Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Hmph. A big, bad werewolf just blew me a kiss. That was the sexiest and cutest thing I’d ever seen.
— JULIETTE CROSS
Call our girl.
I ignored my wolf.
Chase her. Go right on over there and make our case.
There’s no case. And no.
We could be making sweet, sweet love.
I shook my head. Even if I’d wanted to take bad advice from my lovesick wolf (am not!), I had a not-so-hot date with Lucky Jansen and his werewolf gang. My brothers and I were a bearded surprise party on our way up the mountain to his place.
I had parked in front of the gas station because Ranger had declared an immediate and pressing need for duct tape. Maverick had gone into the store with him to ensure there was no dillydallying. I was tonight’s designated driver and in charge of our hypothetical quick getaway.
Bet you’d break a few traffic laws if we were on our way to Alice’s.
“You should do it,” Atticus said. He was slouched in the front passenger seat, tapping his fingers on the armrest. “Call your girl. Don’t be such a fool.”
“You flatterer, you.” Not for the first time, I cursed our evil twin connection. Of course he knew I was thinking about Alice.
To be fair, I hardly thought about anything else.
“Not yet,” I told man and wolf. “The time is not right.”
Definitely a fool.
“What are you waiting for?”
“A plan, blockhead. I’m working on a plan. I can’t go to a woman like Alice Aymes without having thought it through.”
Atticus snorted. “It’s not rocket science. You call her—don’t text—and tell her you were wrong. Then you grovel and ask if you can see her. When she says yes, you have make-up sex. Then your dumb ass can get on with living happily ever after and stop being such a grouch.”
“Have you met Alice?” Atticus, not being gullible, ignored this purely rhetorical question. “She’s not going to make this easy. I dumped her. I made her feel bad.”
At least, that was what she’d said, and I was clinging to it. Because if she didn’t feel bad, then there was no hope for me even if hoping for Alice’s emotional misery felt six kinds of wrong.
Atticus shrugged. “Call. Grovel. Make-up sex. Trust me. It works.”
“I need to sort this situation with the Iron Wolves first. I do not want her drawn into it, and they’ve been a distraction.”
Atticus rolled his eyes. “How about you stop waiting for the stars to align and everything to be one-hundred-percent perfect before you act?”
“I am not half-assing this.” Like you. My brother was not one to give one hundred percent to his relationships. Or even ten percent. Surprisingly, he kept getting dates.
Because he looks exactly like us, my wolf said smugly.
Good point.
My phone buzzed with a text from Deelie Sue.
Nice of her to finally get back to us.
I’d let her know yesterday that I no longer needed her.
She hadn’t bothered to respond to that text, which had not particularly surprised me, seeing as how she ignored most of my previous messages. Deelie Sue preferred to do her talking face to face, all the better to charm you.
Deelie Sue: Deelie Sue is unavailable for consultation. Call your Uncle Piston. He’s got your toys.
This was both vaguer and much more clear than I would have liked. I decided to assume the sender was Piston, although I would not have pegged him for a user of allusion.
I showed Atticus my phone screen, and he cursed.
“She did something and got caught,” he said, stating the obvious.
Fortunately Maverick and Ranger finally came out of the gas station and beelined for my truck.
“You would not believe how many kinds of duct tape there are. And Ranger stocked up on paper clips.” Maverick threw himself into the back seat behind me.
“These are life-altering decisions.” In my rearview mirror I saw Ranger slide into the truck, his reusable Baggu bag clutched to his chest. “Ask MacGyver.”
Atticus threw my phone into the back seat with our brothers. “Heads up. There’s a monkey wrench in our plans.”
“Or a Deelie Sue,” I muttered.
Ranger frowned at my phone. “The allusion to Deelie Sue is insulting. He is objectifying her unnecessarily and reducing her to something you could possess.”
“What would be a necessary objectification?” Atticus asked.
Maverick leaned over the seat and smacked him on the back of his head. “Do not feed the beast.”
“I also object to being objectified,” Ranger protested.
My oldest brother threw up his hands. “You are an animal! You shift into a wolf!”
Ordinarily I would have waded into their argument, but I was a) driving and b) impatient to get this whole situation with the Iron Wolves sorted. And also c) impatient to go after Alice and employ The Grovel, which could not happen until the first two points were resolved.
In deference to my anxiety, I drove as fast as I could up the mountain to Lucky Jansen’s place. Between the thunderstorm rolling in and the full moon, I was itchy and restless.
I kept that anxiety under control until the unhappy moment I spotted Alice Aymes and Sanye Jansen-Webster being forcibly carted behind Lucky’s house. Snake raged alongside them, shouting and issuing threats that were ignored.
I inferred the ladies’ unwillingness from their positions: Alice was decorating the shoulder of an enormous werewolf and doing her best to pummel the daylights out of him while Sanye must have shifted because she was similarly decorating the shoulder of Alice’s werewolf’s companion, mostly but not entirely wrapped up in someone’s flannel shirt.
“What the hell?” Maverick’s voice was tight. It was clear as day that the redhead almost but not quite wearing a borrowed shirt was Evan Webster’s widow. I’d long suspected that Evan’s death all those years ago had been the catalyst for Maverick’s sudden and inexplicable resolve to clean up his act and get out of Jansen’s gang of wolves.
“Park this thing, now!” Maverick already had the door open, which was not safe as I was moving.
“Do not distract the man while he is parking,” Ranger reprimanded. “We are here to retrieve the lady performing an inside job for us and to make a few points clear to the Iron Wolves, not to scratch up their paint jobs with our bad parking.”
“We’re retrieving three ladies,” I growled, aiming to get us as close to the house as I could.
Go, my wolf barked. Go go go!
I came in hot, killed the engine, and sprinted out of the truck. My brothers would have to fend for themselves. I ran around the big house at a speed that would have impressed my high school track coach, scanning the crowd of shifters standing out back around an enormous bonfire and paying no never mind to the combative glares directed my way.
I could hear Piston, but he was nowhere to be seen, so I locked onto the sound of his angry voice and charged through the crowd. Or tried. My passage was stopped by a wall of wolves, some in human form, some in furry form.
Let’s kick their asses.
Simple. Direct. Deeply satisfying. My wolf’s plan worked for me.
“Move it!” I bellowed, fisting my hands and easing into an active stance. Someone was yelling hold on a moment behind me, but fuck that noise. I needed to get to Alice.
“We’re here to see Piston. He said he’s got something I want, and I know for a fact he’ll want what I have. Either tell him to get out here or take us to him.”
Jansen’s cookout-slash-wolf fest fell strangely silent. Someone had killed the music, although the bonfire made a heck of a noise. Every face was turned toward us, watching. Waiting for their signal.
A biker wolf I thought I recognized—Buffalo? Crow?—made his way toward us. “Let’s settle down, son. Mr. Jansen invited you and your twin. These other Boones are party-crashers.”
I did not drop my fists. “Think of it as a free gift with purchase. We’re one of those package deals.”
We should fight.
Biker wolf thought it over, then shrugged. “Come on, then.”
The crowd of wolves and men parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Hostile eyeballs bored into us. Behind me I heard Ranger say, “Good evening.”
When we got to the far side of the yard, where the outbuildings began, our conductor stopped. “Hands on the wall, feet apart.”
Fists clenching, I did as I was told. My three brothers followed suit, all four of us boring holes into the wall with our angry glaring. It did not sit well, taking orders and letting Jansen’s wolves call the shots.
We’d come unarmed (at least in terms of firearms), so it should have been straightforward, but then about forty seconds after I’d been roughly patted down, I heard Ranger say, “Those would be my paper clips, ma’am.”
I shoved away from the wall, looking to regain my dignity and self-control. Ranger was engaged in a spirited conversation with the lady Iron Wolf patting him down.
“Why do you need a thousand paper clips?” she asked.
“You should never run out of office supplies,” Ranger responded. “Plus, you might need to fasten two pieces of paper together.”
The Iron Wolf frowned. “You expecting to do some office work here?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why bring them?”
Ranger shrugged. “You can fix anything with a paper clip. Pick a lock. Jerry rig a pulley. Miniature catapult.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That definitely does not sound like office work. You planning on doing any of those things?”
Ranger actually thought about it. “If the opportunity arises.”
She took the box of paper clips away from him.
After we’d been frisked and de-paper-clipped, we were led inside what must have once been a barn but was now an expensive man cave full of leather recliners and a massive wet bar. The woodwork had been painted black, the doors were black, and the floors were black. Jansen must have told his interior decorator to imitate a black hole.
I eyed the room, needing to do something, anything, to keep the fear at bay. Fear and I were not close acquaintances. We were not friendly or even on speaking or head-tip terms. But panic threatened to send me rampaging through the room.
Let’s rip some throats out!
Reluctantly, I reminded myself that unfocused rage would not be helpful in this situation.
Agree to disagree.
A big barn door slid open, and Alice and Sanye stumbled in. They both looked angry, but I spotted no visible injuries or tears as Lucky’s wolves pushed them down onto a sofa.
Something tight in my chest eased up. My girl was okay. I hadn’t failed her. Not yet. I shifted my gaze to the man behind them, a shifter I recognized as Piston Jennings, the second-in-command of the Iron Wolves pack. He was followed by Lucky Jansen.
Lucky flashed us his trademark reptilian smile. If I didn’t have Alice by my side in seconds, he’d need to invest in veneers because I was going to knock his teeth out.
Ignoring my obvious anger, he said, “In case you were fixing to decline my invitation to join my pack, I thought Alice might help me convince you.”
Alice’s eyes met mine. She didn’t look surprised to see me, although she did look hopeful. And scared. And concerned. I shared some of that concern. We were outnumbered more than I was comfortable with.
Lucky finally tore his gaze away from his daughter’s face and redirected his attention to me. His eyes sheeted amber, his wolf real close to the surface.
I’d seen him shift, although not to fight, and there was a reason he led the Iron Wolves. In his wolf form, he was ruthless and fought dirty. I was more concerned about Piston, his second-in-command, however.
Piston had a reputation. He was a big, scary motherfucker and rumor had it he was nigh unstoppable in a fight. He always went for his opponent’s throat, although he also liked inflicting damage first. His amber eyes met mine. “Boys. Are the two of you in or out?”
“Out.” I didn’t hesitate. Piston was scary as hell, but dragging this out would only rile him up further.
“You sure?”
“We’re not joining the Iron Wolves. We won’t be your enforcers or do your dirty work. Is that clear enough?”
“Crystal,” Piston said dryly.
Snake scrubbed his hand over his face. He obviously thought that I was a fool.
“Then your brother is either headed to state prison for voluntary manslaughter or, if the Wolf Council gets him first, to Alaska to spend the rest of his life freezing his balls off with the polar bears.
“As for the rest of you all, my wolves are gonna beat the ever-loving shit out of you.”
“Not happening,” I said. “Not on my watch. Not with what I’ve got to tell you.”
“Do tell,” Piston drawled.
“First of all, we have proof that Darrell Boone was alive after that alleged confrontation between him and Maverick.”
Lucky’s eyes narrowed, and he bared his teeth. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, sir. We have drone footage of him hauling ass out of Moonlight Valley in his truck, alive and well. Ranger is texting you a link now.” The odds were high that the Iron Wolves were recording us, so I did not want to say anything incriminating.
Behind me, Ranger fussed with his phone, texting Lucky a link to the video we’d uploaded to YouTube prior to arriving. We’d figured that the more public the video, the safer it would be for all of us as Lucky would not be able to kill the messenger.
“But you see, in my video, your brother shifts into a wolf. The person recording did not expect that,” Lucky added, almost thoughtfully. “He about peed himself, discovering that werewolves exist.
“Once I upload that to YouTube, the Wolf Council will be extending Maverick here his own invitation to join your old man. They do not look kindly on wolves who expose their little secret.”
We all paused while we considered that. Lucky must have been certain that he could anonymously upload his video because he flashed his gleaming teeth at us. Those teeth were looking pointier and sharper as the night wore on.
“Cat got your tongue?” Piston’s smile grew.
To my great relief, Ranger stepped forward and took over. “There are no feline obstacles at this time, no. The Wolf Council will not be taking an interest in your video, should you choose to upload it. As a matter of fact, it has already been uploaded.”
“You posted it online?”
“With some modifications.” Ranger ducked his head, looking modest. “In addition to being a drone aficionado, I am also taking a computer-generated imagery class at the local community college. The video I posted online looks at that fight between Maverick and our old man both before and after CGI was applied to make Mav here look like a werewolf. It was extremely well done and already has two thousand likes. People are very impressed with my fake werewolf.”
“You did what?” Piston took a step forward, his eyes sheeting amber.
“I explained how footage of an unfortunate but perfectly unsupernatural fight between an estranged father and son could be altered to make it look like one of them was a werewolf. I’m thinking about starting my own YouTube channel,” Ranger said thoughtfully.
“Or a TikTok. A wolftok. Which reminds me. As you all know, I like to fly my drones and capture aerial shots of our beautiful town and state for the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. Just one of the ways I give back to my community and my fellow citizens of Tennessee.
“Sometimes, people make a guest appearance in my footage. And sometimes, those people are doing unfortunate and highly illegal things. Take, for example, what the Iron Wolves were doing on the fourteenth of May last year. You should consider this before making an ill-informed decision to take us out.”
“Excuse me?” Snake asked. He’d positioned himself at Lucky’s right shoulder.
“Take us out,” Ranger repeated, sounding as if he was delivering a TED talk rather than explaining an ultimatum. “If you take us out, then all of my drone footage will be uploaded to the internet. In addition to the May fourteenth footage, I have excellent coverage of the Iron Wolves’…activities.”
Piston looked murderous. “Is that a threat, boy?”
Ranger looked thoughtful. “It’s more in the nature of?—”
Danger, my wolf yelped.
On it. Ranger could be annoyingly, dangerously pedantic, although he preferred to call it linguistic purity or some such. He’d nitpick every word Piston said until everyone in Lucky Jansen’s man cave wanted to kill him.
“We’re not here to make threats,” I said firmly because Piston clearly favored plain speaking. “If you insist on us RSVPing in the affirmative to your invitation to work for the Iron Wolves as your enforcers, we’ll upload all the video that we have.
“I’d like to think, however, that the world’s big enough for you all to go your way and never come near my family and Miss Aymes and Mrs. Jansen-Webster again. If we don’t meet up again, there’s no reason for us to be oversharing anything we might know.”
Although I would be taking a look at the footage and discussing with my brothers how we could best use it to rescue the Iron Wolves’ victims.
Piston’s eyes went amber, his fists curling into claws. He was pissed, and I braced myself for whatever came next. All that mattered was getting Alice and my brothers out of here. Sanye, too, as she was important to Alice and an innocent bystander in this. It was not her fault that her daddy was an asshole.
“You don’t think you all can walk on out of here without paying me some respect, do you?”
I kept my head up and met his gaze square-on. I did not let him see my relief that we would be walking out of here. Not dead, not grievously injured. On our own two—or four—feet.
“My boys deserve some entertainment,” Piston continued. I couldn’t help but notice he did not bother looking to Lucky for backup. Changes were coming soon to the Iron Wolves pack. “You want me to turn over your ladies to you, you owe me a fight.”
I’d heard stories about the pit fights, that the new recruits had to fight whomever Piston decided needed to be taught a lesson or taken down a peg. Or sometimes it was the other way round and Piston used the fights to clean up the pack. It was bloody, it was brutal, and even the winner walked away with scars.
I was good with my fists and my teeth, but I sure hoped Alice liked that Beauty and the Beast movie because I was not going to come out of this without some souvenirs.
Ranger stiffened up next to me, clearly about to resume his negotiations, but I raised a hand to stay his objections and nodded. “I understand you need to save face. Fair enough. I’ll do it.”
Alice made an outraged sound, but I ignored it, fighting the urge to look at her. I did not want the Iron Wolves figuring out exactly how much she meant to me and holding her hostage.
Keep her safe, no matter what.
Always, I promised my wolf. We’re hers.
Like knights and shit. My wolf sounded satisfied.
“We did not negotiate for that,” Ranger objected through clenched teeth. “This is not a fair arrangement.”
“No,” Sanye growled, leaping to her feet. Since she and Alice were holding hands, Alice came with her.
“Not your decision,” Lucky told her. “And you’re staying here with me regardless. This is your pack, and it’s time you took your place in it.”
Let’s fight him first!
Sanye looked at Alice. “You know how to do this. You just have to believe you can, all right?”
“No one’s doing anything,” Piston growled. “We’re gonna head down to the pits, your boy’s gonna fight, and then if he wins, you all can head out.”
“That was not what we agreed upon,” Ranger snapped. “This is highly irregular.”
“Channel Thelma and Louise,” Sanye told Alice. She raised their clasped hands. “You’ve got this.”
Piston turned toward them, snarling. I started forward too, but Sanye shifted. One minute she was standing there in her human skin, and the next, she was changing, bones crunching, her human skin replaced with the lupine one.
My gaze darted to Alice, and despite looking scared at holding a wolf’s paw, she didn’t look surprised. She looked downright determined. She dropped Sanye’s paw, took a deep breath, and?—
Shifted into a tabby cat.
Holy. SHIT.
Atticus cursed and Ranger laughed.
The girls darted for the door, and I took that as our cue to leave.