Gareth leaned as hard into the door as he could, trying to give everyone the most room possible. Although we’d been a pack awhile, this concept of such cooperation was new to us. It made me itch.
And so did Pietr’s presence.
I blinked, trying to refocus.
But I felt his eyes boring into the back of my headrest.
I sank down in my seat, grabbing hold of anger’s heat instead of the heat Pietr’s presence signaled in my body. We were only a few turns away from the location Max and Alexi had traced them to. I needed to be sharp. I imagined my fingers folding around Dmitri’s neck … because as involved as Gabe was in all this, Dmitri was the catalyst and that meant he needed to be removed from the equation.
Alexi
The fact they had not been hard for us to find only put me further on my guard. “This should not have been so simple,” I commented, watching as Max followed the scents as much as the road.
The scents of Dmitri, Gabriel, Noah, and Terra seemed heaviest in this area, now it was merely a matter of narrowing our results. In only a few more minutes we had found their base of operations—a modest house on the far side of Junction. “If they wanted us to never find them they would have gone farther.” We drove past it, examining the area for entrance and exit points.
“They would have left Junction,” Max added with a slow nod.
“Or they would have masked their scent the way Wanda and Kent did,” Pietr interjected. “But they are here. In Junction, with no desire to hide.”
“A trap,” Max muttered. He turned the car away from the house, beginning to put distance between us and it in increasingly large blocks of real estate. “I want to know what we’re getting into so—”
“We know how to get back out,” I agreed.
“Go back to the house,” Marlaena demanded. “I can’t believe you’re so paranoid—”
“Cautious,” Gareth said.
“It’s not a trap. It’s just because Dmitri and Gabe are cocky bastards so full of themselves they can’t imagine anyone bringing the fight to their doorstep,” Marlaena snapped, adjusting her seat belt. “You give them too much credit.”
“You give them too little,” I suggested. “Dmitri was military before he went Mafia. He has a mind for strategy, does he not, brother?”
“Da,” Pietr said. “He does.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Marlaena muttered. “We need to get in there, get my pups out, and then—I don’t care—blow the place to bits. I just want Noah and Terra out.”
“Don’t be stupid, ’laena,” Gareth urged. “We need to do this together. To cooperate so everyone gets home safely.”
“Dammit, Gareth,” she snarled. “Alphas don’t beta down to anyone—”
“Stop it now,” Pietr demanded, leaning forward to lock eyes with her.
Her mouth sealed, and she looked at him wide-eyed.
“You will cooperate for the good of your pack and the safety of my family.”
I kept my mouth shut, thinking the whole time, alphas do not beta down to anyone, except each other. That was good enough for me.
At least for now.
Marlaena
Nearly nose to nose with Pietr in the convertible, all the anger drained away from me, and I found my eyes dropping from his intense stare to his firm mouth with its promising lips.
I licked my lips and tore my gaze away, my heart hammering in my chest. I blinked rapidly and tried to regain my place in the conversation. “I will cooperate,” I said unsteadily, “for the sake of my pack and because if I don’t, you all will blunder around and screw everything up.” So why did it suddenly sound like I was pouting?
I was an alpha.
I snarled, promising to myself as well as all of them, “When we get there, I swear I’ll—”
Pietr leaned forward between the seats, thrusting a hand up to silence me.
I whipped around in my seat belt. “Don’t you—” I warned.
His raised hand just curled and pointed straight ahead out the windshield.
I turned, my gaze following, and before the car had even stopped, I was jumping out of my door and rushing to throw my arms around the boy who was walking in the middle of the road, his head down, looking heartbroken. “Noah!” I shouted.
He struggled in my grip a moment, before realizing it was me, and then he looked up. His eyes were red.
“You’re okay now, Noah,” I said. A truck whipped past us, blaring its horn. “Let’s get out of the road to make sure you stay that way,” I said, dragging him to the road’s edge.
Max pulled the car over beside us.
“Get in,” Pietr ordered, and we pushed into the back together, shoving Pietr out and to the front.
“Where’s Gabrrriel?” I asked, the name turning into a growl.
“I’ll show you,” Noah offered.
“Good kid,” I said. “Everyone ready? We still have one rescue to do.”
Nods and grunts answered me.
“It won’t matter, though,” Noah whispered from beside me, his face turned downward.
“What? Why not?”
“Because Terra’s not there.”
“What? Why isn’t Terra there?” I pressed my face to the window briefly, thinking she’d followed him but was walking more slowly for some reason. Packmates and off-and-on girlfriend and boyfriend that they were, I knew spats happened—at the most inopportune times.
“Because this morning Dmitri took her away.”
Jessie
“They have Noah!” I shouted, seeing the text.
Suddenly the excitement of car chases, explosions, and good-looking women was not nearly the most important thing as the pups jumped to their feet, shouting, clapping, and hugging one another.
“And Terra?” Darby asked.
My mouth pinched shut. “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “No word on Terra yet. But if anyone can find her, it’s Pietr, Max, and Alexi.”
“And Gareth,” Kyanne added.
No one mentioned Marlaena.
Not once.
Marlaena
Noah led us back to the house he’d just escaped from—the same house we’d identified not twenty minutes earlier. He threw open the door, bolder and angrier than I’d ever seen him.
Or ever imagined he could get.
“Those moves Dmitri taught me? They worked on Gabe pretty well. As soon as he helped shove Terra in Dmitri’s car, I hit him and left him…” He paused at an empty spot on the floor. “Here,” he whispered, raising his eyes to mine.
“Grrraarrr!” The wolf burst from the shadows, and limping, knocked me down to the ground and went straight for Pietr.
Pietr fell backward beneath the force of Gabriel’s leap, one hand reaching behind to stop himself from hitting the floor as his other slipped out of its human form, tendons popping and bones dissolving to re-form as claws extended. Pietr shoved the wolf back and sprang to his feet again, pushing all his weight forward to pin Gabriel against the nearest wall.
Pietr’s huge, clawed hand held the struggling wolf by his throat, Pietr’s hips knocking Gabe’s aside so the wolf’s powerful hind legs had no stomach to kick out against. With a grunt of effort Pietr raised the wolf just far enough that his hind paws scrabbled wildly in an attempt to touch the floor, claws only grazing it.
Gabe twisted and fought to break free of Pietr’s unforgiving grasp, but it was no use. The wolf’s tongue lolled out, and Gabe gasped for breath. Still Pietr, with hard eyes and pointing teeth, held him suspended.
Gabe’s head rolled to the side and I shouted, shoving Pietr aside with all my strength. He rocked on his feet, and popping his fingers open, let go of Gabe, watching him slide to the floor with a blink.
In the space of a few heartbeats Gabe was no longer wolf but entirely human. He glared at Pietr, his upper lip curling.
Fighting my own cruel intent, I swept down and dragged him up against the wall once more. Only I let him keep his footing and I pressed my forearm
across his heaving chest.
“Explain yourself, or, so help me God, I’ll end your sorry existence right here and now,” I snarled, my fingernails thickening and sharpening into points with a schnikt.
His back flat to the wall, Gabriel panted a moment, but his ragged breathing translated into a rough chuckle. “Isn’t that what Margie used to claim before she told Phil to get the belt? She was going to end your sorry existence?” He tried to look over my shoulder, to where Gareth and Noah watched. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He might make verbal jabs at me, but I shifted my weight to block his view so he’d get no satisfaction tonight.
“Why take the pups?”
“He promised to take me with him,” Gabriel whispered, so close I could smell his breath. “If I just brought him Noah and Terra—two wolves for a fresh start. Just what we needed, remember? To separate. To start all over.”
“You could have just left. You didn’t need to risk the pups. I would have given you money.… You didn’t have to take it.…”
“No one gives us anything, ’laena. No one. I take what I need. I always have and I always will.”
“You’re at war with your own pack, Gabriel—don’t you see that? You’ve torn them all apart trying to decide whose side to be on. They’re pups.…”
“By your definition, so am I,” he snarled.
I stepped back. He was right. He was barely eighteen. I forgot that too often as we fought and squabbled over power. We aged so quickly because of the wolf inside and because of the way we tore at each other mercilessly. “Yes,” I agreed. “Yes. But I can’t compare you to Noah or Terra—don’t you see that? You’re so…”
“Different?” He said it like even forming the word on his tongue left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Yes.”
“That’s why we don’t work. I’m as different from them as you are. We’re both fighters, ’laena.”
“And since opposites attract and like forces repel?” I mused.
He shrugged. “Can’t you see? We’re the same under the skin. We’re alphas. We take what we want. Take what we need. We don’t answer to anyone.” He brushed the remaining fingers of his hand across my face. “And we shouldn’t have to.”
I pulled away, my guts knotting at the touch of his hand. His scent burned in my nostrils like the acrid smell of fire and ash. “I answer to my pack. That is the definition of being an alpha. That is the definition of leadership. Answering to the needs of those lower down the food chain.”
“We must have different dictionaries,” he whispered. “A true leader answers to no one but guides his people to where he knows they need to be.”
A sigh ghosted out of me. I was making no progress with him. “We have Noah and he’s safe. That’s one. Let’s try this one more time, Gabe,” I said. “Tell me where Terra is and I’ll forget all about this.”
He snorted. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
My eyes closed and I focused on the sound of his breathing, the beat of his heart beneath the iron press of my arm. His heart beat fast, but it held steady and true. Gabe was scared, but he wasn’t lying.
“Dammit.” I shoved off of him, stepping away and brushing myself off in disgust. I tugged at the hem of my T-shirt, straightening it. “I don’t want to see you again, are we clear? I want you gone.”
He stared at me passively, his eyes giving no hint of either obedience or rebellion.
I lunged then, knocking him back against the wall hard, my arm across his throat. His eyes went round with shock. “If you don’t make yourself gone, I will.”
Awkwardly he moved his head up and down just once in a nod of understanding. I peeled back, bolting away, bounding out the door and to the car.
We had Noah back and we’d find Terra somehow.
And, one way or the other, I’d be free of Gabriel.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alexi
They tumbled out of the den when they heard us at the door. There were shouts of “Noah!” as the pups pounced him and wrestled their way across the foyer.
“I doubt I could get used to that sort of greeting,” I commented, shaking my coat off on the porch before securing the door behind me.
Gareth was already leading them down to the basement to try to stem the inevitable tide of questions regarding Terra. Marlaena watched Pietr.
And Pietr watched Marlaena.
Jessie cleared her throat. “Everyone okay?” she asked, her gaze lingering on Pietr’s pale face longer than it seemed she intended.
He nodded.
Max pushed between Pietr and Marlaena and grabbed both Amy and Jessie by the waist, spinning them around. “Everyone is fine,” he assured them, giving Amy a quick kiss before he set the exasperated girls down.
I asked the question my brothers were too dense to ask. Or, in Max’s case, too self-absorbed to care to ask. “How did everyone do here? I smell pizza.”
“Yeah,” Amy said, crossing her arms. “You may smell pizza, but you won’t get to have any.”
I looked at her over my shoulder as I hung my coat up and motioned for Pietr and Marlaena to do the same. Like ice statues thawing, they began to move and followed my suggestion, but their movements were stilted and wooden. I had to look away.
Jessie was not so fortunate.
“The pizza?” I asked, trying to draw everyone’s attention from the disaster in the making in our foyer.
“All gone,” Amy explained. “Every lick. And I do mean there was licking involved,” she muttered. “Of the pizza boxes. But what’s a little extra fiber, right?”
I laughed, but the sound came out as false as Pietr’s and Marlaena’s body language seemed. “So what is there to eat, Jessie?” I asked.
She shrugged. “You look pale,” she said to Pietr, stepping forward.
Marlaena stiffened beside him.
“I’m fine,” he argued. “Tired maybe. Dmitri was nowhere in sight, and Gabe wasn’t much of a challenge.”
“Not for you,” Marlaena said with a smile that spoke volumes.
“Did you fight him?” Jessie asked as she reached a hand up to Pietr’s forehead.
“Da,” he muttered, pressing his fingertips over hers to hold her hand on his head. “Marlaena made me stop,” he added solemnly.
“Well. Thank you for that, at least,” Jessie said in Marlaena’s general direction. “Huh. You aren’t any hotter than you usually are,” Jessie muttered. “And it’s not like you could be coming down with something, right?”
Sweeping her hand into his own, he kissed the pads of her fingers.
Marlaena turned away, busying herself with the coatrack.
“Nyet,” Pietr assured. “I am fine. Just tired. I’m allowed to be tired, da?”
Jessie poked him in the shoulder. “You’re allowed to be tired, da,” she teased. “But not cranky.”
“It is good to know,” he said.
“Let’s find you something to eat, okay?”
“That sounds like a wonderful plan,” Pietr confirmed.
Wrapping her arm around his waist, Jessie towed him toward the kitchen, the rest of us following.
Except for Marlaena.
“I’ll go check on Gareth,” she said, but no one listened because no one cared.
Jessie
“Was it hard—fighting Gabe?” I asked him.
He rolled over to look at me, his eyes clouded with memory. “It was harder to stop.” He flopped onto his back, one arm tucked beneath his head as he stared up at his ceiling so he didn’t need to meet my eyes.
“But you did stop,” I reminded him. “You could have … killed him?”
“Da.” His voice was deep and hoarse. Strained. “I wanted to. He took you from me. He nearly had you killed.”
I puffed out a breath. “But don’t forget, Marlaena’s the one who almost did the killing.”
“So what would you have me do?” he asked, his tone going flat and nearly mechanical.
&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” I admitted, setting my hand on his chest so I could feel his heart beat beneath my palm. His heart in my hand … I sighed. That’s what I wanted. To hold his heart. “Just don’t…”
He sat up to look at me, pinning my hand to his chest like he was worried it would leave. “Don’t what?”
Don’t forgive her? Don’t look at her that way? Don’t … don’t what? I shook my head. “Just don’t let me go,” I whispered, sliding my hand free of his so I could lean my head on that space instead.
“Never,” he whispered. “Never.” He leaned back again, taking me with him, and I dozed off like that, his heart racing in my head.
* * *
I woke to Pietr dozing beside me and slipped off the bed, out the door, and down the steps. I headed for Alexi’s room, but hearing movement in the dining room I turned that direction instead.
Alexi was at the table, staring at his cell phone and tapping a pack of cigarettes.
He froze when he heard me.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing with my chin.
“Cell phone,” he said, holding it up for me to see.
“No, jackass. I meant the cigarettes.”
“If you knew they were cigarettes, why ask?”
I pulled out the seat beside him and sat down. “You know what I mean.” I poked the cigarettes. “Was it so bad tonight? Fighting Gabe?”
“Nyet.” He spun the pack, watching it solemnly. “It has nothing to do with Gabriel. Or the fight.”
I noticed the phone again. “Oh.”
The pack of cigarettes was still unopened, and I certainly didn’t want to be the one to ask the question that would make him want to chain-smoke every one of them, but it was a question that needed to be asked. It was the question that was keeping him up at night. “How is Nadezhda?”
“Happier without me.”
“Oh. Did you two—”
“Break up? Nyet. I never said the words to make us have anything to break up. I was such a coward. I never said…”
A long sigh escaped me like I had developed a sudden leak. “You never told her you loved her?”
“Nyet.”