“Wha—”
Dewi pinched her fingers together, indicating for him to shut his pie hole.
One pie hole, shut. “You either get a vasectomy,” Dewi continued, “or I will come back and cut them off with a rusty penknife and no anesthesia. I don’t care if you have to work four jobs to afford it. Your call, asshole.”
He finally nodded, looking whupped.
“Glad you understand I’m serious,” Dewi said. “James, you will stay here and you and Linda will hash things out for the next couple of hours. Badger will return for you later this afternoon. He will take you to whatever shithole you’re living in, wait while you pack your crap, and bring you back here. I don’t care if you have to sleep on the floor for the next however many years until your kids are of age, but you
will
live with Linda, and you
will
support the kids. The two of you
will
work together to raise them, and you will
not
fight in front of them. You
both
will take parenting classes, and you will
both
do whatever the hell you have to do to break this fucking dysfunctional cycle the two of you losers are entrenched in. You will also take any and every chance you get to legally better yourselves, to improve your education, to learn. Understand me?”
They nodded.
Dewi returned her focus to Linda. “And that also means you don’t go out catting around and getting knocked up by any other guys, either. Once your littlest is old enough to put into child care, the two of you better be working your fucking asses off to earn an honest living supporting them.”
“But—”
Dewi made the pinching motion at her, too. Then her voice dropped into a low and dangerous tone. “You either abide by this edict, or all four of you will be taken to Idaho for a pack council hearing, your kids will be given to someone who can raise them right, and you two will never be heard from again. I will
not
tolerate any bullshit when it comes to the health and welfare of our pack’s children. You want to fuck up your lives, fine, but you don’t get to do it with your children. You bred them, you raise them. Do I make myself perfectly, crystal clear?”
The woman swallowed hard, her throat nervously working, but she nodded.
Dewi glared at James, who also nodded.
Dewi flashed them a bright, toothy smile. “Great! Glad we understand each other. And yes, we will be dropping in unexpectedly to check on you from time to time. If you all move, you
will
update me with your address and other contact info immediately. You will also keep me informed of your employers’ information, and update it immediately whenever you change jobs. Ditto if you change phone numbers. I have to hunt either of you down, it won’t be fun for you when I find you.”
Dewi’s voice dropped back into the dark and dangerous range again. “And make no mistake, I
will
find you.”
* * * *
Beck fought the urge to nervously pace or tap his foot while Dewi talked to the young parents. He wasn’t sure forcing them to live together until their kids were adults was the best answer, but Dewi firing both barrels at them—pack edict and her Prime will—would likely ensure the kids would grow up not too fucked up.
He hoped.
It didn’t help that he couldn’t get his mate’s taste out of his mouth or his mind. Every cell of his being wanted to go hunt her down, pull her into his arms, and drown inside her soul.
Aching didn’t begin to describe the void inside him right now. Not even close. More like searing, blistering pain and need consuming his every breath.
Mate.
She was out there, somewhere, and he had to find her.
Now.
When Dewi headed for the front door, Beck followed her outside. “I still say we should have just castrated him right there,” he said. “Save everyone a lot of time.”
“We’re not barbarians.”
“No, and calling James Palver a barbarian would be an insult to barbarians. And Linda gives poor white trash a bad rep, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t say they were society’s elite, but we’ll evaluate the situation in a year and see if either of them have matured any and learned from this experience. I might let James off the hook in terms of living with Linda if it looks like they’re getting their shit together, but the asshole can’t afford to pay rent somewhere else and have money left over to support his kids. I’m also going to sit both sets of their parents down at the next pack Muster to have a little talk with them about James and Linda. Parental pressure from both sides can’t hurt.”
They were almost at the truck, where Badger and Ken waited for them. Beck threw his arms in the air. “This is a damn waste of time!”
“Calm down,” Dewi said, her voice practically a growl. “We’ll find her.”
“You don’t understand what I’m going through right now!”
She wheeled around, her right eyebrow dangerously arched. “Oh, don’t I?”
He looked taken aback. “I mean, okay, yeah, you sort of know what I mean, but you claimed Ken. You didn’t lose him.”
She opened the back door. “Get in,” she said, now sounding weary. “Let’s get back to the house and see what Ken can find out about her. Badger will return to pick up Jackoff and take him to get his shit.”
“What’s this, now?” Badger asked, turning to stare at her. “I have to come back here?”
She filled him in.
Badger rolled his eyes. “Tell ye what, missy,” he said as he shifted the truck into gear. “We get both sets of their parents in front of us, I’m settin’ all four of them straight about the facts of life. Feckin’ idiots. They’re as bloody worthless as their damn children. Should edict them all to live in the same feckin’ house as bloody torture for them all.”
Chapter Five
Back at the house, Ken immediately headed for the office on the first floor, which was usually his office unless Dewi, Beck, and Badger needed to make conference calls with Peyton and Trent.
But now, as their IT guy, Ken was almost always invited to sit in on those anyway.
Beck followed him, Dewi trailing behind. “What are you going to do?” Beck asked Ken, a wheedling, pleading tone in Beck’s voice that Ken never remembered hearing before.
“For starters, I’m going to see what I can find out about the driver. What was her name again?”
“Her name tag said N. Drexler.”
“Okay.” Ken fired up his laptop and started researching, all while Beck nervously paced in front of the desk. “Go take a run or something,” he told Beck. “This could take a while.”
Beck stopped pacing. “How long?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what I can find out the easy way.”
“What’s the easy way?”
“Running searches on Google, Facebook, property tax records, all of that. That’s going to take a while.”
“Well, what’s the hard way?”
“Hacking into the HART computer system. Which I’d rather not do if I don’t have to. I’m not even sure if I have the skills to do it. Besides, it’s highly illegal. And since it’s a quasi-government entity, law enforcement tends to frown upon that kind of stuff.”
“So?”
Ken stared at him. “
Seriously
? That doesn’t concern you?”
“Not really. Not when I think about what’s at stake.”
Dewi grabbed Beck and shoved him toward the office door. “It’s okay,” Dewi assured Ken. “Do what you need to, but don’t put yourself at risk.”
“We need to find her!” Beck insisted.
“I don’t want to trigger something and have Homeland Security crawling up our asses,” Ken shot back. “Sort of blows the whole ‘wolf shifter secrecy’ precautions right out of the damn water, don’t you think?”
“Beck,” Dewi growled, dropping into her Prime Alpha mode. “Living room. Couch.
Now
.”
The other wolf disappeared around the corner, loudly grumbling the whole way.
Dewi paused in the office doorway. “Seriously,” she said, “don’t put yourself at risk. If you hit a wall and don’t find anything, we’ll regroup at that point and together we’ll decide what to do next. He’s just not thinking clearly right now.”
“I can’t blame him,” Ken said, feeling bad for the guy.
Her expression softened and she blew him a kiss. “I love you,” she whispered.
He smiled. “Love you, too,” he whispered back.
She gently closed the office door while Ken opened a browser window to begin his search.
I hope I don’t let him down.
* * * *
By the time Badger returned later that evening, Dewi had made them all dinner, serving Ken his in the office since he didn’t want to stop working.
But come midnight, Ken’s efforts had produced zero results. He emerged from the office to join the three shifters in the living room, where they’d been watching TV and awaiting word from him.
“I’m sorry, man,” Ken said, feeling damned bad about it, too. “Either she’s super-cautious about her privacy, or she’s not active on social media.”
“How can anyone not be active on social media?” Beck said.
The other three looked at him. “Seriously, lad?” Badger asked. “When was the last time ye posted on the Tweeting thing?”
“Twitter,” Dewi said. “And we’re three examples sitting right here.”
“Two of you Prime examples,” Ken added before thinking better of making light of the situation.
Dewi arched an eyebrow at his bad pun, but continued. “It’s been a long day. We all need to get some sleep and come at this tomorrow with fresh eyes.”
“She’s out there somewhere right now!” Beck protested.
“We know, lad,” Badger said. “And she’ll be out there tomorrow, too. Dewi’s right. Poundin’ our skulls over this is useless. We need a chance to let our minds think on it overnight.”
He stood and stretched, yawning, lengthening the scar that crossed through his missing left eye and ran down the length of his face nearly to his chin. He scratched at his wild, curly red hair, which was threaded with grey. “I know this isn’t what ye want to hear, but we need to let this go for now.”
* * * *
Beck drove home a little after midnight, alternately cursing his friends and adopted family and knowing deep in his heart they were right.
Tampa was a big place.
A really big place.
It didn’t look like it on a map, maybe, but when you figured population density, and all the nearby bedroom communities, it meant he couldn’t just randomly tear around the Tampa Bay area, looking for a woman whose full name he didn’t even know.
He’d have to trust Ken to figure it out. That was his job, and so far, he appeared to be very good at it, this particular instance not withstanding.
As Beck stood in the shower and let the hot water beat on his flesh, he tried not to think about the woman.
Unfortunately, it was all he
could
think about.
She wasn’t a smoker, at least. And she didn’t taste like someone who had a problem with alcohol, either. Although if she was a bus driver, he sincerely
hoped
she didn’t have a drinking problem.
She tasted sweet and spicy, like someone used to making good home cooking, and the jasmine.
He turned his back to the spray and inhaled deeply, trying to recreate the scent in his mind. Such a delicate aroma, and while she was anything but delicate, it seemed to fit her perfectly. So what if she was a large woman? It meant he’d be able to wrap his arms around her and not worry about breaking her.
He didn’t care about looks, although to his eyes, she was beautiful.
All he cared about was that she was supposed to be his.
And she wasn’t in his arms at that moment.
A situation he hoped to soon rectify.
* * * *
Nami awoke before her alarm the next morning feeling…lost.
Shake it off, girl. You been through worse.
She hadn’t even mentioned the strange incident to her supervisor when she ended her shift. She knew she should have filed a report about it. Hell, she should have called the police about it, but there was…something about the guy.
Something she couldn’t put her finger on.
All night long, her sleep had been plagued by…well, by
really
sexy dreams starring the mystery man. Dreams where instead of running away, he took her with him back to his place and did all sorts of wonderfully erotic things to her.
For the rest of their lives.
Stupid. He was a good lookin’ man, but he was plumb crazy, girl. Stop fantasizing about a creeper.
Except the problem was, he didn’t feel like a creeper. Sure, what he’d done had caught her by surprise, but at the time it’d been like part of her had wanted it. Craved it, even.
It had felt right, natural.
Easy.
Like when he ran off, that maybe her future was running off with him.
Stupid.
As she lay there waiting for her alarm to sound, she closed her eyes and conjured the strange man’s face in her mind. His short, blond hair, his piercing blue eyes. The way his kiss had tasted, as if it were an integral part of him and not just residual from a meal.
The way he’d said, “Mine.”
She’d heard it, clear as day, even though she’d swear she never saw his lips move.
And just thinking about it, about the way his kiss had tasted, the way his voice had sounded, the way his breath had felt against her flesh, made her all…
Tingly.
Tingly in ways that made her feel even more lonely right at that moment.
There’d been something possessive and commanding and sexy as sin in his voice.