Deadly Pack (Deadly Trilogy Book 3) (13 page)

“Tommy
and Chris back would be nice,” I said, and I maneuvered the phone from its place on my shoulder to my other ear.  “If I remember your note correctly, it said they were mine until I was ready to give them back.”

“I didn’t need them here when I wrote the note,” he said.  “That changed yesterday.”

I stopped pacing, and jammed a hand into my pocket.  “So you weren’t even going to tell me?”

“Obviously I didn’t need to tell you, did I?”

“I thought you actually wanted me to succeed here.”

“I do want you to succeed.”

“Why’d you pull them out then?” I asked, trying to keep the emotion from my tone.  It wasn’t working.  I could hear the hurt and the anger in my voice, and I was sure he could hear it, too.  “You know damn well what I’m facing here and you know I need them.”

“Because,” he said, “you’re not the only one with problems.  I’ve got
a couple rogue wolves here that need dealing with.”

“You’
ve got to be shitting me,” I blurted.  “You called them away to deal with a couple rogues?”

“Pack before blood
,” he said.  “It’s always been that way.  Always will be.  It’s not personal.”

“Pack before blood,” I echoed.
  I closed my eyes because I felt his words slice through me, and even a deep breath didn’t set me right.  How many times had he told me that?  I couldn’t even begin to count.  It was pack before blood at my graduation.  Pack before blood when my aunt — his sister — died.  He hadn’t shown at the funeral or at my graduation because it was always pack before blood with him.  Always.  The thing was, the pack hadn’t needed him then, but my mom and me, we’d needed him.

It was true.  Pack was important, and in the end, I’d always pick what was best for the pack, just like the team had when it came to Jared.  Except with my dad, he chose pack even when they didn’t need him.  And he always would.
  It was his escape from uncomfortable situations.

“
That’s never going to change, son,” he said.  There was a beat of silence and when he spoke again, his tone was even harsher.  “When Tommy shows up there have him escorted back to me.  My enforcers need a word with him.”

“What are you talking about
?” I asked, and started to pace again.  “What the hell did he do?”

“He refused to come home
,” Dad said coolly.  “Dropped Chris off at a gas station, said he was done.  He turned his back on his pack when he was needed, and defied a direct order from me.”

“So you’re saying he refused to leave me to help y
ou deal with your stupid rogues and you want to kill him for it.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

I laughed once.  He meant it, and it left me wordless and stunned.  Twenty years of service and my father was going to have Tommy killed because he’d decided to help me.  There was no way I’d turn my back on him.  Not when he was in shit because of me.

There was really only one thing to do, and that was to lay claim before my father could carry out his asinine
execution plans, even if the idea of adding Tommy to my pack wasn’t one that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.  “Good thing you’re not his alpha anymore,” I said.  “He didn’t have to obey you.”

“Aidan ...”

“Like you said, pack before blood,” I said, cutting him off.  “He joined my team.  He’s part of my pack.  If you really want to take him back for your ridiculous prosecution, my mate and I will consider sitting down and discussing it with you and Mom, but I’ll tell you now, Jade has a soft spot for Tommy.  She won’t be handing him over to you.”  I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true, but I knew Jade, and I knew, just knew that she wouldn’t hand Tommy over whether she liked him or not.

“If you protect him, son, I’m done with you
,” Dad said, without a trace of emotion.  “You sure you want that?”

“Yeah, Dad, I do,” I said.  “You were done with me years ago.  What I do with Tommy w
on’t change that.”  I sighed, shaking my head.  “You take care of yourself, Dad.”  And with that, I hung up.  It wasn’t the first time he told me he was done with me, but right then I decided it would be the last.  And surprisingly enough, I was okay with that.

I fired off a quick text to Tommy:
Talked to my dad.  Welcome to the Dog Mountain pack, buddy.  We’ll talk when you get back.  Pack is meeting at my place.  Moving out soon.

A
nd as I tucked my phone into my pocket, I found myself wondering if he would make it back before we made our move on the cougars.

~ JADE ~

The backyard was mostly deserted, with only Mark lurking nearby, watching me and the women who’d come with Erika.  The air was crisp and clean and leaves covered the grass in a layer of reds and oranges and greens, with only a few stragglers left clinging to the trees.  Erika kicked at them, tossing the ones by her into a small pile, while I waited a little impatiently for her to get to whatever it was that she needed to tell me.

I was feeling a little on edge.  After they’d barged into the house, they’d made a point about making sure Aidan wasn’t home.  Erika claimed that it was a woman’s thing they needed me for, and that they’d really prefer to talk to me without the male alpha and the team listenin
g in, but my gut (and my inner-wolf) didn’t believe her.  Hence, the reason for Mark’s lurking.

The other females hung around by her — all pack members.  There was Whitney, a woman about my mother’s age, with silky blond hair that hung past her shoulders and warm, inviting blue eyes.  There was Kristen and Stacy, sisters, both in their late twenties, only a year apart.  They kept their gazes respectfully dropped, waiting patiently, with their hands clasped behind their backs.  There was also Laura, who I didn’t know well.  She was a newcomer to Dog Mountain, only been here for about nine months, and I thought it was probably the pack that had drawn her to our small town.  And then there was Jo — short for ... well, I honestly didn’t know what it was short for, but I thought it must be short for something — standing right beside Erika.  She was the only one who constantly held my gaze.  Her eyes were light green, and they were laughing, kind eyes that made me feel like she held all the secrets of the world and she was dying to tell me them.

I shuffled my weight to my right foot, as I surveyed them.  I was a bit surprised that none of the women Erika brought were our age, and I didn’t know what or if that meant anything.  Erika typically clung to the pack members who were still in school, and it felt ... off that she was here without any of them.

“Erika, she’s not going to wait forever,” Jo said.  Her voice was like bells, and it sounded as kind as her eyes looked.  It was sweet and encouraging and full of mystery, and it washed away some of my unease by just hearing the sound.  “It would be better if we had her support with this.”

Erika said nothing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, and stuck my hands in my pockets, not because they were cold, but because I felt an unbelievable need to fidget.

“We didn’t say that anything was wrong,” Jo murmured in that sweet, bell-like tone, but this time it didn’t chase away the sense of foreboding that was starting to settle in my bones.

“You don’t need to say it,” I muttered.  There were times, like this one in particular, that I hated being a werewolf.  “I can smell your nerves.  You all are on edge.  Is it me?  Am I that unapproachable?  I know the males had issues at first, but I thought you all were okay with me.”

Erika groaned, and cut me a dirty look.  “Sorry if I seem a little nervous, but the last time I stood in front of you like this you stripped me of my title.”  She didn’t sound sorry, not even a little, and I really hadn’t expected it, but suddenly, I felt bad for her.

“I needed you, Erika,” I said, and shook my head.  “I don’t know why, but I trusted you.  God, I even liked you, and you lied to me.”  I wanted to say so much more, but I didn’t.  Now was definitely not the time, so instead I asked, “Who’s looking out for you today?”

“You mean who’s babysitting me, right?”  Her tone was sarcastic and I gave her a look, one that clearly told her to cut it out.  “Um, no one,” she continued, more cautiously.  “With everything going on I guess you just forgot or whatever.”

Crap!
  I felt my eyes widen.  How could I forget something like that?

I opened my mouth, about to apologize, when Erika said, “It’s okay.  I’m good.  The pack has mellowed out a lot since you and Aidan mated and I made some friends.”

“I can see that,” I said, not sure of what else to say.  The truth?  I was feeling crazy guilty.  Erika might not have been someone I actually liked, but she was still part of the pack, and it was me who’d put her in a compromising position by stripping her of her title.  There was no excuse for my forgetting to assign someone to watch out for her, even if she was trying to brush it off as if it weren’t a big deal.

“Erika came to us yesterday,” Jo offered, after a second of silence.  “She had some ideas on this werecougar mess.  Some really good ideas.”

“Oh, yeah?”  I didn’t mean to sound dubious.  Honestly, I didn’t.  It just came out that way.  I was sure that Erika could have good ideas.  Really, I was.  It was just, well, okay, maybe I was holding onto a little bit of a grudge.

Erika glanced vaguely in Mark’s direction, and then back to me.  “Can you get rid of him for a few minutes?”  Her voice was barely a whisper, and even with my sensitive ears I almost missed what she said.

My first thought was to say no, but my gut, well, it was telling me that I needed to hear her out.  “Mark,” I called over my shoulder, “can you send someone to the store?  Mom’s going to freak if she doesn’t get that stuff for breakfast.”

Mark didn’t look happy, but he did what I asked.  With a jerk of his chin, he took off to the front of the house.

Once he was out of sight, I closed the ten-step distance between me and the females.  When I stood in front of her, Erika offered a ghost of a smile and murmured, “Thank you.”

I offered up a smile
of my own that I hoped looked somewhat sincere and questioned gently, “So what’s this idea?”  Up close, I could see how tired she looked.  Her eyes were ringed with gray shadows, and her complexion was paler than normal.

Erika hesitated for a second, took a deep breath, then blurted, “Well, yesterday when I was with Dom he made this comment about how he didn’t get why your dad hadn’t brought more women in for his pack yet and it got me thinking, maybe he hasn’t told them that they won’t be getting any of our wolves.”

“Okay,” I said.  The sense of foreboding was coming back full force.  “I’m not sure I like where you’re going with this.”

“Just hear her out, Jade,” Jo said, smiling.  She looked sideways at Erika, raising her eyebrows.  “Go on, doll.  Tell her your idea.”

Erika closed her eyes, swallowed hard, and then opened them again.  She looked a little surer of herself, and firmly she said, “I thought that if they were still waiting for us, then maybe we should go to them.”

“You want to go to them,” I stated, not sure I understood.  I looked around from one to the other, and shook my head.  They all seemed excited about this.

“I heard Beck talking last night,” Erika said, and made a face.  “The children … the little girl.  How old do you think she needs to be before they …” she broke off, swallowing hard and blinking fast.  “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this until then.  Now I know I don’t have a choice.  I have to help.  And I will any way I can.”

“We’d make one hell of a distraction,” Stacy interjected.  “Just picture the six us going in and shifting in front of all those men.  I bet it would buy enough time for the team to get the kids out.”

Okay, I had to admit that it was actually a pretty good idea.  The women could go in.  Strut around a little after shifting.  It would definitely cause a distraction.  But, Jesus, they could get hurt, or worse, they could actually end up in those cages if anything went wrong.

“The team, Aidan, they won’t agree to this,” I said carefully, not wanting them to think I was blowing them off.  “You all know that, right?”

“They will if you’re backing it,” Laura countered, and I thought that she was entirely wrong on that.

“I think you all believe I hold more power over those boys than I actually do,” I said, not unkindly, but with undeniable disbelief.  “But,” I huffed out a breath, “let’s say you’re right, and I can convince them, which just to be clear, I’m not saying I will, how do you plan on getting out of there once you’re in?”

“The pack,” they chorused excitedly.

I looked at them closely.  God, they were serious.  “Not much of a plan there.”

“But it is,” said Whitney.  “We’ll already be in there.  When the team is done getting the kids out, the rest of the pack can move in with them.  We can attack from both inside and out.  It’s perfect.”

I settled my gaze on Erika.  “Why are you doing this?”

“I screwed up,” she said simply.  “You gave me a second chance and I want to prove that it wasn’t wasted.”

“Hey.”  Mark rounded the corner of the house, and stalked over to us.  He took one long look at me and asked, “You okay?”