Victoria walked to hug Morena. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Morena mustered a smile.
"Let's get everyone inside right away." Like a matriarchal hammer, Sylvie took command of the situation. They were rounded up and herded to the house. Following imperious commands, Sawyer stripped naked, donned a towel, and then was shoved into a seat in the kitchen. While his wet clothing was whisked away, allegedly destined for the dryer, he sipped tea. The hot liquid spread from his belly, warming his core.
Sylvie dropped a quilt over his shoulders, and one of the pups lay across his bare feet like a giant furry slipper. A comforting aura of belonging suffused him—home.
A chair's legs scraped on the tile as Victoria sat across from him. She leaned toward him, her blonde hair slicked against her skull. Her blue eyes were intense. "Sawyer, what happened? Morena says you imagined someone drowning and charged out into the lake."
He took a slow, deep breath. Discomfort pinched at his insides, an uneasy sense of humiliation over how he'd acted. "I didn't hallucinate anything. I know what I saw. There was a distressed swimmer signaling for help. A man with dark hair."
Her lovely face contorted into a frown. "Dark hair?"
"Yeah." He nodded, unable to confess that he had believed it to be Daniel.
"I believe you." Victoria lurched to her feet. She swung toward Morena and caught the teenager in an embrace. "Thank you for going after him, Morie. We've lost enough lives already to that damn lake."
"Victoria—" With a distraught undertone to her voice, Sylvie cut off whatever she'd been about to say. The older woman and Victoria exchanged a loaded glance.
Victoria charged from the kitchen, leaving her pack behind in anxious silence. After a moment, Sylvie followed the Alpha from the room. The atmosphere of hominess vanished.
Sawyer dared break the brittle quiet first. "What just happened?"
Morena swung on him. "Arik drowned. They never found his body."
Arik. Victoria's brown-haired mate. Shit, no wonder she looked upset.
"Oh." Deflated, Sawyer exhaled.
After a short pause, Morena asked, "So, did he beat you?"
"Huh?" His thoughts were elsewhere, so it took him a second to process her question. He'd forgotten the pack bond worked two ways.
"Your father. Did he beat you?"
Sawyer sat upright in alarm. "How much did you see?"
Morena smirked. "Enough."
His chair creaked when he rocked back. His hands dropped to his lap. "No, my father never laid a finger on us. When one of us got a whippin', my mom did it. My ass still hurts to this day."
Snickering, Morena ducked her head.
Desperately desiring to restore the comforting aura, he extended his hand and touched Morena's elbow.
Fine eyebrows drawn together, she tilted her face and looked at him. "What?"
"You saved my life. Thank you."
With a rough yank, she pulled her arm free. "You're a member of the pack. I was obligated. This doesn't change anything."
Except to increase exponentially what he owed her.
"I still hate you!" Morena glared at him.
He smiled. "I know."
Victoria joined Sawyer an hour later as he leaned against the Chevelle's hood. He snapped his math textbook shut. Reaching through the open window, he dropped his book onto the front seat and used one finger to shove his sunglasses into place.
"Ready to go?" He noted the strap bisecting her breasts, the bulk of the duffle slung behind her. His gaze lingered longer than appropriate. Flushing, he looked away.
She snickered. "Almost." Opening the passenger side door, she slung the bag over her head and stowed it in the backseat. "Before we go, there's something I wanted to ask you..."
She trailed off into uncertainty, so he waited. When the normally plainspoken Victoria failed to elaborate, Sawyer rounded the car and stood beside the open door. She chewed on her lower lip, hands closed to fists. Her pensive expression unsettled him. Not a good feeling, considering recent events had left him downright spooked. His clumsy attempt to use the empathic connection to read her hit a brick wall, and he sensed her blocking him.
"Spit it out," he grated. "I'm not in the mood for any more surprises."
Her regard focused on him, blue and belligerent. She snapped, "Me either."
They glared at one another, grim-faced, jaws jutting. Tension stretched, silk drawn taut, fine and thin. Sawyer wasn't sure who cracked the first smile, but he found himself grinning stupidly.
"What's your question?"
She swallowed a smile. "Out on the lake, when you thought you saw Daniel, was there anything..."
A serpent coiled in his gut. "Yeah?"
"Odd?" She bit the word in half.
He huffed in exasperation and ran a hand through his hair. "The whole damn thing was odd. Can you be more specific?"
Nodding, she eased around the car door separating them. "Did you sense anything that felt like magic, like someone was controlling your mind or influencing your emotions?"
He blinked. "You mean like your Jedi mind trick?"
Her lips thinned. "Yes, like that."
Sawyer rolled the matter around in his mind. The whole thing had him freaked out, but he didn't recall anything specific. Nothing to make him ascribe the experience to external influences. Eventually, he shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe. I'd swear it was real. Too real."
She nodded. "Okay."
"Why?"
"No reason." Without another word, she climbed into the Chevelle's passenger seat and pulled the door shut with a solid thunk.
He stood rooted in place for several seconds. Arms raised, he allowed his head to loll and gazed skyward. His lips formed a silent word, Women. The chirping birds offered no ready explanation, so he climbed in and started the engine.
He drove south toward Arizona for several miles. Victoria stared out the window, perfectly motionless in the manner of a predator. Against his better judgment, he harbored illicit curiosity about her relationship with his brother. There were too many unknowns, too many unanswered questions.
Curiosity got the better of him. Staring straight ahead, he asked, "How did you meet my brother?"
After a hesitation, she answered, "Daniel pulled me over for speeding and wrote me up."
"He must have known who you were," Sawyer said skeptically. The Barrett family and the Storm Pack had been allies for over thirty years prior to the war that now divided them. Hunters and wolves never socialized but often coordinated their efforts to defend the Phoenix area and their mutual, overlapping territories.
"Oh, he knew all right. But he pulled me over in an unmarked vehicle and peacock-strutted alongside my car with his thumbs hooked in his belt, his hands framing that big brass Winchester Repeating Arms belt buckle of his. He tilted his hat and let his sunglasses slip down his nose and he said…" Victoria affected a deep baritone. "'Miss, do you know how fast you were going?'"
"Oh yeah, that was Danny." Chuckling, Sawyer glanced over and found her smiling at him.
"Such bullshit! No one drove faster than your brother." Victoria rolled her eyes. "I tried to change his mind about the ticket."
"Flirting?" A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Daniel had been a sucker for gorgeous blondes.
She laughed. "Something like that."
He slanted a side stare at her. Damn, curiosity was killing him, and not asking required all of his self-control.
After a moment, Victoria relented. "After he handed me the citation, he asked for my phone number. So I wrote my phone number on the back of the ticket and gave him a choice." She grinned. "You can probably guess what he chose."
"Yeah, I think so." He laughed, wanting to cry with grief for his brother.
"He was a good man." Sorrow turned her voice watery.
"Yeah, the best. Fuck, I miss him." White-knuckled, Sawyer clutched the steering wheel and choked on the awful emptiness. The one time he would have welcomed
the pack bond, silence filled his mind.
Victoria remained cut off from him.
"Yeah," she said, echoing his loneliness and loss. "Me too."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fólkvangr, Freya's hall in Sessrúmnir
Scowling, Loki sneered. "Love is worthless."
"Love is everything. Only one who is unloved would dismiss it so."
His mouth opened, but for once, the talkative Trickster offered no witty insults, no ready retorts. He looked lost and sad.
Seeing an opportunity to press her advantage, Freya smirked. "It's been centuries since you ordered your wolf children to pledge fealty to the Aesir, Loki. Even among the wolf shifters, your name is spoken with derision. You are hated by your own blood."
"I did what I had to do to protect them from Odin's wrath," he said. "Their fealty was false. Their loyalty a lie."
"Ah, but where have you been?" Freya asked, deliberately taunting him. "You have been a neglectful father. All those who knew it was supposed to be a false promise are dead. Without a reminder, their descendants have forgotten their god."
Freya smiled and savored his bitter realization. How it must sting!
"So Victoria loves you." A slow, wicked smile spread on the Trickster's lips. "Ah, but do you love her? Because you do realize that you're going to have to command her to cut Fenrir's bonds. We have a deal."
The taste of bile replaced the sweet satisfaction in her throat. "There is only one reason you would say such a thing—"
He nodded. "Ragnarök is coming."
Midgard
Fucking werewolves never stopped complicating his life.
A vein throbbed in Jake Barrett's temple, and he imagined the pressure building in his skull until the vessel burst. Weariness and hunger aggravated his irritation, and having a pack of wolves hijack his personal traitor had put him in a less than premium mood. Skinner's news was the cherry on the shit sundae.
Jake squinted to compensate for the glare of the late afternoon sun. "Say that again."
His friend flashed a fierce grin. "Sure thing. Should I talk slower?"
"Don't be an ass."
Skinner chuckled. "Way too late for that."
"Skinner..." A note of warning crept into his voice, a sign of his short-temper.
"It's fucked up beyond all recognition," Skinner said. "We followed Chart to Payson, hanging back so he wouldn't make us. He pulled over for fuel, and a group of werewolves grabbed him. We chased 'em, but they crossed into their territory, so I called off the pursuit."
His nostrils flared as he exhaled. What reason could Fireball Finn and the White Mountains Tribe have for abducting Andy Chart?
"Did I make the wrong call?" Skinner asked.
"Nah, you made the right call. Did the Alpha give a reason for wanting Chart?" Jake shifted his stance and surveyed the hunters scattered throughout their loose convoy of stopped vehicles. His people possessed the equipment and training of an elite para-military unit. Civilians regarded them as an ultra-right-wing private militia, but they operated with the knowledge, sanction, and funding of the federal government.
At a glance, his people looked bored as they cleaned firearms, shot the breeze, and bent their heads over phone screens. At the front end of her Jeep, Crazy Cali Kinkaid carried on a muttered conversation with the hood while she abused the tire with the point of her steel-toed boot. Coiled tension lurked beneath the unit's apparent ennui. One of their own had betrayed them, and they lusted for vengeance.
"Fireball wants to meet with you in person," Skinner said.
"Let's get this over with then."
Skinner scowled. "You going alone?"
Jake bared his teeth and addressed his people. His voice rose. "We go together."
A cheer arose from the ranks, a bloodthirsty furor.
Skinner shouted but then dropped his volume, speaking to Jake in an aside. "You gonna tell Finn to stick it up his ass if he objects?"
He chuckled. "Nah, I'll let you have the honors. Let's move out."
Ten miles outside Show Low, the hunters parked their vehicles. Carrying backpacks and firearms, they hiked into the remote location the werewolves had chosen for the meeting. His unit wasn't at full-strength. Due to losses suffered during the ambush in Tucson, their numbers were down by more than a tenth.
At the prospect of another potentially lethal confrontation, tension soared in the unit. Voices rose along with fiercely competitive banter.
"Smell that? Good, clean nature. That's what you smell."
"All I smell is shit."
"That's 'cause you're walking behind Mendoza. His ma never did teach him how to wipe his ass."
Raucous laughter ripped through the entire unit before Skinner busted their asses. "Buncha fucking sissies," Skinner shouted. "Listen up, men. So long as I'm the Mother Fucker in Charge of this unit, I don't want to hear anymore pansy-assed whining. Makes me think we need to engage in some serious PT once we return to base. Anyone else got anything negative to say about our nature walk?"
"Not a word, sir," Crazy Cali shot back. "I'd like to say that I think it's fucking fantastic that there's nothing mechanical present that might blow the fuck up."
For a second, Skinner's face looked ready to explode. Brow arched, he traded a look with Jake.
"Woman's got a point," Jake muttered.
"Amen to that." Shaking his head, Skinner walked away.
Alpha Finn and what looked to be his entire pack met them at the agreed upon location in the wilderness just beyond the reservation's border. The two groups squared off, a couple hundred feet separating them.
His men were armed with firearms loaded with silver ammunition, but Jake hoped against hope it didn't come to that. Even against automatic rifles, the werewolves had the advantage at close range.
With Skinner at his side, Jake surveyed the wolves.
"This doesn't look good," Skinner muttered. "We're way outnumbered."
"Just the opposite, this is very good." Jake altered his grip on his rifle, stroking the black walnut stock, taking pleasure in the smooth grain of the wood beneath his fingertips. "He's brought females with pups, the lame, and the elderly. He expects to talk, not fight."
Skinner grunted. "Sure hope you're right."
"I'm right. Finn has too much cunning to make the mistake of placing his people in harm's way," Jake said confidently. "No, they're here 'cause he wants them to bear witness."
In terms of total numbers, when non-shifter kinfolk, mates, and children were counted, the White Mountains Tribe was the largest in Arizona. Jake knew the pack boasted close to a hundred werewolves, making it the strongest in several states. To win the war with the undead, he needed to restore the alliance. Gaining the support of Finn and his pack was an essential piece of the bigger puzzle. If Finn threw his support behind a new treaty, smaller packs would follow suit.
With his second-in-command at his side, Jake walked out to the midway point between the two groups. The time-honored ritual of negotiating with the strength of his army at his back dated to antiquity. As a military man who hated the deception and pretense of modern politics, he had a deep appreciation for the traditional practice.
As a human, Finn stood over eight-feet tall. The Alpha had the flaming-ginger hair of a Norseman and the brown skin of a Native American. He fairly represented the blended heritage of his people.
Accompanying Finn was a man known to Jake as Tarak. The muscular werewolf was a full head shorter than the Alpha. He had braided black-hair, brown skin, and Apache tribal tattoos on his bare biceps. By reputation, he was a fierce warrior, bloodthirsty and sadistic, and intolerant of outsiders.
Finn's broad smile displayed a wide swath of teeth. "Jake Barrett, welcome to the territory of the White Mountains Pack. I'm surprised to see you here so soon after our encounter down south. It is intriguing how fate keeps bringing us together."
Jake scowled, curbing the desire to call the Alpha on his bullshit. "Finn, why have you taken Andy Chart hosta
ge?"
"You have a particular interest in this man Chart?"
He scowled, on the edge of losing his temper. Games annoyed him. He had no patience for scheming, and he refused to play. "I think you damn well know who he is."
Finn's head dipped as he traded a sideways glance with Tarak before returning to the hunter. "He is not our hostage. He is a... Guest. I am curious to know why you are so interested in him."
The fuse to Jake's temper ignited at a slow burn. His hands worked, opening and closing, and he nailed the Alpha with a deadly stare. "Are you certain you're not mistaken, Finn? Andy Chart is a traitor, the worst sort of coward. If you insist upon proclaiming friendship with him, you can see how I might conclude that you acted as his co-conspirator."
Finn's mouth opened and surprise flickered across his face before he controlled his reaction. Wariness glinted in the wolf's eyes. A considerate pause ensued, and then he asked, "What has he done?"
"He tried to assassinate me—"
"Then he's a fool," the Alpha said. "It is well known that you cannot die. No matter how many may wish it were so."
Tarak's lips curled, and he glared at the hunter. "Everyone dies. Even the gods."
"Bring it on, Fuzzball." Skinner tightened his grip on the stock of his rifle. The hunter's aggression incited an immediate response from the Beta werewolf.
Tarak snarled, bristling menacingly.
Finn's head turned toward his second. Glaring, a growl rumbled in his throat. "No."
Sullenly, Tarak glared at Skinner, but he stood down.
Jake let the incident pass without remark. "We have reason to believe that Andy Chart is responsible for the explosion that killed Adair and Katherine Storm."
The muscles in Finn's face tightened. "They say Adair's daughter murdered your son."
A tick worked in the hunter's jaw. "They say lots of things."
"I do not hear you making denials." Finn's direct gaze challenged him. "They also say you ambushed the Storm Pack, murdering the Alphas and many others in revenge."
Jake met the werewolf's gaze. "On my honor, I wasn't behind those explosions. We were set up. Just as many hunters died that day."
Battle Cry (Loki's Wolves Book 2) Page 18
