TUCKER: Valley Enforcers, #3 (20 page)

Em did bad mouth the Silver family a lot, but it didn’t explain why she was with him. I didn’t think that she’d cheat on me – could she really cheat on me if we weren’t together? Were we together still? I didn’t know up from down with her.

We were losing too much time. After the call with Amanda, it took nearly two goddamn hours for the clan to find me and force me to shift. My bear was dead set on running to Missoula and sniffing her out. I didn’t want to listen to a thing that anyone was saying to me, but Deacon reminded me he went through the same thing with Elizabeth and I needed to calm down before I did more harm than good. The only reason I listened to him is because he told me Lexi was on the phone trying to sort things out.

I wasn’t hanging around to watch them push paper, though. I wore a hole in the ground for maybe fifteen minutes before throwing Justin in my truck and hopping on the highway. There was no way I could sit and just
wait
. Despite being angry at me for being an overall shitty human being, Justin was proving to be the best damn friend I could ever ask for. He co-piloted, programing the GPS to Emily’s parent’s house while keeping a constant line of communication with Kate, Amanda, Deacon, Dean and Lexi. I managed to get nearly all the way to Missoula before getting pulled over.

I listened to the mechanic voice coming from the portable GPS, turning down freshly plowed country roads. My headlights were the only thing bouncing on the near black road.

“Deacon finally got through to Matthew Silver,” Justin announced grimly. “Dude isn’t saying shit. Keeps harping that
his
family is going through a tragedy and wants other shifter communities to keep a professional distance. Deac offered some of us for protection and back up or whatever, and the dude basically laughed at him.”

“I bet if it was just Em that was kidnapped, he wouldn’t have even cared.” I took a sharp right turn, the truck rocking with the force. Justin made a yelping noise, but I ignored him. We were so damn close to her parent’s house. “I want to kill that prick.”

“We’re here for Emily,” Justin reminded me cautiously.

I didn’t need a reminder, though. “I will never forgive myself if something happens to her, Justin. I accused her of being in love with another man. She doesn’t even wear my mark.”

“You can’t think like that. We’ll get her back.”

“You don’t know that.”

We were back to silence. The few minutes it took to get to her parent’s house were hell. The house was nice – a hell of a lot nicer than my parent’s place. There were cars filling the driveway and a few tucked up on the curb. My heart pounded in my chest while I parked and walked up to the house with Justin on my heels.

The door swung open before I even had a chance to knock. It was her brother. He looked like he wanted to put his fist through my face, but instead he chewed on his cheek and stepped back to let me inside.

“We haven’t properly met. I’m Shawn.”

“Tucker. This is Justin.” I heard nails tapping on hardwood and Echo rounded the corner. Her eyes flashed with recognition and she barreled right towards me, whining when she got close. It
killed
me to see her; she was an extension of Emily. I squatted and rubbed my hands through her fur, resting my head against her. My tongue was thick and heavy. “Hey, Echo. Missed you.” Her tongue tickled the side of my face and she let out another low whine. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Echo likes you?” My heart hammered harder in my chest. It was the voice from the phone call – Amanda. I looked up from Echo to the small crowd that gathered in the foyer.

Kate, I recognize. Beside her was a willowy blonde with eyes so green they were like pine trees. There was another woman – a little older and blonde, with a button nose and pouty lips. Shawn walked over and kissed the top of her head, showing his claim on her. Who I could only assume were her parents lingered a few feet away. Emily looked so much like her mother that staring at her was painful. I forced myself to look at the spot between her mother and father’s faces.

I ignored Amanda’s soft but surprised voice and stood up, clearing my throat. I looked at her parent’s face briefly. “My name is Tucker, and I love your daughter very much.”

“I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Tucker.” Her mother’s voice wasn’t as husky as hers. It didn’t glide over my skin like silk sheets. She started a round of introductions, allowing Justin to awkwardly announce himself to the small group. “Would you like some tea?”

“Not really,” I admitted honestly as I followed her into the living room. “But I’m crawling in my skin, and maybe it will distract me long enough to breathe for a few minutes.”

A photo of Emily caught my eye. They were everywhere. Family photos. School pictures. Not caring that I looked like a fucking sissy, I sucked in my wobbling bottom lip and picked up the photo frame nearest to me. It was a professional looking photograph of her and Echo with some beautiful Montana scenery behind her. She was laughing and ruffling Echo’s fur while her eyes were focused on something off camera.

“Mandy took this for a project for her photography class this past fall.” Kate crossed her arms next to me. “I was telling her a joke.”

“I’m sorry,” I admitted, needing to tell someone how I was feeling. We were in a room full of shifters who could hear every word I was saying, but they needed to hear it, too. “She didn’t tell me about him. I was shocked. Jealous. Pissed. I had just told her I loved her for the first time that morning, and then we’re approached by some prissy looking asshole who acted like he was better than me. I thought they dated or something, but he mentioned them being engaged and I lost it. All I could think about was the way she looked at him. She cried over him. Her heart was broken, and I thought that meant she still loved him. I was confused, and she wasn’t denying it. It gutted me. She gutted me. I gave her my soul; I was raw, and I felt like she abused my trust. I should’ve stayed, but I just… couldn’t.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself, Tucker,” Kate said after a long pause. “I can’t answer for Emily, and I know you’ll have a chance to tell her all of this yourself. All I know is that she loves you in a way humans like me don’t understand. Only you. You both made mistakes. That’s what happens in relationships, but if you’re always waiting for the other ball to drop you’re going to live a real shitty life. You and Emily deserve to be together. Just don’t let her go again, okay?”

“I’ll chain myself to her if that’s what I have to do.”

“Maybe just grovel and get her some chocolate.”

I snorted, lips curving up a little. “Noted.”

“Would you like to see some more pictures, Tucker? I have the album out.” Her mom – Tanya – patted a leather bound book on the coffee table. The move seemed twisted to me, like we were already treating her like she was gone.

I shook my head and took a few steps towards the foyer. “I can’t.”

A hand stopped me. The grip was tight, and I recognized the man’s scent instantly. “Come with me.” Shawn nodded at his mother, sending some silent communication, before pulling me towards the stairs. Justin pushed himself up from the couch, but Kate shook her head at him and walked over. He gave me a helpless look. I shrugged and let myself be manhandled until I was pushed into a dark room that smelled like fresh coconuts. It smelled like Emily.

He turned the light on before I even had a chance to adjust to the darkness. The room was a bright turquoise blue with pops of black and white. It screamed Pottery Barn. It was so different than the style of Emily’s house that if I didn’t scent her in the space, I never would have guessed it was her room. The well-worn dog bed next to the dresser would have eventually given it away, but the room seemed way too teenage girl for Emily. But the longer I looked, the more I picked up on pieces of her style that carried over. If it wasn’t for the bright color on the walls, I could see the room being in her house.

“Thought you might want to be around her stuff.”

I nodded stiffly. “Thanks.”

“You love my sister.” It was a statement, not a question. I wanted to pound my fists against my chest and scream
hell yeah I love your sister
but I just nodded again. “You’re the real deal, then? Intended mates? I swear to the stars, I will fry your skin like bacon if you’re lying.”

“Why would I lie about that?” I snapped. “Yes, I fucking love her! My life is hell without her. Every day I wake up and reach for her because I dream that she’s with me, and every day I have to remind myself that she’s not there. I work myself to the point of exhaustion to try to forget about how much I screwed up – how much I miss her. I am so in love with Emily that every breath I take knowing that she’s not mine… that’s she’s not okay… is like razor blades. She’s everything to me.”

Apparently whatever I said appeased him because he pushed off the wall and opened the door. “You’re a good guy, Tucker.” He looked over his shoulder. “You want me to send your friend up?”

“Echo. Send Echo.”

A few minutes passed before the husky appeared in the door. She hopped up on the bed and plopped with a huff over my legs. There was no way I could move, but I didn’t want to. I felt safe in Emily’s old bedroom – connected to her more than I would be sitting in a living room staring at old photos of her like death had already swept her away. I couldn’t let myself think like that because the end of Emily would be the end of me.

I rested a hand on Echo’s back and closed my eyes, taking a few steadying breaths. There was no way I could fall asleep. The lights were on, I was sitting up, and a muscular pup was draped over my body. I doubted I’d sleep again until Emily was safe. I knew she couldn’t hear me, but I started talking to her in my head. It made the pressure go away, even if just a fraction, and made room for something I hadn’t felt since I got the phone call. Hope.

Emily

I fucked up.

That was the first thought I had when I woke up, naked and human, on the ground in a cold metal cage that was big enough to transport wild animals. Like the silver wolf next to me, still knocked out from the venom that poisoned its bloodstream. If I was a good shifter, I would’ve realized I had an audience. If I were a normal human, I would have screamed when I woke up in a cage with an apex predator. Instead, I did nothing and pretended like I was stuck in a really bad nightmare.

Reid whined next to me and stretched a little before his eyes opened. I counted one blink. Then two. And he was on all four, pacing in circles and growling at something in the shadows. I turned around, pulling my legs up to cover my breasts, and squinted in the direction he was looking. My head was still fuzzy, and my eyesight wasn’t as good in human form as his was as a wolf. I didn’t sense anyone, but that didn’t mean we weren’t alone.

I felt like I was on the other side of a two week long drunken bender. My senses were slowly coming back, but I still had no idea how I landed in a cage naked with Reid. The last thing I remembered – thinking too hard made my splitting headache feel like the gates of hell opened up right between my eyeballs – was stretching into my wolf.

The mismatched puzzle pieces started jamming together in my head the longer I thought. Pushing through my headache and the chill that was quickly spreading to every inch of my body, I dropped my head to my knees and took a jilted breath.

The poachers had us.

And if Reid was still a wolf and I was a human, they watched me shift. They knew the secret that kept our entire world together: magic was real, and supernatural creatures walked the Earth. All because of me.

I barely had room in my chest to feel guilt, but it squeezed into every corner. It felt like my ribs were snapping under the weight of the knowledge that I was responsible for these humans – whoever they were – finding out about shifters. They weren’t sworn to secrecy like mates were. The council didn’t have them on tabs in case they fucked up. If they were the poachers, they had to be vile men who would use the information to do harm.

My cellmate started snapping his teeth. His angry noises weren’t helping my headache, and they were calling to my wolf. She was tired and beat down, still feeling the effects of whatever poison was used to take us down. Despite this, she wanted to join Reid. Shred our faceless captors apart.

I tilted my head and watched him pace the cage. There wasn’t a lot of room between us, and he’d brush up against me every so often. It made me realize just how cold I was; if I was positive we weren’t being watched, I’d cozy up next to him for warmth. I wasn’t going to risk shifting, even if I was positive there was nobody in the room with us. Nobody watching us. I wasn’t even sure I
could
shift; my wolf seemed to protest every thought I had that involved her. Reid had tremendous willpower and control over both sides of his soul to be able to stay shifted through our capture.
He’s shifter royalty. Of course he knows what he’s doing.
I, on the other hand, seemed to be playing the part of stupid peasant very well.

There was no way of knowing how much time had passed since the group shift. I was starting to feel hunger pains and there was a little bit of pressure on my bladder that made sitting in my scrunched position uncomfortable, but it was the only way I could sit to offer warmth and provide a little bit of modesty.

I felt tears clog my throat as the last bit of haze left my mind. I bit on my tongue and thought of the one person who helped calm both parts of my soul. My mate. Tucker. His handsome face, despite the scar that ran the length of one side, hawkish and thin. Mocha eyes under long lashes. Thin lips that kissed me senseless. The stubble on his face that left my cheeks raw and begging for more.

I pictured him in the morning, wrapped up in my blankets with Echo curved at his feet. He had a nightmare the last night we shared together, though I don’t think he remembered it. I hated that he didn’t talk about the nightmares or the sudden flashbacks that sometimes made him wince and look away; he insisted they were normal and rare enough that they didn’t bother him. A chill tickled the bottom of my feet, so I squeezed my eyes tighter and imagined I was in bed with my mate. He joked that I was like a furnace, but he was the one that kept me warm throughout the night. We’d be skin to skin, fitting together perfectly. He’d wake up and brush my rogue curls away from my face and look at me with his sleepy, morning eyes before kissing my nose and pulling me closer.

Would I ever get to feel Tucker again? See him somewhere other than in my mind? That hurt more than knowing that I possibly revealed the existence of shifters. Looking back, I regretted my own stubbornness. It kept me from picking up the phone and calling Tucker after I worked through my feelings. It kept me from jumping in my car and driving to him. And it was going to keep me from ever telling him that I wanted him forever.

Did Tucker even know I was missing? I didn’t know it was possible for my heart to fall any more than it already had, but I knew that the second he found out what happened – if he didn’t already know – he’d blame himself. Even if we, as much as it pains me to think, were over for good and he regretted ever saving me from the snow storm, Tucker would find a way to place the blame on himself.

The sound of metal grating against metal snapped me to attention and caused Reid, who had simmered down, to start back up with his vicious growls and nips at the air. I pressed my fingers into my legs deeper, like I could somehow fold into myself and disappear.

It didn’t work. Out of the shadows stepped a man in dirty camouflage. I wanted to look away – look anywhere but at his face, but I couldn’t draw my eyes away from my captor. Or one of my captors, at least. He didn’t seem to have an age. Any number I guessed would be strewed because of the drug created pock marks on his face and the wrinkles from years of alcohol abuse. A bandana, just as faded and dirty as his thrifted camouflage, wrapped around his bald head. I quickly dropped my eyes from his, taking in his overly round nose and yellow stained teeth while they grinned in my direction. He wasn’t muscular, nor was his stomach round from one too many beers. Just like the rest of him, he existed as he was.

I was afraid of him. I knew the drugs were still in my system, but they wouldn’t keep me from shifting if I needed to protect myself. I didn’t want to
have
to, though. I had no idea what he knew or who he was. I didn’t know if he had friends beyond the darkness. I kept him in my peripheral vision, tilting my head enough so that he was almost completely out of sight.

“Seem pretty friendly with that wolf there.” His voice was twangy, like a Montana rancher. His dialect hinted more at a backwoods country bumpkin rather than a seasoned cowboy, making me fear my safety a little more than I had before he opened his mouth. “You think being in a cage with a killer would scare ya, girlie.” I saw him move closer, making Reid growl and snap at the cage. Our captor just cackled, phlegm breaking like radio static. He kicked the metal jail cell we were in. I bit back a yelp. “Ain’t you got any manners? You answer me when I talk, wolf girl.”

My blood ran cold. I lifted my head slowly, my lips curling back when I took in his smug expression. “What did you call me?”

“Knew you’d sound as sexy as you look,” He murmured to himself as he squatted down to our level. He ignored Reid’s snarls and growls and stared at me like
he
was the wolf. My skin crawled, itching like cockroaches were tickling every exposed inch of my body. “Too bad I’m not some freak. I ain’t no animal fucker. Got a few men who would like to take you for a ride, but I ain’t gonna fuck no wolf. Not even one as sexy as you.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth closed. I wasn’t going to let him or anybody else touch me. If that meant I had to shift and rip them to shreds, I would. I’d rather die at the hand of the council than let them defile me. Tucker crossed my mind and my heart seized. Whatever happened to me, I wanted him to know that I loved him and I was sorry. I didn’t want to damn him to a life without a mate.
At least we aren’t fully bonded. He can find a nice girl and settle down.
That hurt more than the idea of dying.

“If you aren’t going to rape me, then what do you want with me? Am I supposed to be lunch for your pet wolf? I don’t think he likes me.”

That made him laugh, which wasn’t my goal. “My pet? Girlie, don’t try no tricks with me. I know about everything, and I am gonna make good money off of you and your boyfriend here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Playing dumb didn’t seem to be working, but I wasn’t letting up. I even released the tears pressing at the back of my eyes. When his laugh turned to a scowl and he kicked the side of the cage, shaking the metal bars, I didn’t have to pretend to be afraid any more. “Stop!”

“I don’t like being lied to. I seen you with my own eyes. Just like I seen them two little girls. Y’all are freaks. God done fucked up, making y’all people one minute and animals the next. Got a pretty penny for the girlies skin. Figured we’d get way more for you two, but then I got to thinkin’… I bet I could get
more
if I sold you as is to some scientists somewhere. Maybe the damn Russians or somethin’. Be way more than your pretty fur.”

This isn’t happening to me.

He wanted to sell me. Bile rose to the back of my throat as I imagined every horrific thing I could; being trapped in a lab, hooked up to machines – the nightmares were endless. I didn’t want to think about being some test tube lab wolf. Whoever my captor was, he didn’t seem all that smart. There was no saying where I’d end up. A sex trafficking ring? The mafia? Bound and gagged, gussied up like a prize winning pig? Dead in a ditch? Probed and prodded for some foreign scientists? I pushed my back against the rusty bars behind me, desperately wishing to be anywhere but where I was.

Apparently pleased with his torment – my face, drained of color and tear stained gave away my distress – our captor stood and clapped his hands on his knees. I was thankful to have him further away, even if by just a few inches.

“Been following you and your friends for a while. Set up our base camp near your land. Freaked some of my men out when they found out werewolves were real. Fought real hard to keep them from killing every one of you. Told em’ you were worth more alive. Greedy bastards ain’t got no morals. Gotta try to knock some sense into them, but that’s for another day. Care more about money and guns than our cause.” He crossed the room, dipping into the darkness that blanketed half of the room. He itched his face, nails digging into his pebbled skin. It created a noise I knew I’d never forget. “Ain’t no secrets here, girlie. Make your friend a human, or else I’ll skin him alive in front of you and fry up his meat real good before feedin’ it to you.”

His boots scuffed against the floor, and then I heard the sound of a heavy metal door closing. And locking. Eyes now adjusted to the dark, I scanned the room. There were no cameras and nobody else seemed to occupy the small space. I still couldn’t tell where we were, but I knew it was somewhere close to Silver land. Confident that we were alone, I let out a shaky breath and turned to Reid.

In a harsh whisper I knew he wouldn’t understand, I urged him to change forms. “Shift. He’ll kill you if you don’t.” The silky Silver wolf narrowed his eyes and paced in front of me. My nerves were shot and whatever hope I had was slipping through my fingertips. I was trying – and failing – to keep myself together. I reached out for him, wincing when he barred his teeth at me. “Please, Reid. I can’t do this myself.”

His bright eyes flashed at me, this time showing an inkling of understanding. He stopped abruptly before curling into a ball at my side and looking up at me. I was told my entire life to bow to his family and look their way for guidance, but Reid was looking at me like I was supposed to call the shots. I was naked with snot running down my face, terrified that I’d spend my remaining days hooked up to machines instead of by my mate’s side. I was as clueless as he was. My wolf was clawing at my gut, begging me to shift, but I didn’t want to add fuel to our captor’s fire.

I buried my hand in Reid’s fur and stroked the back of his neck. “Please. I won’t be able to sit by and watch him hurt you. Shift for me, Reid.” I lowered my voice. “We can’t plan our escape if we can’t communicate.”

I had a feeling he knew what I was saying, though I’d been taught my whole life that shifters in form couldn’t communicate with humans or vice versa. Even if he understood me, the only message I got from his snapping barks was that he was angry. I waited a few seconds before sighing and resting my head between the bars. My hair offered the slightest cushion, keeping the damaged bars from digging too far into the back of my head.

Beneath my hand, fur turned to warm skin. Sending a silent prayer to the stars, I peeked an eye open. Weight shifted and then Reid was next to me, pressed against the bars just as I was. He spread his long legs out, leaving a hand in his lap. I figured it was more for my benefit than his. Despite being naked and locked in a cage by a group of hillbillies who were going to sell us to the highest bidder, he still held a strange regal air around him. He was dignified, even in defeat. I was thankful that he was holding it together because I was on the verge of losing my mind.

“They know.” It wasn’t a question. Reid turned his head to me and waited, as if we were talking about the weather.