“You’re not following what I’m saying.”
“What, Beck? Just say it!”
“You don’t smell it? It’s another wolf. I thought I kept smelling something, but it wasn’t always directly on their trail, so I thought it was a stray scent.”
The other three wolves gathered around, noses to the ground. Dewi shifted back into wolf mode and trotted over, shoving her nose close to the ground before letting out a low, deep growl.
“Calm down, Dewi,” Beck said.
She shifted into human mode again. “Calm down? Seriously? Did you just say that to me? You did not just say that to me.”
Badger wore a frown. “He’s right. Mebbe one of ours. Smells vaguely familiar. Mebbe someone come out lookin’ for ’em while we were tied up at the compound. I ain’t been around enough recently to recognize everyone.”
Peyton shook his head. “No,” he slowly said, “I don’t recognize the scent, either. Although, like you said, it’s vaguely familiar.”
“Segura didn’t have wolves working for him, did he?” Trent asked.
“They had no idea we were wolves,” Dewi said. “They were clueless. This was simple revenge on their part over what Joaquin did. I wish we’d caught that last sonofabitch.”
“We going to stand here all night, or find them?” Trent asked.
“Hold on,” Peyton said. “If there’s an unknown wolf out here, and his trail is following theirs, we need to be ready.”
“If he’s shifted, he isn’t armed,” Dewi argued. “Let’s fucking move. It’s five against one, for chrissake.” She stared at Badger, who hadn’t moved. “What?”
Badger squatted on his haunches, staring at the ground where they’d been sniffing. It was too rocky to hold prints.
“Ye know, this is gonna sound crazy.”
“Say it,” Peyton said.
Badger looked up at them. “I think I might know who this wolf is. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s the scent of a ghost. Cause the man’s been dead damn near fifty years.”
* * * *
Manuel Segura didn’t stop until he reached Spokane. He ditched the truck several blocks from his hotel and walked. He could get a hotel shuttle to the airport, where his private plane awaited him. He couldn’t risk spending the night there in case those people got info from his men that would tie him back to the hotel.
First, he needed a shower. And a stiff drink.
A very stiff drink.
He was used to cruelty and being a hard-ass in his line of work, but what he’d seen that day…
That was something he had never come across before. The people he’d watched were not the slightest bit worried about what they were doing. They’d made no attempted to hide their actions from anyone.
As if they knew anyone who saw them wouldn’t give a shit that they were running four bodies through a wood chipper.
Or, maybe they’d done it plenty of times before.
Maybe what he’d thought had been stress had been closer to the truth than his sane mind wanted to believe. He’d been raised on superstitious myths about shape-shifters, but they weren’t real.
Or, maybe they were more real than he’d ever wanted to believe.
It would explain how someone had tracked down Raul after his indiscretion.
And it would explain their impunity, how they nonchalantly rid themselves of the bodies of his men.
Ruthlessly.
Like wolves were wont to do.
After hitting the minibar in his room, he sat in a deep, hot bath and stared at the ice in his glass. Obviously, they’d been ready for them.
I fucked up.
How was he going to make this right? Ten good men, dead. His best men.
And it was his fault.
Add to that he’d failed to make things right for Raul. How would he look his mother in the eyes when he got back? Raul’s widow and children?
How would he look himself in the mirror?
He laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Three
In the pre-dawn hours, Ken awakened. Duncan no longer lay between them. Nami had huddled against Ken for additional warmth even though the fire looked like it had been recently built up and their cozy nook felt comfortably warm.
At least the sky had cleared. A brilliant carpet of stars sparkled across the darkness above them. He’d thought they had a great view from the house in Florida, but this made that tropical starscape look dim by comparison.
He spotted Duncan about fifty yards down the slope. He was shifted into human form and already working on the trap. After Ken untangled himself from Nami and stepped off to the side to relieve himself, he headed down the slope.
Duncan held out a hand. “Stay back.” He pointed at the rig, which if you weren’t a skilled outdoorsman and not expecting a trap, looked like a tangle of branches under a leaning log in the middle of the ravine.
“How do you know they’re going to come this way?” Ken asked him.
“Because we’re going to lead them here.”
“We?”
“Me. We’ll build up the fire so they see it and the smoke. I’ll shift and lead them up through here.”
“There were four of them.”
“Still are. About a half mile that way.” He pointed to the north and west. “They were already down to the main stream bed when they stopped for the night. They’re lost, too. Angry. Hungry. And more than a little scared, which will make them especially dangerous.”
“We wouldn’t be better off running and staying ahead of them, then?”
Duncan shook his head. “We’re done running. Nami is too exhausted. Her ankle can’t take it. It’s more swollen now than it was last night. We have to protect her. We make our stand here.”
“I know we didn’t talk long last night, but I have to tell you something. I’m not much of a fighter.”
Duncan slowly turned to stare at him, disbelief clearly painted on his face.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not. I was working at USF as a professor when Dewi met me. University of South Florida. I’m a computer geek. A nerd. Which, okay, you might not know what that means, but—”
Duncan made a universally understood gesture, one Ken had seen Dewi make before, pinching his fingers and his thumb together.
Ken’s voice fled.
And not in the willing way, either. It eerily reminded Ken of the night he first met Dewi, when she silenced him.
The slight, wry turn of Duncan’s lips was probably the closest thing the man had made to a smile in…decades. He waved his hand. “Prime,” he said.
Ken cleared his throat and realized he could talk again. “Then why the trap? Why can’t you just overpower them with the Prime mojo?”
“Because it’s been a while,” Duncan said, turning back to his preparations. “My heart and soul are weak from disuse. And there’s more than one. I don’t trust my powers right now. We need to distract them long enough I can take them all quickly. If it was only one, I would have gone and found him last night and killed him while he slept. But after…”
He cleared his throat. “After the revelation last night, I knew I couldn’t leave you two alone that long and risk getting myself hurt or killed going after them. We’ll take them out, then we will get Nami out of here.”
“How do you know they’ll come under the trap and not go around?”
“Because the easiest trail runs this way. Through this ravine. Path of least resistance.” He showed Ken by tracing the path in the air. “I’ll move some more logs. They’ll follow me through it.”
“How do you know?”
“There used to be a TV show about a dog. A collie.”
“Lassie?”
“You know about it?”
“Uh, everyone knows about it. And they’ve remade it like a bazillion times. So you’re going to get Timmy out of the well, huh?”
Another of those sad smiles. “Sort of. I’ll lead them this way. A
nd we’ll lay bait.”
“Bait?”
He pointed at Ken. “Your shirt. They’ll see the fire, see your shirt propped up next to it, and hurry. Get careless. They have guns and anger and think they have the upper hand. They know you don’t have guns or you would have fought back earlier. They’re hungry and tired and angry and just want to find you and get out of here.”
Ken slowly nodded. “Okay. I trust you.”
“Thank you, grandson.”
* * * *
After completing the trap, Duncan helped Ken awaken Nami and get her to her feet. They moved her up the slope, behind another outcropping that hadn’t been visible to the humans the night before. It wasn’t as deep, either, but for now, with the other men’s attention on the deception and Duncan, it should be a safe temporary hiding place.
Ken kept the fire stoked after Duncan left. After waiting for a while, he stripped his shirt off as they’d planned and shoved some branches and leaves into it to make it look like he was lying on his side, behind the fire.
Shivering, he walked down the slope, giving the trap a wide berth.
Sure enough, in the dim light, it looked like he was just lying there and sleeping next to the fire.
Returning to stoke the fire one more time, Ken made his way back to where Nami was hiding.
“How long will this take?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. As long as it takes.” He laid the tire iron in his lap. Duncan had given Ken explicit instructions not to reveal himself unless or until Duncan called for him. And that if Duncan called for him, to be ready to use the tire iron.
While Ken wasn’t thrilled with the possibility, he knew he couldn’t let Nami and Beck down.
He damn sure didn’t want to die, either.
Note to self, I need to buckle down and get serious with Dewi’s fighting lessons instead of seducing her halfway through them.
If he got out of this alive.
He wasn’t one for violence. He didn’t even like watching hockey or football.
However.
Dewi was his life. If nothing else, to protect her, protect himself for her, protect others…
Protect any kids they might have.
Yes, he needed to get serious and learn. He’d done what he’d needed to do to save them from Endquist, and then he’d already had the crap beaten out of him.
This should be a piece of cake.
Nami stiffened and reached out, touching Ken’s bare shoulder.
He’d heard it, too. Frantic barking, a pause, and more barking.
Timmy’s in the well!
Ken clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.
Nami frowned, but he shook his head. He’d have to fill her in later.
The humor dropped out of the situation when he heard shouting, men’s voices speaking Spanish, drawing closer.
Nami’s eyes widened as she reached out and grabbed his arm. He put his hand over hers and locked gazes with her.
He wished he was larger, beefier. Stronger.
More of a comfort.
Well-armed.
All he could do was try to keep her calm and pray that Duncan didn’t need his help with Segura’s men.
It happened quickly. There was shouting, more barking, the sound of the deadfall trap springing, followed by screams.
“Ken.” Duncan’s voice cut through the clear, cold air.
Before he realized it, he was up and running, scrambling down the treacherous slope toward Duncan, the tire iron in his hand.
Two men had been pinned facedown under the deadfall and weren’t moving. A third lay on his back, frozen, a leg trapped by the log, but apparently caught in Duncan’s Prime grasp.
The fourth, Duncan had him pinned against a tree by the throat, his feet dangling a foot off the ground.
“What do we need to know from them?” Duncan asked Ken.
Ken spotted the man’s gun on the ground next to him where he’d dropped it when Duncan had grabbed him by the throat. A nine millimeter.
Ken dropped the tire iron and picked up the gun. It wasn’t the same model he was used to.
But close enough.
He checked to make sure it was loaded, took the safety off, then looked at Duncan. “Can I?”
Duncan nodded.
Ken put the gun to the guy’s forehead.
“Who do you work for?” Ken asked.
The man looked terrified.
Good.
Duncan eased the man onto his feet so he could breathe, but kept his hand pinned around the man’s throat.
“Manuel Segura,” the guy gasped after coughing.
“How many others are there? How many cars? Where are the others?”
“Seven more guys. Two more cars. Went to that big-ass property. We’re looking for a guy, and the same company who owned his apartment has an office in town and owns property here.”
Hopefully Dewi and Beck and the others had taken care of them already…if they were still alive and hadn’t been caught by surprise by the rest of the thugs at the compound.
“Who are you all looking for, and why?” Ken asked, just to make sure.
“Joaquin Carlomarles. He murdered Raul Segura, Manuel Segura’s brother. Manuel wants revenge.”
Ken felt fury wash through him. “Doesn’t matter that Raul murdered one of ours first, huh?” The man looked confused. “A fifteen year-old girl. The daughter of one of our packmates. After he kidnapped her off a street and then raped her. Raul deserved to die. Her name was Felicia Escobar, by the way, and Joaquin took blood for blood. That’s what our pack does when one of ours is brutally murdered. And we don’t let rapists live.”
The man’s eyes widened even more in fear. “What the fuck are you people?”
“People you never should have fucked with,” Ken said. “I’ve always wanted to say this. Hasta la vista, asshole.”
He pulled the trigger.
* * * *
Since that guy’s bladder had let loose when Ken shot him, Duncan stripped the pants off the other guy, the one pinned by his Prime power, and put them on before Ken put a bullet in that man’s head. The guy didn’t have any more information to reveal than the first one did. They were hunting Joaquin, and the other men in their group had headed for the pack compound.
And they’d had absolutely no idea they were dealing with wolf shifters.
The other two guys were already unconscious and unresponsive from their injuries when Ken shot each of them in the back of the head.
Ken checked the magazine and saw he only had three rounds left in that gun.
Which was okay, because Segura’s men had been armed, including extra magazines. While Ken thought he might feel something over killing the thugs—remorse, guilt, nausea—no, not so much.
Maybe he’d feel different if Felicia Escobar hadn’t been raped and murdered.
Maybe he’d feel different if it’d just been him on the run. He would have kept running as long as possible, until Dewi caught up with him.
But he’d promised Beck. He’d promised to protect Nami.
As the mate of the pack’s Head Enforcer, and the brother-in-law of the pack’s Alpha, and part of the expanded pack council, there was no way he wouldn’t answer a blood crime against the pack with blood.
And he’d be damned if he’d let any drug cartel scum make him break a promise to a man he considered closer than a brother. Not to mention he didn’t know how many were injured or dead back at the compound due to these fucks’ cohorts.
That was something he didn’t want to contemplate right now, either.
Duncan held a hand out for one of the guns. “You know how to handle these?” Ken asked.
Duncan smirked. “I’m old, lad, not an idiot. Do you know how to handle one?”
Ken handed him one, butt first. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”
“I’d say fortunately.” He slipped it into the waistband of the pants.
Ken and Duncan took the men’s wallets, money,
jewelry—anything that might possibly identify them.
And, belatedly useful, two lighters. He also took their cigarettes, because while he didn’t smoke, they’d make good tinder if they had to start another fire.
Ken confiscated the men’s cell phones and removed the batteries from them, too. He’d keep them and go through them back at the compound.
If there still was a compound when they returned. That wasn’t a possibility he wanted to contemplate right at that moment.
They needed to get out of the wilderness first.
When Ken headed back to the hiding spot, he found Nami tightly clutching her purse in front of her and looking terrified.
“Are y’all all right?” she whispered.
He knelt in front of her. “We’re fine. Let me see your purse.”
She let him take it. “Are they dead?”
“They are. It’s safe now. You can relax.” Ken stuck one of the guns in the waistband of his jeans, put the rest of the stuff in Nami’s purse, and headed back to the trap to help Duncan conceal the bodies.
They stripped the men and dumped their naked bodies into the ravine, covering them with rocks and branches.
“Why did we strip them?” Ken asked.
“We’ll throw their clothes into the river.” Duncan bundled the clothes together, tying them with the men’s belts.
“Do you, eh, need to go hunt or something?”
Duncan frowned. “No. Why?”
“After Dewi makes a kill, she has to feed. I thought that’s what Prime Alphas have to do.”
“You made the kills, not me. And I’ve spent the last…long while hunting. For survival.” He let out a weary sigh. “I hope I remember how to live among people.”
Ken reached out and touched his shoulder. “We’re not just people. We’re your pack.”
* * * *
Dewi, Beck, and the others tracked throughout the night, a brief rain shower blowing through and chilling them but not deterring them. Around two a.m. they located where Ken and Nami had climbed through a ravine and lingered there.
A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) Page 30
