Noble Wolf (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (9 page)

Jake was going to owe him huge for this one.

"Yes, but downstairs," he said, cringing at the idea of having to talk with her. But he needed to prevent anyone from going upstairs, and this would be the easiest, if most painful, way of going about it.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I heard about your problem. I think I can help."

"What?" he said a little too loudly. Several heads in the private dining area turned his way. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he pulled Maria out of the way. How had she heard already? Had she seen it out the back door?

"I heard about your problem. I want to help you."

"How?" he asked, suspiciously.

"Why, you can get me pregnant," she said.

Bryce stared dumbly at her. Oh.
That
problem. Part of him was relieved. Another was terrified. A baby? With Maria? He almost laughed out loud at the thought.

"You can. We can start right here," she said, turning around, exposing herself to him. She wasn't wearing any underwear he noted, still trying to process what the hell was going on.

"You can't be serious. You don't even know me."

"I know, but I heard you talking. You need a baby to make your parents happy."

Ah. So that was it. She wanted his trust fund. Joanna needed to fire this girl right away, or else it was going to get bad. Bryce had never had a stalker before, but he recognized all the classic signs of one.

"Put your skirt down," he rumbled. She obeyed instantly.

"Where do you want to do it then?"

Sounds from above told him people were coming downstairs.

"Not here," he said, moving to turn away and see who it was.

Maria's hand flew out, grabbing him with strength that she shouldn't have possessed. Her hand pulled him to her face, mashing their lips together as she proceeded to make out with him. The shock at her actions and her sudden strength froze Bryce to the spot as the door to the stairs opened.

It was Natasha. She looked around, spotting them almost instantly.

"Wait!" he tried to cry, but it was unintelligible through the pressed lips of the crazy waitress.

Fury came into Natasha's eyes, and she moved away, but not before she all but spat at him. "Once with the crazy bitch I could understand. But twice?" She shook her head.

Bringing his wolf to the front again, Bryce took advantage of the strength it imbued him with and tore away from Maria. He would deal with that later, but for now, he needed to explain things to Natasha.

"Natasha!" he said, but she ignored him, already halfway down the stairs.

"Bryce, I need you up here, it's Chase!" his Alpha ordered, his voice echoing down the stairs from the level above. There was urgency and command in his voice. It tugged at Bryce, and though he tried to fight it, he couldn't. His feet moved of their own accord, dragging him up the stairs as his mate disappeared around the corner on the floor below, headed for the doors. Before he entered the closed staircase, he looked around for the waitress, but he couldn't see her.

Enraged, he burst through the doors. "What the hell is it? There is some seriously fucked-up shit going on around here Jake, and I—"

Chase was sitting up. He was pale, and looked extremely weak, but he was alive.

In his hand, he was holding a tooth. "This was in my side," he managed to say.

"That's no werewolf tooth," Bryce said, stating the obvious.

"No, it's not," Thomas said with a heavy sigh.

Natasha

She stormed out of the restaurant.

"Unbelievable. How could he do that to me?"

She was talking to herself. That couldn't have been a good sign, not with all that was going on.

What
was
going on? Bryce was a werewolf. So were the other security team members. They had been attacked by something that had been able to fend off their best countermeasures. What the hell had she gone and gotten herself involved with this time?

The worst part was that Natasha wasn't sure there was anybody she could turn to, to talk about it all. Pissed as she was with Bryce, there was no way her conscience would let her reveal what she knew about him to anyone who didn't already know. They had worked extremely hard to hide their existence for centuries. Just because one of them happened to enjoy kissing random women didn't mean she was going to go and burst that bubble.

At least she had driven tonight, and she didn't have to rely on Bryce or a cab to take her home. Keys jingled in her pocket as she fumbled for them. There were still so many new ones that she had trouble quickly telling them apart. The thick plastic of her car key settled into her palm and she yanked them out of her pocket.

"Wait!"

She had to be kidding. Why would the waitress be chasing after
her
? Natasha paused mid-step, thrown completely for a loop. Maria was chasing her out in the parking lot...to do what? Apologize for making out with the man she had begun falling in love with?

Natasha snorted and kept walking.

"Wait, Natasha, please."

Rolling her eyes skyward, Natasha shrugged her shoulders to reduce some of the stress and turned to face Maria. She had made good time across the snow-packed ground, trying to catch her. Even now, she could hear the snow crunching underfoot.

"What do you want?" she snapped, not in the mood for any games.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," Maria began, but Natasha didn't let her finish.

"Whatever, I don't want to hear it." She spun, and headed back for her car. Perfect, she thought, noticing the big black sedan parked next to her, encroaching on her side of the space. Getting into her seat was going to be a bitch.

"No, I'm serious," Maria persisted, following her between the cars as she fumbled for the unlock button. "It wasn't me. I don't want you to hate me. Bryce came at me, he wouldn't let me go."

Natasha stared at her hard, wondering how this woman expected her to believe that.

"Do I really strike you as that dumb? I saw the way you had your hands clamped around his face. He tried to get away once he saw me, but you held on. That's pretty impressive. You must have some hidden strength in there," she said, glancing sarcastically at the other woman's arms.

They writhed and flexed under her gaze, as if emphasizing the fact that she had been able to hold Bryce still while she kissed him.

But Bryce was extremely strong. She had witnessed that firsthand several times.

If he had wanted to get away, it should have been an easy thing to do. Unless...

"What are yo—"

The waitress's hand clamped down over her mouth, silencing any further questions or cries for help. She was impossibly strong, and even as Natasha tried to struggle, she realized how totally she was outclassed.

The door to the car next to hers opened, and she was pushed inside. Her vision was dimming as she tried to breathe, but the hand was clamped firmly over her mouth and nose. Natasha kicked and squirmed, but her efforts seemed to just bounce off the attacker. She reached out with one last burst of strength to try and claw at her attacker's face, but the second hand caught her attack and stopped it with effortless ease.

Then the darkness claimed her completely.

***

She awoke still in the back of the car. Her wrists were tied behind her back and she was firmly strapped into the back seat by the seatbelt and some other sort of contraption.

The waitress, Maria, was driving the car. The night was cloudy, though the rain the forecast had called for earlier hadn't arrived yet. Glancing at the clock, Natasha estimated that no more than thirty minutes had passed before she woke up. Her brain was remarkably calm considering the situation, she noted.

Turning to stare out the window, she began to look at the terrain before realizing that she wasn't in Seattle. Natasha knew next to nothing about the local territory. Instead, she kept her eye out for any landmarks, or signs—anything that she could use to tell someone where she was, in case she got her hands on a phone.

"You will not see anything," the cold, emotionless voice from the front seat told her.

"You have no idea what I'm looking for," she responded tartly.

"It does not matter. Whatever it is you search for, you will not find it out here."

Natasha raised her eyebrows. The speech pattern sounded familiar to her, but she couldn't place it. She kept racking her brain, but it wasn't coming to her. She needed to hear more.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"I do as I am told. That is all you should be concerned with. I am what I am."

"How delightfully cryptic of you," Natasha said, deadpan. "Care to try that again? You're like the others, aren't you?" She didn't outright say how, in the event she was wrong, but something told her that it was all related. The werewolves, the attack earlier, this crazy bitch kissing her man, and then abducting her. There didn't seem to be too much room for coincidence there.

Natasha subscribed to the theory of Occam's razor: that which seemed the most obvious conclusion was most likely correct. Not that there was anything remotely obvious about werewolves and whatever else. She snorted, unsure that anyone would have seen
that one
coming. But now that she knew, it fit the criteria for the situation.

The person driving—she refused to think of her as Maria anymore—didn't respond.

"You know they're going to come after me, don't you?"

As a matter of fact, Natasha wasn't sure herself that Bryce or any of the others would come after her. Not after the way she'd left things with Bryce. They may assume that she had just returned to Seattle, uninterested in continuing her new life there.

Or, she thought cheerfully, the maniac who had kidnapped her might ensure that she didn't live to care if they came to rescue her or not. That truly was the worst case scenario, though why she was still alive now was a mystery.

"Why am I still alive?"

"It is...necessary."

Sigh. Fine, she would play along. "Why is it necessary?"

"None of the other specimens were strong enough. We shall see if you are any different."

"Other specimens?" she repeated, her voice strangled as fear seeped into her. This was bad. Very, very bad. How many others had there been before her? What happened when they weren't strong enough? Natasha had many questions, but once again, her captor had gone silent.

The car turned off the road, heading straight for the trees.

"Hey! What are you trying to do, kill us?!" she shouted as they barreled straight for the thick trunks.

At the last moment, the driver pulled the car a little to the right, around the first trunk. The headlights revealed a small, barely maintained road. The angle of the entrance made it nearly impossible to spot from the road she realized, as the car rumbled along the gravel. The branches of the trees were like massive arms, reaching up and over the road, blocking any view of the sky.

Ahead of them she could begin to make out something. As the car came closer, she realized it was a house. The clouds must have parted for a moment, because it was bathed in the pale glow of moonlight, showing her the hard, sharp lines of its design.

It was a squat, rectangular building, as far as she could see. There were very few windows, and only the one main door set into the right-hand side of the front. It was made of gray stone and contained very little color. Anything besides stone seemed to be very dark in color or simply outright black.

It gave her the chills. It looked unlike anything she had seen before. Spikes surrounded the roof, looking for all the world like someone had taken a thousand oversized spears from a medieval-era regiment and stuck them every six inches around the perimeter of the roof, all facing the same direction.

The car stopped out front, and Maria, or whatever she was, got out and opened the door where Natasha was strapped in.

"We're going in there?" she asked dubiously, not entirely sure that was something she wanted to do.

Okay. It was absolutely, definitely, not something she wanted to do. Ever. At all.

"Yes."

Wonderful.

Muscles as hard as steel clamped down on her shoulder as she awkwardly exited the vehicle, her hands still bound behind her. As she stood up, the hand propelled her forward.

"I can walk just fine, thank you," she said, irritation creeping into her voice. Probably not the smartest thing to do when someone with literal superhuman strength had you at their mercy, but dammit, it would go easier if she was allowed to walk on her own.

Maria seemed to think about it for a moment. "Do not try to escape," she said, easing off the pressure and gesturing forward to the door.

Pulling herself erect, head held high, Natasha marched herself toward whatever doom awaited her.

Bryce

The others had all gathered at The Silver Bullet by now. With the added reinforcements, Bryce was anxious to go after Natasha, but he knew that the bigger issue at hand was whatever had attacked him and Chase.

Thankfully it looked like Chase was going to make a full recovery. He was already looking and sounding stronger, and the gaping wound in his side was all but closed. It would be a day or so before his system fully healed everything. The majority of that time would be replenishing all the blood he had lost. Chase would eat a lot, in the meantime, such as the meal he was wolfing down now.

Jake was speaking, outlining his plan to the clinking sounds of the cutlery on Chase's plate. "So, I want to send three of you out on a long-range patrol into the woods, to see what you can pick up. Bryce, you'll lead, and take Kevin and Ethan with you. Holden and I will maintain constant presence outside the Bullet."

"What do you want us to do if we find something?" Bryce asked, trying to plan for all eventualities.

"This is reconnaissance only. You may be out there in force, but do not engage unless it is absolutely, completely, one hundred percent unavoidable. When we take on whatever this thing is again, I want to hit it with everything we have at once, and take it out. For good."

"What about me?" Chase said, mumbling around a mouthful of steak.

"Stay here, man the phones, protect everyone inside in case anything happens. Review the evacuation plan and safehouse locations if you need to get out in a hurry."

Jake and Chase had created several places nearby where members of the pack could fall back if separated from the others and injured or in need of shelter, in case the restaurant became compromised.

"Okay boys, let's go play 'search and sniff,'" Bryce commanded, heading for the back stairs in Thomas's office. The owner was sitting at his desk, ignoring everyone around him. The only thing occupying the huge wooden desktop was that damn tooth.

The tooth he'd said wasn't from a wolf shifter, and definitely wasn't from a human either. But any more than that he hadn't been willing to divulge, if he knew. It had irritated the others, but Thomas, as was normal with him, did not seem to care about the wants or needs of the wolves.

He looked worried.

Bryce did not like that. Not at all.

The cold whipped across him as he pushed the door open to outside, trying to forget the look he had seen on Thomas's face. His ears tingled, despite the enhanced heat generated by his wolf within him. It wasn't just the cold tonight. Things were coming to a head, and quickly. It meant more fighting.

Bryce may have been the largest and strongest of the pack, but he would just as well avoid any conflict if he could. It wasn't his preferred style to fight, though he recognized that it seemed to be unavoidable this time. With a sigh, the three men jogged outside and into the hedge maze. As soon as they were sure they were out of sight of any humans, he stopped.

"Okay boys, just by the numbers today. Me, Kevin, Ethan," he said, his fingers up in a triangle, indicating he wanted Kevin to trail back and to his left, and Ethan to hang back and cover the right flank. With nods of understanding, he turned and ran forward once more, but this time he shifted.

His wolf ripped forth from within, using the momentum of his run to propel it faster. He didn't stop to follow the path, instead simply hurtling right through the two walls made of "hedge" until they erupted on the far side of the maze and blazed a trail into the forest.

The scent was strong and they picked it up instantly, following it directly back into the trees. As they ran—a long, loping pace that covered ground quickly, but would not tire them for ages—Bryce tested the scent once more.

There was something tantalizingly familiar to it. He didn't know it, but there was an element to it that he had smelled before. Most of it was cold, dark, and extremely unpleasant to his nose. It was very tangy and metallic, a smell that he most decidedly could have done without in his day-to-day life.

Wolves could move faster. Wolf-shifters could move much, much faster if they so chose. In minutes, they were farther into the vast swaths of forest and wilderness than any of them had been before, and still the trail went on.

How far had this thing come from?

Suddenly Kevin skidded to a halt twenty feet or so to his left and howled to get their attention. The others swiftly rushed to his spot, where the reason for his stopping became known.

The scent split. The trail of scent they had been on was the oldest, the most faded. It was strongest if they continued on, but this new path was the second oldest he judged, tasting the air once again, his wolf snorting its dislike of the smell.

What this meant, however, was that whatever it was had split off, gone along this new path, then come
back
along the same path before continuing on. So, the question remained: what was so interesting along this new path? Jerking his head, the three of them took off, following the new trail.

As they followed it, Bryce realized something else. They were gradually curving around to follow the forest back toward the restaurant. What the hell was going on? He broke into a flat-out run, anxious to find out. Several minutes later, they burst from the trees several hundred yards north of the restaurant. The scent abruptly stopped, and as Bryce slowed, something else hit him.

Another scent, and one that he recognized, since only moments before she had been pushing it in his face as violently as possible.

It was Maria's. And hers had that same, unidentifiable bite to the scent. He couldn't forget it even if he tried. She had practically rubbed herself all over him just a few minutes earlier. Which meant the two were somehow related.

Holy shit.

The wolves retreated into the forest, scampering around until they were near the hedge maze. Bryce nodded, an awkward movement in wolf form, and the three men shifted back. Panting, steam erupting from their bodies as they tried to cool down after the exertion, Bryce led them to the stairs. He needed to tell Jake. If the waitress was in the building, she could pose a threat to every patron there. His feet moved faster, the urgency of the situation practically palpable.

"Jake!" he cried, bursting into the room.

His Alpha, sensing that something was wrong, rose and spun all at once, facing the entrance as the wolves tumbled inside.

"Speak," he said, infusing his voice with more command than Bryce had ever felt before. It washed over him, calming him, organizing his brain and allowing him to ensure every word he spoke was properly pronounced, despite his desire to rush.

"We tracked the scent, until it split off. Followed the new trail, and it led us back here. To the parking lot."

"And?" Jake pressed.

"It mixed with the scent of Maria, the new waitress. They're also related."

It was short, quick, and concise, but it said everything that needed to be said. Jake motioned for the others to join him, and they all padded toward the door to downstairs. Even Thomas joined them, gliding along swiftly behind the pack.

They flowed down the stairs, fanning out as they reached the middle floor, searching every accessible area for signs of Maria, but they found none. Jake split them up into two teams before they descended to the main level. Bryce and Kevin were to check the kitchen, the rest would search the main floor.

It took them no more than a minute to announce the premises clear. Not wanting to panic the patrons, they regrouped outside to discuss the next plan of action.

"I need to get a hold of Natasha," Bryce said before Jake could speak. None of them had seen her inside during their search, which meant she was gone. With everything going on, he wanted to make sure she was safe.

He stabbed his finger at the dial button, wishing it would connect faster.

The phone began to ring. She wasn't picking up anywhere near fast enough for his comfort.

"What's that?" Kevin asked, the one closest to the parking lot. "Listen," he said as the others turned to him.

Out in the parking lot, a phone was ringing.

Bryce's blood went cold. It was Natasha's ringtone. He recognized it because it was a beat from a popular song he hated. He pushed past the others, racing for the parking lot, and slid to a stop next to her car where he saw the phone lying on the ground, almost concealed by the snow.

He brought his wolf to the surface once more, testing the air, hoping he wouldn't find what he dreaded. But there it was, clear as day, mixed with the exhaust smell of the car.

Maria's scent.

"She took her," he snarled as Jake came over after him. "She fucking took her, that crazy bitch. I should have known there was something off about her when she kissed me earlier. I had to use my wolf to get her off me. I figured it was just her desire for me in a crazy way, but I should have known. Dammit Jake, this is my fault!"

"Calm down," Jake said, taking him by the shoulders and moving him away from Natasha's car. "Tell me exactly what happened."

So he did. The entire details about the waitress, her attempt to seduce him and get him to impregnate her, followed by how she had forced herself on him, her strength too much for him to deal with unless he called upon his wolf.

"We need to go after her," he insisted.

"Bryce, we have no idea where she took her," Jake said, putting voice to what had Bryce so scared.

"That may not be entirely true."

Five sets of eyes turned to regard Thomas at the same time. He snorted softly, not thrown off by the weight of those gazes at all.

"What do you know?" Bryce snapped, taking a threatening step forward, though he honestly doubted his ability to do any damage to Thomas.

"Nothing for certain. But there is an old house, well-hidden out in the forest east of town. It is worth checking out, I believe."

"Why haven't you told us about this place before?" Jake asked sternly, unimpressed with this late-hour revelation.

"Because I had hoped I was wrong, young wolf," Thomas said, sadness filling his voice.

"Wrong about what?" Bryce pressed warily, unsure he wanted the answer. "Just spit it out," he said when Thomas hesitated once more.

The tall, pale man sighed, then began to speak.

"I was hoping that our enemies are not who they are. I was in denial for too long, so I didn't tell you. But now it would appear they have taken your mate, Bryce Holland, and for that you have my sincerest apologies, however little they may mean to you at this point."

Bryce didn't respond, waiting for Thomas to continue.

"How old are you?" Jake asked suddenly.

Bryce looked over at him. Something in Jake's voice was off, as if he had suddenly had a revelation about something. He wondered where his Alpha was going with that line of questioning.

"By your reckoning master wolf, I am somewhere over five thousand years old."

Bryce blinked. Holden coughed. Ethan swore. Kevin whistled.

"You're a vampire," Jake said.

Thomas nodded slowly.

"Please tell me that what we're up against is not another vampire," Jake pleaded, his voice so low Bryce had to strain to hear it.

The look in Thomas's eyes said it all.

"Shit." Bryce figured he spoke for all of them.

Running his hands over his face and up through his hair, Bryce turned to pace while the others digested the information.

"Tell us everything," Jake said, his tone brooking no argument.

For once, Thomas obliged. For once, Bryce wished he hadn't.

"Although I do not believe we face them directly yet, at least one, possibly as many as three of my kin are coming. They intend to kill everyone in this town, turn them into their pawns if they can, but otherwise, they will terminate every last person."

"Why Moonlight Canyon?" Jake asked as Bryce nodded, wanting to know why this town was so special.

"Because of me, I am afraid, which is why I am here to help. I cannot divulge the exact details, as it would reveal things about my kin that you are not privy to, but it basically boils down to the fact that we had a disagreement. I made them look rather bad, so now they wish to repay me. They intend to do so by destroying the town I call home."

"How do they expect to do this without law enforcement and other humans finding out?"

Thomas laughed. "Simply. Vampires do not operate in the same timeframe as humans, even shifters. They will do this over the course of the next few hundred years, killing and scaring people off until the town is a wasteland, simply to spite me. That is, unless I can stop them."

"Three vampires?" Jake said skeptically. "There aren't even a dozen of you left, and you want us to take on three of them?"

"Yeah, that's bad news. Like, really, really bad news," Ethan said.

Which was true. Full-fledged vampires were generally considered to be the kings of the paranormal world. They were incredibly fast, unbelievably strong, and had millennia of combat experience. Even dragon shifters, the largest and most powerful of the shifters, were unlikely to enter into combat with one.