Wild Heat (Wilding Pack Wolves 3) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (2 page)

“You need to come down.”

She looked up.

His face had way too much deadly urgency. It sent a chill wind through her.

“Something’s happened,” he said.

Oh God,
not again.
Terra felt the darkness closing in like a wet wool blanket threatening to smother her. Sometimes she could feel the evil let loose in the world like it was an actual physical force, pressing on her body.

“All right.” She opened the drawer in her nightstand and tucked her pad and pencil away.

Noah waited for her at the door, apparently wanting to escort her to make sure she complied.

Terra smoothed down her black t-shirt—it was stained with developing fluids. “I hope it’s not the Queen of England.”

“It’s not.” Noah didn’t even crack a smile.

She frowned as she passed him in the doorway, and he followed her out into the hall. The Riverwise country estate was massive, and they had at least a little bit of time to wind through the corridors before they would get to wherever they were going—it looked like they were headed toward the front door.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“There’s a new video from the Wolf Hunter.” Noah pressed his lips together and seemed hesitant to go on.

“And?” The sense of darkness squeezed on her chest. She could feel its presence in the words Noah didn’t want to speak.

“And he’s targeting you now, Terra.” He seemed to have to force out the words.

Tara stopped in her tracks and held onto the pristine white wall.
“Me?”
The Wolf Hunter’s first video had outed them all. Then a random series of videos gave voice to all his hate for shifters—a manifesto on film for his hate group followers. Then they assassinated her uncle—Arthur Wilding, one of the five Wilding brothers that lead the pack families—and targeted his daughter, Nova. Then her cousin Noah had come back from Afghanistan to help and nearly paid for it with his life. One by one, each of the families was being targeted, tested, hunted…

It must be her turn.

The floor seemed to sway under her feet.

“Terra, it’s going to be all right.” Her cousin’s hand landed on the bare skin of her arm and helped hold her up.

“No, it’s not.” She shook off his hand, and he pulled back. The only armor she had against the overwhelming darkness—the hate and the terror pointed at her family like a weapon—was a deep well of rage. She put on that armor and pushed past Noah to march down the hallway. “Let’s go.”

The anger was invigorating. How
dare
this Wolf Hunter threaten her and her family? She hurried toward the front and whatever awaited her. As Noah hustled to catch up, her strides got longer, and her heavy black boots pounded the polished wood floor of the hall and the stairs on the way down to the front door. But what she saw at the bottom was nothing like what she expected.

The police were here.

Shifters and police did
not
mix. End of story. Shifters, according to the haters and even the general populace and definitely local law enforcement, were essentially criminals—or criminals-in-waiting. Their wolf nature was supposedly more prone to violence… all while it was
the humans
who went around blowing people up. And the police who looked the other way. What none of them would ever understand was that
the beast
was the best part of any shifter.

Terra planted her hands on her hips and ran a scrutinizing look over the hulking police officer who was occupying the doorway. He was tall and broad, muscular in a way that, for a human, meant he spent hours at the gym, worshiping his own body. Yet, she had to admit the effect was something worthy of worship. His trim black uniform fit just right over his bulging biceps, trim stomach, and muscular thighs. It was the kind of perfect male form that begged for her camera, and she couldn’t help noticing with her artist’s eye the details that would make him a heart-stopping subject—the deep sapphire blue of his eyes, the rough midnight black of his razor-short hair, the tension in his body that was a sort of relaxed power in the face of the gathering pack at the door. As gorgeous as his form may be, he was still a cop—which was to say, everything she loathed about humankind. This perfect male specimen wasn’t something she was going to draw or photograph—this was the enemy come to her family’s doorstep.

The coldness of his stare just drilled that fact home.

“What’s this?” she asked, curling a lip of disgust at him.

“This is Officer Kaden Grant,” Jaxson River said. He was the alpha of the River pack—he headed the Riverwise security company, and his family owned the safehouse. At one point, Terra thought he might be
the one
for her—a man strong enough to be her mate. He was an alpha’s alpha, and when he had saved Cassie from the government thugs who had kidnapped her, Terra was certain Jaxson was the man who would finally break through her personal darkness.

But she’d been wrong.

Mating with Jaxson would’ve been the end—she would have been killed by the curse that haunted him. She had always known death was stalking her. She expected it to appear suddenly, like the car crash that had taken her mother. Like an unexpected magical curse in the man she thought would be her mate. Like Officer Kaden Grant, standing in her doorway and looking very much like the thing that would get her killed.

Jaxson was still talking. “Did Noah tell you about the video?” he asked her.

Noah nodded.

Terra said, “Sounds like my number is up.”

“Terra…
no.” Jaxson stepped closer and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re not letting anything happen to you. Or anyone else. But in this latest video…”

Jaxson looked to Officer Grant, who had been coolly checking her out.

She narrowed her eyes. What the hell was that about?

Grant cleared his throat and snapped his eyes back up to hers. “The Wolf Hunter released another video just this morning, Ma’am.” His voice was low and gruff. “The address of this house was listed as your current residence. However, in light of the recent WildLove bombings, the mayor has instructed the police department to take you into protective custody. He says you’re
‘An artist of renown, a jewel of our city.’”
Officer Grant gave the barest of smiles. “Which I guess means you rate a protective detail.”

Terra drew back and gave Officer Grant another look of disgust. She turned to Jaxson. “Protective detail?”

“The safehouse is no longer safe. Especially for you.” Jaxson’s look was dead serious, and a new trickle of icy fear dripped slowly through Terra’s chest and into her stomach, making it clench.

She turned back to Officer Grant. “Wait… the video said I was
here?
So you’re saying the safehouse has been outed. Because of me.”

“Not
because of you,” her cousin, Noah, insisted. “This maniac is calling you out, but he’s really after everyone. I don’t know how he found out about the safehouse—but there have been so many people going through this place in the last three months, it’s a wonder it’s been kept quiet this long.”

Terra hadn’t wanted to come to the safehouse in the first place—it was half prison and half refuge—but at least there were shifters here.
Her kind.
She and Cassie were safe here. And now the mayor wanted his police to watch over her—half of whom probably were secret hate group members.

It was a death sentence.

“We’re
all
leaving the safehouse, Terra.” Jaxson glowered at Officer Grant. “But there’s nothing that says you have to go anywhere with this asshole. We’ll find places for everyone, somehow, with friends, shifter families… we’ll make it work.”

Terra frowned. There were close to fifty people who have been living at the safehouse, since this madness started—Wilding pack, River pack, wolves that had been experimented on by the government, not to mention Mama River herself. “Really, Jaxson?” Terra asked. “How are you seriously going to find places for everyone?”

Jaxson’s jaw worked, and she could tell he knew the size of the problem. Over two dozen shifters had been attracted to the news at the front door already, and there had to be a lightning-speed rumor running through the rest of the safehouse. Even Mama River, the matriarch of the River pack and keeper of the estate, was watching with careful eyes from the kitchen doorway.

“Ma’am.” Officer Grant’s deep voice pulled her back. “I promise you, we can offer a secure location for you—”

A commotion at the back of the crowd of shifters cut him off. It was her brother, Trent, pushing his way through the crowd.

“What the hell is going on here?” Trent shouted above the heads as he elbowed his way to the front. “Terra, what is this I hear about the police coming for you?” He glared at Officer Grant still lurking in the doorway but not coming inside.

“I’m not here to arrest her—” Officer Grant’s voice ticked up a notch.

Terra ignored him and spoke directly to her brother. “There’s a new video. The Wolf Hunter’s after me now.” Just saying the words out loud made her feel woozy again. She gripped the end of the stairwell banister. Jaxson’s hand braced her, just as Noah’s had before. She pushed him away, but then Trent shuffled forward to take his place.

“It’s okay, Terra.” Her brother was trying to calm her, but she was having none of it.

“It’s
not
going to be okay!” she growled in his face. Her wolf was bristled out, ready to unsheathe claws on the next person who told her all of this was going to be
fine
when it was obvious that
nothing
was fine. And it never would be again.

Then she saw a small, dark-haired form pushing through the crowd, following in Trent’s wake.
Cassie.
Her long, black hair danced around her thin shoulders, and her dark, dark eyes, just like their mother’s, opened up into pools of fear and sadness when she arrived at Terra’s side.

Oh God.
She couldn’t lose it in front of Cass. Couldn’t give into the darkness, not now. Terra pushed Trent aside and went to her little sister. She kneeled down and wrapped her arms around her slender form. Her baby sister was only twelve and had barely started to live yet. She was about as big as a minute, and right now, she was shaking in Terra’s arms. The girl had already been captured once, kidnapped right off the street outside her school, and whatever was after Terra—because this felt like the time when death would finally catch her—she needed to keep it the hell away from her little sister.

In that instant, she knew:
She would have to leave Cassie.
No matter how much that carved out her heart.

“You’re going to be okay,” Terra said, squeezing Cassie even tighter. “I promise, everything’s going to be all right.”

But her sister’s eyes were still wide and freaked out when Terra pulled back. “Why is the Wolf Hunter after you?” she asked, her sweet voice tinged with fear.

Terra closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “I don’t know, baby. There just are some evil people in this world.” Her throat was closing up. She stood up, still holding Cassie’s shoulders. “But the River pack is going to take care of you from now on.”

Cassie’s eyes went more round. “But I want to stay with
you.”

God…
a knife in her heart wouldn’t hurt as much.

Jaxson took the cue and slid immediately to Cassie’s side. “There’s nothing to worry about, Cass. We’ll find you a new home, even better than the safehouse.”

Terra tried to show her gratitude in a look without words—because she was barely trusting herself to speak right now.

“Terra.”
Trent was shaking his head, and she knew what he was thinking: that they should stick together. But Jaxson’s Riverwise security company had military experience, and Trent was a software developer. She sure as hell wasn’t going to trust Cassie to her brother’s care.

“You go wherever Jaxson tells you,” she said forcefully to Trent. If he fought her on this, she
would
bring the claws out. Then she softened her voice, for Cassie’s sake. “Take her somewhere safe, Trent. Somewhere away from me. I’m the target now…” She had to clear her throat again. Every face was focused on her, so she spoke directly to them. “You
all
need to find safe places to go.
Now.”

Trent pressed his lips together, but thankfully, he didn’t argue.

“All right, everyone, listen up,” Jaxson said, raising his voice and taking charge as he usually did.
Thank God.
“We need to relocate close to fifty shifters to safe locations, and we need to do it yesterday. This is not going to be a small operation. Everyone needs to stay calm and pitch in.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mama River spoke up from her spot in the doorway into the kitchen. “This is my home.”

Terra couldn’t help but smile, and it helped banish the tears that were threatening to fall. Mama River’s defiance of her son, even though he was alpha of their pack, was just what she needed to hear. She’d grown to love Mama River more than she wanted to say out loud. Terra never had a mother, not since she was younger than Cassie, and Mama River seemed to be a mother to anyone who walked through the door. If only her own father had been half the parent Mama River was, maybe Terra wouldn’t have had to serve as Cassie’s surrogate mother all the time they were growing up.

Not that she regretted a single moment of that.

Jaxson looked irritated, but not exactly surprised. “All right, everyone
except
my mother will need to find a new safe location. I’ll take four volunteers who want to remain at the safehouse to guard Mama River and the estate in case Wolf Hunter decides to come after us.”

Every hand in the room went up to volunteer. Terra wasn’t surprised in the least.

“I said
four,”
Jaxson grumbled. “The rest of you are liabilities here, and I’m not taking any unnecessary risks.” He looked down at Cassie, who had also raised her hand. “That includes you, short stuff. But before we move you out, how about you and Mama River help me pick who gets to stay?”

Cassie nodded at her new solemn duty and waded into the crowd, carefully checking out each face. A flush of pride and gratitude and a hundred other emotions ran through Terra, threatening to pull her apart at the seams. Jaxson was mated and would never be hers—but he was the kind of alpha who could have been right for her if the fates hadn’t been working against them. Or really, just against
her.