“And the shifter who uploaded the vid?” prompted Marcus.
It was Roni he looked at when he revealed, “Nolan Richards.”
Nick looked at her. “That’s our old Alpha’s son. The asshole who practically led the campaign to alienate you from our old pack.”
Yep, and Roni was totally and utterly fucking pissed. Hadn’t he caused her and her family enough damn problems? Any other time, she might have ranted and raved. Not now, though. Because while she had a true monster like Noah Brunt before her, it made Nolan seem like a cute, fuzzy kitten that shot golden nuggets out of his ass. She’d save the ranting for when it was all over. Then she’d get even, like she always did.
“So,” said Dante, glancing at the wolves around him. “Who goes first?”
Taryn spoke for the first time. “Before you boys get started, I’d like a few minutes with this piece of shit.”
As the female unleashed her claws and prowled toward him, Brunt struggled against the bonds. “Now wait a minute. You agreed to make this quick.”
Dante puffed out a long breath. “Make it quick . . . that’s such a loose term. I mean, ‘quick’ could mean anything really. Relative to whatever time frame a person has in mind, it could be seconds, minutes, hours, days—even weeks.”
Nick’s smile was dark. “We intend to give you exactly what you deserve.”
“And since we won’t be attacking the jackals until tonight,” began Marcus, “that gives us all day to play with you.”
Brunt moved his gaze to Roni, as if expecting her to speak up on his behalf since he’d revealed Nolan’s name, but she shrugged at him. “You can’t expect mercy from shifters whose pups and mates were endangered. But I’m sure you can understand that. After all, that’s your motto, isn’t it? Show no mercy.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Funny how torturing a sociopath could ease tension, mused Roni.
Both packs had been restless since the car crash a few months ago, desperate to get their hands on those responsible. Dealing with Brunt had taken the edge off everyone’s anger, honing it into a lethal blade.
Having had their fun at the hut, Roni, Marcus, Nick, and Derren had returned to their territory to collect Eli, Zander, and Bracken. The plan was to meet the Phoenix wolves a short distance away from the jackals’ location, leaving Shaya with Jesse, Stone, and Kathy while Kent and Caleb monitored the border of their territory.
As everyone said their good-byes in the kitchen, Roni looked up at the male who’d tucked her into the cradle of his shoulder. “Was it hard?”
Marcus rubbed her lower back. “What?”
“Coming here with me instead of going home to your pack?” His instincts had to have balked at it. Had the situation been reversed, she’d certainly have found it difficult.
Framing her face with his hands, Marcus kissed her softly. “You are home to me.” She was everything to him. A small part of him feared that, feared the power she had over him. “I admit, the enforcer in me feels like I’m abandoning them. But it’s not like there’s a war between our packs. We’re fighting as one.”
“Yeah, I know. But you’re a very loyal person—”
“Yes, and my loyalty lies with you, first and foremost. Always will.”
“Stop hogging my sister-in-law,” griped Shaya, pulling Roni to her and then hugging her tightly. “You make sure you come back,” she sniffled. Behind the Alpha female, both Nick and Eli practically melted at her anxiety. It was impossible not to adore Shaya.
“I will,” Roni promised. “Keep this bunch calm—especially Jesse. It’s galling him that he’s been told to stay behind.”
Releasing her, Shaya nodded. “Don’t forget: jackal shifters are bigger and stronger than full-blooded jackals, so be ready. And they always go for the legs and the throat when fighting. And they’re sly little scrappers—they don’t fight fair, so make sure you don’t fight fair either.” She slapped her hands to her cheeks. “I hate that I can’t come with you.”
Nick stroked his mate’s red corkscrew curls. “You know why you can’t, baby.”
Shaya snorted at him. “And you know that you’d have tried to keep me home even if I weren’t pregnant.” Nick just shrugged—totally unrepentant about his overprotectiveness.
That got Roni thinking. She turned to the three men in her life. “I don’t want any of you trying to protect me tonight.” Marcus, Nick, and Eli frowned. “I mean it. I’ll be nothing but a distraction if all you’re thinking about is my safety. Besides, if you really want me safe, the way to do it is to rip apart any jackal you see—you concentrate on what’s in front of you. Got me?” Her brothers nodded with an unhappy sigh.
Marcus rubbed his nose against hers. “I got you, sweetheart. But that works both ways.” He almost smiled at her rebellious expression. He and his wolf liked that she was so protective. “Don’t worry about me. You just worry about this.” He lightly tapped her ass. “It’s mine, and I want it safe.”
“We good to go?” Derren asked Nick as he, Zander, and Bracken approached.
When Nick flicked a worried look at Shaya, clearly hating the idea of leaving her, Stone came to her side and vowed, “Nothing will happen to her while I’m here.”
Nick opened his mouth to speak, but then his cell started ringing. Digging it out of his pocket, he answered, “Hello. You’re kidding me. Are you sure? I’ll be right there.” Ending the call, he swallowed. “That was Kent. He and Caleb found a corpse dumped just over the border of our land, near the edge of the cliff.”
“Corpse?” Bracken gaped.
“They think it might be Eliza, but they’re not sure.”
Everyone glimpsed at Jesse to find that his expression was as blank as usual.
“It’s got to be the jackals paying us back for killing one of their own,” said Shaya, who had gone from being a bag of nerves to a fierce Alpha ready to burn shit down.
Zander nodded. “They must have thought Eliza was still Jesse’s girlfriend.”
Marcus spoke then. “We should check it out before we leave.”
“I’m coming,” announced Jesse.
Shaking his head, Nick told him, “I need you to stay with—”
“While you launch the attack on the jackals, I will remain here to guard Shaya. But I need to see for myself if this is Eliza. I might not have cared about her, and I know she was a pain in everybody’s ass, but . . .”
But it would feel disrespectful to not identify the body in case it was Eliza, Roni understood. “I’ll stay here so that Jesse can go with you,” she said to Nick.
Jesse nodded at her. “Thank you.”
“Let’s move.” Nick turned to leave. Obediently, the males of the pack followed.
Marcus kissed Roni gently. “I’ll be back soon.” He ran with the Mercury male wolves to the opposite side of their territory. Kent and Caleb waved them over before standing back to give them room. Staring down at the brutalized corpse, Marcus felt bile rise in his throat. He hadn’t liked Eliza in the slightest. The fact that she’d provoked Roni into a fight and actually injured her—shallow wounds or not—meant he’d had no respect for her. But surely no one deserved to die like that.
She’d been stabbed, beaten, burned, and quite possibly raped. On top of that, “SNM” had been carved into her stomach. Her bruised, swollen face had been mercilessly slashed until skin actually peeled away in some places. If he hadn’t recognized her scent, Marcus wouldn’t have been convinced it was her.
He slid his gaze to Jesse. There was no grief or devastation in his expression, but there was anger. As the guy had pointed out, Eliza had been a pain in everyone’s ass. But she hadn’t deserved that.
Zander was the first to speak. “It was ballsy of the jackals to come here.”
“But they weren’t that ballsy,” began Jesse, “or they would have picked a spot that wasn’t so secluded. They would have chanced getting nearer to the main lodge.”
“It just doesn’t fit that they would do this to get a
t you,” Marcus said to Nick. “I can understand them wanting to get even for what we did to their pack member. But as retaliations go, this isn’t exactly tit-for-tat, is it? I mean, Eliza might have been”—he struggled for a way to put it politely, not wanting to disrespect the dead—“an acquaintance . . . but she wasn’t a member of your pack.”
“But she was Brunt’s lawyer,” Derren pointed out.
Eli turned to the Beta. “You’re thinking they killed her because they were worried Brunt might have told her about the website.”
“It makes sense. Then they dumped the body here to taunt us.”
“And now we have to decide what to do with the body.” Nick sighed. “Her family deserves to know what happened to her, but we can’t trust the council with any of this. Not if one of them is involved.”
“Maybe we could leave her body in a place it will likely be found,” suggested Bracken.
Nick was quiet for a moment. “This isn’t something we can act on right now. We need to leave; we’ll discuss it when we get back. Kent, Caleb, transfer her body to one of the empty lodges so the wildlife won’t savage it any worse than it already is.”
“I’ll call Trey, tell him we’re on our . . .” Marcus trailed off as a sense of wrongness suddenly slithered over him.
Nick stiffened. “What is it?”
“Something’s not right.”
An abrupt yelp was quickly followed by a succession of shorter yelps that seemed to come from every direction.
Zander growled. “Jackals. The bastards have crossed the border.”
“They’ve surrounded us,” rumbled Marcus. They’d surrounded them in a loose circle, and then slowly closed in, little by little. He’d scented them, but as Eliza’s body reeked of them, it hadn’t raised any alarms. Marcus could now scent something else too. “And they’ve brought some friends.”
A siren-like howl was answered by a hollow cackle. Suddenly jackals and hyenas were charging at them from every angle. Without the slightest hesitation, Marcus shifted, along with the others. Seeing a black-backed jackal leaping at him, the wolf slammed into the animal and clamped his jaws around his throat.
As Kathy handed a mug of tea to Shaya, the Alpha female sighed. “I miss coffee. And runny eggs. And tuna.”
Returning to her seat beside Shaya, Kathy smiled fondly at her. “Not long to go now before the baby’s born.”
“I honestly don’t know how humans cope with being pregnant for nine months, I really don’t. Five months will be enough for me.” She squirmed, her expression pained. “My back is killing me.”
“When you have your baby in your arms, it will all be worth it.” Kathy cast Roni a look of displeasure. “I doubt I’ll get any grandchildren from Roni.”
“Probably not,” allowed Roni, slowly pacing. Her wolf didn’t like being left behind and away from any action. Roni didn’t much like it either; she wanted to remain with her mate and see the corpse for herself. It gave her an idea of how Shaya was feeling. “Kids hate me.”
Shaya laughed softly. “No, they don’t. Kye adores you, and you adore him. Admit it.”
Roni shrugged. “Everyone loves Kye—it’s impossible not to.”
“I’m going to do a circle of the lodge,” Stone announced, pulling out his Glock.
Shaya frowned. “The body was dumped on the other side of our territory. The jackals are too cowardly to come anywhere close to the main lodge.”
“Still, it’s always best to be safe. Here.” He handed Shaya her shotgun. “Kathy, lock the door behind me. Just to be safe,” he quickly added when Shaya went to object. Once he headed out the back door and was swallowed up by the darkness, Kathy closed and locked it.
Sighing, Shaya leaned forward to prop her elbows up on the table and rest her face between her hands. “I feel so helpless. I wish I could come along tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I would never put the baby in danger. Not in a million years. But it will still be hard to sit here, twiddling my thumbs, while my pack puts themselves in jeopardy. Especially Nick. He runs straight into the thick of things.”
“He’ll be fine, honey.” Kathy lightly squeezed her hand.
“I hope you’re right, because if I have to—” Shaya’s breath seemed to suddenly get trapped in her throat.
At the same time, Marcus’s rage slammed into Roni as his wolf shifted and faced the threat in front of him. The impact made Roni stumble. “Fuck.”
Kathy tensed. “What’s the matter? What is it?”
“The jackals have crossed over the border, and they’re attacking,” replied Shaya, breathing heavily.
“Call Taryn,” Roni told her, enraged and fearful for her mate and pack. Nodding, Shaya did just that. Roni glimpsed out the window; the urge to dash outside and join the fight was strong. So damn strong. Every instinct Roni had screamed at her to go to Marcus, to fight at his side and help protect her pack. But she couldn’t leave Shaya with only Kathy and Stone—wherever the hell he was—for protection.
“The Phoenix wolves are on their way.” Shaya returned her phone to her pocket. “Roni, if you need to go to Marcus, I understand.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“It’s fine. I’d go to Nick if I could.” Shaya’s hands clenched tightly around her shotgun, and Roni had a feeling she was imagining shooting every bastard jackal out there. “I hate being helpless, Roni. Hate it. Hate it.”
Roni crouched down in front of a rapidly breathing Shaya. “I need you to stay calm for me, Shaya. Okay? It’s important for you and for the baby that you’re calm. Breathe with me, all right? In and out.”
Nodding, Shaya did as Roni asked. “The body was bait, wasn’t it? The whole thing was a trap.”
“It’s going to be fine, Shaya, we’re—” A noise coming from upstairs made the hair on Roni’s nape stand up. She placed a finger to her mouth, and both Shaya and Kathy immediately froze. Another noise: a slight scuffle. “Someone’s inside,” she whispered, suspecting they had entered through the balcony. Which meant the body hadn’t been bait at all. It had been a diversion, a way of separating the pack to make them weaker—possibly even a way to get to Shaya.
“It could just be my dad,” Shaya said quietly.
“Your dad wouldn’t creep around.” More noise: the padding of paws on the wooden floor above them. “We have to move.”
“Move where?” asked Shaya as Roni took her arm and urged her to stand.
“We can’t go outside.” Kathy got to her feet, her eyes narrowed as she glanced around. “There could be more out there.”
“The basement,” said Roni after a brief pause. “It has a security steel door, and the emergency exit isn’t easily visible from outside. It’s the only exit they won’t have covered.” For once, she was thankful for Nick’s overprotectiveness.
“Wait, what about my dad?”
“He’s probably out there hunting them,” replied Roni. “He knows I’d hide you at the first sign of trouble.”
Silently, they hurried through the kitchen and dining area with Roni in the lead and Kathy covering the rear. As they reached the archway that led into the living area, Roni held her hand up for them to stop. Popping her head around the arch, Roni searched for any sign of an intruder. Satisfied no one was in sight, she continued onward, not stopping until they reached the doorway. They all pressed up against the wall as Roni poked her head out to glance up and down the hall, satisfied to find it empty.
“Almost there,” she reminded a panting Shaya.
The three of them kept one shoulder near the wall as they quietly scurried down the hallway, stopping at the T-junction. Roni quickly peered around the corner, confirming the small hallway that led to the basement was clear. “Go, go, go.” She ushered Shaya and Kathy to precede her around the corner, along the hallway, and down the small flight of stairs at the end.
Roni went inside first. On their left was a bar and seating area while an indoor pool was on their right. Once she was satisfied that the basement was empty, sh
e urged Shaya and Kathy inside. “Keep this locked.”
Eyes wide, Shaya gripped her arm tight. “Wait, Roni, you can’t leave us.”
“I have to fight them off.”
The Alpha female shook her head madly. “No, there could be lots of them. You’re tough, but you’re not invincible. I know it grates on your pride to stay. But you’re not hiding, you’re protecting me. Please, Roni. Please.”
How could she resist that watery plea? She couldn’t. Sighing, Roni nodded and secured the door. “Call Taryn again. Warn her that jackals are inside the lodge.”
While Shaya quickly updated her friend on what was happening, Kathy spoke to Roni. “Even a safety door won’t stand up to shifter strength.”
“No, but it will hold them back for a while and give the Phoenix wolves time to get here.”
“Well, that’s good, because the only things we can barricade the door with are those sun loungers.”
“Moving things around will do nothing other than make enough noise to give away our location.”
“Taryn says they’re almost here,” said Shaya, tucking the phone in her jeans’ pocket. “A few of them plan to search the lodge while the others join the fight. We just have to hang on.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Nick’s in so much pain. He’s tiring, but he won’t take any energy from me through our bond.”
Mates were able to boost each other’s strength using their mating link, but only if it was fully developed. Since Roni and Marcus’s bond hadn’t yet fully formed, she didn’t have the ability to add her strength to his—and it was pissing her off, because he was tiring too. “How do you complete a mating bond?”
Shaya blinked. “Mates have to be one hundred percent open to each other. You have to face whatever holds you back from him.”
“Nothing holds me back.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” She’d admitted she loved Marcus, both to him and to herself. She’d confided in him, had come to trust him, and even to lean on him in some ways. She had accepted that it didn’t undermine her level of independence or strength to do so. Had realized that it was possible to be too self-reliant. In fact, it could even be viewed as selfish, because it was a form of rejection. Helping others could make a person feel good, and this “give and take” could help toward developing their connection. To deprive Marcus of that, to deprive their mating of that, wasn’t fair.