Chapter Two
While Pedro cleaned up and organized food and drink, Aleco showered. His buttery cock was greasy and required extra soaping. As he washed he hardened again. It was tempting to jack one out, but he resisted. When they were all together later, there would be plenty of opportunities to come.
Perhaps he’d fuck Julie and make Pedro watch until he was shaking with desire. Then he’d suck him off, as he carried on fucking their wife. Or maybe he’d instruct them both to suck his cock to get him hard, then he’d shove into Pedro as Pedro ate Julie out.
Oh, how he loved to hear them both coming at the same time.
The possibilities were endless. And he’d be in control, setting the pace, giving the orders. That was the way it always was.
He flicked off the faucet and stepped out. He thought of Pedro reaching around and taking his cock from his jeans, smothering it in butter. It was a bolder move than usual. At one time Aleco would have turned and decided how the encounter would go. But as it was, tired from his run, content with the new situation Neo was in, Aleco had found himself happy to take a back seat, slightly.
He dried off and grinned as he did so. Perhaps he was mellowing in his old age. Rubbing his hair, he thought of spanking and finger-fucking Pedro. Mmm, maybe he wasn’t mellowing after all. He’d only succumbed to Pedro’s control for a few minutes. There was still plenty of life left in his dominant side. Just as well, as Alpha male, he had the entire pack to think of, not just his household. Wouldn’t look good to be getting soft.
He rubbed at his chest hair. There were more gray flecks than black now, same with his hair. And when he was in his dog form he was all silvery-gray. But that was okay. He didn’t fancy the alternative to getting old. He was in no rush to meet death.
He pulled on jeans and ran his fingers over his messy hair in an attempt to tame it. No, getting older was okay. So long as he had his health, his mind and his two mates.
He propped open the bathroom window to let out the steam, then headed into the kitchen.
Pedro had set out cheese and cold meat to go with the bread, and a jug of iced water. The butter, however, was in a woeful state.
“Julie won’t be impressed.” Pedro gestured to the butter that had deep finger marks going through it.
Aleco huffed. “Yeah. Best get some more from Flo. I noticed she’s got a fence down, maybe take some wood and fix it in exchange.”
“Will do.” Pedro poured the water and nodded at the butter. “We’ll keep this for later. I can imagine Julie all slick with this.”
“Mmm.” Aleco smiled at the thought. “What time is she due back? Did she say?”
“Shouldn’t be too much longer. She wasn’t going for much.”
Aleco glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was mid-afternoon. “Did Patrick take her?”
“Yeah, said he had enough fuel.”
“Good, and likely he had some jobs to do in town.”
“Yep, he did.” Aleco sat opposite Pedro and started on a proper meal rather than a few mouthfuls of bread. The food in the camp was tasty even if a bit repetitive. Bread, cheese and meat from the pigs and chickens they raised. Occasionally they ate goat, but they preferred to use them for dairy produce. Flo was the main keeper of goats and chickens. She was stern and often carried a stick, just in case any young shifters, as dogs, thought it would be fun to chase them.
Few of the shifters were bothered about veg and fruit, but the humans in the pack were always keen to sow and nurture what would grow in the forest. Aleco reckoned it was the carnivore in his fellow dog shifters that meant they could take or leave green leafy stuff.
“Hey, what you thinking about?” Pedro asked, chunking up a slab of cheese.
“Not much. Later, I guess.” He paused. “Just feeling content, you know. It’s a nice emotion.”
Pedro smiled. “I agree.”
They ate in silence, listening to the birds and the gentle sounds of the camp filtering through the window. Aleco couldn’t imagine feeling any happier. All was at peace in his world.
When the meal was finished, Pedro stood. “I’ll go and sort wood for Flo’s fence.”
“Okay. Leave this. I’ll clear up.” Aleco brushed some crumbs from his lap. “But we’re going to start our evening early, as soon as Julie is back. I’m in the mood.”
“Suits me.” Pedro licked his lips and let his gaze drop down Aleco’s body.
Damn, just his attention on him, like that, was like a caress on his cock.
Aleco resisted the urge to bend Pedro over for another seeing to, and collected the plates.
Pedro walked to the door. His elegant way of moving wasn’t lost on Aleco, who paused to admire his mate’s body.
With the kitchen tidied and the table set for a meal Julie would likely bring home, Aleco stood in the open doorway of the cabin. He stretched his arms over his head, gripping the frame and hanging there for a moment, enjoying the way his shoulders and back elongated.
The sun was still warm as it pierced through the trees, though the heat of the day was slipping.
He glanced at Flo’s cabin across the clearing. The fence was fixed. Pedro had stopped banging some time ago. Aleco wondered where he was, though he wasn’t worried. Pedro often shifted and went for a run late afternoon. He said it helped him sleep if he’d used up some of his dog energy.
Aleco released the doorframe and stepped, barefoot, onto the path. As he did so, unease crept over him. He paused, frowned, glanced about again. What was it?
Nothing.
Perhaps he’d just been feeling so content earlier, that now he was waiting for both his mates, a niggle of needing them home had entered his subconscious.
He shook his head and carried on walking.
“Hey, boss,” Greg called, looking up from skinning rabbits.
Aleco held up his hand. “All okay with you?”
“Sure.”
Aleco nodded and kept walking toward the stout wall they all congregated on when meeting to discuss pack matters. But with each step, his belly tightened and a bitter taste grew in his mouth.
Something is up.
He had no idea what, but the axis of his world had shifted, and not in a good way.
Pulling in a deep breath and placing his hands on his hips, he stopped. He nibbled his bottom lip and looked around the camp. He then peered beyond it, into the shadows of the trees.
What is it?
His heart rate quickened. He wondered about shifting. Would that give him any more clues as to what was going on?
Suddenly a screech of tires invaded his thoughts. They only had a single vehicle in the pack, belonging to Patrick, one of their humans.
Julie.
As her name formed in his mind, Aleco knew it was her. The shriek of tires, the cloud of dust billowing behind the Jeep, it was like a smoke signal to the truth that was twisting his guts.
Patrick slammed on the brakes, skidding on the track, then leaped from the vehicle. Aleco raced toward him.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head and hopped from foot to foot.
“What the fuck do you mean ‘you don’t know’?” Aleco demanded.
“We were...she was...supposed to meet me at the hardware store, two hours ago. She never showed.”
“So, did you look for her?” Aleco gripped his shoulders.
Patrick winced. “Yes, of course. That’s all I’ve been doing. She’d told me which shops she was going to, what she’d come to town for. So, I went to them all, to find her.”
“And?”
“Nothing.” He swallowed, apparently trying to rein in his emotions. “But I asked. I found out—”
“What? What did you find out?”
“That she’d been in the pharmacy and the bookstore, but…but she never made it to the bakery.”
“What the hell do you mean she never made it to the bakery?” He gripped Patrick harder.
Patrick flinched. “They didn’t see her.”
“How...why? Where the hell did she go?” Aleco released him and paced to the right and the left. The urge to shift and run into town, sniff her out, was strong, but he needed more information first.
Movement to his left caught Aleco’s attention.
It was Pedro, in his dog form. Huge and the color of cooked gingerbread, he was pounding toward them.
Pedro came to a halt then reared onto his back legs. His face morphed from dog to human and his fur became a fuzzy shimmer then disappeared, and in its place skin and Pedro’s khaki shorts. Like Aleco’s, his feet were bare.
“What?” Pedro asked, holding out his hands.
“Julie.” Aleco rubbed his fingertips on his brow. “She’s gone missing in the town.”
Pedro swung his attention to Patrick, anger flashed in his eyes. “You lost her?”
“No, I—” His words were cut short as Pedro rushed up and shoved him against his Jeep. He rammed his forearm beneath the smaller man’s neck and pinned him in place with his body.
“Ah, fuck, get off,” Patrick said, alarm contorting his face.
“Where is she? How the hell could you—”
“You heard him, get off.” Greg, Patrick’s mate, was behind Pedro. He gripped his shoulders and yanked him backward. Pedro spun, fury in his face and his cheeks red.
“Stay out of this, Greg.”
“Like hell, you just pushed my man up against his truck.”
“He’s lost our woman.” Pedro clenched his fists. “We need answers.” He bunched his muscles, as though about to strike out.
Greg clearly sensed attack coming. He widened his stance and hunched the way a bull about to charge might.
“Calm down.” Aleco put himself between Greg and Pedro, a hand on each of their chests. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
Damn it, as if he didn’t have enough to deal with.
Greg snorted and shoved forward. “He started it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m ending it.” Aleco shoved Greg back, considerably harder than the younger man had pushed him. “So, quit this, now.”
He turned to Pedro and cupped his cheeks. “I know you’ve just shifted, but take a moment, a deep breath, you need to think clearly.”
“I am.” His eyes were flashing and he was breathing fast.
“That’s it, calm.”
Pedro pursed his lips and blew out a long, low breath. When he’d expelled all the air in his lungs and refilled them, he opened his eyes. “Okay. Give me the facts.”
Aleco nodded at Patrick who was now at his mate’s side.
“They went to town as planned. Julie ran the first couple of errands, again as planned, but something interrupted her. She never returned to the Jeep.”
“But?” Pedro frowned. “Why? I mean…what happened?”
“That’s what we need to find out,” Greg said, brushing a lock of hair from Patrick’s forehead.
“Is there anything else? Did you see anything or anyone unusual in town?”
“Anything on the wind?” Pedro asked Patrick.
“How would I notice something on the wind? I’m not a shifter.”
“Fuck, yeah, sorry, forgot for a moment.”
“So, the best thing to do,” Greg said, giving Patrick a rub on his arm as though soothing him for not being a shifter, “would be for us to go back into town and see what scents we can pick up. We’ll probably find her in a heartbeat.”
“Yes. Yes, you’re right.” Aleco fought a churning in his belly. It made him want to be sick, or bend double, or thump his abdomen, he wasn’t sure what. It was just a hole, a pain, a sensation of utter desperation.
Julie, their precious Julie, how could she just vanish? Evaporate? Disappear? It made no sense.
His heart was breaking at the thought of never seeing her again.
He glanced at Pedro. His eyes were misty and his mouth hung slack. Clearly his heart had the same cracks etched through it.
Aleco pulled him into a tight hug. Needing an embrace himself as much as Pedro seemed to need one.
A stifled sob choked Pedro, and Aleco held him tighter, summoning strength and steeling his resolve to think clearly.
He had to.
He was Alpha male. No one else was going to sort this out. And Pedro and Julie were his responsibility. There was no getting away from that fact, not ever.
And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He gave Pedro an extra squeeze and braced for what was to come—searching, straight thinking. A long night if they couldn’t locate her.
“Pedro,” he said, unwinding his mate’s arms from around his waist. “Time for action.”
Pedro blinked back a tear, then appeared to find the same resolve that Aleco had summoned. “Yeah, you’re right. The town to start with.”
“Yes. Call the others.”
Without hesitation, Pedro tipped back his head, elongating his neck and pulling in a deep breath. A long, high-pitched howl left his throat. It spiraled up into the treetops and spread over the forest floor. Wherever the pack was in the territory, they’d hear it. Pedro didn’t need to be in his dog form for the noise to trap in the hairs on the back of every shifter’s neck and summon them.
He doubled up the howl, like an exclamation mark on the situation, then set his gaze on Aleco.
“They’ll soon be here.”
Aleco nodded. “And then we’ll go.”
“The more of us the better,” Pedro agreed.
Within minutes, dogs were running from the forest, urgency in their strides. As they approached Aleco and Pedro, they shifted and glanced at one another, their tension palpable. When the last of the pack had arrived, and several of their human mates had gathered, too, Aleco cleared his throat and placed his hands on his hips. “Julie is missing.”
There was a collective gasp. Flo clasped her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes. Her mate quickly put his arm around her shoulders.
“Where was she last seen?” Davey, a younger shifter who always held an air of calm, asked.
“In the town. She was there with Patrick but didn’t meet up at their rendezvous point.
Seems she made it halfway ’round her errands then vanished without a trace.”
“But?” Flo asked, shaking her head. “Why would she do that?”
“I have no idea?” Aleco shrugged and glanced at Pedro. “ We have no idea.”
“Hate to ask the question, boss,” Davey said, “but everything okay, you know”—he flicked his hand from Aleco to Pedro—“between you all.”
Pedro made a low growling sound. “Of course it is.”
Aleco rested his hand on Pedro’s forearm. “It’s a reasonable question, Ped.” He swung his gaze around the pack. “Everything was, is, fine between us. Better than ever, actually, so we can only surmise that she hasn’t gone of her own free will.”
“You mean you think she might have been kidnapped?” Flo asked with a tremor in her voice.
Aleco shook his head. “It’s a possibility?”
“But by who?” Davey frowned.
“I don’t know.” Aleco felt a familiar tingle up his spine. He needed to shift. He needed to use his powerful sense of smell to track down his sweet human mate. The time for talking was over. “But we’ll find out.”
“Yeah, of course. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Davey clapped and nodded at Pedro. “Don’t worry. Between us we’ll find her, she can’t have gone far.”
“Thanks.” Pedro pulled in a deep breath. “Means a lot.”
“We’re a pack. We stick together. It’s the way we are.”
Aleco nodded. “Dogs to the town then, all except Davey. Can you do a sweep around here? Just in case?”
“In case of what?” Davey appeared confused.
“I don’t know. Perhaps she decided to walk back and got lost.” Aleco shrugged. “I doubt that’s the case. It’s too far for her, but…well we have to cover all bases.”
“I agree.” Davey turned, and as he stepped away he shifted into his dog form. He was a sandy-colored mixed breed with long legs and a strong body.
Aleco was glad he was on his side. Davey was a good guy.
“Patrick will drive half of us to town. The others can run there, check for Julie’s scent on the wind. Once there, make sure you spread out,” Aleco said, casting his gaze over his pack. “Try not to bring attention to yourselves. We don’t want the locals wondering why there’s an unusual amount of dogs wandering about and calling in the warden.”
Raif, a tall black-haired guy, shivered. “No, we don’t want that.”
“Right.” Aleco gave him a sympathetic look. Raif had experienced a bad time with the warden years ago. He still had nightmares apparently.
“Remind yourselves of her scent.” Pedro stepped into the crowd, now holding a pink T-shirt. Aleco recognized it as Julie’s. It was the one she’d worn the day before.
The shifters each took a turn to smell the material. When they’d all done so, Pedro pulled open the door of Patrick’s Jeep. “Time to go.”
Patrick already had the engine running.
Several shifters switched to their dog forms and raced into the forest in the direction of the town. The others climbed into the Jeep, back and front.
Aleco sat next to Pedro. “We can’t get there soon enough,” Aleco said, glancing at the sky again. “We have to find her before nightfall.”
“We will.” Pedro placed his hand over Aleco’s.
“I hope you’re right.” The Jeep picked up speed and he stared at the huge tree trunks flashing past. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”