Rogue Wolf (14 page)

“We will share a room,” he said.

“Hey, we’re being nice, but I didn’t say anything about sharing your bed.”

He merely smiled, but it lacked his earlier teasing warmth. “I know. We will share a room so I can guard you while you sleep. That is another rule. You will not sleep away from me while we work together. It will allow you to rest securely and I will know you are safe.”

Safety? Was he insane? Her body tightened and even her breasts felt fuller. Ignoring the physiological nuisance, she could only hope he missed her flare of arousal. “If I agree, will you get some sleep now?”

“You care,
bella
. You can pretend you don’t, but you do. It is part of what makes you so dominant.”

“Don’t push it. I might care enough to shove you out of the moving car.”

He chuckled and some of the darkness dispelled in his voice. “I like pushing you…against walls, especially.”

Heat scorched through her.
Ass—
Gritting her teeth into a grin, she cut off the thought. How could she go soft and warm while hot and tight at the same time? “Uh huh. Sleep now, I’ll sleep later—in the same room. Deal?”

Leaning his head against the seat, his eyes closed to mere slits. “You only have to say the word, Margo.”

Good God, was she aware of that fact. “Go to sleep.” She didn’t even pretend to ignore the command she’d issued. “Before our peace turns into another argument.”

“As you wish,
bella
.” He lifted her hand to kiss it once then settled it against his thigh and kept it there. His heat pummeled her and, though his eyes were closed, she seriously doubted he was asleep.

Two hours down, another nine plus hours to go.
So why not have an affair?
The little voice poked at her, but she ignored it the same way she attempted to ignore him. Alphas, like Salvatore? They were hot, sensual, wild men and he already proved he could devastate her senses. They were also possessive and dangerous, and it wouldn’t be a night or two. He was going back to Italy, she was an Enforcer in the States. The only way a potential sexual relationship could end between them was badly.

But, damn, he would be an amazing lover.

Chapter Eight

Though he feigned resting at first, Salvatore did manage a couple of hours of sleep, waking only when Margo pulled her hand away. She’d stopped at a filling station. He took over the fueling and she elected to head inside for food. They didn’t linger and ate in the vehicle. The restaurant inside the station made decent burgers, though he didn’t care for the fries. When she claimed the fries for her own, he indulged her—as long as she let him feed them to her.

The play helped his wolf maintain their façade of calm. More, it satisfied a need to ease her touch hunger. When her tongue stroked over the tip of his finger, however, the need to leave the damn car and satisfy their other appetites threatened to shred his control. Twice more they stopped and though they got out of the vehicle and walked to stretch while they refilled the car and purchased more food, Salvatore nursed an increasingly bad temper the closer to their destination they drew.

A setting sun turned the sky a rough red and orange when Margo followed her phone’s verbal instructions off the highway to a series of streets. Despite the address being within the city limits, Rayne’s brother lived at the end of a twisting, winding road in a house that had certainly seen better days. Margo’s eyes had already gone golden to penetrate the rapidly descending twilight. Not waiting for her to tell him to wait in the vehicle, he stepped out as soon as they stopped.

She was a half-step behind him, but she didn’t glare. Like him, she studied the area, tested the scents, and locked the car before they took two steps away. The first scent he caught warned him of an unfamiliar wolf nearby.

“It’s Nelson,” Margo said, circling the car then heading toward the front walkway. The cement was cracked, and grass spindled out between the slabs. The yard needed a good mowing, though tall no weeds filtered through the vegetation. Heavy bushes framed the house on all sides, with flowering plants climbing trellises as though to disguise the chipped and peeling paint. Unfortunately, they did little to occlude the scent of rotting wood.

Four steps led up to the elevated porch. White, cross-hatched wicker enclosed the underside and prevented small animals from making a home. The liberal use of bleach burned his nostrils. They hadn’t even achieved the porch and the stink of it burned beneath the moss, water and floral scents of the yard. The front door swung inward and a dark skinned wolf strode out. His balding head gleamed under the half-light. Broad shouldered, he had a barrel chest—everything about him was
large
from his height to his long-fingered and wide hands.

Margo didn’t slow, climbing the steps swiftly only to be enfolded into an embrace.

“Hey Margie-girl,” Nelson, she’d named him, rumbled in a deep baritone. His wolf rode very near the surface. Margo held him tight and the embrace continued past the point of Salvatore’s tolerance, though he kept his comments in check.

Like Margo, this Enforcer was easing touch starvation. How often did the Enforcers work together? He suspected not very, or she would be less agitated. “Hey big guy.” Affection softened her normally clipped tone. Another squeeze, then she released him. “John Nelson this is Salvatore Esposito, Alpha of the Seven Hills pack. His sister is traveling with our rogue. Salvatore this is John Nelson, Enforcer, southeastern region.”

The wolf eyed him, sizing him up, before offering his hand. “Pleased to meet ya.” His grip was firm, but lacked any testing strength. Accepting the politeness in the greeting, Salvatore kept his grip equally firm without attempting to overpower him.

“And you.”

“Okay, pleasantries over.” Margo blew out a breath. “Tell me what you know.” She strode ahead of them into the house. Nelson nodded to Salvatore and accompanied them to the house, though Salvatore kept him at his side.

He preferred to know the wolf at his back.

“I got here first thing yesterday morning. Within about five hours of the sighting, as you can see, they’re gone.”

The interior was conspicuously clean in comparison to the shambling appearance of the exterior. Shabby furniture sat in a comfortable array, but every surface was cleaned—even the old wooden floors had been scrubbed thoroughly. Bleach saturated everything.

Nose itching, Salvatore did his best to ignore the burning stink. Margo made a full sweep of the house and Salvatore kept pace with her. He studied the layout—a basic six room house including a sitting room, kitchen, dining area, and stairs leading to a second floor with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Some of the rooms had furniture, yet all the remaining pieces had been wiped down and cleaned with precision, then bleach was used on every possible surface.

No trace scents lingered—not blood, hair, or musk. Had he not been told wolves lived here, he would have been hard-pressed to prove it.

“According to pack records, which Loki provided—he’s Serafina’s Hound for this area—Jackson Barrows is a pretty much a low on the totem wolf. He had a human girlfriend. She’s not pack, but she did know about the wolves since she was a daughter of one of Serafina’s allies. Not pack, but pack knowledge.”

“Have we been in touch with her family? They may have information on her.” Margo didn’t slow, she moved from room to room with purpose. Salvatore followed, but at a slower pace. His nose had begun to run and his eyes teared. He fought to find even a hint of Luciana’s scent beneath the stench.

“I called them. Her father said the last time he spoke to her was last week and she didn’t indicate anything was wrong or changed.” Though he remained in the main room, Nelson’s words seemed to echo a shrug. “Julian’s got Enforcers on the move everywhere. We’re doing a head count, but I have a feeling none of us is going to like the answer.”

“No, probably not.” The discord of Margo’s worry thrummed against him. Salvatore paused at the entrance to the second bedroom. He’d caught a hint of perfume, not wolf or musk, but a floral scent.
Chanel.
His sister’s favorite. With only a ghost of a whiff to test, he fastened onto the certainty of the perfume.

A phone rang into the silence—Margo’s—and she paused ahead of Salvatore to answer. “We’re at the house now, Julian.”

Salvatore’s phone vibrated and he extracted it. The message read
Luciana called your mother from Nashville.
An address followed. Pacing over to Margo, he held up the phone for her to see and her golden gaze skimmed the message then met his.

“Julian we have a lead. I’ll check in later.” She hung up, not waiting for the other wolf’s response. “That’s three hours from here. When did the call come in?”

Salvatore texted the question. The response came swiftly. “Fifteen minutes ago.”

Pivoting, Margo took the stairs two at a time. “Nelson, we’ve got a lead. Do we have anyone in Nashville at the moment?”

“No.” Nelson met them at the front of the house. “It’s three hours.”

“That’s three hours closer than we’ve been.”

Arriving at the driver’s side before she did, Salvatore opened the door for her. She raised an eyebrow, but slid into the driver’s seat without comment. After closing the door behind her, he went to the passenger side.

“Are you planning to follow us?” Asking the Enforcer seemed prudent. If the man intended to be at his back, Salvatore wanted to know.  

“This is bigger than we expected and the more wolves on it the better,” Nelson said, his expression cool. He mounted a motorcycle and revved the engine.

“He’s right,” Margo agreed, leaning over to glance at him. “Nelson, the sister is off limits. I have point on this.”

“You got it, Margie-girl. Let’s roll.”

Once Salvatore slid into the vehicle, Margo accelerated out of the drive. She didn’t slow on the backstreets, and she didn’t turn on her headlights. With their vision, they weren’t entirely necessary.

“I’m speeding,” she said, even though he hadn’t asked. “I don’t want the cops to notice till we’re hell and gone, and it’s harder for them to read the plates without the running lights on.”

“Understood.” He considered holding the information back on the perfume, then said, “Did you smell anything beyond the bleach?”

“I might have, but the bleach was killing my nose.” She rubbed at it.

Sympathizing, he drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Luciana was there.”

“Are you sure?” Verifying didn’t cross the line into challenging his understanding.

“Yes. I scented her perfume. Faint, very faint, but there.” The question remained, however, was Luciana with them when the others disappeared? Or had they disappeared because Luciana and Rayne had been there?

“I know you don’t want to hear this.” Despite the statement, Margo continued, “Has it occurred to you that Luciana isn’t a prisoner?”

“Yes. I don’t want to consider the idea, but I would be a fool to think otherwise. I don’t know why she is involved or made the choices she has. Until proven otherwise, I will not be convinced she is a party to anything more than the foolish decisions of a girl in love.” Even saying it aloud did nothing to alleviate his concern.

“Well there are stupider reasons to do things.”

Surprised by her concession, Salvatore studied her profile. “Have you ever made a stupid decision for love?”

“Everyday.” Her quip carried a note of seriousness.

“Truly?” Focusing on Margo let his wolf relax a fraction. Had Luciana been taken by whomever took the other wolves? Was she already dead? In his soul, he did not believe so. The pack tie—however fragile—remained.

“I know you don’t get the Enforcers, and I know you don’t get Lone Wolves or why we would leave our packs. That doesn’t change the fact that we care. Enforcers have to care, we have to maintain the laws, and we have to protect the safety of the packs. A wolf alone, has no allies, no friendships, no one to fall back on when something goes wrong. We’re the ones who take care of them, who fix it. We’re who they call.”

“You’re also who they must fear.”

A shrug. “Not intentionally, no. Fear is important in the beginning. You have to understand, a lot of Lone Wolves…they leave their packs and they don’t know how to function outside the pack structure. At home, they have parents, friends, Alpha, Hunters and the chain of dominance to fall back on. Outside the chain of dominance, they only have us. We have to make sure they don’t make mistakes. In a world where one mistake could threaten everyone? Yeah, we have to use fear.”

“Is that the issue between you and Mason?”

Her faint jerk betrayed the surprise his question elicited. “Why do you think there’s an issue between Mason and I?”

“Because you dislike each other very much.” The Willow Bend Alpha couldn’t have been clearer in his derision in regard to Margo.

“Well, some stories aren’t pleasant, and other stories aren’t your business.” Her mouth twisted. “But you’re going to keep nagging at me until I tell you.”

“Not nag, but yes, I will ask. You make hunting the truth an enticing proposition.” Whether it was because it kept his mind off his sister or because he simply wanted to know everything about Margo, he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Perhaps both.

“Mason was a Lone Wolf for more than a decade,” she said

The information surprised him. He knew he was a relatively young Alpha, having only claimed his pack in the last couple of years, but still…

She continued, “His first week out of the pack, I tracked him down to give him the information he needed to survive and to help him set up some financial accounts courtesy of Ryan—his current father-in-law. I doubt he knows the money came from Ryan, but I owed Ryan for helping me, and he asked me to make sure Mason survived. He was an angry wolf, then again a lot are when they first go Lone.” She almost laughed. “You know, I don’t really think about that much. Most of us who choose to go it alone do it because we don’t feel like we belong or we’ve been driven out. Those who are driven out? They’re angry. They’re also the ones most likely to become Rogues, so we pay particular attention to them.”