbled. “The town is its own pack.”
Zeke made a rude noise. “Save it for the Chamber of Commerce, dude. You want us to be blunt here? We’ve known you for nearly ten years now, and in that time, I’ve seen you hook up with a few women and avoid anything that hinted at a relationship like the plague. But I have never seen you react to any female the way you did to that little she-wolf. That tells me something.”
“What? To mind your own damned business? Because that’s what I’m going to tell you.”
Jaeger added his voice to bolster Zeke’s argument. “It tells everyone that it’s time you stopped mourning the mate you couldn’t save and start working to protect your new one.”
Oh, no, he thought. If the she-wolf and her delicious lips hadn’t been enough to make him admit he’d found a new mate, then Larry and Curly over here sure as hell weren’t going to manage it.
He bared fang at the two of them. “Wolves mate once in their lives. I had mine. She’s gone. That’s it. I’m done.”
“Bullshit,” Jaeger said. “Wolves mate for life. There’s a difference.”
“I shouldn’t have even survived Beth’s murder. Most wolves don’t. Taking a second mate is a one-in-a-million thing, and I ain’t that special.”
Zeke raised an eyebrow. “Really? Bestselling graphic novelist in history? Local celebrity? Survivor of a damned blood war in your own pack? You ain’t special? Thanks for the clarification. I must have been getting you confused with another Michael Kennedy Fischer I know.”
“Screw you.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll leave that to our newest resident.”
Jaeger nodded, his expression so falsely innocent that he looked like a demon whose homemade halo had spontaneously combusted. “We can’t let our forbidden passions interfere with a true mate bond. Our sordid affair will have to end.” He sighed and fluttered his eyelashes. “At least we’ll have our memories.”
Mick swallowed the urge to rip out the throats of his friends. He might regret it later.
Possibly.
“I hate you guys.”
Zeke grinned from ear to ear. “Aw, we love you, too, Rover.”
“But not like Renny will,” Jaeger said, nodding. “You know, with all the nekkid and stuff.”
Mick closed his eyes and let his skull thump against the wall at his back. “Why the fuck didn’t I just stay in California?”
Five hours after letting her new roommate drag her out of their apartment, Renny couldn’t remember when she’d ever acquired so many things in such a short span of time in all her life. Not even on her best Christmas morning. In fact, she couldn’t imagine anyone had ever gotten this much stuff in just a few short hours. This must have set some kind of new record.
Molly stuffed the last of the bulging bags of clothing into the back of her truck with a satisfied grin. “This was a total success.”
Renny ran her hand over the end of the wooden headboard that managed to peek out from behind all the fabric and imagined reassembling the old-fashioned tester bed it belonged to. Okay, reassembling and repairing, since the frame had seen better days. But then she imagined stretching out across it for her first good night’s sleep in months and her smile couldn’t be repressed. “Absolutely. I can’t believe she just gave us the bed frame. And the mattress. She wouldn’t even take twenty bucks for it.”
Her friend snorted. “That’s because Cathy Reynolds is not an idiot. If she’d taken any money, she would have to explain to her husband why she had sold their old bed after he had specifically told her she was not allowed to buy the brand-new bedroom set she saw at the store in Redmond. Bill hates spending money, not matter how easily he can afford to and no matter how past time it’s gotten. But now, Cathy can paint him the heartwarming picture of a selfless act done to benefit a young woman in need. This bed represents the first step on your journey to a new life. Twenty bucks wouldn’t even represent the fine they’d have to pay when the neighbors reported their fight for violating the local noise ordinances.”
“That’s brilliant,” Renny allowed. “And slightly terrifying.”
“So is Cathy. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
She tried to recall the woman’s face, but frankly she had met so many people over the last few hours that they all kind of blended together into one amorphous blob of friendly welcome and unexpected generosity. By the end of their excursion to the four corners of Alpha (and, if Renny had guessed right, ninety percent of the points in between), the women had managed to buy, scrounge, borrow, or liberate (from curbs and such, no felonies involved) a new start’s worth of clothing, home furnishings, and decorations.
Okay, so Renny’s bedroom would still probably look a bit Spartan compared with the cheerful clutter in the rest of the apartment, but as Molly had said, minimalism was in. And besides, Renny didn’t need much.
Though you wouldn’t guess that by looking at the packed cargo area of the burly SUV. Molly’s behemoth of a vehicle made her poor, totaled little Nissan look like a Smart car.
She stepped back and bit her lip. “Do you think I went overboard? This is an awful lot of stuff.…”
“Bite your tongue,” Molly said, closing the rear hatch with a solid thunk. “It only looks like a lot because it’s all crammed into the back of one car. You barely got the necessities today. You need someplace to sleep, right? And these bags from the consignment store are absolutely required. Or did you want to start a movement to turn Alpha into a nudist colony?”
When she heard it put like that, Renny tried to relax. Honestly, when she thought about it, she really hadn’t spent much money for what she’d acquired. Molly knew all the best bargains in town, from the Newcomers Committee, to the secondhand shop, to the homes of the local residents with junk they were holding on to until the summer garage sale season. And all of them had been happy to help Renny supply herself for a new life in Alpha.
Just a few hundred dollars had netted her a bed and an end table–cum-nightstand for the bedroom, as well as a pair of lamps to go with them. An army of plastic and wooden hangers of all shapes and sizes would fill her closet, and she had bags of jeans, tops, and like-new clothing suitable for work that she’d unearthed from a variety of new and used shops and outlets. Honestly, she owned more now after one shopping trip with Molly than she had before the coyotes had destroyed her car.
Her only big splurge had been the fifty dollars she had gladly handed over for a delicate old vanity table and stool she had found in the back of the same store where Molly had bought a vintage glass vase. The swivel-mounted oval mirror needed to be re-silvered at some point, and some wood glue would probably ma
ke a big difference in the way the legs of both the table and the stool tended to wobble when they took any weight. The white paint had chipped badly, but underneath, Renny had spotted grains of antique elm. Her fingers itched for a can of stripper and a putty knife. When she was finished, she felt sure the set would be a showstopper. And it was hers. For her new home.
Emotion welled up and threatened to spill out her tear ducts. She really didn’t have to run anymore. Her life could finally start again. The only fly in her ointment remained a stubborn alpha wolf with a chip on his shoulder and a justifiable fear of commitment.
One thing at a time, girl, her inner voice reminded her. Remember: baby steps. Look what you’ve managed to grab hold of in less than twenty-four hours. If you can manage all this, that male doesn’t stand a marshmallow’s chance in a campfire.
Just wait and see.
Molly bumped her shoulder and smiled. “Come on, roomie. Let’s haul our treasure home and start getting you settled in. I can’t wait to see how that little tapestry looks against my expert paint job.”
“Me either.”
Renny was still grinning, still wrestling with her first experience with optimism in more months than she cared to count, when the fingers closed in her hair and jerked her backward.
Shit.
Chapter Six
“Fucking coyote scum.”
Mick grunted in agreement. After breakfast, he had brought Zeke back to the site of Renny’s trashed vehicle, or as Zeke called it in his official deputy voice, the crime scene.
“They leave her anything?”
“She had a handful of papers when I found her here, but that’s about it.”
Zeke curled a lip and kicked a chewed and stained tennis shoe across the pavement. “Fuckers.”
“Agreed. Now can you do your job and gather evidence? Or whatever the hell you’re going to do. I still say we should just track the bastards down and gut them. Have done with it.”
“Haven’t ruled that out, but first things first.” Zeke reached into his cruiser and grabbed a digital camera. “Jaeger wants this on the record. Renny’s new in town, so people might wonder about her story. They won’t after they see this.”
Mick stifled a snarl and paced out of the way while the deputy moved carefully around the car and its scattered contents, documenting the scene. Personally, he could care less what the citizens of Alpha thought about his mate and her story. Anyone who wanted to challenge her would have to go through him first.
Shit. Now his friends had him thinking of the little she-wolf as his mate. He needed to slam on the brakes before he actually found himself biting and claiming her. They already had enough to worry about.
First, as far as he was concerned, was where to find the hunting party that had pursued Renny north from California and attacked her on his land the night before. Presumably, they were the same thugs who had destroyed her car and her belongings. No one had seen them since he’d chased them off, but the wreckage in front of him provided sufficient evidence that they hadn’t left the area. And that meant they could still be a threat to his mate.
Double shit. To Renny. Ren-ny, not mate. Stubborn wolf.
While Zeke played by his department rule book, Mick used the time to get a leg up on the predatory coyotes who were about to become his prey. He moved around the shoulder of the road in a tightening spiral pattern, using his nose to gather up and analyze the scent of each member of the hunting party. The cool mud did a good job of holding on to the distinct odors.
He counted five of them, which lined up with what Renny had told them about Geoffrey’s pals. The strongest scent was easy to place, since he’d gotten a good whiff of it the night before. It belonged to the coyote he’d shot, the one who had ripped open Renny’s flank and side. Bryce, she had called the bastard. He’d be the first to die.
“Dude, you’re getting fuzzy.” Mick looked up to find his friend watching him with an expression of mingled concern and amusement. “Remember, we are on a public highway that humans use, even if it is in the middle of Bumblefuck. You need to get a grip.”
Mick fought back his aggressive response and took a deep breath. Zeke was right. He had to get better control.
Things were different from the way they’d been when he was a pup. Humans knew about the existence of shifters these days, but the Others still tried to keep from rubbing the mundane species’ noses in the evidence. Shifting in public was frowned upon, while shifting into a wereform—the half-human and half-beast shape of human horror movies—was absolutely forbidden anywhere humans could see. Plus, shifting required getting naked, and humans had all sorts of laws about that.
“I take it you got their scents?” Zeke asked. “Then let’s get moving. I’ve got enough evidence here to charge them with destruction of property, harassment, and menacing. Oh, and littering. If we can round them up, I can haul them into town and keep them at least overnight. Maybe we can put the fear of the Goddess into them.”
Mick would settle for fear of himself.
The men stripped, stored their clothing inside their vehicles, and locked up before shifting just inside the cover of the trees. Then, shoulder to shoulder (or maybe shoulder to armpit), wolf and lion set off along the coyotes’ scent trail.
Mick led the way, his canine nose more attuned to following specific scents. Zeke could draw air in over his Jacobson’s organ and taste odors on the breeze, but Mick could follow the minute traces of it left on the ground and vegetation the coyotes had passed. Five of them had traveled this way, the slightly fresher quality indicating it had been on their way back from trashing the car. Hopefully, that meant it would take him to where they had decided to hole up overnight. With luck, they might even still be there.
When they reached the trailhead, Zeke shifted back first. “Look at this. Fuckers camp like frat boys.” He picked up a discarded beer can and crushed it in his fingers. “What kind of shifter treats the woods like this?”
Mick took in the litter that marked the temporary campsite with disgust. Most shifters fell just short of “hippie” on the scale of environmental consciousness. Their connection to nature bred into them a respect for the earth’s remaining wild places that humans just couldn’t match.
He spent a few minutes nosing around the area, drawing in much more concentrated doses of the five coyote scents. He sorted them in his head.
Bryce—or, as Mick liked to think of him, the Dead Man—smelled musty, like something that had begun to mildew and decay. The coppery overlay of blood confirmed that Mick’s shot last night had at least grazed the coyote, but there wasn’t enough of the odor to indicate a serious wound. He would heal quickly, but the bitterness underlying his signature scent made Mick want to curl his lip and sneeze to clear it from his nostrils.
Coyote number two, the one with the next strongest scent profile, bore an edge of something chemical under his natural odor. Mick had detected it before, but most often in humans. It was the scent of an addict, the coyote’s drug of choice leaving a permanent stain that marked his skin and everything he touched.
Three and four had similar base notes, indicating a close blood relationship. Brothers, or cousins, maybe. Three smelled a little more of a sickly sweetness that made Mick’s hackles rise, but he couldn’t put his paw on the cause. He just knew it made him uneasy, and it made the thought of three getting anywhere near his mate inspire him to violent thoughts. Four was less sweet and much earthier, but not like the scent of clean soil. More like mushrooms and skittering insects, earthy but not entirely wholesome.
Number five seemed to leave behind traces of metal and motor oil, like someone who worked with cars on a regular basis—a mechanic. The one most likely responsible for the damaged engine of Renny’s car. Mick’s opinion waffled on him. Five had contributed to his mate’s distress but also provided a reason why she couldn’t leave his territory very easily. The coyote thug had essentially helped force the mates together. Maybe his death would be quicker than the others.
Mick’s human mind struggled for control, but in his fur, his wolf’s instincts held more sway over their thoughts and actions. The man inside him might still be fighting against acknowledging the she-wolf as his mate, but for the wolf outside, it was a done deal. All that was left was the biting.
“So?” Zeke’s voice had him looking up from the tangle of odors to catch the other man’s smirk. “You going to lead the way to where Timmy fell down the well, or what?”
He snarled, but the deputy didn’t look scared. Maybe because they both knew a lone lion could kick a lone wolf’s ass in a fair fight.
That just meant Mick would have to cheat.
Zeke chuckled. “Bite me later, pal. I want to round up these fools before they decide to take another shot at your woman. It will save a lot of paperwork if I don’t have to fill out death reports on them.”
Mick growled but turned his attention back to the business at hand. Now they knew the coyotes had roughed it the night before and camped out in the woods between the highway and his place, but they needed to know where the five of them had gone since then. A slow pass around the perimeter of the rough clearing told him the other trail away from this site led back toward Alpha.
An uneasy feeling prickled his skin. He’d assumed that the coyotes would be doing everything they could to stay under the town’s radar for the simple reason that witnesses naturally made a kidnapping more difficult. Logically, the coyotes should want to get hold of Renny somewhere out of the way, where no one would know she’d gone missing until they had time to get far enough away to thwart any pursuit. But what if the hunting party wasn’t using logic? What if their orders to bring Renny back to Geoffrey made them ignore the dangers of a public attack?
He set off along the trail at a lope, not even bothering to glance back when he heard Zeke cursing. The man could shift and follow him, or he could run naked and barefoot all the way back to Alpha. Mick didn’t care. He just needed to find the fucking coyotes before they found Renny.
Baby, I'm Howling for You Page 9
