Half Wolf (Alpha Underground Book 1) (14 page)

I could have sworn Cinnamon grinned despite the intense pain he must have been experiencing. But the battered wolf shook his head as if to push the focus of our conversation away from his lacerations. Then he stretched his neck over so he could stick his nose into Ginger’s pocket.

“I don’t have anything good in there,” his sister replied, but she dutifully disinterred the contents anyway. “I know you missed lunch, which has got to be
way
more traumatic than any mauling,” she continued to patter as a couple of napkins with scrawled phone numbers, a tube of lipstick, and finally her cell phone came tumbling out to land on the metal surface beside Cinnamon’s wet nose. “But once you’re all stitched up, Fen will buy you the juiciest hamburger you’ve ever seen. Or maybe a steak. How about that?”

In a completely uncharacteristic display of fixation, Cinnamon showed no interest in the delights on his culinary agenda. Instead, he struggled to his feet, pulling open partially scabbed-over wounds in the process so blood once again started dropping splat by splat onto the now smeared operating table.

“Hey, shh,” Ginger said, trying to push her brother back down. “You need to stay calm for just a few more minutes....”

Submissive Cinnamon generally did whatever his sister said. But now he ignored Ginger’s admonitions and poked at her cell phone with his nose. Despite lacking thumbs, he managed to swipe the device to life—and leave a smear of wolf boogers on the screen in the process—before the phone tumbled off the edge of the table and clattered to the tile floor.

Ginger’s attachment to her cell phone was a subject of frequent teasing in our little pack. Still, the look on the trouble twin’s face as she peered down at the screen went above and beyond any obsession with possibly damaged electronics. “Oh no,” she whispered, one hand covering her mouth.

“Oh yes,” Hunter said grimly, picking up the cell phone and handing it to me so I could see what had gotten everyone so riled up.

For a moment, I was confused. I barely used my own phone except for planning out driving routes and stopping points. So it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing.

There was Ginger’s Facebook page, five thousand friends proving that she was as popular in the electronic world as she’d been on top of that bar table last night. There was her profile icon, in which she appeared to be wearing nothing at all except a smile.

And there was her most recent status update, telling precisely when and where we’d decided to hunt for our lunch.

The realization that
she
had been the one setting the SSS on our heels all this time shut Ginger up long enough for Dr. Anderson to repair her brother and send us on our way with one bottle of antibiotics and another of painkillers. “With any other patient, I’d offer to keep him overnight,” the vet said quietly as Ginger fluttered around her twin and Hunter scooped the wounded werewolf up off the operating table as easily as if the hundred-plus-pound animal was a grocery bag full of toilet paper. “But I really don’t want to risk a wounded wolf waking up around people he doesn’t know.”

The man’s eyes bored into mine, and the lecture I knew was coming created a near-solid wall in the air between us. I sighed and caved.

“You’re going to give me the phone number of a wolf-rescue agency now,” I said, providing the human with the opening he needed to rebuild his own peace of mind. It was the least I could do when Dr. Anderson had been so kind despite being less than thrilled to have a supposedly wild animal on his operating table. The vet had been a consummate professional regardless of his reservations, his hands gentle on Cinnamon’s lacerated skin. He deserved this opportunity to vent his feelings.

“No. Well yes, but....” Dr. Anderson closed his eyes for a moment, and I could tell he was wavering between speaking his mind or just letting us go.

And as much as I wanted to get out the door before Ginger lost control of her inner animal or Cinnamon accidentally went two-legged, I paused. My sleepy wolf was nudging me wordlessly, as if she’d noticed something about our preceding exchange that I’d missed. And since my animal half seemed unwilling or unable to clue me in further, I figured I’d better get the doctor’s feedback after all.

So I used everything I’d learned about body language to put the veterinarian more at ease. I rounded my shoulders, dipped my chin down, and opened my mouth in unstated question. It seemed like a lot of effort just to bring on the same spiel I’d heard a dozen times before. But if the gesture would make my inner wolf happy....

And Dr. Anderson took the bait. “I know this sounds unbelievable since large predators were eradicated from this area centuries ago,” he said quietly. “But I’m certain I’ve seen a pack of gray wolves around here multiple times over the last few weeks. Not coyotes, but
wolves
. So, if you don’t want Cinnamon getting torn up a second time, it’s probably safer to keep your pet indoors for a while.”

The human rubbed one hand across his close-cropped beard as if second-guessing his assessment even as he made it. But I held no doubts on that score. From what little Hunter had told me, the SSS had thoroughly claimed this portion of outpack territory as their own. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the same rogue shifters ignored the rules against being seen by humans and simply ran when and where they wanted to as a pack.

“Any place in particular?” I asked carefully, trying not to put my growing excitement on display. This might be the clue we needed to discover where Lia and Savannah Abrams were being held, and it was all I could do not to grab onto the veterinarian’s shoulders and shake the information right out of him.

“Multiple locations,” Dr. Anderson answered, confusion evident on his face. I obviously hadn’t produced the reaction he was expecting, and I kicked myself for not throwing a little shock and worry into the mix before diving directly into question time. Oh well, what was done was done, and it looked like I’d gotten all the information I was going to get.

I opened my mouth to thank the vet. But before I could speak, Dr. Anderson dredged up a little more data.

“The one place I’ve heard about them the most is out on state route 603, down past the county landfill. A couple of farmers who live in that direction said a wolf pack shows up like clockwork every Friday evening around dusk.” The vet smiled, amused by the idea that wild animals planned out their lives by clock and calendar. “I’d be willing to bet that any howls are just high-school kids having a good time, though,” he added. “There aren’t many unattended places to go around here if you’re underage and want to yuk it up.”

Dr. Anderson shrugged, and I let the subject drop, thanking him profusely for his time and for the care he’d taken with Cinnamon. But, inside, I was dancing with glee.

Because, Hunter had told us that the SSS didn’t kill their prey right away, that they instead seemed to save the captured half-wolves to be murdered ceremoniously. And what better place to disembowel a young female than down a deserted country road where even wolf sightings barely caused the neighbors to raise an eyebrow?

***

We had forty-eight hours until Lia would be frog-marched across a secluded pasture, tied down, and used to fill some void within the SSS’s darkened souls. Forty-eight hours to make a plan, to do enough legwork to ensure said plan wouldn’t result in our youngest pack mate’s demise, and to rebuild the inter-shifter connections that I was certain would be critical to our strategy’s eventual success.

So what did we do first? Take a long nap, of course.

It seemed that Hunter’s role as Tribunal enforcer had some perks after all, the most evident of which was a credit card with no apparent limit. I could almost see the word
Suh-weet!
appear in a thought bubble above Cinnamon’s lupine head when our not-quite-pack-mate showed us the entire floor of a nearby Holiday Inn that he’d rented out for our use. Then, after a couple of hours of shut-eye, a delivery guy dropped off what appeared to be enough food to fuel a moderate-sized army, and even Ginger started looking at the uber-alpha with a bit more fondness in her eyes.

We ate with the wild abandon of wolves, our animal halves understanding that warm calories would go a long way toward easing the ache that had taken up residence in the pits of our stomachs. The meat and carbs were gone in a heartbeat and our paper plates were bare save a few stray florets of broccoli when I finally I broke the silence. “We need to make a plan,” I told the shifters spread out across the giant king-sized bed, chairs, and floor in the room we’d gravitated toward. What can I say—you can lead a crowd of werewolves to separate rooms, but you can’t make the pack sleep apart.

“A plan sounds good,” Ginger agreed, but her tone wasn’t as agreeable as it might have been. I’d hoped that a couple of hours of sleep followed by the vision of her brother limping around on his own four paws would set the young woman’s mind at ease. But, instead, she remained just as prickly as she’d been ever since stumbling upon Hunter’s and my first kiss.

“Problem?” I asked, figuring we might as well get that bee out of her bonnet. Ginger didn’t so much smolder as seethe. And the longer you let her stew, the hotter the flames of her anger became when they eventually erupted out into the open.

“Yes, since you ask, there
is
a problem,” Ginger agreed. She gave Hunter the evil eye and proceeded to beat the dead horse that we’d already pounded about half a mile into the earth. “Our plan should be shared with
pack mates only
. And
he’s
not pack.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before speaking to make sure my own words didn’t come out sounding equally bitter. “We’ve been over this already, Ginger. Hunter may not be part of this pack, but he cares about Lia. And, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s his
job
to track down the SSS. That’s why he can afford to put us up here.” I waved my hands around at the spic-and-span furnishings that put our previous night’s accommodations to shame.

“Oh, and now your head is turned by
money
?” the trouble twin demanded.

The issue was a ludicrous waste of time, especially after Ginger had proven to all of our satisfaction that she, rather than Hunter, had been the unwitting traitor in our midst. Luckily, there was one easy way to shut her up.

“Okay, we’ll vote on it,” I caved, knowing that everyone else had a more rational understanding of our need for the uber-alpha’s support during the hunt ahead. Surely our other pack mates understood that there was no reason to dive into a rescue with only butter knives when we could take a machine gun to the fight.

To my surprise, the pack bond flickered to life in the air before me as I spoke, and I slid my gaze around the room to see if anyone else had noticed the strange phenomenon. Nope, no dropped jaws and expressions of surprise. No inventive swear words and half-baked theories. So the glowing lines that now bounced back and forth between us as if alive were only there for me to see...assuming I wasn’t hallucinating the image.

To test that hypothesis, I tugged gently on the strand connecting me with Glen. And to my surprise, my second spoke up as if I’d nudged him physically. “Yes, definitely. We need every shifter we can get our hands on to protect Lia. Hunter is an asset.”

I nodded with approval and reached forward next to tweak the tether connecting me to Ginger. This strand of starlight was twice as wide as the others, as if the energy the trouble twin had invested in her misplaced crush had built up our connection beyond ordinary levels.
I hope that means she’ll start to see reason soon
, I thought as I plucked the glowing thread like a guitar string.

“Ow!” Ginger flinched back as if I’d struck her and I raised my hands skyward in apology.
Sorry
, I mouthed. I guess I hadn’t realized the full power of the pack bond after all.

To remedy my faux pas, I visualized sending a ball of calming energy down the line. And to my surprise the effort bore immediate fruit. Ginger’s tense posture relaxed a trifle and she graced me with her signature one-sided smile, the one which had been distinctly lacking during the previous twelve hours.

Still, when the trouble twin spoke, she hadn’t changed her tune. “No,” she said simply.

That was exactly what I’d expected, so I didn’t argue the point and instead turned my attention to Cinnamon. The wounded wolf had collapsed onto the bed beside his sister after stuffing his face with pizza and sweet-and-sour chicken, and he barely raised his muzzle out of his sister’s lap when the attention of the pack turned in his direction. Poor guy was probably having trouble tracking our conversation despite his recent nap, and I hoped we could send him back to bed in short order.

Still, Cinnamon was apparently following along well enough to know I was waiting for his decision on Hunter’s tenure within our band.
No.
The word materialized within my mind, and now it was my turn to jolt in surprise at the mixture of emotions that traveled along with the word down our shared tether. The pack bond’s depth of connection continued to astound me.

I opened my mouth to translate for those still in the dark. But the male trouble twin was way ahead of me, shaking his head in a visual confirmation of his predictable stance. Cinnamon might have been bosom buddies with Hunter in any other situation, but he would now and forever choose to back his sister up. So he, like Ginger, voted to have the uber-alpha summarily ejected from our pack.

I shrugged and motioned to Quill. The cowboy shifter would vote yes, then I’d break the tie, I knew. Ginger would inevitably grouse and moan for a few hours. But we’d eventually get where we needed to go—toward a newfound pack solidarity that allowed us to rely on Hunter’s uber-alpha abilities when needed. Our pack would no longer be divided, and our shared skills would make short work of busting Lia out of her prison.

Or not. “No, I don’t trust him,” Quill said quietly. His tether to the group was barely visible, a tiny thread that hardly reached beyond the closest pack mate
—
Ginger. Even my own connection to the cowboy shifter was invisible across the ten-foot distance that lay between us, and I couldn’t feel his presence in my mind at all.

In contrast, I noticed now that Hunter’s tie to our pack was much more obvious than the other male’s. Actually, the brilliance and width of the uber-alpha’s intangible bond was twice as thick as the one connecting me to Ginger, meaning that it was also considerably stronger than the iron tether that bound the two twins together.

Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true. Yes, Hunter was linked into our group more firmly than anyone else was. But his linkage wasn’t really to the pack as a whole. It was to me alone.

Not quite right
, my wolf reiterated, our shared slumber having given her the energy to kibitz at will.
The bond....

Later
, I ordered. I didn’t care if Ginger and Cinnamon and Quill...and even my animal half...didn’t trust the uber-alpha. Hunter was bound to me—I could see that with my own two eyes. And the tether we shared was enough to prove that he had our best interests at heart.

So I dismantled the previously democratic governance of our pack with a single sentence. “I appreciate everyone’s feedback,” I stated firmly, “but Hunter is in.”

And, in front of my eyes, the tether that had bound me to Ginger snapped in half, my weaker tie to Cinnamon disappearing right along with his sister’s. My eyes widened as the broken ropes of light flung back in my direction, the recoil knocking me backwards against the wall as the bitter ends hit.

I lay there stunned for a solid minute. And when I finally shook off the pain and opened my eyes, no indication of our previous clan cohesion was now visible in the air.