Chapter 10 #2
Tonya gestured behind her. “Over there is the Moss family acreage complete with barbed wire and honest-to-God gun turrets. We’re going to knock on the front door and show them the warrant.
They’re going to let us in nice and polite because they have no choice, and no one is going to shoot anything or anyone. ”
Becca sighed. “Why don’t I believe it’ll go that smoothly?”
“Because you don’t know us,” Tonya answered. Then her expression softened. “If Theo is in there, we’ll find him.”
“Okay,” Becca said softly. “Thank you.”
Carl squeezed her arm and gave her an encouraging smile. “It’ll be just like she said.”
Becca eyed the shotgun on his hip with a wry expression. He shrugged.
“It’s just a precaution.”
Alan chimed in from the other side of the truck. “Absolutely. Don’t plan to fire a shot.”
Which was the God’s honest truth…in part.
They were here just in case the Moss family was larger than expected.
In case things got out of control. In case…
any of a thousand possibilities occurred.Meanwhile, Tonya got back into her car.
He thought she’d leave without another word, but she dropped her window long enough to shoot Alan a glare. “That Glock better be registered.”
“You can come check my paperwork anytime.”
She didn’t respond except to roll her eyes and then she drove farther down the road. Meanwhile, Carl couldn’t keep himself from touching Becca. “It’ll be fine,” he repeated. “You’ll see.”
She nodded, probably knowing he was reassuring himself as much as her. And then she looked at his gun. “Why do you need that? Can’t you go…” She raised her hands like claws and mouthed, “Grrrr.”
It was adorable and he wanted to kiss her right then and there, but he held himself back. “Can’t until I get some rest. Only the wolves can change more than once a day, and that’s only around the full moon. Most of us can’t even do that. It takes a ton of energy to switch forms.”
“So you’re stuck as a man?”
Only someone who’d never been around shifters would call it “stuck” being human. They all thought it was cool to suddenly become an animal. No one ever thought about the cost. Or that between animal and man, nothing in his head was ever peaceful.
“Some of us like it as a man,” he said gently.
“Only someone who can shift easily would ever say that,” groused his brother in a weird reverse echo of his own thoughts.
Then another voice spoke, deeper than theirs and thick with disuse. “And both of you suck in either body.”
Mark stepped out from the trees. His dark hair looked shaggy, his face haggard, but his eyes were bright and his mouth was curled in a smile. God, it’d been years since Carl had seen that smile, though what it meant was anybody’s guess.
“At least we don’t smell,” countered Alan. “When was the last time you took a shower?”
“This here is one hundred percent natural musk,” Mark said as he clasped Alan’s hand and drew him into a bear hug much to Alan’s gagging discomfort. “Not that froufrou shit you use.”
Carl almost smiled at the exchange. It seemed friendly and human. But Mark didn’t touch people if he could help it, which made that bear hug suspect. And sure enough, while he watched, Mark dropped something into Alan’s pocket.
“Okay, morons,” Carl drawled, his gut knotting as he guessed what was going on. “Cut that shit out. Tell me what’s happening. And while you’re at it, Mark, tell me when was the last time you ate with utensils and slept in a bed.”
Mark shoved Alan away and snorted. “Yes, sir, Mr. Max, sir.” There was no respect in his tone, just a teasing camaraderie. He started to speak, then sniffed the air, his gaze going unerringly to Becca.
Great. Even in human form, the man’s nose was better than a wolf’s.
“Hello, ma’am,” Mark said as he held out his hand. “I’m Mark Robertson, the only bear worth shit in the Gladwin clan. Your Theo is a good kid. I’ll get him home safe.”
“Thank you,” she said as she shook his hand, her tiny fingers completely engulfed by Mark’s massive paw. “And please call me Becca.”
“Becca,” he said with a low, throaty growl that immediately spiked Carl’s irritation. Without willing it, his body started to bulk and if he hadn’t been too exhausted to shift, he’d have sprouted fur.
Which was exactly the reaction Mark had been watching for. Damn it. The man’s gaze shot to Carl and his expression turned from blatantly sexual to vaguely pitying.
“You’re a fucking moron,” Mark said under his breath, obviously talking about the relationship between him and Becca.
It was stupid on all sorts of levels, but it hurt hearing that condemnation from his best friend.
And then Mark softened. “But she smells good and hasn’t freaked.
Plus, she raised a good kid. I’d say you could do lots worse.
” Then he turned back to Becca. “You’re too good for him.
Let me know if you want to explore other options. ”
Becca turned an adorable shade of rosy pink. Meanwhile, Alan scanned the tree line with a worried expression. “Are we really just going to sit and wait?”
“No,” Carl answered. “We can be effective without screwing up the cops.” He just had to figure out exactly how to help without jeopardizing Becca’s safety. So he turned to Mark. “Report,” he snapped.
Mark ignored him long enough to give Becca a final low, sexual growl.
It was all for show. Mark would never poach on Carl’s territory—female or otherwise—but Carl had watched scores of women fall for that deep purr.
He’d be damned if he let Becca fall prey to the lure that was his hypersexed best friend.
And then, just like that, Mark flipped to being all business, reporting in a flat tone. “I’m on perimeter search. Definitely something weird there.”
“Weird how?”
“They’re undermanned. I see a bunch of women and a few preteen boys dressed up to look big.”
Carl frowned, pulling out his cell phone to access Google Earth. He wanted a satellite view of the area.
“I got it,” said Alan, as he reached into his car and pulled out his tablet. A moment later, they were looking at a clear image of the local area, complete with three big buildings and a half dozen smaller ones, four of which had gun turrets.
Mark crowded in, pointing as he spoke. “They’ve got people here and here,” he said. “Roof, too, and one in every turret.” Then his finger circled a dirt track on the east side. “Smells hinky as shit here.”
“A little more precise, please,” Carl said.
“Medical smells. Anesthetic, blood, urine. But weird, too. Animals: dog, cat, monkey.”
“Monkey?” Alan asked. “They have a monkey?”
“More than one.”
Definitely hinky.
“I’m going to scout this last side. Try not to shoot each other.”
“Mark, wait—”
Too late. The man had already headed off, moving quickly and silently through the trees.
Carl wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck and shake the man.
The idiot was too close to the end, his bear dominating everything.
It was in his scent, his quick movements, and his short, tight sentences.
How much time did his best friend have before he became all bear?
Until he went insane and Carl had to kill him?
This was not the time for the idiot to rush into danger that might trigger that last change into animal.
And even worse, what if his best friend was hoping to trigger the change so that ATF would put him down?
It would spare Carl, but damn it, that was not what anyone wanted.
Meanwhile, Alan came to his side, speaking in a low undertone. “He ate at the cafeteria sometime around dawn. Told Marty the stew needed more beef.”
“Probably said it was overcooked, too.” Grizzlies like their meat raw.
Alan didn’t answer, so Carl shifted to glare at his brother. He didn’t like it when the two people closest to him kept secrets. “What did he give you?”
“Asphyxiation?” Alan quipped as he shoved his hands into his coat.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” Carl snapped. “And that’s a goddamned order!”
His brother’s expression shuttered down, his jaw tightening in fury. But it lasted only a second before he answered by pulling a set of keys from his pocket. Carl immediately started swearing vehemently enough that Becca jolted.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing!” both men said together.
“Sorry,” Carl said as he gestured for his brother to put away the keys.
Becca folded her arms and glared at them. “Do I look stupid to you?”
Alan raised his hands in surrender and backed away. “This is a job for Mr. Max.”
God, it sucked being in charge.
“Those are keys to Mark’s underground den.”
Her brows arched. “He has a den? Like a bear—”
“Think of it as a big techno-marvel man cave. He’s actually one of the most brilliant computer programmers in the world.”
She blinked, understandably surprised. Mark came off as a huge bear of a guy, short-tempered with men and hypersexualized with women.
“He’s brilliant,” Carl stressed. “But he also has too much bear DNA in him. He’s going feral and he knows it.”
Her lips pursed in a silent O of understanding. “That’s why you asked about eating and sleeping as a man. You want to know how close he is to turning completely animal.”
He nodded, misery tying up his insides. “He gave over his keys because he knows he doesn’t have long.” He jerked his chin toward his brother. “Alan’s the one with the law degree. He handles all the wills and stuff.”
“Because he’s going to die as an animal? Don’t they just live…as bears?”
No point in sugarcoating it. “The human mind can’t handle that much animal. Spend too much time as a bear and the mind goes insane. A crazy bear is a destructive killer and needs to be put down. There’s no way around that.”
“My God,” she whispered. “And Alan will have to do that?”
“No,” he said flatly. “Alan handles the legal stuff. As Max, the killing is my job.”
She gasped as she turned to him, her eyes wide with horror. “Is there any way to stop it?”