by Lori Drake
“That’s fine. I’ll text Chris to let him know. And maybe Quinn will come through with a location while we’re en route.”
Harding chuckled, pressing the button on his key fob to unlock the car. “En route. You’re starting to sound like a cop.”
Joey snorted as she opened her door. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
By the time Quinn finally called, Joey was in the middle of making a statement at the police station so Harding could put out an APB on Jordan Kazinski’s vehicle.
“I was starting to think you weren’t gonna come through,” she said by way of greeting.
“Is what you think supposed to matter to me, Alpha of Seattle?”
Joey bristled, but reined it in. This guy. “You got anything besides sass for me, Quinn?”
“South Main and Second.”
Joey relayed the location to Harding who whipped out his phone, probably to bring up a map. “Thanks, man. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
“He’s at a coffee shop across the street.”
Joey narrowed her eyes. No wonder it’d taken Quinn so long to call. He’d driven into town and found his friend first. “Do not approach him.”
Silence stretched on the other end, broken only by the occasional surge in background noise.
“Quinn? Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Joey could practically hear him waving her off. “I’m serious. Let us handle this.” She pushed back her chair and stood, following Harding as he headed for the exit, her half-finished written statement left behind. Thankfully, her hip felt much better after the ride back to town. There was a lingering ache, but it wasn’t screaming in agony anymore.
“You’re not a cop. I looked you up online. Why are you so interested in my wolves?”
“I’m not interested in your wolves. I’m interested in the fact that your buddy is apparently letting them loose in my territory, and people are getting hurt. The better question might be: Why aren’t you more interested?”
“I’m plenty interested,” he growled, then blew out a breath. “There has to be a logical explanation for this. Maybe he’s looking for them too.”
Joey darted out the door behind Harding, who hadn’t held it open quite long enough in his rush to get to the car. “If he knew they were missing, what possible reason could he have for not telling you?”
“Won’t know until I ask him.”
“Dammit, Quinn. Go back to your little patch of Eden and stay out of this.”
“It’s not that simple. I— Shit, he’s on the move.”
“Where?”
“West on Main. On foot.”
Harding beat her to the car; the engine roared to life as she climbed into the passenger’s seat. She glanced at Harding. “Jordan’s heading west on Main, on foot. Do you want Quinn to follow him?”
“I’m following him,” Quinn said.
The creaking of her phone’s case alerted her before she could do any damage with her steadily tightening grip. “Then stay on the line and keep us updated.” Then, under her breath, she muttered. “Fucking alphas.”
“I heard that,” Quinn replied.
Rolling her eyes, Joey juggled phone and seat belt, buckling in while Harding reversed aggressively out of his parking spot. He flicked the lights and siren on as they pulled out of the garage, and Joey soon had the handle above the door in a white-knuckled grip as he wove through late rush hour traffic in his haste to reach the site.
Quinn kept her updated. “Crossing Second… Crossing Occidental…”
Joey peeled her eyes from the chaos ahead of them as some motorists gave way for the police vehicle and Harding maneuvered around others, focusing on Harding instead. “South Main… that’s the Central Business District?”
Harding gave a tight shake of his head. “Just south of it. Pioneer Square.”
“Crossing Nord,” Quinn said.
“What’s around there?” Joey asked in an effort to distract herself, taking some small comfort in the fact that it couldn’t be very far from the downtown police headquarters.
“Tourist stuff, mostly,” Harding said, pausing to honk at someone not getting out of his way fast enough. “Retail, food, tours, photo ops.”
Joey nodded and decided leaving him to concentrate on driving was probably best. Heart hammering in her chest, she stared ahead and tried to push down the increasingly worrisome knowledge of being trapped in an enclosed space and completely out of control of what was happening around her.
“Crossing First,” Quinn said, then muttered more quietly, “Where the hell are you going, Jor?”
Joey glanced at Harding’s phone in his dashboard mount, checking the map. “We’re almost there, Quinn.”
“He just turned down an alley.”
“Which way?”
“North,” Quinn said. “I can’t follow him without being seen. I’ll try to buy you some time.”
“No! Stay put, Quinn!”
There was no reply. Joey slapped the dash in frustration. “Jordan ducked into an alley. Quinn’s following him.”
“That boy follows directions about as well as you and Chris. Is reckless stubbornness a common werewolf trait?” Harding asked, braking suddenly to take a corner hard.
Joey’s throat went tight. It felt like her heart was lodged in it, but she managed to get out, “Lycanthrope. And only among alphas.”
“Interesting,” the detective said.
The background noise on the phone had been reduced to what sounded like pocket noise, but Joey caught a muffled, “Quinn? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Quinn said.
“How did you find me?”
“Your phone. IntelliMile. What’s going on, man?”
“Nothing, just… go back to the sanctuary.”
Harding killed the siren but left the lights on as he pulled up to the curb on South Washington. Joey bolted from the car, then flattened herself against it as a passing car swerved to avoid taking out Harding’s door.
“Hey! Watch it!” Joey called after the car, then shook her head and shut the door, hurrying in Harding’s wake. They ran down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians left and right, Joey with her phone still pressed to her ear.
“You know the cops are after you now, right? They have questions about Hyacinth and Daffodil. Hell, I do too,” Quinn said. “Just talk to me, brother. You can tell me anything.”
“I’m not your brother!” Jordan shouted, and they were close enough now that Joey thought she heard an echo of it in her other ear.
“Whoa, hey now. You don’t need that thing. I just want to talk,” Quinn said.
Harding skidded to a stop at the mouth of an alley, holding out an arm to keep Joey from running past. “Stay behind me.”
Joey hung back under protest, her wolf on alert and restless in her human cage. She liked nothing quite so much as a chase, though she preferred hers to end with the crunch of bone between her sharp teeth. “He’s got a weapon,” she warned.
Nodding, the detective unholstered his sidearm and flicked the safety off, racking the slide to put a round in the chamber. “You’re gonna have to remind me at some point how I got completely distracted from a murder investigation by two stolen wolves.”
“Noted.” Joey pushed him toward the mouth of the alley, eager to see what was on the other side.
Harding cautiously stepped out from behind cover, his pistol pointed low. Peeking around him, Joey saw Quinn and Jordan at the other end of the long, narrow alley. Brick and concrete rose up to either side of her, uncomfortably close, but at least she could still see the sky. They moved quickly and quietly toward the confrontation, taking advantage of Jordan’s back being turned and not expecting an ambush. Jordan had one arm raised, pointing a pistol at Quinn. Quinn’s hands were in the air.
“You want to talk?” Jordan snapped. “Okay, let’s talk. Let’s talk about what it’s like to be in your goddamn shadow all th
e time.”
“What?” Quinn sounded perplexed. “We’re partners, man. You’ve been my best friend since… Jesus, forever.”
The closer they got, the easier it was to hear the conversation. Joey thumbed the disconnect button and tucked her phone away, sticking close to Harding’s back.
“Quinn the golden boy,” Jordan said, mockery in his tone. “Captain of the football team. Prom King—not once, but twice. The guy everyone wanted to be friends with and all the girls wanted to fuck. A perfect specimen of manhood.”
“I never gave a shit about any of that, man. You know that,” Quinn said, taking a step closer to his friend.
Jordan stepped back. “Stay where you are. I’m no match for you physically, no matter how much time I spend in the gym. Never have been. But all that’s gonna change.”
“What do you mean?”
Harding lifted his gun, pointing it at Jordan. “Police! Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air!”
Jordan spun to take in the sight of Harding and Joey behind him. Quinn took advantage of the distraction, rushing him like a linebacker. Jordan turned back at the last minute, and Quinn collided with him, knocking him down into the watery muck of the alley. The two men wrestled over the gun while Harding and Joey rushed toward them.
A snap echoed off the alley walls while Joey was still a good twenty feet off, and as they closed in Jordan broke free of Quinn and sprinted toward the mouth of the alley. Quinn pushed himself up off the ground, then collapsed on one side with a groan.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Harding bellowed, tracking Jordan’s flight with his sidearm.
Joey pushed past the detective and dropped to her knees beside Quinn, rolling him onto his back to check for bullet holes while Harding ran past them.
“Just… a tranq…” Quinn said, still conscious but barely. If he hadn’t been a big burly wolf, he would’ve been out already.
Screeching tires and a honking horn brought Joey’s head up in time for her to see Harding thrown up onto the hood of a car while Jordan escaped unscathed to the other side of the street. The ranger stopped in front of a wide, unmarked door at the end of an alley-abutting building and shoved his free hand in his pants pocket like he was fishing for keys, casting furtive glances behind him for signs of pursuit.
“Shit! Stay here.” Joey patted Quinn’s chest and stood, running out into the street.
Harding lay a few feet in front of the car that’d struck him, having rolled a bit when he fell off the hood. The detective was conscious, but dazed. Both lanes of traffic had stopped, and the driver of the car that’d hit him was standing beside the open door, mouth agape.
Joey took a knee beside the detective. “Jim, are you okay?”
Harding grabbed the front of her shirt in a surprisingly strong grip for a man who had just been hit by a car. “He’s getting away,” he grit out, blood dripping from a gash on his temple down the side of his face.
Joey glanced up in time to see the door Jordan had stopped in front of slam shut behind him. “Call 9-1-1!” she yelled at the gaping driver as she jumped up and ran after Jordan, but the big metal door had locked itself behind him. She slammed her fist against it in frustration, hard enough to leave a small dent. The only thing she’d managed to see before the door closed were stairs leading down into a lower level of the building.
Why would he run into a building in an effort to escape pursuit, much less the basement of a building? There were only so many points of egress. Joey’s eyes cut to the front door, sheltered beneath a colorful candy-striped awning. Her wolf agitated to continue the chase, and six months ago she probably would’ve done it without a second thought. But running in the front wouldn’t help if Jordan went out the back, and there was no way she could cover all the doors by herself. If Harding and Quinn weren’t down for the count, that would’ve been a different matter.
Breathing a frustrated sigh, she backtracked to Harding and knelt to check on him. “He’s gone, but we’ll find him,” she promised.
Across the street, Quinn struggled to his feet and staggered out of the alley, taking advantage of all the stopped traffic to approach them. “He gonna be okay?”
“Help me up,” Harding said.
Joey pressed a hand to his shoulder, holding him down. “You probably shouldn’t move until the ambulance gets here, bud.” Surprisingly, the detective grabbed her free hand and squeezed it. She wrapped both of her hands around it, feeling for the guy.
Quinn sank heavily onto the street beside Joey. A tranquilizer dart still stuck out of his chest. He noticed it about the same time Joey did and plucked it out, tucking it up his sleeve before any of the gawkers started asking questions. His eyes drifted toward the door Jordan had disappeared through.
“I think he’s cracked,” he said softly.
“Ya think?” Joey was unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“He said something, before he ran off.” Quinn’s eyes lingered on the freshly dented door. “‘She’ll make me better. She promised. You’ll see.’” He looked at Joey. “What the hell does that mean?”
Joey frowned, forehead crinkling in thought. “I’m not sure.” She looked down at Harding, meeting the detective’s eyes. “But I think maybe Chris was right about that hunch.”
15
When Chris opened his eyes again, it was to find himself in a darkened room. He sat up a little too quickly and had to steady himself with a hand on the edge of the twin bed. The blanket beneath his fingers was soft, and the air smelled strongly of potpourri. Moonlight filtered in around the edges of the venetian blinds behind the sheer lace curtains.
Even in the dark, he recognized Cathy’s guest room. How had he gotten there? He took a moment to orient himself, pressing a palm to his forehead. Rest had relieved some of the pressure in his head, for which he was grateful.
The events of earlier in the evening began to filter back in, and he stiffened as he realized Cathy had put the whammy on him with her magic. A wave of revulsion washed over him, leaving him shaking and vaguely nauseous. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep breaths until it passed, telling himself over and over that this wasn’t the same thing as the magical manipulations of the man that’d held him prisoner a few months ago.
When all that remained was a lingering sense of unease, like a bad aftertaste, he opened his eyes again and assessed himself. His fatigue had lessened, and his temples didn’t throb quite as much. So, the sleep had done him good, involuntary or not. He hadn’t known anything could hurt him on the astral plane, but there was so much about it that he didn’t know… maybe it’d be smart not to leave his body at all for the foreseeable future.
Quiet voices drifted down the hall and through the cracked-open door, but the words were indistinct. He slipped from beneath the covers, pleased to find himself fully clothed—bare feet aside—and padded across the plush carpet to the door.
The voices became more distinct as he traversed the hallway, his unconsciously light footsteps silent in the quiet of the house. He slowed his footsteps as he listened in.
“He’d want to know, don’t you think?” Amber said, though Chris had to strain to hear her.
“He’s got bigger problems right now,” Cathy replied.
“But—”
“He won’t be able to do anything about it. There’s no sense worrying him.”
“He’d want to know.” Amber leaned into her argument like a dog with a bone, unwilling to give it up.
Chris stepped into the archway, frowning slightly. “I’d want to know what?”
Both women looked over at him, eyes growing distant as they assessed his aura.
“Eavesdropping doesn’t become you, Christopher. But it looks like some rest did you good,” Cathy said. “How do you feel?”
Chris lifted a hand absently, rubbing his chest with his knuckles. “Still tired, but better. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I just overheard you on my way down the hall. But if there’s some
thing you’re not telling me…”
“What makes you think we were talking about you?” Amber leaned back in her seat, smirking.
She had a point. Chris winced, shaking his head. “Sorry, I just figured…”
“Don’t trouble yourself, child.” Cathy leaned over and set her teacup and saucer on the coffee table. “Do you want some tea? I have a nice catnip tea that you’d probably find relaxing. I wouldn’t recommend caffeine right now.”
Patting his pockets absently, Chris shook his head. “How long was I out?”
“About two hours,” Amber said, consulting her watch.
Cathy picked up a slim phone in a plain black case from the coffee table. Chris’s phone. “Looking for this?”
“Yeah.” Chris crossed the room to take his phone, lingering before Cathy with a frown. “You put me to sleep.”
She dipped her chin in a slight nod, meeting his eyes.
“Please don’t do that.”
“You needed rest, child.” There was no hint of repentance in her voice, no question that she’d do it again if she felt it was necessary.
Annoyance flared in his chest, threatening to blossom into actual anger. He couldn’t remember ever being actually angry with Cathy. She’d always been a steady, calming presence in his life, but his rational mind—the part that reminded him she’d meant well—warred with his instinct, which wanted no witch ever making him do anything with magic ever again.
Chris swallowed the knot of emotion in his throat. “That’s my decision to make, not yours.”
“Is it?” She lifted a brow. “Are you never called upon to make a decision for your pack, for their own good, that might be unpopular?”
Chris’s fingers tightened on his phone as he fought to remain calm. “Yes, but I have never taken their free will away.”
“We don’t always know what’s best for ourselves, child. Sometimes, a clearer mind must point the way.”
“Please don’t use magic on me like that again,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not without my permission.”
Cathy’s expression softened, like she finally understood what was truly bothering him. She rose from her chair and put her hands on his arms, rubbing lightly. The contact soothed his fraying emotions almost immediately.
