Claimed By The Tracker (The Pack Guard Agency #2)

1. The Veil in the Trash

The Veil in the Trash

LENA

I was supposed to be getting married in less than two hours.

Instead, I was sixty miles away, sitting in a roadside diner in someone else's clothes, gripping a cup of cold coffee and waiting for my father to find me.

Because he would.

That was the part I couldn't stop thinking about.

Not the wedding guests already arriving. Not the twelve-hundred-bead dress I'd abandoned upstairs. Not even the veil I'd ripped from my hair somewhere past the county line.

Him finding me.

My hands started shaking again.

I tightened them around the coffee cup and stared through the window at Delaney's Civic.

I'd actually done it.

At 6:03 this morning, I'd walked out of the Rowe estate and kept going.

For the first time in my life, I'd told my father no.

And I was terrified of what that no was going to cost me.

"You okay, honey?"

I nearly jumped.

The waitress stood beside my booth with a coffee pot in one hand, watching me more closely than I liked.

"Fine."

Her gaze dropped to my hands.

I made them stop shaking.

"Long night?"

"You could say that."

She tipped the pot toward my cup. "Want me to warm that up?"

I looked down at the coffee I hadn't touched.

"No, thanks. I should probably get going."

Her gaze flicked over my half-pinned hair, oversized flannel, and whatever remained of the makeup someone had carefully applied to my face at five this morning.

"You sure you're okay?"

There it was again.

Concern.

I gave her the smile I'd perfected years ago.

Bright. Warm. Harmless.

"I will be."

She hesitated, then nodded.

"Well, wherever you're headed, drive safe."

"Thanks."

She moved on.

I watched her go.

Wherever you're headed.

If only I knew where that was.

The diner smelled like burnt grease and freedom.

I wasn't sure which one was making me nauseous.

Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A cook worked behind the counter. Two truckers hunched over plates of rubbery eggs in the far corner.

Nobody knew who I was.

Nobody cared.

For the moment, I was nowhere.

Anonymous.

Maybe safe.

I found the exits without meaning to.

Front door. Kitchen. Side door by the bathrooms.

The habit was older than the wedding. Older than the contract I'd found. Older than the secret I'd spent twelve years making sure my father never discovered.

My magic.

Gold heat stirred beneath my skin.

I pressed my palms harder against the cold ceramic.

I'd changed in Delaney's backseat around mile forty.

Jeans. Oversized flannel. Sneakers from the emergency bag I'd kept hidden beneath my bed for four months. Apparently some part of me had known I'd eventually need it.

My hair was still half-pinned from the stylist. Loose waves fell around my shoulders, bobby pins digging into my scalp.

Every time I moved, I felt the ghost of the wedding dress against my skin.

The weight of something I'd refused to carry through a door.

I let myself shake.

Just for a minute.

Because I had three hundred and forty dollars, someone else's car, no destination—

and a father powerful enough to have me dragged home.

But going back wasn't an option.

Not after what I'd discovered in that contract.

Not after realizing my marriage wasn't only about joining two families.

My father had been selling something that wasn't his to sell.

Me.

And the power I'd spent twelve years hiding.

My magic had surged when I walked out of the estate. Again when I crossed the county line. Now it moved beneath my skin in a low, restless pulse, like it knew I'd finally done something neither of us could take back.

Twelve years of hiding it.

Twelve years of pressing it down. Swallowing it back. Being the good daughter with the good smile and the power nobody knew existed.

Or at least, I'd believed nobody knew.

Until I found the contract.

Bloodline rights.

Transfer provisions.

Words designed to make ownership sound civilized.

I swallowed hard.

I needed to reach the state line. Get a new phone. Find somewhere my father's network couldn't trace me.

Then I needed someone with enough supernatural authority to look at that contract and tell me it was illegal.

Void.

Something I could fight.

I didn't know how to do any of that yet.

I only knew I couldn't do it from inside that house.

The diner door opened.

The air pressure changed.

I felt it before I turned.

A pressure in my sternum, like a hand pushing against the inside of my ribs.

My magic surged hot and sudden.

Not away.

Toward.

Reaching for something I couldn't see yet.

Someone.

It had never done that before. Not once in twelve years.

I kept my eyes on the coffee cup and watched him in my peripheral vision.

Wrong.

He was wrong for this diner in every possible way.

Too still. Too deliberate.

Dark hair cut short but not carefully. Dark eyes that read almost black beneath the fluorescent lights. A face that looked one breath away from either irritation or violence.

Tall. Six-three at least. Lean, hard-muscled, built more for pursuit than brute force.

And he moved between the booths like something that already knew where its target was.

Not rushed.

Not casual.

Certain.

Fear crawled cold along my spine.

I fixed my smile.

The same one I'd just given the waitress.

Bright. Warm. Harmless.

The one that said I am approachable and uninteresting and certainly not worth stopping for.

The smile that had carried me through four years of family dinners. Through nine years of knowing what my father had done and pretending I didn't.

Through this morning, when I'd stared at my reflection in the bridal suite and watched my own face lie.

The stranger stopped beside my booth.

Then sat across from me without being invited.

The vinyl creaked beneath his weight.

His scent hit me.

Pine. Leather. Something warmer and darker underneath.

And the unmistakable edge of not quite human.

My magic flared.

Gold warmth crackled at my fingertips inside my fists, reaching toward him the way it had never reached toward anyone.

I tightened my fingers around the cup.

My heartbeat stumbled.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't scream."

His gaze moved over my face.

"You won't."

My smile sharpened. "Confident."

"Accurate."

I should have been furious.

Instead, some completely traitorous part of me noticed his voice.

Low. Rough.

The kind of voice that shouldn't have done anything to my breathing while I was running for my life.

It did anyway.

Then he said, "You're the runaway."

Everything inside me went still.

"Wrong woman." I kept my voice light. "Just waiting for the roads to clear. Long drive ahead."

He didn't answer.

He watched me.

Patient in a way that didn't feel like patience at all.

More like a predator that had already closed the last exit and wasn't in any hurry about what came next.

Then something changed.

His nostrils flared.

His entire body went rigid.

His jaw locked.

Both hands flattened against the tabletop, pressing down like he was holding something back.

A muscle jumped along his forearm.

Once.

Twice.

Like something beneath his skin had woken up and was testing the door.

He was smelling me.

And whatever he smelled was costing him control.

I saw the exact moment his eyes changed.

Gold flashed behind the dark.

Gone almost instantly.

His shoulders dropped half an inch before correcting. His breathing became careful. Deliberate. Counted.

The way someone breathes when holding something enormous on a very short leash.

Wolf.

The realization landed hard.

Of course.

My father hadn't sent a lawyer.

He'd sent a shifter.

"You're shaking," he said.

His voice had dropped. Rougher now.

"Cold coffee." I lifted the cup. "Terrible service."

His jaw tightened.

"You don't smell like cold."

Every survival instinct I'd built over nineteen years of lying to powerful men went still.

Run.

Not later.

Now.

I slid four dollars beneath the cup and stood.

"Enjoy breakfast."

"Lena."

My name stopped me for half a heartbeat.

I turned my smile on him.

"Like I said. Wrong woman."

Then I walked.

Not fast.

Never fast.

I smiled at the waitress as I passed and headed for the side exit with my shoulders loose and my pace unhurried.

The way you move when you want everyone to believe you aren't running while every cell in your body screams to sprint.

The morning light hit me like a slap.

Delaney's Civic sat twenty feet away.

My transportation. My escape.

The only thing between me and another sixty miles of distance.

I dug for the keys.

A shadow moved across the pavement.

He was already there.

Of course he was.

The wolf shifter stood between me and the Civic, sun at his back, hands loose at his sides.

Not threatening in posture.

Threatening in every other possible way.

His shoulders were tense. His breathing controlled. The muscles along his jaw locked with restraint.

Under the collar of his shirt, his pulse beat hard and fast.

Too fast for a man standing still.

"Move."

"I can't."

"Try."

Something almost happened to his mouth. Not quite a smile.

It irritated me more than it should have.

"Don't," I said. "Whatever you think you're doing, don't."

"I'm doing my job."

"Your job involves stalking women through diners?"

"It involves finding people who don't want to be found."

Tracker.

My pulse spiked.

Not just a wolf.

A professional.

"How much did he pay you?"

Something shifted in his expression.

"Your father filed a retrieval contract."

The word hit harder than I expected.

"Retrieval."

"Yes."

"Not missing person."

"No."

"Not welfare check."

"No."

"Retrieval."

His gaze stayed on mine.

"Yes."

Property.

That was the word he wasn't saying.

The word my father had buried beneath pages of legal language.

"When?"

His expression changed.

"What?"

"When did my father file it?"

"Yesterday morning."

I stared at him.

Yesterday.

Before I'd walked out.

Before I'd torn off the veil.

Before I'd made the choice my father apparently already knew I might make.

"He knew."

The wolf's brow tightened.

"He knew I'd run."

"Lena—"

"He had you waiting before I ever left."

Something inside me cracked.

My magic surged.

There was no warning.

No time to breathe through it. No chance to press it down and become the good daughter with the controlled smile.

Gold power tore through my palms like it had been waiting twelve years for exactly this moment.

The blast hit him square in the chest.

He flew backward.

Two feet.

Maybe three.

His shoulder slammed against the Civic. One hand caught the doorframe and stopped his fall.

Silence swallowed the parking lot.

I stared at my hands.

Gold light crackled between my fingers.

Visible.

Real.

Impossible to hide.

For the first time in twelve years, someone else could see what I was.

My stomach dropped.

I looked at him.

He wasn't angry.

He wasn't even surprised.

His expression was worse.

Raw.

Certain.

Almost undone.

Like I'd just proven something he desperately hadn't wanted proven.

He straightened slowly.

"Don't try that again."

My breath came too fast, but I held my ground.

The gold light still burned around my fingers.

I was terrified.

I was furious.

And for the first time in my life, I was completely done with being managed.

"Lena."

He said my name differently this time.

Not like information from a file.

Like he knew me.

Like something inside him did.

His eyes turned gold.

Not a flash.

Not suppressed.

Gold.

The wolf was looking at me now.

And whatever lived behind those eyes had made a decision.

My magic responded with another hot pulse.

Not fear.

That frightened me more.

"That's not my name," I said.

His gaze locked on mine.

"It is now."

"Get away from the car."

"I'm not taking you back."

A laugh escaped me. Sharp and disbelieving.

"You tracked me across sixty miles of North Carolina because my father paid you to retrieve me."

"I took the assignment before I knew what it was."

"And now?"

His gaze dropped briefly to the gold still flickering around my hands.

"Now I know your father had a contract ready before you ran. I know it involves your bloodline. And I know you just showed me exactly why he wants you back."

The last of my amusement died.

I curled my fingers into a fist, trying to smother the light.

"You saw nothing."

"I saw enough."

Fear punched through me.

I stepped back.

His expression hardened.

"I'm not your enemy, Lena."

"You're the man he sent to drag me home."

"I was."

Was.

One word.

I didn't trust it.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means the job changed."

"Because I threw you into a car?"

That almost-smile appeared again.

"No."

His eyes flashed gold.

"Before that."

Something about the way he looked at me made heat move beneath my skin again.

I hated that almost as much as I hated not understanding it.

He stepped away from the Civic.

Giving me room.

"I have people who can tell you exactly what that contract means. Pack Guard Agency. Secure location. People your father doesn't own."

"And I'm supposed to trust you?"

"No."

The answer stopped me.

"No?"

"Drive yourself."

He nodded toward the Civic.

"I'll follow. If you decide I'm lying, don't take the turn. Keep driving."

I stared at him.

"You'd let me go?"

His jaw tightened.

"I'd rather know where you're going."

"That's not what I asked."

"No." His gaze held mine. "It's not."

At least that was honest.

"What happens when my father sends someone else?"

"He will."

Not if.

Will.

Dread slipped through me.

"You sound sure."

"He hired a tracker before you even ran. You think I'm the only contingency he planned?"

I didn't want that to make sense.

It did.

I looked at Delaney's Civic.

Three hundred and forty dollars.

Someone else's car.

No new phone.

No destination.

No idea which supernatural authority might help me—or which one my father had already bought.

Then I looked at the wolf standing between me and everything I'd just escaped.

Going anywhere with him was insane.

Going back was worse.

And for the first time since 6:03 this morning, someone was offering me something my father never had.

A choice.

I closed my fingers around Delaney's keys.

"Where?"

His shoulders eased almost imperceptibly.

"Farmhouse outside town. Twenty minutes. My team is waiting."

"Your team."

"Pack Guard."

"And they know what my father did?"

"They're finding out."

I moved toward the driver's door.

The wolf stepped farther back.

"This doesn't mean I trust you."

"I know."

"If you get too close—"

His gaze flicked toward my hands.

"I remember."

I opened the door.

Then stopped.

"What's your name?"

For the first time, I realized he hadn't given it to me.

"Jace."

"Just Jace?"

"For now."

I slid behind the wheel.

He started toward a dark truck parked on the far side of the lot.

"Jace."

He turned.

"If you're lying to me, next time I won't stop at two feet."

His mouth finally did it.

Smiled.

Not much.

Just enough to make my pulse do something deeply inconvenient.

"I'm counting on it."

I shut the door.

For the first time since leaving Asheville, I had somewhere to go.

I just didn't know whether I was driving toward safety—

or straight into another trap.