Crimson Moon Falling (Riley Blackthorne #3)

1. Chapter 1

Riley

The wheels of the private Pack plane bumped across the tarmac as I gripped the leather armrests.

Mangus, the massive black hellhound lounging at my feet, grunted as we bounced before settling into a smooth roll toward the Jackson Hole Airport terminal.

Athena, the snowy white hellhound, blinked her brilliant red eyes.

Outside my window, the jagged Grand Teton mountain stood against a dazzling blue sky. The breathtaking wilderness was the type of terrain where people often disappeared. Just like my father had.

“You can let go of the armrests now. We’ve landed.” Bennion’s lips twitched. He was a Pack Beta from Oregon with a grating, vaguely superior manner, weathered skin, and sun-streaked hair.

I released the armrests. “Thanks, I wasn’t aware.”

“Anytime.” His low-key patronizing vibrations would’ve been off-putting if my emotions didn’t usually exist in a frozen state since Roswell. Except in my nightmares. There was nothing low-key or emotionless about those.

Mangus nudged my hand, and I scratched his ears. Across from me, Freda Benton sat, her white-blonde bob razor-straight. When the plane stopped moving, she unbuckled her seatbelt and stood. Then she began strapping on two semiautomatic pistols, a telescopic baton, a taser, and pepper spray.

“We need to move quickly through security to minimize your exposure.”

After I’d been kidnapped and tortured in Roswell, Conall wanted me to have two bodyguards. Ash had warned me that most Alpha Mates were assigned a security detail, but I doubted many of them worked outside their Pack territory. We were figuring it out as we went.

“It’s Yellowstone National Park, not a war zone,” Bennion smirked as he slid his Glock into his side holster. I grabbed my backpack and duffel bag as Athena stood and stretched.

Freda’s lips tightened. “Neither was Carlsbad. Or Roswell. If you don’t take her safety seriously, I’ll have the Alpha reassign you.”

Bennion’s eyes narrowed. “I never said I wasn’t taking this seriously.”

I jerked my chin at him. “He can just go back home. I don’t need two Betas and the hellhounds too.”

“The Alpha’s orders are that you have at least two bodyguards with you when you’re away from home,” Freda reminded me.

There it was, that phrase they all liked to recite.

Alpha’s orders. I wasn’t immune to his pull either.

The bond between us tugged at me even now, a constant awareness of distance and direction, like a compass needle always pointing toward him.

But because of the implant, the bond felt muffled and cold.

We disembarked into a rustic, western-style terminal of exposed wood beams and massive windows, and headed toward the rental car area.

Two Federal Bureau of Cognizant Investigations agents stood on the sidewalk wearing earpieces and nondescript business attire. Their suits stood out amid the western wear and outdoor clothing. They didn’t approach us, but the taller man pulled out his phone and made a call.

Freda’s eyes narrowed, but no one said anything. Since Roswell, some kind of government agent always seemed to be tracking us.

The smell of jet fuel filled the air as we followed the signs to the rental car agencies. My phone buzzed with an incoming text, and I glanced at the screen, expecting to see Conall’s name.

Unknown Number: Hello, pet. You and I have unfinished business. Enjoy Yellowstone

My heart thumped, breaking through the coldness. Whipping my head around, I searched for him. His deep, chillingly reasonable voice echoed in my mind. Commander Adrian Marlowe knew I was in Wyoming.

Freda appeared at my shoulder. “I smell your fear. What’s going on? Is it the agents back there?”

I shoved my phone in my pocket. “Let’s get on the road, then we’ll talk. Gunnar is meeting us at the superintendent’s office.” The text turned my insides to ice water, and the scar on my shoulder where the brand used to be throbbed with pain. But I was done letting that bastard take from me.

Bennion stopped beside me and held out his hand. “Show me your phone.” We stood in the flow of travelers, a pocket of tension amid the cheerful vacation chatter.

For a split second, I considered handing it to him just to keep the peace, but we were exposed here, and he wasn’t in charge.

“No. Keep walking.” I turned toward the rental car buildings. Mangus pushed past Bennion, almost knocking him off his feet.

Aggression bled off Bennion as he grumbled, but Freda followed me, staying close to my back. There was no line at the counter. I signed the forms and grabbed the keys.

The vehicle was a large, nondescript gray SUV with three rows. I started for the driver’s side, but Freda shook her head. “Bennion, you drive. I’ll sit in back with Riley.”

I glanced at the Beta. “He doesn’t take this detail seriously, and his annoyance and impatience are giving me a headache. How about you drive, I ride shotgun, and he can sit in the back with the cadejos.”

Bennion scoffed, but Freda nodded. “Put our bags in the back while you’re at it.”

Even from ten feet away, his anger hit me. I ignored him and opened the back hatch for the hellhounds, then climbed into the passenger seat.

Freda glanced at me as she started the vehicle. “Tell me what the text said.” Her mouth tightened as I recited it. “It’s Marlowe, isn’t it?”

Exhaling, I stared at the snow-capped mountain range in the distance.

“Yes. Right before they branded me, he told me he was going to make me his pet.” Bennion’s confused revulsion hit me, and shame crawled up my throat.

Bennion hadn’t been privy to most of what happened to me in Roswell.

The implant hummed, and the feeling dissipated.

Freda pulled out her phone. “We need to tell Conall immediately.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” she growled. “Riley, that man has a dangerous fixation on you.”

“Telling Conall won’t help anyone. He’s heading to Washington to keep a war from breaking out with Apex Mentis.

” I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the coarse texture of the white strands.

“If Conall finds out, he’ll either want me pulled off this case or come rushing here himself. That doesn’t help anyone.”

Bennion shifted. “The Alpha has a right to know.”

I rounded on him. “Are you saying you can’t protect me?

And know what exactly? That someone sent me a text?

Marlowe is playing with me and trying to get in my head.

If I let him disrupt Conall’s mission and this investigation, he wins.

Drew said the Feds are trying to pass more anti-shifter laws and stirring up all kinds of anti-supernatural sentiment.

That’s more important.” Drew was the Pack’s tech specialist and Strategist, and I knew he’d agree with me.

Freda’s nostrils flared. “Conall can handle them, even from Wyoming. And you may not survive falling into that bastard’s hands again.”

“Which is why you two are here. Let me do my job, and you do yours. Keep me safe while Gunnar and I find Viggo Johansen.”

“Fine,” she conceded. “But you don’t leave our sight except to use the bathroom, and if there's any sign of Marlowe in the flesh, we’re calling the Alpha and getting you out.”

It was a better deal than I’d expected. “Fair enough.”

Freda stared at me, thoughts shifting behind her eyes. “You can’t let him take you again. I know what he did to you, and I saw the videos of you being carried out in Roswell.”

Bennion watched us from the backseat, but for once he stayed silent.

Coldness seeped through me. Freda wasn’t wrong about Marlowe. My mother was a mid-level Inamoratist, and when she consciously directed her energy, men tended to give her whatever she wanted. She also had a few stalkers over the years.

Bennion grimaced. “Just don’t die on my shift.”

“I’ve got a troll for a partner, you as bodyguards, and a healthy stash of weapons, thanks to Jamie and Parker. I’ll be fine.”

Freda’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve had some kind of injury since I met you. It stops today.”

She wasn’t wrong, but the worst scars I carried weren’t physical.

I thought I knew what pain and helplessness felt like, but my time in Marlowe’s care showed me that sometimes death was preferable.

The device his team had surgically implanted in my brainstem pulsed cold logic through me.

I had a park ranger to find and my father’s disappearance to investigate, and I needed to stay alive to do it.

We pulled into the Old Faithful historic district of Yellowstone National Park. The small ranger station stood behind the majestic Old Faithful Inn, a magnificent wood-and-stone building with a distinctive 1930s parkitecture style.

The geysers were quiet now, but tourists walked the wooden pathways, waiting to view an eruption. The area was a vast expanse of forest and geothermal wonder, surrounded by snowy mountain peaks.

Freda parked, and we headed to the station. I squinted to make out a massive silhouette on the porch when a rumbling voice came from the shadows.

“You bringing your own security detail to all our cases now, Blackthorne? And the demon dogs too?” My lips turned up despite the ever-present coldness inside me.

Gunnar Alfson emerged from the overhang, all seven feet of him. His skin was the same color and texture as weathered moss, and his nose resembled a large, crushed walnut. He got his looks from his half-troll heritage.

I glanced back at my bodyguards. “Not by choice, and half of them aren’t happy to be here. Freda, Bennion, this is Gunnar, my ISB partner.”

Bennion puffed out his chest. “What does ISB stand for anyway?” he muttered as he sized Gunnar up.

“Investigative Services Branch. You’re here to guard the Alpha Mate, and you don’t know what she does?

” Gunnar raised his bushy eyebrows as Mangus came up and headbutted him in the stomach.

“Hey, you ugly mutt. Don’t get your slobber on me.

” He patted Mangus’s head, wiped his shirt off, and lumbered into the station.

The lobby area smelled like coffee and damp wool clothes.

A young ranger at the front desk snuck glances at Mangus and Athena as he directed us down a hallway lined with faded photographs of the Park’s history.

I paused and scanned the groups of rangers from twenty years ago, searching the faces instinctively.

Gunnar pointed at the photo. “That’s Viggo Johansen there, the one on the end.”

I examined the man. He had a beard that didn't cover his scowl, and he stood a little apart from the other rangers. Something about his face tickled my memory.

Movement caught my eye, and I turned to see a bulky man with curly brown hair, a sweeping mustache, and dark brown eyes step out of the last office.

“I’m Harlan, area administrator for the Old Faithful District.

Are you the ISB agents?” He was close to Gunnar’s size, and a steady, grounded energy rippled around him.

Freda had mentioned Beau Harlan was a bison shifter. Beau eyed Freda and Bennion curiously.

“We’re Betas from the Northwestern Pack, and Riley’s bodyguards,” Freda informed him.

The administrator’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Can someone tell me why Alpha Segerson sent two Beta enforcers with you? We’ve coexisted without issue for years.”

Freda glanced at me. “We’re here for Ms. Blackthorne, Patriarch Harlan. We’ll be outside.” Gunnar and I walked into his office, and Freda closed the door behind us. I assumed “Patriarch” was the term for the male in charge of a bison herd.

The man’s gaze sharpened as he gestured to the chairs across from his cluttered desk. The seat creaked under Gunnar’s weight, and I felt like a small child next to these two giants.

Beau turned to Gunnar and absently twirled a mustache end between his fingers. “Neither of you are wolf shifters, and those hellhounds belong to Alpha Segerson. What’s going on?”