Midnight Moon: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Roadside Angels Motorcycle Club Book 2) (4 page)

He parked and walked with her up to her room, deciding he would leave her at the door this time.  If he went in, there would be no business for a while, and he couldn’t afford to slack off at this point in the game.  He’d make sure to see her later.

“I have some chores to do, Tamara, but I’ll see you later, for dinner, if that’s okay?”

She looked up at him and smiled.  “Sure.  I’ll be trying to clear my e-mails as well, and seeing what I can find out about those numbers.”

“Be careful, Tamara,” he begged her.  “Don’t go digging too deep into things you may not understand.  If you find anything significant, please call Dave or me, okay?”

She lifted her chin delicately and stared at him for a second before she said, “I’m not a rookie, Lex.  I know what to do.  I’ll be fine.  See you later.”

She turned away to go inside, but he turned her round, unwilling to be dismissed, knowing she didn’t know nearly as much as she thought she did, and unable to give her more.  Instead of answering her, he kissed her, a slow exploration of her lips that ended in their tongues tangling in unplanned passion.  He pulled away before he drove himself crazy, and watched her walk into her room, closing the door in his face.

Chapter 2

“Many are the strange chances of the world,’"said Mithrandir, “and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.”
  ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

Lex went back home to work.  Bear was out dealing with ranch business, which freed him to handle the reports and e-mails he had been mostly neglecting the last couple of days.  A couple of messages from the mayor, one asking when he was coming over for dinner.  They had not had a chance to catch up after the attack, aside from a few phone calls, once Toby had been released.  Lex knew the old guy wanted to hear what was happening, especially after Bob’s death.  He didn’t want to be the one to tell him his suspicions, because he knew how the mayor would respond.  He wasn’t much for diplomacy when it came to rogues, even if they were rogues of another species.  He had been the first one to know what Bear and Lex were, and had surprised them both by knowing a whole lot about shifter culture that allowed him to accept them and help them whenever he could.  Lex sent a message saying he’d give him a call as soon as he had full information.

Then he set about completing the reports.  The Roadside Angels had intercepted two different “shipments” of illegals, all women, some most likely bound for flesh markets around the southwest, and from there to points further afield. In both incidents there had been casualties, and in one a civilian had been wounded.  These reports needed to be carefully worded so as to avoid any indication that anything else was happening than concerned citizens helping out the police force in any legal way that they could.  These reports were more in the order of witness statements, which would help deter any suspicion of him and his club members.

He wrote the first one -- a simple shootout, started by the Hell’s Rebels that got out of hand, and ended up with one of them dead.  After he had called the chief, who dispatched a car, Lex and the boys had had to engage with the enemy, so to speak, and it was understandable if there were casualties.  Not that he condoned the use of deadly force, of course, but when lives were at stake, one did what one had to.

He smiled as he finished the first report.  If only they could all be straightforward like that.  The second was more troubling.  One of the illegals had been a mule -- well, he supposed more than one might have been -- but this one had an accident when the packaging around the drugs she was carrying in her intestine broke and she got violently ill.  Between them, they managed to get her off the truck before the cops arrived, but in the ensuing mayhem, one of his own men was severely wounded.  He would have to word it so that the wounds were received after the cops came and shots were fired.   At least he wouldn't have to fudge the ambulance stories. 

After he was done, and the report sent securely, he pulled out the file he had been working on when Tamara first showed up in Rojo Arroyo.  He and the guys in the club had been following Lancaster’s trail for a while, losing it and finding it again, which probably explained the recent increase in the rival gang’s activities against the people in town.  The latest trail led to a sanctuary for wildlife that was not sanctioned by any local or federal authority, and that had only one form of wildlife...wolves.  Lex feared that some of the wolves were shifters, and that the only reason Lancaster had even bothered to make any attempt to “register” the venue was to ward off any questions, should any humans happen upon it and find wolves where they were not expected to be.  He also knew, though, that the information Lancaster gave regarding where they were being housed was incomplete and most likely inaccurate.  By the time anyone bothered to look, he would be long gone.  It was the nature of these things -- no one paid attention as long as nothing happened. 

What Lex couldn’t figure out was why Lancaster was endangering his own species.  Could this be a bid for Primacy?  He must know the other leaders of the Wolf Shifters Prime Council would never allow him to rule as Prime.  Aside from the issue of his bloodline, he had gone rogue, which meant he was now an enemy of the state.  Lex knew that most rogues became that way upon reaching puberty, when the defective gene with which they were born could no longer be contained.  Their nature underwent rapid and debilitating changes, and they were unable to remain as part of the community, because their personalities took a downward spiral and they became a danger not only to themselves but to other members of society.  No one knew why some -- thankfully very few -- wolves were born with what had come to be known as the “rabid gene”, but everyone gave them a wide berth.

Lancaster was a genetic rogue.  If he lived past his hundredth birthday, he would be the first genetic rogue to do so.  And though he was younger than Lex by more than a hundred years, he more than made up for his inexperience with complete and utter ruthlessness.  He didn’t care what he had to do to achieve his goal, whatever it happened to be.  And it seemed to Lex that Lancaster had decided he wanted to be Alpha Prime, which meant Lex had to go.  And if a few humans had to be sacrificed for the rogue’s greater good, he was willing to pay the price.

Lex pulled out the notes he had made on the wolf sanctuaries, the latest of which opened two years after he moved to Rojo Arroyo.  The most worrying part of it was that Lancaster had begun his forays into the local community with his out-of-town wolves when Lex first began receiving word from home that he needed to return.  Which made him wonder if Lancaster had someone on the inside who knew where Lex was.  He had been very careful all his life to keep his location on a need-to-know basis, and only one person on the Prime Council knew where he was at any given moment.  That person would not, could not betray him.  Their blood ties made it impossible, which meant there was something else at work here that Lex couldn’t work out.  Something he needed to figure out soon, before more people were killed.

He reviewed the names on the list in front of him, and decided to call the only other person who might have anything to say about what was happening, the one person who might be at the heart of Lancaster’s puzzling bid for Primacy.  By himself, Lancaster had to know he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of leading the wolf shifters.  So it stood to reason that someone was egging him on, or buying his services.  And as he must also know his time was running out, it would make sense for him to throw caution to the wind as he had nothing to lose in the long run, and perhaps a lot of wealth and notoriety to gain in the short term. 

It pained Lex to think that anyone would stoop so low to get rid of him, but he understood wolf society better than most.  He was a hybrid, to some a half-breed and therefore impure.  He was not of the One Blood, and his kind should all be eliminated.  His father before him had lived with that stigma, despite his having been a good and beloved ruler.  If Lex had his druthers, he would pass on the whole deal, and find a good woman to settle down with and make babies.  He had found one, and now, because of Lancaster, she was in grave danger and didn’t even know it.  He had to do something fast, before his mate was hurt or worse.  Genetic rogues were nothing compared to a hybrid who had lost his mate.

He picked up the phone to make the call.  No sense in putting off unpleasant tasks.  At the very least, his question would be met with genuine puzzlement, and at the worst, with subterfuge.  Either way, he would have an answer.  Sometimes, he was grateful for the gifts his hybridity gave him, one of which was the ability to read the emotions and truthfulness or deceit of those with whom he came in contact.  Over the years, he had learned how to suppress it, using it only when he needed to, as he would if his call was answered.  It didn’t work as well on the phone as in person, but it was a damned sight better than flying blind.

Before he could complete the call, his cell phone rang. 

“Yeah, Dave, what’s up?” he answered it, recognizing the number as the chief’s.

“The boys have just called in some dead wolves over on the edge of the mayor’s property.  He called earlier to report finding them.  Has him pretty shook up, especially after what’s been happening.  Wants you to come over and have a look.”

Lex grimaced.  Lancaster’s irrationality was escalating if he was now slaughtering wolves indiscriminately.  He’d have to go over to make sure none of the number was a shifter, though he didn’t imagine any would be.  Unless a shifter was mortally wounded in his animal form, he could always shift back to human.  It would hurt, but it was better than the alternative.

“All right, Dave.  I’ll go out now.  Will you be there?”

“Yeah.  I’ll need to get a statement from him and the others with him when he found them.”

“Others?  How many?”  Lex worried that if any of the dead animals were shifters, clean-up would be hellish, because there had been witnesses who knew nothing of the shifter world.

“I don’t know.  But I imagine his foreman was there and maybe Toby.”

“I’ll have some pictures for you to look at when I get there,” Lex informed him, pushing that worry aside for the moment.  “And I’ll probably have Ms. Gibbs with me.”

After he hung up from the chief, Bear came into the office.

“The boys called in a few minutes before you got here.  They had a run-in with a couple of Rebels out by the enclosure where those two black wolves are.”

“Was Lancaster with them?”  Lex felt his muscles tighten with tension.

“No, but it seems like they were expected.”  Bear leaned against the wall by the door.  “The Rebels didn’t seem surprised to see them, and seemed really keen to start something with them.  Both of them were shifters.”

“This could get real ugly, Bear.  Our guys can’t afford to tangle with the shifters.  And if they’re spoiling for a fight, it must mean Lancaster is using them, and our guys, as bait.  Again.  Did they say anything specific?”

“Nothing more than the usual.  That the Raiders are pussies, that Rojo Arroyo isn’t safe, and that we can’t protect ourselves, never mind anyone else.  And the usual threats about what they’re going to do if we keep disrupting their trade and messing about in their territory.  Same old same old.”

Lex stood up and paced to the window.  He let out a deep sigh, wishing he could rewrite history.  He would start with the day Toby was attacked, and he would have killed that shifter, even if it had meant having to explain to Toby what he might see that he wouldn’t understand.  While he didn’t have the full ability to scrub anyone’s memories of events, he could confuse them as to what really happened.  So they would remember that things happened, but would not remember the order, or be confused about the people involved, or think they hallucinated.  Another hybrid gift that he chose not to use too often.  It might have come in handy that day.

“I have to go over to the mayor’s place.  Dead wolves on his property line.  I’m going to make sure none of them is a shifter, and then I’m going to swing by Tamara’s hotel.  I’ll call you if I need anything.  Stay in touch with the boys, and let me know if anything new happens.” 

He walked back to his desk and added, “By the way, what did the intel say about the next shipment of illegals?  When and where?  The Rebels have been mixing up their routes these last few months.  We have to be vigilant.”

“The pickup is still on schedule, and as far as the route is concerned, we’re covering all the known ones,” Bear replied.  “Looks like that run to the vintage bike show down south is off the table for the time being,” Bear commented. 

“Yeah.  Unless we can wrap this up in the next month, we’ll forfeit our registration.  It’s too bad.  The boys could do with some good old-fashioned hijinks.”

“It’ll be a while, anyway, unless they go without you, once you head up north.  And in that case, they’ll be without me, too.” 

Bear’s tone was matter-of-fact, and Lex knew he would have a very hard time trying to persuade him to stay behind.  Once again, Lex wished he could take his club members with him when he went back to the Prime Council Territories to take his rightful place.  Wolf society was tight, though pack rules shifted within families.  But one thing all wolves enjoyed was the wildness of the run, when they could be themselves, and riding was the next best thing to running as far as they were concerned, which would have made the humans fit right in.

“I’ll check in with you in a couple of hours,” he told Bear.  “And if anything happens in the meantime, let me know.  I’ll get back here as soon as I can.”

The run over to the mayor’s ranch, and the investigation into the remains took the better part of two hours.  By the time Lex left, having happily determined that none of the remains were shifters, it was almost time for dinner.  He decided, after he checked in with Bret, and found that he had enough help that Lex could leave him to the tender mercies of his workers, he’d take dinner to Tamara, instead of taking her out again.  They had some talking to do, and if he had his way, they’d be doing other things before he took his leave of her tonight.  He settled on pizza, and hoped she didn’t mind.