Earp & Chandra: The Sundance Series Book 2.5

by C. P. Rider

  Earp wanted to bite the pair for even thinking about hurting Neely, but he waited for Smith's signal. She'd have to send it through the group bonds, because he could neither hear nor scent the hyena shifter unless she was standing next to him. She was sneaky and as smart as the business end of a bullwhip.

  A wave of familiar urgency splashed over him. The "get ready" signal. That was how it worked with shifter group bonds—the only person capable of reaching out with actual words was Alpha Blacke, and even he was limited. The rest of the group had to rely on emotion to communicate, but it was usually more than enough.

  A branch snapped. Smith, not the poachers. She must have stomped on it because if she hadn't wanted to be heard, she wouldn't have been.

  "Hey," Crystal whispered, in a voice loud enough to reach town. "Did you hear that?"

  Dwayne nodded so hard Earp heard the man's neck pop. "Something's out there. Let's go."

  "Hello?" Smith's voice echoed off the rocks and swept through the arroyo. She'd imbued it with a touch of alpha power, of moon magic, and it made him shiver. "Is anyone there?"

  "Get a hold of yourself. It's just some woman." Crystal spun and charged toward a now entirely human Chandra Smith, Dwayne hot on her heels. "Jesus, you surprised us, lady. What are you doing all the way out here?"

  "Walking." Smith smiled. It wasn't the smile that made people think she was about to disembowel them, either. It was a soft, sweet grin Earp had only seen a few times, most of them when she was dating that ex-girlfriend of hers.

  He'd felt real low telling her that gal had been bad for her. Earp didn't get involved in that sort of stuff, but he knew what went on with the people he cared about in a peripheral sort of way, and he'd known the second he saw that blonde hanging on the alpha second's arm that she was dead wrong.

  It was in the questioning way she'd looked at Smith when the alpha wasn't paying attention, in the way the woman had kept herself far away from the other Blacke shifters—as if a little too good to mingle with the peasants—and in the way Earp had known the second he laid eyes on her that his Dottie was perfectly right.

  "Do you have a place around here?" Crystal elbowed Dwayne. Earp wondered what idiotic idea the poacher had now.

  "In town. A bakery, actually." Smith stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you. My name's Neely."

  Dwayne's eyes widened. He took a step back.

  A wily smile crept over Crystal's lips as she shook the alpha shifter's hand.

  Earp wriggled out of his clothes and shifted the rest of the way to his animal. He was faster, deadlier, in Gila monster form, and Smith was playing a dangerous game. So far, the poachers had been stupid, but even a stupid poacher could be deadly.

  "A bakery, huh?" As she spoke, the poacher slowly reached into her back pocket. "What time do you open?"

  Earp sent Smith a warning through the group bonds. He knew she got the message—there was no way she wouldn't have with her strength and his proximity—but her expression never changed.

  "Six a.m. Come on over and I'll serve you a concha. Do you like pink or chocolate?"

  "Neither, thanks. I'm watching my carbs." The poacher whipped her hand out of her pocket, stabbed a syringe into Smith's forearm, and pushed the plunger down.

  Smith didn't so much as flinch. Not even when the poacher ripped the syringe back out of her arm, leaving a bloody tear in her flesh.

  Dwayne backed up into a knee-high globe of Russian thistle, got his feet tangled, and went down on his ass.

  Crystal didn't turn, though she had to have heard him fall. "You're coming with us, spiker."

  Smith wrinkled her nose. "Nah, I don't think I will."

  The poacher looked a little less sure of herself. "You have no choice. The drug in that syringe will knock you—should have already knocked you—out. What the hell, Dwayne? Did your brother give us expired tranquilizer? Half this dose should have done the job. Is this thing working?" She held the needle up in front of her face to examine the half-full syringe.

  Earp would bet, when Crystal the poacher thought about that moment in later years, she'd wish like hell that she hadn't brought that needle so close to her eye.

  It was over in seconds.

  When the dust cleared, Crystal was flat on the ground with an empty syringe protruding from her right eye, and Smith's hand was curled around Dwayne's throat. The male poacher had pissed himself, and the mingled scents of urine and fear were testing Earp’s self-control. He snapped his teeth together and jerked his head around.

  "Don't bite. Yet. I need to interrogate—" Smith scowled at the poacher. "What's your name?"

  "Dwayne Bethers, ma'am."

  Without taking her eyes off the poacher, Smith said, "If Bethers here doesn't start getting real informative real fast, he's all yours."

  "Oh God, please don't let your giant lizard bite me. I'll talk. I'm sorry. I didn't want to do this in the first—is Crystal dead?" He nodded in the direction of the other poacher's still body.

  "Not yet." She lifted the terrified poacher higher off the ground. He was taller, but she was a whole lot stronger. "How many of you are out here?"

  "Just m-me and Crystal." He coughed, and Smith lowered him so he could speak without choking.

  "She mentioned your brother."

  "No, ma'am. He wouldn't come. Said coming out here was stupid dangerous."

  "At least one of you has half a brain." Smith lifted him again, tipping his face close to hers. "If you're lying, I will punch your lungs out of your chest."

  Dwayne shook his head hard. "I'm n-not lying, I promise. No one else wanted to come. They were scared of getting spiked in the head by—they were too scared, I mean."

  "Good. They should be."

  Earp snapped at Dwayne's dangling feet as Smith lifted him higher.

  "Take your partner with you and show her to your poacher friends. Tell them that this is what mercy looks like in my town. Don't ever return. Because the next time I catch either of you anywhere near Sundance, I'll kill you." She gave him a hard shove as she released him. Dwayne dropped to the ground and skidded two feet on his backside. "And it won't be an easy death."

  Chapter Four

  "Sorry about that. I had high hopes for the stupidity of that poacher."

  Earp had shifted back to hybrid form with help from a little alpha nudge from her. His wide, heavy tail dragged a trail in the dirt behind him as he walked to where he'd discarded his clothes.

  "I don't get it. Why did you let them go?"

  "Strategy. A human murder brings attention to our town. A poacher beating brings a warning back to any poacher who dares to cross us." She cocked her head to one side, regarded him. "Disappointed?"

  "I was kind of looking forward to biting someone tonight."

  "Look on the bright side. With the way word is getting around about Neely being a spiker, you're certain to find someone to bite soon."

  "You're only saying that to make me feel better."

  Chandra kicked a fist-sized rock out of their path. "Nah. To be honest, I'm disappointed, too. I was looking forward to putting the hurt on a couple of poachers. Not my fault they were inept."

  "At least you got to stick one of them in the eye."

  "True."

  "You aren't feeling anything from that shot?" Earp eyed the now-healed injection site on her arm.

  "A little relaxed, that's it. The drug should be fully metabolized in a half hour or so. Takes a lot of that stuff to bring one of us down."

  Earp nodded. "And even more to keep us down."

  "Exactly." Chandra kicked another rock. "Hey, now you can keep your breakfast date with the witch."

  "Her name is Dottie." Earp scowled until Chandra held up her hands in silent apology. "And I am happy about seeing her. She's going out of town to stay with her daughter for a week and I've got to be sure to see her before she leaves."

  "I didn't realize the witches had families—I mean, other than each other."

  "Dottie was widowed twenty years
ago. She has a daughter and a granddaughter. Her sister never married."

  They walked in silence for a little while. They were a good ten miles from the Blacke compound, but neither was in any particular hurry to get there. And oddly enough, Chandra was curious about Earp. She was rarely curious about anyone or anything that didn't pose a threat to either herself or someone she cared about. The feeling was something of a novelty.

  "What about you?" Chandra asked. "You said you'd been married. How long have you been a widower?"

  "I'm not a widower. We divorced forty-five years ago. She was … human." Earp let the last word hang there for a beat. "I expect you know a little about why that didn't work out so well."

  Chandra wasn't sure she did. Of all the problems she and Cynthia had had, the human-shifter thing was last on the list. Up at the top? The normal person-assassin thing. The Chandra-withholding-that-important-information-until-Cynthia-was-in-too-deep thing.

  "Do you still love her?"

  "Melody?" Earp frowned up at the stars sparkling against the clear desert sky. "Sure. I love the woman I knew once upon a time, when she was different and so was I."

  "Is Melody why you became a hermit?"

  Earp's brows dropped low over his eyes. "I'm not a hermit. I'm an introvert."

  Chandra just looked at him. "Did Neely tell you to say that?"

  "Maybe."

  "Earp, introverts would prefer to stay in and watch a movie rather than go to a crowded theater to watch one. As an example, I mean. You would prefer to hide in a small, dark cave and lie in wait to bite someone rather than walk into town and bite one there." Chandra stopped walking. "Hell. Come to think of it, maybe you are an introvert."

  "I like my space," he replied blithely.

  "If that's the qualification, maybe I'm one, too." Chandra's head whipped around as she sniffed the air. "Something is close."

  Earp grinned. "More poachers?"

  "Maybe. I can't tell from this distance." She closed her eyes and turned her head from side to side like a satellite dish seeking a signal. "Coming from the southeast. No wind, so I can't quite pick up on their scents."

  "It's not the same ones?"

  "No. These feel different." They felt like shifters, but that was a guess. Chandra didn't have enough sensory input to tell for sure. "I'm going to head southeast, circle around, see what we've got."

  "You want me to follow?"

  "No. Do the same thing you did with the others. Head straight for them but keep out of sight."

  In half an eye blink, Earp was gone. Chandra moved at a slower pace, picking her way around scrub, avoiding tumbleweed and loose rocks, keeping her breathing silent as she slipped through the night.

  It didn't take long to find them.

  They were shifters. Alphas. Wolves. Possibly Malcolm pack, though she couldn't imagine what they thought they were doing here. If the wolves wanted to challenge Alpha Blacke—which they had every right to do since he and Neely had killed their alpha leader—they had to issue a formal challenge through the Blacke group hierarchy. That hierarchy went: Lucas Blacke, Chandra, Dan Winters, and Amir Gamal.

  And Chandra hadn't yet received a single challenge. Lucas, Dan, or Amir, either.

  She took off at full speed, shifting into hybrid form as she ran. Coarse fur with dark brown spots rippled over human flesh, elongated canines pushed past black velvety lips, furred and rounded ears slid to the top of her head.

  Chandra charged into the first wolf from the side and he went down hard. The wolf hadn't sensed her approach, didn't seem to have his bearings about him as he rose unsteadily to his feet. Perhaps he wasn't as alpha as he'd initially seemed. Chandra rolled him, landing a brutal punch to his solar plexus in the process, and left him gasping on the dirt in pain.

  She somersaulted to her feet and charged the second wolf.

  "No, please," the first wolf gasped. "Please."

  Chandra understood why the first wolf was concerned just a little too late. There was no time to stop, so she veered to the left to avoid colliding with the second wolf, and ran smack into a rough-fleshed, man-shaped Gila monster. She and Earp tumbled five feet and then went straight into a dry gully, hitting the bottom hard and sending up a cloud of fine desert dust.

  "What in the good goddamn are you doing, Second? You told me to head straight for them."

  Chandra flopped on her back in the dirt. Pointed to the bank of the arroyo where a female wolf in human form stood clutching her hugely rounded belly.

  Earp squinted at the wolf. "You sure it ain't a trick?"

  "It's not a trick. She must be close to giving birth. Her biological protections have kicked in. I had trouble scenting them, and the father was so wrapped up in her that he didn't even hear me coming." She stood and dusted off the seat of her jeans.

  "You okay?" she asked the woman.

  "Yes, Alpha." She ducked her head. "My mate and I apologize for not announcing ourselves to your group. We only wanted to … well, we're on the run and we didn't want to risk alerting our pursuers. We were hoping to pass through your territory without notice, but I realize that was disrespectful to Alpha Blacke, to all of you."

  Earp and Chandra climbed the steep sides of the ditch and shot to their feet beside the pregnant female. The male was behind her on the ground, writhing in pain.

  "Well, what the dickens did you do to him?" Earp asked.

  "Broke stuff, probably," Chandra replied. "He's a shifter. He'll heal." She looked at the female again, this time, closer.

  "I'm thirty-nine weeks," the woman said before Chandra asked. "Estimated, of course."

  "How many does it take to be done?" Chandra asked.

  "Forty," Earp replied. At Chandra's astonished look, he shrugged. "What? I know some woman things."

  "You're that close to giving birth and walking through a damn desert?" Chandra couldn't fathom it. There was a story here and she wanted to hear it.

  "Well, we were walking through mountains," the woman said, as she shifted from foot to foot. "It turned into desert."

  "Yep, that happens around here," Earp said.

  "We're truly sorry for intruding. We won't stay or cause trouble. We only intend to pass through." The woman set her jaw. She was drooping with exhaustion, but there was pride and strength in the way she carried herself.

  "Come on." Chandra reached down, helped the male to his feet. "As second alpha of the Black group, I give you my permission to shift in Blacke territory in order to heal yourself faster. Better do it fast, too. Looks like your mate is going to need you soon."

  Chapter Five

  They escorted the wolves to Alpha Blacke's compound, arriving after midnight. Smith disappeared into the Alpha's study after assisting Earp with his change back to human, and Earp escorted the wolves to the kitchen, figuring they'd probably be needing water.

  "Earp?"

  Neely padded barefoot out of Alpha Blacke's bedroom and headed down the hall. She wore a Golden Girls T-shirt and a pair of red polka dot shorts, and her dark chestnut curls trailed loosely down her back.

  Earp was pleased that the Alpha and Neely were together now. Both were powerful and could protect the group well if they banded together permanently. And if they ever ended up mated, they would be unstoppable.

  "Oh my gosh, you poor thing. You must be starving," Neely said, as she dashed across the living room and into the kitchen. "Let me get something started."

  "Please, you don't have to feed us," the pregnant wolf said. "It's kind enough that you'll allow us to pass through your territory."

  "What? Not even. You're staying here with us tonight. Lucas has tons of room." Neely threw open the refrigerator and began piling food on the counter in front of where the pregnant wolf was seated on a barstool. "And I don't mean that in an evil alpha you can't leave way, but in a nice way, like, 'We would feel bad if you had to give birth on a cactus.' What's your name?" She smiled brightly, and Earp felt the two wolves relax. The woman even smiled a little.

  "
Imogen Reid. And this is my husband and mate, Carter Reid." She shifted the folded clothing in her arms and gestured to the enormous gray wolf at her feet. "Your second gave him permission to shift so he could heal."

  "Did Chandra punch him?" Neely asked.

  "Yes, but we understand why."

  "Don't hold it against her. She's actually a cool person, just super protective. Do you like steak?"

  Lucas Blacke stood in the doorway, arms crossed, surveying his girlfriend with equal parts possessiveness and wonder. He had a perpetually hungry look to him around Neely that reminded Earp of the way he'd once felt about his Melody and was starting to feel about his sweet Dottie.

  "I told you to wait for me," Alpha Blacke said.

  "I know. But I could feel Imogen's distress." Neely was a telepath as well as a spiker and tended to pick up on things like that easier than most, even when she wasn't reading people's minds. "She's eating for two and hasn't had enough food for one today. Look at her."

  Both Imogen and Carter snapped to attention. Imogen went to her knees beside her husband and lowered her head.

  "Oh my gosh, Lucas, look what you did. She's getting ready to give birth and you spooked her into kneeling on the cold floor. Aren't you going to help her up?" Neely narrowed her eyes at Alpha Blacke, who gave her a comically exasperated look.

  Alpha Blacke looked to the male wolf before touching his mate. Shifters were possessive of cubs and pregnant mates, and Earp knew as well as anyone that biology was often stronger than good sense.

  "With your permission?" he asked Imogen.

  She nodded.

  "And the father's permission?"

  The wolf raised his head. Gave a quick nod.

  Alpha Blacke helped Imogen off the floor and back into her seat as Neely placed a glass of water in front of her. "Can you have manzanilla tea?"

  "Is it caffeinated?" Imogen asked shyly. Only then did Earp notice how young she was. She couldn't have been more than twenty-three or so.

  "It's organic chamomile tea made by our local witches. No caffeine."