Her Wanted Wolf (14 page)

The human girl presented him with an additional problem. There was no way
he could leave her behind, and she sure as hell couldn’t travel with the
combined packs in the swift silent run they’d have to do in the dark. Sabine
was right. Balthazar was too fragile to manage the trek. He didn’t have the
stamina anymore.

He’d come up with a loose plan to get them to safety without compromising
the security of the Silverwolves. The night before, he asked Justice’s gadget-loving
younger brother, Rick, to send him some of his toys. If he could lay his hands
on what Drew needed, they’d have no trouble monitoring Bardo’s pack.

Drew had also arranged for Rick to send his fleet of choppers to the flat
plain around Laststop, a small town fifteen miles away. They’d pick up the bulk
of the Silverwolf pack there, after which they’d return to pick up those who
couldn’t make the trek. They’d be rappelling the girl and Balthazar up into a
hovering chopper. He hoped the locals didn’t think it was an alien invasion or
worse, a terrorist attack, in which case they’d come out with guns blazing.

Squinting, he focused on the valley below and glimpsed several wolves
moving through the trees. They’d traveled a long way from where they’d started
their search. Drew grinned. They still hadn’t a clue were the Silverwolves
were. It’d buy him some time if they continued their search in that direction.

A pebble skittered down the hill from behind him. Drew spun around tensed
to counter any attack. Ishbel, Ala and some of their pack sisters in wolf form
trotted in his direction.

“Sabine is fine, if you were worried. We have come to an understanding.”

Ishbel stretched her furry lupine body out to make her change to stand
above him, a sleek, statuesque woman. “We weren’t worried. Sabine can take care
of herself.” She tilted her head and shot him a sassy grin. “We came to see if
your pelt was intact.”

Drew grunted. “Thanks for your concern.” His sardonic rejoinder widened
her smirk.

Ishbel shrugged nonchalantly. “Actually, we’re here to report to Sabine.
The older women refuse to break down their shelters.”

“I’ll have a word with them later. Sabine and I have come to an
agreement. We are mated.” Sabine’s sisters exchanged a what-the-heck look.
“Ala, we found a girl. She’s in shock. Sabine wants you to have a look at her.”
Ala dipped her head in acknowledgment and loped off.

He assessed the other female weres. They looked lean and fit. “Are any of
you up for a little adventure?”

“What do you have in mind?” Ishbel’s eyes gleamed with the same reckless
light he’d seen in Sabine’s before she took off on him. Hell, he had another
thrill-seeker on his hands.

“Can you get me down to the Ranger station undetected, wait there for a
couple of hours at the most, and bring back my pack brothers who are meeting me
there unobserved? We’ll have to run fast and run hard.”

Ishbel laughed. “It’d be no trouble to siphon off all traces of our
presence over a wide area.”

“Good, I want my men up here so we can go over my plans.”

“Does Sabine know of your plans?” Her intonation suggested he should
consult Sabine.

Start as you mean to go on
, his uncle always said. And for the
record, he was getting a little tired of having his decisions second-guessed.
“Do I need to pass it by her first?” He lifted a brow in question.

Ishbel shot him a thoughtful look before she sighed. “No, I don’t believe
you do. When do we leave?”

“Now.” He dropped to his knees before he shimmied into his powerful
lupine body. He put his face into the wind and marked the weres he’d be
traveling with down the mountain.

Ishbel and the other she-wolves flanked him. Drew started slowly, picking
up speed as they moved back down the hill. The women traveled in a loose
formation. He noted they lacked the hyper-vigilance of battle-tested weres who
understood the danger of a moment’s inattention. This could cost them dearly.

He increased his speed to get to the ranger station early. He needed to
check if his men left Jackson Roi’s compound on schedule.

He just hoped Rick came through for him because he had a lot riding on
this tiny seed of an idea from which he hoped to reap a bumper crop.

* *
* *

Drew and the women reached their destination just as a bunch of men
pulled up on three-wheeled ATVs. He eased back into the thicket and they melted
into the shadows to conceal themselves.

Shit, they had dogs. He hated dogs. Those effing hounds just didn’t know
when to quit.

Ishbel sidled over and settled down beside him. Drew jerked when his
sense of smell blinked out. It startled him for a second, but at least he
didn’t twist and turn like a chicken with his head cut off this time. He looked
over at Ishbel. She glowered with distaste at the yipping dogs straining on their
leashes. Guess she hated dogs too.

“Okay, listen up. Person or persons unknown in this general area have
kidnapped a woman, Kiyah Chin. She has some survival skills and self-defense
training. As you all know, three other women have gone missing over the last
couple of weeks.” A ranger in a crisp green uniform addressed the men. “There
are no signs of a motorized vehicle so we’ll assume they’re on foot. They have
a four-hour head start on us and there are a million places to hide. Caves and
dense virgin forest, so I don’t have to tell you all, it’d be easy to walk past
our targets or get jumped by them. Stay together in groups of three. Each group
will be given a radio. Keep it on you at all times and check in every hour on
the hour. The men with the tracking dogs will take lead.”

Drew forced himself to relax while the men and canines dispersed.
Ishbel’s skill at diffusing their scent was impressively sharp. A pair of dogs
trotted by; their humid Alpo-laced pants ruffled his fur as they passed by him,
but they kept going, oblivious to his presence.

They waited until the vibrations from the trackers’ footsteps lessened as
they moved deeper into the woods.

Drew trotted out of the brush, slipped effortlessly up onto his feet and
approached the rustic building. A shiny new set of locks glared at him.

Crap, a double deadbolt lock. These would be harder to pick. The piece of
wire he used the last time wouldn’t work on these. Sometimes being butt naked
and without tools was a pain in the ass.

“You’ll need this.” Ishbel held out a key.

Drew’s brows shot up. “You have a key to this place?”

“I know where it’s hidden. The ranger always hides the key in the same
place.” She dropped it into his palm.

“You might have given it to me when we were here last night,” Drew complained
as he opened the door.

“What, and miss seeing you seduce the lock into opening for you.” Her
cheeky grin had him snorting.

Why did these women take so much pleasure in busting his chops? “I did
not seduce the lock.”

“From where I was standing it seemed like it.”

At the teasing laughter in her voice, Drew turned to face her, his lips
twisting into a grin. “The key to picking a lock is not leaving any scratches
on it.”

Ishbel nodded at the door. “You’ll have to teach me to do that sometime.”

“Hell no, I’m not adding to the Silverwolf arsenal. You women are scary
enough.”

She let out a rippling laugh, obviously enjoying the idea. “And do we
scare you, alpha?”

“You have no idea,” Drew said fervently, before he stepped into the dim
room, leaving a smirking Ishbel standing in the sunshine.

* * *
*

An hour past the noon deadline, Rafe, the oldest and most experienced of
his fore-fighters, arrived. From his vantage point on a sturdy limb high above
him, Drew watched Rafe slip in and out of the trees and sniff the air
tentatively. He read tension, uncertainty, and watchfulness in the lithe
movements of his primo’s body.

Drew knew exactly how Rafe felt.

Dropping down to the ground, he grinned when Rafe’s head whipped around,
fur bristling, body poised to leap.

“Are your skills getting dull with age, Rafe?” Drew taunted.

Rafe shed his base form like a too-tight coat. He looked around, as if he
expected something to spring out at him. “Something is really fucked up here.
There are pockets throughout the forest where I can’t smell a damned thing. The
woods are lousy with dogs, men, and Redmavens. We wasted a lot of time evading
them.” Rafe peeled off the light backpack slung across his back and tossed it
to Drew. “I’d really appreciate it if you never ask me to carry anything on my
back again. I’m not a pack animal.” His face was tight with irritation.

“Questioning my orders, Rafe?” Drew asked softly. His hackles rose at the
hint of insubordination in Rafe’s demeanor.

“Never that. You are my alpha and I’m yours to command. It’s those
disrespectful young pups you chose for your guard. You should have heard some
of the crap I had to listen to when I fixed the bag to my back. I’m going to
have to trim a few ruffs when we get home.”

“You have the right to discipline your men as you see fit, and I might
just give you a hand. We’ll consider it a training exercise.”

Rafe grunted. “You’ll need to kick more than your fore-fighters’ asses.
Your uncle’s whelp is trying to agitate the pack. He’s been talking trash that
you’re a couple fangs short of a full set since you lost Christa. It’s been
suggested not so subtly that we should toss our lot in with him.”

Drew would be the first one to admit he’d neglected his duties as leader
of his pack lately. But he wouldn’t believe his extended family would shift
loyalties so quickly. “And has Adrian succeeded in swaying my pack to his way
of thinking?”

Rafe’s dismissive scoff was enough to assure him he still held the
allegiance of his clan. “You can’t ignore him forever, Drew.”

“Sure I can; it’s worked for me so far. I have nothing to worry about.
Adrian will never lead the pack even if something happens to me. The strongest
male will fight for the right to be alpha of our pack. Do you see my cousin
besting any of you in a fight?”

“No, but I still say it’d be better all around if you put him down. It
can easily be construed as a sign of weakness if you don’t.”

Drew speared Rafe with a cold admonishing glare, and Rafe took a step
backward. “Gustav stepped in and held the pack together when my father died. He
kept Aimee and me safe until I was strong enough to take my place as alpha. It
would have been easy for him to claim leadership of the Lunedares—he didn’t. I
will not repay him for his fealty by killing his only cub.”

“Don’t you think Gustav knows that his get is a covetous, divisive little
weasel? He’d be the first one to cull him from the pack, if anyone was brave
enough to tell him what Adrian is up to.” Rafe stiffened and looked past his
shoulder. He spread his arms wide, claws descending as he sprang past Drew to
meet the threat he sensed approaching.

One by one, the Silverwolf women stepped forward. Drew laughed at Rafe’s
expense when the man’s mouth literally dropped open. Sabine’s pack sisters were
a walking wet dream, with their silvery hair, lush bodies and sun-flushed skin.

“Hell, Drew, you’ve fallen into the gravy, haven’t you?” Rafe stared at
the women with a look of pure masculine appreciation. Then his eyes narrowed
when the implications of the rare coloring of the women hit him. “Which pack do
they belong to?”

“They’re Silverwolves,” Drew answered, grinning at a frowning Ishbel.

Distrust spread across Rafe’s face. “Son-of-a-bitch, are they the reason
we never found Aimee? Did they help Bardo?”

Drew shook his head. “Yes and no. It was by pure chance.”

Suspicious by nature, Rafe was like a dog with a bone. He looked
skeptically at Ishbel. “Why is it we’ve picked up on Aimee’s scent after all
this time?”

“She was here. They moved her. After we get them to safety we are going
to track her and there’ll be nothing to impede us this time.” Drew felt a deep
satisfaction in that bit of knowledge.

“Will they barter for an exchange of services?”

“Oh, we can do better than that. Rafe, meet my sister-in-law, Ishbel. We
are now kin, and yes, we’re going to be hunting together.” Drew motioned for
Ishbel to step forward.

Rafe’s brows shot up until they disappeared under the shaggy hank of hair
hanging down on his forehead. “You’ve acquired a mate during the couple of
hours since we’ve been in contact?”

Said aloud like that, it sounded a bit farfetched.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Drew murmured, remembering how much of a
twist Sabine got his briefs in. “Ishbel, Rafe, my friend and the primo of my
fore-fighters.”

She bowed regally to Rafe giving him a narrow-eyed once over, before she
shifted an equally cold gaze to Drew. “I’ll go wait with the others. Quietly,
so we don’t inadvertently or deliberately help the enemy.” She spun on her
heel, changed into were form, and swished her tail at them with haughty disdain,
leaving them staring after her.

“Ah, did we just get dissed?” Rafe scratched his head.

“Don’t worry about it. The Silverwolf women seem to have a monopoly on
pissiness.” Drew listened to the cautious approach of several four-footed
beings.

“How many men did you bring?” It sounded to him they had more than they
needed.

“I compromised at sixteen. I brought the eight weres in your guard, and
then an equal number as backup. You said to keep the group small.”

Drew smiled as the sleek muscular wolves separated themselves from the
underbrush. Their glossy brown coats gleamed with good health and vitality.

He looked his pack members over, Lunedares under the fur, meeting so far
from their stomping grounds, bound by one purpose.

“I don’t want to tarry here. We’ll head on up to the Silverwolf den to
strategize.” He watched his men move to enclose the women in a protective
circle, almost preening like a bunch of peacocks to catch the female weres’
attention.