Seeking Pack Redemption (3 page)

As it
turned out, unconsciousness beat reality, or so she discovered when she woke
up, chained in a cell.

I should have run.

God, what an idiot.
He was almost as stupid as his missing younger
brother. Walked right into the trap and pretty much handed himself to the
assholes lying in wait. Worse, Trent knew his two buddies would come sniffing
after him when he didn’t meet them at the rendezvous point, which meant he’d
soon have company—along with the teasing that came along with it. He
could hear it now:
“Caught like a wet-behind-the-ears
pup.”

Goddamned
hillbillies!
What else to call the gap-toothed idiot who
owned enough brains to shoot him with silver buckshot—enough to
incapacitate his wolf—but not enough intelligence to kill him.
Stupid, because once I get loose, I’m going
to rip his fucking head off.
Adding insult to injury, a second inbred
asshole tranquilized him with a dart. It almost made a wolf wonder what the
hell they intended. He might even ask before he tore their throats out. Although
humans were generally considered off-limits, in some cases, such as this one,
where they knew more than they should, there was only one solution available.

First,
though, he needed to get free. Whoever his captor’s father was, which in this
fucked-up part of the mountains could even be his grandpa or uncle, he’d taught
the boy how to tie knots well. But he’d forgotten to tell him that
Lycans
, short of being bound in silver chains, couldn’t be
held by conventional means for long. When straining didn’t work, Trent coaxed
his wolf forth, and the violence of the change, which contorted his body and
ripped his clothes to shreds, snapped the rope.

On four
paws, he hit the floor and sniffed. Bad idea. According to the malodorous scents
hitting his snout this place had never encountered the cleansing touch of a
mop, broom, or anything resembling a cleaner. He did, however, catch the rancid
stench of his captors. Now he just had to find the buck-toothed idiot and his
equally stupid sidekick and teach them why it was a bad idea to shoot a
Lycan
in the ass with silver.

Not
wanting to change back into his human shape to open the door, Trent dove
through the filth-encrusted window. Already half covered in
cardboard,
it gave easily against his weight, with the remaining shards of glass tinkling
to the ground. He shook his thick coat, which sent the lingering bits flying. The
sharp pricks of broken glass, trying to bite through his calloused paws, didn’t
really bother him, but he still stepped gingerly out of the mess until he got
clear. Running on wounded feet was never a pleasant experience.

Raising
his head, he sniffed. Ah, the cool, crisp scent of the forest. How he loved it.
He just wished he’d come here for a better reason.

His little
brother David was missing. Had been for about six months now. But had David’s pack
leader told Trent right away? He couldn’t fault David’s alpha. His brother told
his alpha he was going back home to Trent’s small pack. David lied, and for
some fucked-up reason, which Trent would discover when he caught up to his
missing sibling, kept answering his cell phone and pretending as if he’d never
left. Of course, Trent didn’t know all this until about two months ago. When
calls to his brother’s cell went unanswered, and then the phone became
disconnected, he got concerned and called his brother’s pack alpha. Talk about
a sucker punch to the gut finding out David hadn’t been seen or heard from
since he left.

It made no
sense. His brother wasn’t the lone-wolf type, so where had he gone?
And why did the little prick lie to me?

Given how
long it had been since anyone last saw him, Trent was more worried than he
liked to admit, especially since an order from the Pack Council had come down
the line saying there was danger out there. Something stalked their kind. Or as
the whispers claimed, “The bogeyman’s coming to get us.”

The
smaller
Lycan
groups were ordered to merge with the
larger packs in gated compounds. Curfews were set. People,
Lycans
like himself, who usually feared nothing, were told to not leave unless in
large groups, and to never exit the safety of the compounds after dark. Hell,
even dusk was off-limits.

Rumors
abounded about the strange decree, rumors aided by the disappearances of
wolves, mostly male ones. Large packs of rogues kept cropping up and breaking
the rules—mainly causing trouble and violence among the humans. Those rogues
didn’t live for long once found. The packs had enforcer groups set up especially
to deal with them. Trent even joined a few for the thrill of the hunt. Everyone
needed to do their part to ensure the out-of-control wolves didn’t draw the
wrong kind of attention—a.k.a. human—to their kind.

While Trent
enjoyed the dynamics of a group bent on keeping their secret safe through
violence—something he excelled at—he didn’t like the order forcing
him both to leave his home in the woods and to unite his small group of
Lycans
with an adjoining group. He didn’t like it but
couldn’t deny something was wrong, and whatever it was, it was coming after his
people. The safety of the families under his care mattered more than his pride.

As an
alpha himself, Trent knew that living under another’s rule sucked, even if he had
nothing but the greatest respect for Nathan, one of the council leaders despite
his youth. But no martial law, or logic, could stop Trent from leaving to look
for his brother when he discovered him missing, although his temporary alpha
tried.

Nathan sat behind his desk while Trent paced
across from him, instinct warning him he wasn’t going to like what the council
leader had to say.

“I’ve had people looking into your brother’s
disappearance.”

“And?”

“By all indications, he’s gone rogue.”

“Bullshit,” Trent declared. “David doesn’t have
the backbone to become a lone wolf.”

“Who says he is? We think he’s joined up with a
group of rogues.”

Trent couldn’t help his scoffing tone. “I don’t
believe it. My brother wouldn’t harm a fly. He’s not capable of it.”

Nathan sighed noisily. “What I’m going to tell you
is classified, although you’ve probably heard rumors. The rogues aren’t acting
independently. Hell, they’re not joining these rebel groups because they want
to. Someone is forcing them to act in ways contrary to their beliefs and our
laws.”

“So what, there’s an alpha out there threatening
them to obey?”

“Not threatening. Our enemy is using mind control
to fuck with them.”

A snort escaped him. “Don’t tell me you believe
that! I’ve heard that ridiculous rumor.
A vampire supposedly
controlling wolves.
What a load of crap.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Really? Then why haven’t we had a meeting about
it? Why haven’t you gone public with the knowledge?”

The alpha drummed his fingers on his desk.

Trent smirked. “Because it’s not true.”

“Oh, it’s true all right, but can you imagine
announcing it to the pack at large. Controlling them is hard enough as it is,
even with the Pack Laws. How do you think they’d react if they knew vampires
existed, and that one in particular can control their minds and make them dance
to his tune like marionettes?”

“I think they’d demote your ass as pack leader and
council member and lock you up in a padded room,” Trent retorted. “I don’t know
what game you and the council are playing, but I’m not falling for this
falsehood. I’m leaving to find my brother, martial law or not.”

“It’s dangerous out there. You’ll make a perfect
target for the creature seeking to strengthen his ranks.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Leave, and you’ll be declared rogue,” Nathan
growled. “And be warned, once you step out of those gates, there’s no coming
back.”

“Then so be it.”

Family was
more important to Trent than the pack. David, despite his many faults, was all
Trent had left.

Although Nathan
didn’t come out and publicly declare him rogue as Trent prepared to leave, he
did have a warning posted that any
who
left, other
than during designated supply runs, could not return to the pack. Once Trent
walked through those gates, there was no turning back.

Trent
waved as he drove by. And he didn’t leave alone. His two best friends, Marc and
Darren, came with him, refusing to be left behind, stating, “Like hell are we
letting you have all the fun and scars,” because, as Marc added, “Chicks dig
scars.” Of course, their kind didn’t scar easily, with silver and the mating
bite about the only things that could permanently mark them, but that didn’t
dissuade his best buds. God, he loved the stupid bastards. In many respects,
they were closer to him than his own brother.

It took
them almost two months to track David, following his path from the pack he’d
left to a small town in the middle of nowhere that they almost bypassed except
that their lunch stop at a fish-and-chips stand saw his tempura-covered halibut
wrapped in a bit of newspaper. Wolfing down his lunch until only the wrapper
remained, he almost spat out his last mouthful. In the picture staring up at
him, grainy and grease-stained, was his brother, his arm around a girl. Ketchup
covered the article, which made him snarl in frustration. It took only a little
digging to find the story, and what he read in the dilapidated motel room that
he’d rented chilled him to the bone.

WOMAN MISSING AFTER BOYFRIEND KILLS NEIGHBOR

Local resident
Thea
Papadopoulos
was last heard screaming in the hall of her apartment building moments before
her live-in boyfriend, David Emerson, killed a neighbor who stepped in to offer
aid. An eyewitness, watching through the peephole in their door, described the
murder as chilling, saying, “He just wrung his neck like it was a chicken.”
Authorities have yet to nab the killer or to recover his girlfriend, who was
last seen by a pedestrian walking their dog as he carried her limp body out to
his car. The vehicle has since been recovered in the parking lot adjoining the
national park, but despite teams of searches, including canine units, they’ve
yet to recover either of them. The investigation is ongoing.

Punching a
hole in the motel wall didn’t change the content of the article. And yelling
didn’t bring his brother back with answers.
Because I don’t believe it.
Disbelief, though, wouldn’t return his
brother. At least Trent had a place to begin his search, even if he feared what
he’d find at the end of that path. The article was written six weeks ago, so picking
up any trail would prove challenging, but not impossible for someone of his
ilk.

The town
didn’t have an active pack, the local group having moved on because of the
mandate from the
Lycan
council. Not that Trent needed
their help. When he found his brother, and he would, he’d kick his ass himself
and find out the truth, because the David he knew wouldn’t hurt a human. Heck,
his little brother didn’t even like the fact his wolf hunted squirrels.

So what
would make his little brother snap? Could it be the girl he apparently lived
with? A girl he’d kept secret? Was he on drugs? Maybe the witness was mistaken
and the guy just looked like David.
A ton of questions, and
no answers.
Yet.

Equipped
with a knapsack and walkie-talkies, he and his friends parked in the same lot where
David’s car was found. All around them the forest loomed, a national park with
hundreds of acres of untouched woods, a favorite hunting ground, he’d bet, for
wolves
who
needed to stretch their four legs.
And a great spot for inbred, country hicks to prey on unsuspecting
victims.

For the
moment forget his brother, Trent’s rogue status with the pack, and even his reason
for being there.
First things first.
He had some
fucking hillbillies to track because while David was the nice one in the
family, Trent wasn’t. He’d gotten some of his dad’s old-school attitude, his
favorite one being an eye for an eye. Or in this case, a total
ass-whooping
, his favorite kind.

With night
falling quickly this time of the year, autumn’s grip clear in the changing
color of the leaves, he wondered if he’d be better off waiting for the hicks to
return to their cabin.
But I do so enjoy
a good hunt.

About to
enter the woods in pursuit of his quarry, he halted as the forest around him turned
abruptly silent. The air grew heavy and pressed on him, and the hair on his
back stiffened and stood on end. Danger approached. A cautious sniff made his
snout wrinkle as the crisp scent of the woods was overlain with something
unpleasant, almost a putrid scent, but mixed with something familiar, a hint of
wolf, but a wolf like nothing he’d scented before.

What the fuck?