“Well, there you have it. Pregnancy hormones,” I replied sagely when I was able to open my mouth without laughing. “I’m sure the kid will turn up soon. How long’s she been missing anyway—two hours? Surely that’s not unusual for a teenager.”
Bradford hummed assent, but now it was his turn to attempt reeling me in. “That’s what I thought at first too,” the older man drawled. “But then we received a report from an entirely different source about a wolf that had been spotted running loose in Mrs. Hallowell’s front yard. While you were spending the night on the premises. Seems fishy to me.”
Shit, shit, shit. Here I’d thought Lupe would be the one getting us all into trouble with the Tribunal, but it was my own lapse that had been reported to the police. Had one of the neighbors somehow caught sight of me during the rainstorm Thursday night? And were these one-bodies actually considering the idea that there might be paranormal activity at play?
I wanted to nail the cops with questions of my own. Who had called in the tip? And what had he or she actually seen?
But that would be a sure-fire way to get the duo digging in what would be the entirely wrong direction if they—and I—wanted to keep heads attached to living bodies. So I instead circled us back around to the beginning of this endless cycle of interrogation.
“I hate to break it to you, but I don’t howl at the moon and I don’t turn into a bat either. Look, I was just out for a walk when I saw that dog come out of nowhere and attack one of my students....”
Chapter 19
My next visitor showed up three agonizingly endless hours later. By then, I’d started to worry that Lupe and Mrs. Sawyer might not have made it Celia’s house unscathed after all. Because surely if my pack mates knew what was going on, they would have found a way to spring me from the slammer long before this.
With that timeline in mind, I tensed up when the door opened, hoping that good cop and bad cop hadn’t returned to exacerbate my headache. Then I sighed in relief when I caught a whiff of werewolf. My second had come through for me after all.
As my visitor stepped out of the dim hallway and into the light, however, I couldn’t help but turn my smile into a wince. Lucas Stormwinder hadn’t seemed to notice me the single time we’d met previously...an oversight that I soon realized was an unadulterated blessing. The uber-alpha in question was old-fashioned and prideful and it was best to stay under his radar. He definitely wasn’t my first choice of savior today.
Plus, Stormwinder was a member of the Tribunal, the exact same governing body that Hunter was currently working so hard to evade. I’d do well to hold my cards close to my chest even if the uber-alpha was ostensibly here to rescue me.
Still, my pack’s decision to sic the Tribunal on me made an odd sort of sense. Keeping one-bodies from realizing monsters were passing them by on the street every minute was a primary purpose of the shifter governing body, after all.
To that end, the uber-alphas made hefty donations to human charities and built copious connections that generally allowed them to sway one-bodies to their will. And in exchange, when it was really necessary, they’d always managed to keep rogue shifters’ actions under wraps in the past. Hopefully the same string-pulling would work in my favor now.
So I was only half joking when the words “Saved at last” bounced through my head.
Stormwinder relieved me of my metaphorical rose-tinted glasses immediately. “Really?” he asked, eyes running roughshod over my body while a supercilious curl to his lip promised he would gladly have been anywhere other than in my presence. “This is the best Hunter could do for himself?”
I had to force myself not to react. I knew I looked like hell with hair standing on end from two rapid shifts in short succession and with a bruise on my cheekbone from where Officer Lambert had accidentally-on-purpose slammed my face into the ground as he cuffed me...again. My knees were dirty, my dress was grass-stained, and I was pretty sure there were bags beneath my eyes due to staring at the blank, white walls for hours on end.
But I didn’t care. My wolf had obediently dropped into a doze as soon as the door opened, so Stormwinder couldn’t force me to do his bidding despite his uber-alpha status. And I figured the shifter’s mere presence meant he planned to eventually spring me from jail. I could handle a few snide comments in the process.
As a result, I feigned submission when I asked, “Are we going?”
“Are we going?” the uber-alpha mimicked, his voice a high-pitched jab at my supposedly weak, feminine nature. Chances were good my current visitor expected a caged female to be too cowed to look him in the eye, let alone to speak in his presence.
I knew I should have toed the line and bent my neck in submission. After all, I was stuck here in a human jail waiting for rescue. Stormwinder appeared to be the only white knight on patrol at the moment. And, more importantly, I had Lupe’s rogue presence to camouflage.
But I couldn’t resist snapping back and watching the Tribunal member’s eyes widen as he realized his uber-alpha dominance had no effect on me. “You’re a smug son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
The male’s nostrils flared and he leaned in across the small table I was attached to via handcuff. Then he released the pent-up aggression he’d been holding in check ever since walking in the door.
“I may be a smug son of a bitch, but you’re the stupid bitch herself. You’re going to crash and burn, and you’re bringing your...you’re bringing Hunter down right along with you,” he growled.
The Tribunal member’s eyes flicked up to the security camera mounted on the wall midway through his sentence, a timely reminder to both of us that we needed to mind our tongues here in one-body territory. I assumed Stormwinder had called himself my lawyer in order to get through the door, but I wouldn’t put it past Lambert to be listening in on our entire exchange via hidden microphone. After all, the expression on the one-body’s face when I’d repeated my story for the thousandth time had promised he’d do everything in his power to break me.
As long as I skipped over any mention of werewolves, though, there was no reason not to respond to my current opponent in kind. “Maybe I am,” I spat back, itching to spring to my feet rather than remaining seated while my visitor towered above me. The handcuffs holding me down suddenly felt like much more of a liability than they had when one-bodies were present. “But at least I’m not such an asshole that my daughter ran away with...”
Now it was my turn to remember the possible surveillance just in time. I’d planned to say “one-body,” repeating the gossip that had gone the rounds of All-Pack the year before.
But before I could think of a different way to end the sentence, Stormwinder’s fist caught me under the chin. My head snapped back and my skull thudded against the block wall behind me. I was pretty sure there wasn’t even any drywall there to cushion the blow.
Yep, that definitely stung.
Once I could blink back the tears that sprang up unbidden, I forced my eyes to meet those of the rat bastard himself. No way would I let the uber-alpha think one little punch was enough to knock me out of the running.
Then, over the ringing in my ears, a distant door slammed, indicating that the prison’s resident snoop had decided it was time to break up our little chat. Our time together was running out fast.
Before any one-bodies could enter the interrogation room, though, the uber-alpha leaned close to me one last time, that maddening smirk still spreading across his entire face. “Don’t even think about outing us to humankind,” he subvocalized, the words too soft to be picked up by any microphone. “Or I’ll end you personally.”
Then the uber-alpha stood and pounded his fist on my table in an ironic mimicry of the way Glen had sent me off on this ill-fated mission earlier in the day. “Good-oh,” he said aloud. Finally, Stormwinder nodded a cordial farewell as he turned toward the door.
“Wait!” I called after him. I couldn’t help it—the blow had jolted my wolf awake and she was now cowering at the waves of alp
ha dominance rolling off the Tribunal member, at the pain in our shared jaw, and at the claustrophobic sensation of being chained to the table in a room that seemed to be shrinking by the second.
“Are they letting me go?” I asked. No, let’s be honest—that was a plea, my pride abruptly having vanished once my weak wolf took command of our shared tongue.
“I don’t know why you’d think that,” Stormwinder replied, turning to face me one last time. His wolf peered out through human eyes and forced my own inner beast to whimper audibly between my lips.
“You can rot in hell for all I care,” the uber-alpha continued, his words even more ominous for their complete and total lack of emotion. “And if you cause any more trouble, I’ll personally make sure you rot sooner rather than later.”
***
“Your lawyer doesn’t appear to care for you much.”
And the carousel goes round and round again. My jaw was swelling, I could have sworn one of my teeth was loose due to Stormwinder’s sucker punch, and that headache Hunter left behind had returned with a vengeance. Plus, now Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber were running me through my paces...one...more...time.
That’s not fair. Neither of them is dumb. They’re just stubborn and single-minded.
“I’m not a big fan of my ‘lawyer’ either,” I mumbled, trying to keep my eyes open. I had no clue what time it was, but my stomach noted that my usual dinner hour was long past while my foggy brain warned me to be careful with words if I didn’t want to spill any state secrets. So I kept it simple. “Can I go home yet?”
Before either Bradford or Lambert could reply, the door behind them opened up and yet another one-body entered the room. Only this human was one I had really hoped not to see again any time soon.
Immediately, adrenaline chased the haze out of my mind as I recognized Robert’s crew cut and square jaw. My muscles tensed, and the chain attached to my wrist tightened as my wolf tried to pull against our tether yet again.
Unfortunately, we were no more able to escape than we had been when Stormwinder used us to practice his right hook.
“Gentlemen,” my stalker said, nodding at the two cops who didn’t seem terribly surprised by his arrival. I was surprised, though. Since when did a possible felon walk willingly into the police station and greet law-enforcement officers with a smile on his face?
“I’m here to pick up my person of interest,” the newcomer continued, flipping open a wallet briefly. He barely gave us time to catch a glimpse of the ID within before he raised his eyebrows at my rumpled state. “You guys been roughing her up?”
For a split second, I thought I heard a hint of reproof in Robert’s voice. But then I shook my aching head and the notion was gone as quickly as it had come. No, this new visitor wasn’t on my side—he was the enemy.
In fact, he was a more dangerous enemy than both Lambert and Bradford put together because I didn’t know where Robert’s motives lay. “I’d rather stay here,” I piped up, trying to evade a transfer that definitely wasn’t in my best interests.
But the younger cop was already unhooking the chain that had been keeping my right arm in an unpleasant position for the last several hours, proving that Robert held far more sway here than I would have imagined. Still, I figured I might as well try one more time. “Or better yet, give me my stuff and let me go home....”
Robert spoke over me before I could descend into pleading. “She has ‘stuff’?”
“A sword,” the older cop answered, making it clear by his tone that he didn’t know what to make of my choice of weaponry. “I understand your evidence suggests the kidnapping ring has crossed state lines, giving the FBI jurisdiction over the case. But we’d still like to be kept in the loop if at all possible.”
“Of course,” Robert answered, gripping my arm in an iron fist. My head reeled as I tried to work through what exactly might be going on. Crossing state lines? FBI?
Still, I couldn’t help but notice that my new captor used much less force than Lambert had when the latter marched me into the interrogation room in the first place. Robert hadn’t recuffed me either, which gave me hope that I could break free once we were out of the police station at last.
First, though, I needed to figure out what was going on. Because it just didn’t make sense for a member of the FBI to leave a dead raccoon on my mother’s porch or to threaten Celia with a bobble-head doll. And that cut electric line—because Friday’s power outage had indeed proven to be man-made—didn’t seem quite Robert’s style either.
While I was still trying to work my head around what my stalker was doing throwing his weight around in the police station, the one-body was busy signing for my katana and then opening the passenger-side door of the Escalade like a true gentleman. I slipped inside the vehicle, head still whirling, then I watched as my companion pulled out onto the quiet street, wove through town, and hit the highway.
“Um, where are we going?” I asked at last. It would be best to make my escape at a distance from human habitation, somewhere that I could shift and take to my heels in lupine form. I’d probably need to come up with a new identity after that since I’d apparently caught the FBI’s notice—assuming Robert hadn’t been lying about his profession. But I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
In the meantime, I eyed the sword my current captor had flung onto the back seat. It was probably too much to hope that I could take my steel security blanket along with me when I escaped.
Unimportant, I reminded myself. No, my agenda was simple—first save my skin, then figure out why Lupe hadn’t yet felt secure enough to return to her group home. Oh, and keep Celia out of harm’s way at the same time.
Yes, I was well aware that I was spreading myself a little thin.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Robert answered me at last. He’d taken so long to speak that I’d almost forgotten what my question had been in the first place.
Oh, right—our intended destination.
The maybe-FBI agent continued cluing me in as I recaptured that train of thought. “I just want to talk,” he added, “and I’m betting you won’t jump out of a moving vehicle.”
As unobtrusively as possible, I sniffed the air. It seemed like the one-body wasn’t lying, but there was a tension about his stance that belied his cordial words. No, now wasn’t the time to let down my guard.
“Talk about what?” I asked, remembering the way the agent had tailed me and watched the real-estate shindig from the highway. Yep, I had plenty I wanted to ask this one-body about. But Robert was in the driver’s seat—both literally and figuratively—so I waited to see what he had to say first.
Instead of answering immediately, the FBI agent reached down into the crack between his seat and the center console. He rooted around for a minute while I tried not to hyperventilate, expecting at any moment to have humanity’s favorite weapon—a gun—staring directly in my face.
But all Robert pulled loose was a sheaf of eight-by-ten, glossy photos, which he casually flung into my lap. The thick papers splayed out across my filthy knees, and I couldn’t help gasping as I took in the scenes caught on camera.
Right on top was the shot I assumed Mrs. Sawyer had snapped of me springing at Lupe’s throat. Underneath was an image of Hunter in lupine form inside the puppy mill. And then, the most damning evidence of all—a photo of my mate caught midshift by the same facility’s camera.
“I want to talk,” Robert said, pressing down on the gas pedal as he accelerated around yet another vehicle, “about werewolves.”
Chapter 20
The SUV continued to glide smoothly down the interstate, but my heart was less complacent. Instead, that vital organ emulated the pounding hooves of an unbroken horse, skidding and jittering as it tried to toss an attacker off its back.
Hunter, I need you. Even as the thought flashed through my mind, I was suddenly looking out through my mate’s eyes.
The uber-alpha—and I by proxy—gazed out across a suburban neighborhood not
so different from the one Robert’s Escalade was currently whirring past. The street in Hunter’s world was peaceful, quiet. A slight breeze ruffled my mate’s hair.
Then I squinted my own eyes shut and pulled myself back into the present moment. I couldn’t afford to lose track of my actual, living body. Not when a human was threatening the inconceivable—outing all of shifter-kind to the one-body world.
“Are you threatening me?”
I wasn’t sure if the words came from me or from my wolf. Either way, the SUV swerved ever so slightly as Robert reacted to my tone.
Then, to my surprise, he laughed.
It was a high-pitched, nervous chuckle, like the one I tended to make when Hunter backed me into a corner that could only be escaped using the L word as key. I cocked my head to one side and inhaled a deep breath through my nose, taking in the way Robert’s fingers curved into a death grip around the steering wheel. The one-body’s scent was harsh and astringent, so I mitigated my tone as I tried again.
“Are you scared of me?”
Beside us, a tractor trailer’s air horn let out a long, angry wail as we came far too close to rubbing metal against metal. I gulped and clutched the armrest, wanting to cringe away from the massive vehicle we were passing...but afraid to spook Robert any further by invading his personal space.
75, 80, 90 miles per hour. The speedometer continued to rise, and my blood pressure ascended right along with it.
Perhaps my fear came through in my stance, though, because the FBI agent’s laugh this time around was fuller and less skittish. “Well, I figured this could go one of two ways,” he said companionably, although there was still an uncomfortable edge beneath his words. “Either you’d laugh in my face and I’d go get my vision checked...or you’d turn into a wolf and tear me into teeny-tiny pieces.”
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