Hunter's Heart: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 5) (12 page)

“That’s right,” Boyd said. “Every bit of it. We own
you, Tinker. The Kentucky Chief Pack owns you.”

“No.” My father shook his head. “That’s not true.
The Harlans pay me to put down rogue wolves who break the treaty. Killers.”

Boyd leaned forward, his words coming out in a
stream of vitriol. “It was easier to let you think that, Tinker. If that’s what
helps you sleep at night. But it’s a lie, and I think deep down you know it.
You kill the wolves who make trouble for the Chief Pack. That’s all. You kill
those who’ve tried to escape and those who try to challenge us.”

The air went out of my lungs as Derek drove Boyd’s
head against the table. Even he couldn’t stand to hear another word. Because it
couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be right. They’d used him. Used us. Because if
what he said was true, it meant my father was working for the very wolves who’d
destroyed my grandmother’s life.

Chapter Thirteen

As Boyd’s words sunk in, I thought my father would
be the one to start breaking things. But, Grammy beat him to it. First, she
threw a chair with enough force to break one of the legs off. Boyd growled and
thrashed in his seat. Derek held his chains tight and grabbed a fistful of his
hair, pulling his head sharply back, exposing his neck.

“Say it again,” Derek said. “Slowly.”

Boyd bared his teeth, and his nose began to
elongate. His fingernails turned black. But, he was no match for the keyed up
Alpha wolf standing right behind him. Derek jerked Boyd backward again and
hissed something in his ear. Boyd’s features melted back to human and his
breathing slowed. Derek’s pulse, however, slammed inside my head. Only I knew
the herculean strength it took for him not to tear Boyd’s head off.

“The Harlan brothers work for the Kentucky Chief
Pack. Just like I said.
We
control Mason County and the bridge into
Banchory.”

“You don’t control anything,” Derek said. “You just
do what you’re told.”

Boyd tried to pull away. This time, Derek let go of
him. Boyd gripped the edge of the table and tried to catch his breath. “The
Chief Pack gave us this territory. The Harlans do what we tell them to if they
don’t want to get their throats ripped out.”

“What is it you tell them to do?” I asked, even
though I didn’t want to hear the answer.

“We’re border patrol for the Chief Pack. When
Kentucky wolves get out of line, we deal with it.”

“And you can’t be seen getting your hands dirty
though, can you?” Derek asked. “You’d never keep the respect of any other wolf
if you did. Your Alpha doesn’t want other wolves knowing just how far he’s
willing to take things.”

“Something like that,” Boyd said. He leaned over and
spat on the ground. He looked like he was about to vomit. I knew Derek kept him
from shifting from the sheer force of his will. That more than the shackles on
his wrists seemed to keep him immobile.

“And you can’t have direct contact with anyone
carrying out the hits the Chief Pack orders, can you?”

Boyd shook his head. His cold stare stayed fixed on
my father. Dad backed away. Grammy got bolder. She came right up to Boyd. She
shot a quick look to Derek. When he nodded, she sat down in the chair next to
Boyd. “Did Charles know?” she asked. “Charles Lyle. Did he know the Chief Pack
bankrolled the Harlans?”

Derek pressed his fingers into Boyd’s shoulder,
forcing him to turn and face my grandmother. “Answer her,” Derek commanded.
When he didn’t immediately answer, Derek used brute force. He smacked Boyd’s
head against the table then held him up again.

“I don’t know!” Boyd yelled. “Christ. I don’t know!
It wasn’t something the Harlans
or
the Chief Pack wants broadcast. Bad
enough you’re making me tell you. You know what they’re going to do to me when
they find out I told you?”

“You need to be more worried about what
we’re
going to do to you!” I got in Boyd’s face. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like
the way he was looking at Grammy. Color had flared back into her face. Two
crimson dots appeared high on her cheeks. I knew that look. She wasn’t scared
anymore. She was furious.

My father paced behind me, shifting his rifle from
one shoulder to the other. “Stinking dogs!” he muttered. “All of you. You’re
not brave enough to just handle your own kind. You’ve gotta drag me and my
family down into it.”

“You wanted it,” Boyd said. “You wouldn’t know it by
the looks of this place, but you’ve done all right for yourself haven’t you?”

“But why?” Grammy said. “You have to know what my
Charles and Thomas were capable of. The Harlans do. Everybody in our field
does. The Lyles are the only ones who figured out a way to stop werewolves. The
other bounty hunters have never had the kind of success that Thomas does. Why
in God’s name would the Chief Pack want to fund his research?”

Derek got to his feet. He twisted Boyd’s chains over
his forearm. For a moment, I thought he might break them in two. A muscle
twitched near his eye, and his thundering heartbeat made his rising anger ring
like a bell inside my own head.

“It’s a win-win for the Chief Pack,” he finally
said. “Isn’t it? The Kentucky Alpha gets to put down anyone he sees as a
threat. Any wolf he thinks might get too powerful. Anyone who crosses him. He
just has the Harlans call up Tinker Lyle and his Wolfkiller bullets, problem
solved. And, when the time comes . . .
if
the time ever comes,
Kentucky’s got a weapon to use against the Wild Lake wolves or any other
foreign pack they want to go to war with.”

“I would
never
get involved in a pack war,”
my father said. The instant he did, he understood the real gravity of what
Derek said.
If
the packs ever went to war again, it wouldn’t matter
whether my father wanted to get involved. The Chief Pack would just come in
here and take what they wanted. They’d outnumber us.

“Am I missing anything, Boyd?” Derek spat out Boyd’s
name as if it burned in his mouth.

Boyd buried his face in his hands. A part of me
could almost feel sorry for him. His pack had to know by now that he was their
weak link. It might have been better if Derek had just killed him outright. If
we sent him back, they’d likely kill him themselves.

Derek’s gaze caught mine. He told me he couldn’t
read my thoughts, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t guess. I swallowed hard and
looked at Grammy. She trembled with rage as she sat next to Boyd.

“How long?” she asked, and her eyes shot up to
Derek. He yanked Boyd’s chains again to let him know Grammy spoke for him.

“I don’t know.” Derek pulled Boyd’s head back again
by his hair. “I swear to God, man. I don’t know. I’m not that high up in the
organization. But I haven’t heard any rumblings that make me think there’s a
pack war coming soon. We’ve got our own problems.”

“What kind of problems?” Derek asked.

“Ask Lyle,” he said. “Business has been pretty good
lately, hasn’t it? That’s probably why the Cavanaughs roughed you up. Your
competition is getting a little jealous. Relax, though. You weren’t in any
danger of losing our business. Not while you’ve got Wolfkiller ammo and all
your other gadgets.”

“Speak plain,” Derek shouted in his ear.

“All right, all right. Business has been good for
the Lyles because we’ve had a rash of troublemakers lately that needed taking
care of. Other wolves thinking they can outsmart the Chief Pack. Trying to
stake their claims outside Kentucky. I’ve heard you’ve even had a few who made
it as far as Wild Lake. So maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to bash my face in.
The Lyles have probably taken out wolves who would have caused problems for you
too.”

“But not all of them, right?” I asked, sinking into
the chair directly opposite of Boyd. “Some of them probably never wanted to
hurt anyone, did they? They just wanted to get the hell away from Kentucky and
be left alone.”

Boyd shrugged. “None of my business, man. Any wolf
who goes against the Chief Pack, no matter what their reason, they have to be
dealt with.”

My gut clenched. I felt a similar reaction in Derek.
Good wolves may have died at my father’s hands. Or mine.
Derek
might
have died at my hands if I hadn’t recognized him for what he was.

“Enough,” Dad said. He’d taken a position against
the steel wall of the hut. He smashed his fist into it, making the whole
structure vibrate with thunder. “I’ve heard all I need to hear. It’s over. You
feel me? You take that back to your Alpha. The Lyles are retiring. Find someone
else to do your dirty work.”

“It don’t work like that, man,” Boyd said, a slow,
sadistic smile spread across his face. “You don’t get to retire. Nobody does.
Kentucky Alpha wants you to do something for him, you do it. Cheer up, though.
You’ve got job security and maybe even a little extra protection. As long as
you’re the only one who knows how to make those magic bullets, you’ll be
sitting pretty. If I were you, I’d maybe want to upgrade this dump, though.”

The punch came from the side. Grammy curled her fist
and crashed it against Boyd’s nose with enough power that I heard a small bone
crack. “Shit!” she cried out, then cradled her hand against her chest.

“You okay?” Dad and I said it together. Blood poured
out of Boyd’s broken nose. Grammy nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “Actually, that felt better than
it should have.”

Boyd called her a few choice names that earned him
another quick jerk of his wrist chains and threw him off balance. He would have
toppled sideways, but Derek righted him.

“That’s it man, I swear,” Boyd said, his voice
muffled through his hand. “I’ve told you everything I know. Just keep that
crazy old lady away from me, okay? This is getting seriously fucked up.”

Derek looped the chains around the table and let
them go. He walked to the far end of the hut. He didn’t have to tell me he
wanted me to follow him outside. He called to me on some preternatural level,
even without the marking.

“Keep that rifle pointed right at his head,” Derek
told my father, though he needn’t have bothered. The instant Boyd called Grammy
crazy, Dad had raised it again.

I went outside with Derek. He took my hand in his.
Even with the urgency of the moment and everything going on inside, that small
touch made me crave something more. Derek tore his other hand through his hair
and we walked a few yards away from the hut.

“You sure your father didn’t know anything about
this?”

I swallowed hard. It was a legitimate question.
Derek didn’t know my father, and his limited impression had admittedly not gone
smoothly. But, if I could look past everything I ever thought I knew about
shifters, I hoped Derek could do the same about one man.

“He didn’t know,” I said. “The Kentucky pack. What
they did to Grammy. I swear to you, we would have
never
taken so much as
a penny from them. God, Derek, my father is liable to burn this place to the
ground now that he knows what paid for it.”

Derek nodded. “It might come to that. Boyd’s too
stupid to put two and two together. He thinks his pack will just take him back
after this. I broke him. And it was way too fucking easy.”

“What do you mean?” It sure didn’t look easy to me.
Whatever Derek did to Boyd seemed like mental torture.

“His mind snapped like a twig. He barely put up a
fight. That tells me a lot about where the Kentucky packs are weak. It’s too
big. They’ve got too many splinter groups like Boyd’s border patrol with no
Alpha directly guiding them day to day. That’s why they’re seeing so much
defection. And why you’re . . . uh . . . dad’s business is booming.”

“What about Boyd?”

Derek let out a hard breath. “I’m in his head.
There’s not much there, but he’s a threat now.”

“How?”

“If he makes it back to the Kentucky wolves, they’ll
be able to track me easier. They’ll smell me on him. And the rest of you. I
can’t take that risk. And, they’ve retreated; they haven’t given up.”

“The wolves are coming back.” My chest felt hollow
with fear. I knew what Derek was going to say before he said it.

He gave me a grim nod and pulled me close. “Yeah.
Soon. Boyd’s trying to cover, but they’ve tried to reach out to him a few times
already while we questioned him. I’m closer to him, so it wasn’t hard to block
them, but they’re on their way here.”

“And they’ll bring reinforcements.”

Derek nodded and kissed the top of my head. “They’ll
bring a damn army.”

“What do we do?”

I stayed in Derek’s arms and took a step back.
Sliding my hands up behind his neck I looked up at him.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he said. “And
the rest of your family, you’re under my protection now.”

“But, it won’t be enough, will it? Not without the
rest of your pack.”

Derek shook his head. “Not even with the rest of my
pack. I’m guessing within the hour this place is going to be overrun with
Kentucky wolves in a bloodlust. I can’t sense the numbers, but it’s a lot.
Hundreds maybe.”

My heart trilled with fear, but Derek held me close
and cupped my face with his hands. “I swear I’ll find a way to keep you safe.
But, Jessa, we can’t stay here. You have to leave this place behind. All of
you. Boyd’s an idiot, but he’s not stupid, you know? He’s right. Your father’s
important to the Kentucky packs. They probably wouldn’t outright kill him, but
they’ll make him wish he was dead. Try to take you or your grandmother maybe.
Anything to ensure your father does exactly what they say.”

“No,” I said, my voice trembling. “I’d rather die
than let myself be used like that. And Grammy can’t go back to that. She more
than anyone knows what it’s like being held by the Kentucky packs against her
will. It’s over, Derek. I’ll make my father understand. But, where would we
go?”

“Home,” Derek said, and his face lit with a warm
smile. “I’d like to take you home to Wild Lake. I can make you safe there.”