She hadn’t said anything either, too busy fighting panic and nausea, reliving the moment Wayne had fired and TJ had crumpled to the floor.
Had she gotten TJ killed?
At this point, she didn’t care if Wayne killed her. If he was taking her back to Luxor to turn her over to the European wolves, she’d rather be dead.
She could feel her phone pressing against her thigh through her jacket pocket. She’d charged it just this morning, and her free hand itched to pull it out. Wayne would grab it from her, of course. What if it started ringing? Would Bryan be trying to call her? If TJ were dead, he wouldn’t know anything about what had happened, would he? What the hell could she
do?
Okay, drama queen, get a grip.
“How’d you find me?”
“The Russians told me where Keeton lived.”
“How’d they know?”
“What the fuck do I care? They told me to get you, so I did.”
Someone had talked—maybe the guy Bryan called when he caught the wolves at Grandma’s house, maybe someone else. He’d said the investigation was riddled with leaks.
“Wayne, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Yeah, I’ve saved my goddamned life, that’s what I’ve done.”
“No, Wayne. The woman you shot works for the Houston Alpha. Your life’s not worth spit now. Nick Wargman’s gonna kill you.”
From the corner of her eye she saw him turn to her, and she caught an expression of shock on his face.
“Shit, Sara,” he breathed in a strange, vaguely awestruck tone. “You’re running around with
werewolves?”
They raced to his place on foot, passing the ambulance as it weaved and wailed down Louisiana.
Nick was first through the open front door, Bryan right behind him as he followed a trail of blood—
Christ, that’s a lot of blood—
into the downstairs guestroom.
TJ lay on the floor next to the bedside table, the phone in her limp hand. The right side of her blouse was soaked with blood. More blood had pooled on the floor beneath her shoulder.
Nick dropped to his knees and gathered her into his lap. “TJ? Baby, it’s me.”
He brushed the hair from her face and moved his hand down to her shoulder, as if to probe the wound, but stopped. His hand hovered helplessly above her, his face twisted in agony because there was nothing he could do. The scent of his fear and rage filled the room. Bryan clenched his jaw and ground his teeth to keep from whimpering as Nick’s pheromones washed over him, pushing him to change.
The ambulance pulled into the driveway. Bryan heard them unloading the crash cart.
TJ’s voice was so faint no one but wolves could’ve heard her words. “Wayne…he took her. He…”
“Shh, baby,
don’t talk
. The ambulance is here. You’ll be fine.” Nick looked up at Bryan. “It went in her shoulder. I think her lung’s collapsed. I can hear it in—”
“I know. I hear it too.”
Her face was pale and slick with sweat. As the EMTs lifted her from Nick’s arms and put her on the stretcher, she tried to reach for him. “Nick, don’t— I’m…”
“I know, baby. I’m right here. I won’t leave.” He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his mouth. “I’m right behind the ambulance. You going to St. Joseph?” he asked one of the EMTs.
“Yes, sir. You want to ride with her?”
He swallowed and shook his head. “No. Not a good idea right now. I’ll follow you.”
The EMT nodded as they rolled her into the ambulance and slammed the door.
Bryan stood on the bottom stair, clutching the banister, his whole body racked with tension. He’d fight the change with everything he had, but between Nick’s panic over TJ and his own panic over Sara, he wasn’t sure he could stay two-footed much longer.
He’d known Nick was close to his assistant, but he was still shocked at his Alpha’s reaction. Only the deepest trauma could force the change on a wolf as powerful as a Pack Alpha. Bryan smelled the change on Nick, saw him trembling with the force of resisting it as he bent over, hands on his knees, shuddering and gulping at air just like Bryan was doing.
If Nick changed, Bryan would change. And Bryan needed to be in human form to go after Sara. The thought of her in the hands of those savages filled him with a crimson rage and a queasy terror at the same time.
The two wolves said nothing as each battled his body for control. The small entryway filled with the sound of their rasping, labored breaths and the smell of their distress. The dogs in the neighboring condos began to howl as they picked up the scent of the werewolves’ pheromones. The smelly cacophony made his head ring till he thought his ears would bleed. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get a handle on—
Suddenly the air in the room became lighter. The crushing pressure of involuntary change abruptly vanished.
Now that his Alpha had beaten back the shift, Bryan could too.
Nick straightened and held out his arms. “Come here.”
He allowed Nick to pull him in for a tight embrace. Calmed and comforted by the touch, he was able to breathe freely again. Fifteen minutes had passed since they’d gotten the call. It felt like an hour.
Nick released him. “Her phone.”
“What?”
“Sara’s phone was in her pocket.” He frowned. “But if she can’t answer, or Wayne takes it away—”
“No! Fuck me, I-I wasn’t thinking! I’ve got GPS coverage!”
His heart tried to thump out of his chest as he looked at his watch. When had he last seen her? Thirty minutes ago? Forty? How far had they gotten?
What’s he done to her by now?
He stabbed at the keys on his phone, cursing at the progress bar as the browser loaded, and then he was online, and he punched in the GPS site, and…
“There!” he shouted, and the howling outside the condo grew louder. He stared at the blinking yellow dot like it was his own heartbeat. “They’re on 59 going north.”
“He’s taking her back to Luxor,” Nick said.
“I gotta go, I gotta—”
Nick grabbed his arm as he headed for the door. He tried to pull away, but his Alpha’s fingers were an iron band around his biceps and he couldn’t get loose. Nick’s face betrayed no sign of exertion as he held a two-hundred-fifty-pound werewolf in place with one hand and dialed his phone with the other.
“I’m calling Taran,” Nick said as the phone rang. “We’ll call the Feds and tell them what’s going on. You’ll fly up there and beat Hedges to Luxor. Stop trying to get away from me, wolf, it’s pissing me off. Taran? Listen to me. Sara Hedges just got snatched by her uncle. He shot TJ.”
Taran began shouting questions.
“I don’t know!” Nick barked. “Call Lark. Tell her to get to St. Joseph’s. Then come pick us up here at Bryan’s condo.”
“What’s so fucking funny? Answer me, goddamn it!”
Wayne swatted her, the pistol grip striking her hard right behind the ear and knocking her head into the window. She struggled to catch her breath as stars danced behind her eyes.
“Goddamn it, Sara—”
“All right, all right! I can’t talk if you knock me out, can I? You want to know why I’m laughing?”
Because if I don’t, I’ll lose my mind. Please, TJ, don’t be dead.
“Because you’re a moron!”
Wayne blinked, his tiny, watery blue eyes opening and shutting with a twitch that always made her itch to punch him.
For the first time, she noticed how awful he looked. Besides the bandaged hand, he had bandages on all ten fingers, bruises on his forehead and cheek, a cut on his temple, and a sickly yellow cast to his face. And beyond that, he looked…scared. She’d seen Wayne Hedges enraged, petulant, resentful, frequently confused, but she’d never seen him scared.
She wished she could enjoy the spectacle, but a scared Wayne was a dangerous Wayne.
“You really don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” he yelled, fear and uncertainty seeping through his bluster.
“Those guys—the Russians?” Actually, Bryan had said they were from the Czech Republic and Serbia and a couple other countries she was certain her uncle had never heard of. “They’re
werewolves
, Wayne. Just like Bryan.” And no wonder Bryan never heard Wayne discussing them.
Now Wayne looked truly sick with fright, blanching beneath the blue and purple bruises. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. The wet, raspy sound of his breathing filled the car.
“You couldn’t tell? You didn’t notice anything weird about them? They weren’t super strong or unbelievably fast?” Of course, she hadn’t realized Bryan was a werewolf. But Bryan had deliberately hidden his strength and speed and senses, while these guys probably hadn’t. Wayne was just that stupid.
“I didn’t spend a lot of face time with them until your boyfriend fucked everything up, and then I was kind of busy being tortured!” He waved the gun around as he yelled. She regretted bringing up the subject. “Yeah—tortured, Sara! They tied me to a fucking table and worked me over for two days! You don’t know how hard it was to convince them I didn’t know anything!”
On the contrary, Sara imagined most people would readily believe Wayne didn’t know anything.
“They only let me go because I promised I’d bring you back. They told me where Keeton lived and said if I didn’t show up with you in twenty-four hours, they’d finish taking me apart!”
God, the whining. He probably expected her to feel sorry for him. “And then what? You think if you turn me over, they’ll leave you alone?”
“No. They’re not gonna leave me alone. They’re gonna make me part of their organization.”
“
What?
” Could he be
that
stupid?
One look at his smug, sweaty smile answered the question.
“That’s right. They want to add my network to theirs. A merger, they called it. I’ll keep my operation. They’ll probably expand it, give me more territory.”
“What, so you’ll be their regional sales manager? These werewolves—
werewolves,
Wayne—make the Mexican drug gangs look like a church choir. What are they gonna need you for once they’ve got all your business? If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you to get lost, but I bet they just kill you as soon as you hand me over, and then—
ow!
”
He’d batted her head again, harder this time, and the pistol grip struck her behind the ear again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden surge of tears. She would not cry in front of her psychopath douchebag piece of shit uncle.
Bryan would expect her to keep her wits.
“Little Miss College Girl thinks she’s so much smarter than me,” Wayne sneered. “If you’re so fucking smart, how come I’m dragging your fae ass back to Luxor?”
Yeah. That was a good question.
Chapter Ten
An hour and a half after the ambulance took TJ away, a small plane lifted off from a private airport in north Houston. On board with Bryan were Taran Lloyd and a human FBI agent named Mauro. Bryan had turned off his phone to save the juice. Mauro’s laptop had a strong WiFi signal, and the agent was tracking Sara on the GPS site.
Bryan listened as Taran talked to Nick, who’d stayed behind at the hospital with TJ.
“She’s in recovery but not awake yet.” His Alpha didn’t sound as lost and frightened as he had when they’d found TJ, but his voice was still tight with worry. Bryan could almost smell his distress over the phone. Nick Wargman’s air of aloof control was legendary among werewolves both inside and outside the Houston pack. To witness him losing it had scared the hell out of Bryan’s inner wolf.
“But they got the lung reinflated, right?” asked Taran.
“Yeah,” Nick replied. “She needed a couple pints of blood, but it looks like she’ll be okay. We got to her in time. Nobody here could believe she’d managed to crawl into the bedroom and make the call. I knew she was a tough little redneck, but Jesus.”
“When she wakes up, tell her Bryan and I said she’s officially the most badass chick we know.”
“Lark’s with her now—want me to get her?”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll be calling you when we land in Marshall anyway. Later.”
Mauro looked up from his laptop. “She’s okay?”
“She will be,” Taran answered.
“Good. Okay. It looks like Hedges is still headed for Luxor. He’s a little past Carthage now. We should beat him by an hour and a half. Gives us plenty of time to talk with local law enforcement and get set up to intercept him. Four agents from the Dallas office—all werewolves—are waiting in Marshall. We can head out as soon as we land.”
“Only four?” He wanted to go in with enough guys to take out all the werewolves they assumed Hedges was planning to meet.
Mauro started to say something, but Taran spoke first.
“Look, B, I know you want to take these assholes down right away, and I do too, but I don’t think we need more than six armed wolves. And Mauro, of course.”
“Hey, man,” the agent protested. “I may be human, but I’m a Marine.”
“Second Recon,” said Bryan.
“Fourteenth Marine,” replied Mauro.
Taran, an Army wolf, rolled his eyes and continued, “There’ll be seven of us. In a place like Luxor, I think Kuba’s boys are keeping a low profile. You didn’t even run across any until the other night.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Bryan admitted.
“So if we’re following Sara’s signal, we go where Hedges is going and grab him when he stops. Hopefully we catch him with some wolves. If not, we make him find them for us. And, Bryan? Hey, look at me. Stop fidgeting.”
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“Bullshit. You’re coming out of your goddamned skin. Get a grip. You need to be psyched and ready for when we hit the ground. And we’re hitting the ground on two feet, not four. Guns, not claws.”
“But—”
“But nothing. We want Hedges alive. A worm like that will turn state’s evidence in a heartbeat, and we need his information.”
“But, Jesus, Taran, that just doesn’t…”
“That just doesn’t
what
?” Taran asked in a hard voice, wearing his best
I’m a cop, you’re a P.I., STFU and do what I tell you
face.
“It just feels wrong!” Bryan exclaimed. “It feels like a pussy move. I mean, it’s what I did with Kuba’s guys, but—”
“And you were right to do it that way, because you got us our only live suspects so far. Now we’ll do it again to get Hedges, understand? Werewolf scumbags don’t get honorable treatment, and human scumbags don’t either. Besides, we’re gonna be in an Apocalyptic town. Why make things even harder by getting furry in front of the rednecks, you know?”