Wild Nights with a Lone Wolf (6 page)

“Hey.” The girl whined and swatted at Sherri’s foot. “No, I don’t want to go to school today.”

God, if only that was their biggest problem. “Sweetie.” Sherri tried to keep her voice low, knowing from the little metal scraping incident that the guys up front had sharp ears. She nudged the girl again. “We’re in the back of a van near the border. Do you remember what happened?”

Hair brushed her shoulder. “Oh, God. Shit, that was real.” The girl moaned and squirmed some more, probably trying to straighten up, or maybe grapple with the current reality of her existence. “What do they want with us? Can we get out?”

Sherri looked around. The van approached a cluster of houses with lights, although she wasn’t sure if that improved their present situation. “I’m hoping so.”

“Do you think we can run?”

The vehicle slowed. She glanced out the front windows and saw two men under the porch lights holding automatic weapons. “Not yet.” Sherri shook her head. “I hope we can, but they’ve got big guns out there.”

“Oh. God. They’re gonna kill us, aren’t they? Like that other girl.” In the shadows, the girl’s wide eyes and quivering chin weren’t visible, but through the sound of her voice Sherri saw them clearly.

“Shh.” Sherri scooted over and rubbed her shoulder against the other girl’s. “Don’t think that way. We’ll figure something out.”

The van came to a stop, and the man from the driver’s seat came around. Wait, she knew this guy. That jerk from the bar.
Son of a bitch
. “Well now,” he said with a toothy grin. “Don’t go fillin’ the girl’s head with lies.”

***

A
sh grabbed a discarded set of coveralls from his father’s garage. For good measure, he also grabbed a ball-peen hammer.

He’d already checked for Sherri at her hotel, startling the bunched undies from two older ladies in pantsuits when he shifted nude into his human form right in front of her door. He managed to charm his way out of them calling security and into finding out that she’d last been seen on her way to the hotel bar around dinnertime. On her way to seeing him.

He’d also found a turquoise wallet in the trash by the back exit of Howler’s. The cash and cards had been cleared out, but he remembered it from when she’d tried to settle her tab at the bar. Her scent trail ended there by a red Altima rental car, but so did someone else’s.

That someone else needed to get his canines removed with a ball peen hammer.

He took only a moment to listen and sniff before he knocked on the door. He’d bet his restaurant and everything in it that Jojo had been dumb enough to think he’d have sufficient protection if he hid Sherri here. This situation was gonna be hairier than the one at the hotel. Less charm, more hammers.

His stepmother answered the door. “Ash, what on earth—”

Ash shoved past her on the way into the kitchen. He found Jojo and two pack elders hunched over plates of chorizo con huevos. “Where the fuck is she?”

Jojo shot out of the chair. “Man, what the fuck are you—”

“I said...” He hauled Jojo by the shoulder and swung the hammer upward, catching him hard in his hopefully-f stomach. “Where the fuck is she?”

Jojo responded with a pained grunt, maybe more thanks to the hammer in his gut than to Asher’s question. “Did that hurt? Because you’re gonna get another one if you don’t fucking answer me.” Heart pounding, he tightened his grip on Jojo’s arm. He swung the hammer back again to make his point. “Next time I’ll aim higher. Now. Where is she?”

“What in God’s name are you tearing up my house for at this hour?” Eyes blazing and barrel-chest heaving, Ash’s father filled the doorway. Behind him, one of the pack’s human hangers-on hovered with wide and curious eyes—until he got kicked away.

Two of his father’s lieutenants filed in, guns at the ready. Ash’s father gave the signal to hold steady, which was a good thing. Ash didn’t intend to stand down. Not until he saw Sherri.

Ash turned, but shoved the hammer between Jojo’s shaking chin and heaving chest. “Having us a little chat is all, Pop.”

His father gave a look of disdain. “Maybe he’d talk better if you took the hammer off his throat, eh? What’s this talk about?”

Maybe so, but Ash didn’t trust Jojo. He wasn’t letting the little runt slither out the door until he had an answer.

He and Jett had left the pack behind because of their involvement in one too many stomach-turning “business” ventures. Simply telling his father that Jojo had a human stowed away somewhere wouldn’t hold much weight. For all he knew, his father was involved in whatever insane scheme got her taken.

So he faced the wolf who’d sired him and said the only thing he could be certain would matter. “Jojo took my property. I’ve come to get what’s mine.”

J
ett parked six blocks from the warehouse, and changed his clothes in the car.
Twenty minutes.
He’d give himself twenty minutes—half an hour, tops—to get a drink and step out of the hell his night had been. Then he’d pull his shit together again. Then he’d leave.

That fucking case. The dead girl and Asher running off into the wind had Jett ready to do his own disappearing act. He needed a release. The responsible thing to do after the night he’d had would be to go home and shower or catch up on paperwork. Get some sleep. Go for a run to blow off steam. This though, this got him out of his head better than any moonlight run.

One secret he couldn’t tell anyone, not even his brother. Especially not his brother.

For all the hassling he gave Ash about his personal life, Jett could judge himself far worse. They’d busted one of these underground human-
were
meat markets a year prior. Jett, in his curiosity, had gone looking for more.

He turned off his phone so he could claim ignorance if any calls came. Not that he ever stayed long, and he sure as hell never played. Watching probably scored as high as participating on the sin-o-meter, but it was the way he liked to rationalize. He wasn’t that bad.

He wasn’t like
them.

The guard at the door didn’t smell like
were
, but the big fucker sure did carry himself like one. “Password?”

“
Entre
.” Stupidest password ever. Might as well have everyone say “Open sesame.”

When the guard held out his hand, Jett slapped down his ID and a fifty. Jesus. Fifty bucks to stand around for half an hour and watch some naked fucking around between humans and wolves. Broken down by unit price, porn would be cheaper.

Once inside, a tarted-up door girl wearing nothing but heels and black thigh-highs offered politely to take his clothing. Offered, as if keeping them was an option. These places used their “private club” status to get away with a great deal. Rules got bent. They got broken right the hell in two.

Jett kept hoping he wouldn’t be around if that happened.
If? When.

He ordered a double amaretto on the rocks from the bar. Something to drink so he wouldn’t look like a total asshole, but he’d be fine to drive in a short while when he tucked-tail and disappeared into the night.

A tall man with sandy hair appeared at his elbow. “You move fast. I wanted to buy you a drink, but you beat me to the punch.”

“Another time.” Jett smiled, knowing he spoke a lie. Not for the first time, he wished he didn’t have a rule against hooking up at these parties. Rules were a must. Heaven forbid another raid busted everybody’s fun. He couldn’t afford to have his dick buried in some unsuspecting human while the building owner did lines of coke off a prostitute in the back room. For example.

The man trailed a finger over the faded pack markings on Jett’s forearm. “My wife over there finds you extremely attractive. I’d love to see you two together.”

The hairs on Jett’s neck and shoulders stood up as interest mixed with annoyance at being touched without permission. He looked over to a post in the center of the room where a dark-haired woman posed against it, one hand in her hair, the other holding a mixed drink. She had creamy skin and lush curves, and even though he had no interest in females, he had to appreciate her beauty.

The idea of a man fetishizing his wife with a
were
, however? Plain old icky. There was also Jett’s no fucking rule. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t do couples. I’m a one-man kind of wolf.”

Or none, since bonding among his kind meant something much different than it did among humans. Jett was alpha of the blow and go. Quick and impersonal.

Lovemaking? Relationships? He wouldn’t know how.

The sandy-haired, wife-pimping man tipped his head. “Understood.” He leaned to the side, ostensibly to bump shoulders, but managed to bump other parts as well. “Let me know if you change your mind about that drink.”

Jett grinned as the man sauntered back to his wife. Human behavior could be so interesting. Sometimes he didn’t think they could be all that different. Sometimes, he felt a million miles from their kind.

“Oh my God!”

Jett’s fingers tensed at the shout. Shit, he had no gun. No clothes.

He also had nothing to worry about. At the far end of the warehouse, a young, female shifter with golden hair writhed on a table. A human woman, dressed in shiny red heels, wrapped an intricate network of rope around the young
were’s
body.

Jett sucked in a breath. Fascinating. He’d heard of this sort of thing, but hadn’t seen it in action.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. They weren’t fucking. Hell, the two hardly even touched. The sight held him captivated all the same—a
were
submitting to a human, so turned on by the ropes binding her that she heaved and trembled with each breath.

A were submitting to a human.
He wanted to look away, but couldn’t.

“Hot as fuck, huh?” A hand brushed Jett’s hip but he didn’t look down.

“If you like that sort of thing.”

“You must. You’re hard.”

Jett shook his head, still watching the display. “It’s only the fact that they— Hey.” He turned when stray fingers that weren’t his own brushed along his dick.

Oh, fuck a huge-assed duck. In Jett’s distraction, Kyle “Eagle Eye” Roth had entered and sidled up close. The young man pulled his hand away, but maintained a tight enough margin that Jett would brush against him if they breathed wrong. Or... right.

Kyle was one of the tail-chasers from his father’s pack, and now Jett would definitely have to stay away from these after-hours parties. He couldn’t risk running into old pack members here. Shit, that was worse than running into someone from work.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Like everybody else, the man wore no clothes. With nothing for Jett to grip onto except skin, he resisted the urge to reach out and grab hold of the kid’s throat for maximum threat.

Kyle put up his hands. “Hey. Relax. I needed to talk to you.”

“So you thought you’d try and jerk me off?”

“My mistake.” Kyle shrugged, but the corners of his mouth turned up a fraction. Much the way a criminal stifled a smile when telling a lie.

Jett crossed his arms over his chest. His wood had deflated, but the ridiculousness of their conversation lingered. “So what do you need to say to me? How the fuck did you even know I was here?”

Kyle grinned openly. “I saw you before. I was at the party last month.”

Apparently Jett wasn’t the only one with secrets. “I don’t remember seeing you.”

“I was in the mask.”

“The person wearing a mask was—” Jett clenched his jaw in the middle of his
holy shit
moment.

“The guy getting banged in the center of the room. Yeah.” Kyle tugged his ear, looking red-faced at the floor.

Jett shook his head. “That’s not gonna look good if my father finds out.” So they both had secrets to keep. The fact should have relieved Jett, but inexplicably all he felt was more anger.

“But he’s not going to, is he?” Kyle stared up with sharp eyes. “Now, can we go somewhere to talk? It’s about Asher. He showed up as I was leaving, and I think his ass is in some seriously deep shit.”

***

S
herri opened her eyes to Ash’s handsome face. She smiled, her heart thumping with a pleasant “Hey, how’s it going?” rhythm. She hadn’t thought she’d see him again, and the surprise was a good one until she tried to reach forward and couldn’t.

Because her hands were tied.

The “Hey, how’s it going?” turned to “Oh, shit.” when she realized a) That horrific dream had been no dream and b) Ash was a part of this.

She groaned. “Holy crap, I have the worst taste in men. What the hell were you supposed to be, the bait?”

He slapped a hand over her mouth and glanced over his shoulder. “If you can hang on and let me explain,” he said slowly, “I might get us both out of here alive.” He leaned in, nuzzling his nose against her neck. “Good, you haven’t showered since you were with me.”

What an odd and embarrassing observation. “Of course not. They took me from the damned parking lot. How can you tell?”

“Your scent.” Another glance. He turned back and started on the ropes binding her wrists. “I’m going to untie you, but you have to stay put and do everything I say. Promise?”

“I don’t think—”

Another glance. His eyes took on a wide, wild glow. “I’m sorry to put it this way but if they think you’re my property your life will have more value. Now please promise.”

What in God’s name? “Jeez. Okay. Yes. Now will you explain what’s going on?” One wrist came free. She worked it back and forth to ease the stiffness.

Voices came down the hall.

“What’s your last name?” He freed her other hand.

She rubbed her sore wrists. “What? Walker. Why—”

He silenced her with his mouth. His fingers gripped her arms with bruising strength, and though her first instinct was to shove against him and ask once again what in the name of
worst explanation ever
was going on here, she relaxed against him instead. Her body remembered this kiss, and he’d asked her to promise. Something in his eyes resonated as genuine.

So she kissed him back. Her heart thudded against his, everything both new and familiar with the added dash of exhilaration and fear. She still wasn’t certain if he had honestly come to help her, but for once in her life she hoped like crazy her gut was pointed in the right direction.