The dark and mysterious one, Damen with curly dark waves falling over his forehead, stopped talking and stood. He reached his forearm toward Chance. The men grasped hands, both of their arms flexed and pumped in a fisted handshake, and before they broke apart Chance slapped Damen on the shoulder.
“Damen, damn, look at you, in the best shape I’ve ever seen you. It has, what…been three years? Did you bring us some news?” Chance pulled Olivia in front of him. “Before you answer that, I’d like you to meet Olivia, my primal-mate.” Chance smiled down at her.
Olivia recalled conversations Chance previously shared regarding Damen. She recognized the pride and respect Chance held for this man. She reached her hand over Trevor’s head, but Damen hesitated, looking at Chance.
“It’s okay.” Chance met Damen’s gaze. “Olivia hasn’t been a Lycan long and doesn’t yet understand appropriate behavior for an Alpha’s mate, like respectfully not touching other Lycan males.” He glanced down at Olivia, her hand still stretched to meet Damen’s.
Another Lycan rule I’ll need to remember. I’ll have to start numbering them and writing them down.
Her face blazed, she sighed, withdrawing her hand, but Damen quickly grasped it in a strong, warm handshake.
“Nice meeting you, Olivia.”
“Damen, it’s a pleasure.” Damen’s face froze and the others chuckled. Olivia looked around and realized they all were staring at her. “What? I said something wrong as well?” They laughed harder. Her face heated even more, burning down her neck.
“Pleasure is a strong word for any female Lycan to say to a male Lycan who isn’t her mate,” Jasmine cut in. “There’s only one thing we do for pleasure, and it’s only with our mate—at least in this pack.”
And the list keeps growing.
Only a month had passed since living with Chance and his pack. It seemed everyday she screwed something up to do with Lycan ways. After a thirty-four year marriage to an arrogant man who never had time for passion or intimacy with her because he led a secret life of philandering, she’d sworn off all men at his funeral. That was two years ago…and then she met Chance. Olivia could never go back to life without him. She straightened. Determination pushed her onward, even though her entire body flamed with embarrassment beneath her clothes.
I can do this.
“Please accept my apology for my faux pas, Damen. I will do as Chance directed me before we entered this room and that’s simply to listen.” She forced a smile and then stepped beside Chance. From her peripheral she saw Damen nod at Chance, as if she passed a test or met his approval.
“No worries, Olivia. It won’t take you long catching on to our ways. I’ve heard of your psychic ability, and I’m sure it will help if you use it more often.” Damen smiled, showing even white teeth that looked brilliant against his olive skin. His deep gray eyes sparkled, and Olivia read integrity and respect from him. It touched her heart knowing Chance’s pack held such support for her.
She wondered about Damen pushing her toward using her psychic ability. It still made her feel intrusive reading Chance or his pack. It wasn’t simply emotions she sensed after her shift, now words popped into her head, descriptive words, like personal thoughts. She didn’t want any of them fearing for their privacy around her.
“Okay, let’s get to it. I’m curious about what you’ve learned during your month undercover in Dr. Linden’s lab.” Chance slid a chair out for Olivia and he dropped into one beside her.
“Dr. Linden never became forthcoming with me as far as information about Smoke. What I learned I gathered from others, one being Linden’s lover, who is also his lab assistant. Linden purged a number of his secrets to her and she sang like a courting robin.”
“Yeah, and how did you make her sing?” Jase shot the question, waggling his brows.
Damen stared off a moment like he was remembering, and then looked back at Jase. “Yeah, she got pretty frisky with me, all right for a human, not such a sacrifice on my part.” Damen’s breath caught and he glanced over at Olivia. “No offense to you, Olivia.”
“None taken.” She didn’t fully understand what he meant, since Chance hadn’t minded taking her as his lover when she was human, before her change. Or…had he? Maybe that’s why humans didn’t know about Lycan, they didn’t mingle with each other.
“Okay, so she sang and you enjoyed her song. What’d she tell you?” Chance broke in, his jaw tensed.
“She said Linden’s paranoid over a guy he calls Smoke. Apparently Smoke did a deed for Linden and has been collecting on it ever since. I found out what the deed was…he took out Linden’s wife and her parents. According to songbird, a huge portion of his research money came from her family. His wife found out about songbird and threatened divorce, which meant a cut off from the family funds. Linden got scared and needed assurance he wouldn’t lose the money.”
“Does he have any children?” Chance asked.
“No.”
“That explains why Smoke keeps an endless supply of scent cover and the stealth enhancer compound known as Total Eclipse, and he also has the sexual stimulator/hallucinogen branded Startem. We learned about those drugs when Smoke used them on Olivia and Lindsey after he abducted them.” Chance touched Olivia’s shoulder and rubbed his palm across her upper back, sending little zings of warmth and comfort down her spine. “What about the counter-agent for Total Eclipse? Jasmine found out it’s known as Full Moon, and supposedly it gives a person tracking ability in finding someone who has ingested the TE.”
“I know about that particular compound. Dr. Linden gave a proud rendition of all his latest compounds. What a pompous ass.”
“Why would he tell you, a complete stranger?” Chance asked.
Damen grinned, an expression Olivia related to a naughty boy. “Meet the highly esteemed and respected Dr. Clark Bristol, top research scientist of the Lycan lore.”
“Nice… I’ll have to remember that one. I’m always impressed by your chameleon-like adaptions, a great asset for the agency.”
Damen coughed a little, as if uncomfortable at receiving Chance’s compliment, then continued, “I believe the testing has been completed on it. As far as I know he didn’t share it with Smoke, so I’m fairly certain Smoke isn’t aware of its existence.” Damen rose from his chair and pulled a folded paper from a stack on the table in front of him. He opened it and pointed. “Here, Rutskins, Wyoming. This is where robin-red-breast sends Smoke the packages of drugs, postmarked Smoke Chanceleur, General Delivery.”
“That bastard!”
Olivia jerked, startled, as Chance ripped his hand away from her back. He pounded his fist on the table with a deafening crash. It made her and everyone else jump. The wooden table top cracked and dented.
“Chance, you have a location. We can find them now.” Olivia touched his flexed arm, fist still buried in the table surface. His body shook and his eyes glowed, unseeing. A blast of anguish, thick and dark, throbbed through her chest as she read Chance’s emotions. All of her senses went on alert, knowing his moments standing there dwindled. She knew he wanted outdoors, running as wolf. “What is upsetting you?”
He stood defiant and continued to stare through her, his body quaking as if out of his control.
“Chance, you’re taking this a bit hard.” Damen spoke in a deep soothing tone. “Calm yourself or you’ll shift.” Damen shuffled around Olivia, and she scooted back, even though her inner urge wanted to shift and run as Chance did. Trevor stood and pulled her farther away, slipping her behind Jase, who now also stood, both men forming a wall in front of her.
“What’s going on?” Olivia whispered to Trevor. “Let me through.”
Between their shoulders, she saw Chance shove Damen back. His body shook so hard it appeared Chance convulsed. He growled in a heart rending pitch. It thrummed loud and heavy through the air, and then he ran from the room. Olivia slammed between Jase and Trevor, but they remained a barrier.
“Something’s very wrong…I need to. Be. With. Him.” She fought to get through them.
“Not on your life. Not when our Alpha is in this mood. No way, he’d never forgive us.” Trevor gave Olivia a stern look.
Jasmine slid around the table and took Olivia’s hand, although first instinct told Olivia to snatch it away and run.
“Come this way,” Jasmine said in a gentle tone. She pulled Olivia toward the backside of the table. “Let him go for a bit. He’ll be fine once he unleashes some of that pent-up anger with a good long run as wolf.”
“I don’t understand. Chance has been waiting for Smoke’s location. Why would that anger him?” Olivia watched the group, all eyes avoiding hers. “Stop it, dammit. Don’t make me reach into your minds to find my answer. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Chanceleur was Chance’s father’s name. It’s just another rock Smoke hurled and it looks like it hit Chance square in the heart,” Jasmine said.
Olivia looked at Damen, and then she gazed around the room at all of them.
“So, who is Smoke to Chance?” Again, no one made eye contact with her, which pissed her off. “Don’t think I didn’t catch that telepathic conversation going on between Smoke and Chance. You know what I’m talking about. I was running all out on a mission to find Smoke. You all tripped me up in the middle of a forest hundreds of miles from here. Ring any bells?”
Still no one looked at her.
“Okay, I’ll spell it out. Chance called Smoke a son-of-a-bitch. And, Smoke came back saying you’re the son of the same bitch. Are they brothers?” Her breath came faster. Panting, ire rising, her emotions pushed outward. She heard the whoosh-pump of blood rushing inside her veins, whips of heat singed across her skin, prickling along her spine. A tremor launched from her toes up, and then Trevor’s eyes met hers. The understanding in his expression arrested the tide of frustration. Someone finally heard her. Trevor.
“Chance swears he watched his brother fall from a cliff to his death.” Trevor came around the table, stopping beside Olivia. He brushed his hair back and stared at her with glowing silver-blue eyes. Olivia sensed his calming energy soothing her. “He hit rocks and ledges all the way down the cliff face and landed in a raging river hundreds of feet below. Chance watched his brother’s body go underwater and never surface. Apparently search parties looked for months up and down the river, but to no avail, they never found his brother, Savage.”
“What do you think, Trevor? You know Chance best. Has he said anything this past month acknowledging Smoke as his brother, Savage?” Olivia inexplicably relaxed every part of her body at peace. Trevor looked past her; his eyes lacked the wild luster she remembered when he and Lindsey were together.
Olivia had listened to Chance speak of Trevor often, as close friends would. Trevor wasn’t the same Lycan since Lindsey had been abducted. Chance feared the friend he knew as Trevor may never be retrieved. Chance often referred to his own father as becoming a shell of a man after the death of Chance’s mother, his father’s primal-mate. Even though Lindsey wasn’t dead, it must feel like death to Trevor. Olivia missed her friend and wanted her back as bad as Trevor should.
Lindsey supposedly belonged to Smoke now, according to emotions and feelings Olivia sensed from Trevor, but Olivia knew it wasn’t the truth of it. Lindsey had fallen in love with Trevor, wildly, deeply, and she’d never willingly choose Smoke.
Olivia sighed when Trevor remained silent, and she pictured him doing the same thing with Lindsey, simply giving up. What made Trevor give up on Lindsey so easily?
“We should get busy finding Smoke,” Damen broke in. “Let’s get some satellite pictures of the area around Rutskin, Wyoming. You know the type of buildings they called home in Minnesota. It might be more rustic. I can picture him living in cave dwellings out there. Only the weather this time of year would be harsh, even for a wolf. And if they took human females with them, they’d have to accommodate them somewhere, keep them warm.”
“We could set up a stake-out at the post office.” Jasmine’s fingers tapped away on her keyboard, eyes glued toward the screen as she spoke.
“Not sure when his next delivery will be. I think songbird set him up with a year’s supply because Linden didn’t want Smoke showing up at the lab unannounced.”
“Oh my wolfen damn toes!” Jasmine’s back straightened and she spun her chair around staring wide-eyed at the group. “It just now occurred to me. The Westlyn pack lost their Alpha. Normally that wouldn’t send a signal. From my understanding their Alpha wasn’t a good leader. I figured the pack got sick of their fearless leader’s friggin’ orgies, never taking a mate, but sharing everyone else’s females. I would have sewed him up nice and tight, my damn knee jammed into his junk.”
“Babes, calm yourself.” Dir stooped down and kissed the top of her head. “Stay on task for us. What about the Westlyn pack?”
Jasmine exhaled a giant breath and closed her eyes a moment. Dir rubbed her shoulder, she opened her eyes, pressed her lips tight, and then her body softened, relaxing. “The thing is, the Westlyn pack has all the comforts of home for a rogue pack, and they are located in the vicinity of Rutskin, a few miles north over the state line. That take-over happened around the same time Smoke vanished from our radar, and I never put it together until now.”
“It sounds like a possibility, Jasmine, great job,” Damen stated.
Jasmine rolled her chair toward Damen and stood, toe-to-toe with him. “Did you just tell me I did something good?” Dir stepped over and placed his arms around her waist, drawing her backside against his front.
“Jaz, this isn’t the time or place to get into it with Damen.” Dir slid his hands higher and palmed her breasts.
“I feel the tension.” Damen smiled. A smile Olivia believed might melt mountain caps of snow into tsunamis. “Get it out of your system, Jasmine.”
“I’m not getting it out of my…” Jasmine gasped as Dir pinched her nipples through her shirt. “…system,” Jasmine peeled out on a whispered breath. She slapped Dir’s hands away and stared at Damen. “It’s simmering a bit longer and when it boils over, take heed of your junk. You deserve whatever happens, that’s all I’m sayin’ right now.”
Dir hauled her back to the office chair and plunked her down, leaving Damen open-mouthed.