26. Nathan
NATHAN
Driving towards Bash’s lands, my hands grip the wheel so hard I’m sure I’ll leave indents. I feel like a man heading to war. It thrums beneath my skin, a drum beating the sounds of impending battle.
I’ve never thought of myself as a violent shifter. But I know I’ll gladly tear apart every wolf that stands in the way of me and my little mate. Every drop of blood spilled will be worth his safety. No cost is too high.
Any time I glance at him, Kato’s staring resolutely ahead, eyes flashing the orange of his wolf. I inhale, tasting his emotions in the air.
Guilt. It’s there, but secondary to the others. Anger. Determination. A not-insignificant and healthy amount of fear. The latter are stronger. He’s ready, like me. I reach over and place my hand on the nape of his neck, resting it there.
“We’ll get him back,” I tell him.
He flicks his gaze to mine briefly. “We wouldn’t even need to be doing this if I’d paid attention to him.”
“Doesn’t matter. You hear me, pup?” I use my grip on his neck to turn him to face me. I lean in and briefly press my forehead to his. “Listen to my words. This isn’t your fault.”
He nods minutely. “Okay.”
An insistent clearing of a throat from the back seat has me focusing back on the road. “Nathan, buddy, I appreciate you two are having a wee moment, but if you crash before we get there then we’re going to have a bit of trouble getting your omega back.”
I glare into the rear-view mirror at Patrick. The broad alpha is lounging in the back seat beside the smaller Rabbie, the two of them hardly seeming interested in anything other than their phones.
“We’re here,” I say as we approach Bash’s designated lands.
They’re not huge like Declan’s, made up of a large farmhouse in the centre, with a smattering of workers’ cottages and stables surrounding the central building.
A large field of sheep borders the road I’m driving down.
We have no indication of how many shifters he has.
So we’re going old school. An assault on his pack, where human laws don’t apply. As long as we keep any killing to pack lands, the human authorities will let us tear each other to shreds. My cynical brain tells me it’s not to respect our way of life—it’s to ensure we thin our own numbers.
I drive straight onto Bash’s land, no pretence of subtlety or stealth. If he’s got a modicum of intelligence, he’ll know we’re coming. And I don’t intend on coming quietly. I park up a little way back from the farmhouse—an ideal vantage point for spotting approaching wolves.
I’m out of the car as soon as I turn off the ignition, Kato fast on my heels, the others following. I slam my door, sending a couple of wood pigeons batting off into the air with worried coos.
“Right,” I say, “you three take the front, I’ll get the back.”
Kato looks at me, indignant.
“We need a distraction,” I explain to him. “So be loud. Obnoxious.” I muster up a half-smile. “You know, how you are every minute of every day normally.”
He sticks his tongue into the side of his cheek. “Fuck you, Nate.”
“Love you too, pup.”
“Is this what two alphas in a relationship are like?” Rabbie asks, cocking his head. “If so, where can I find me an alpha to mate?”
“Not in Declan’s pack, that’s for sure,” Patrick says.
Rabbie looks up at me with big brown eyes. “You looking for a fourth?”
“No,” I say sternly.
“Message received. We doing this?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’ve given them enough time to realise we’re here.”
“Why did we want that again?” Patrick asks, a dopey look on his face. Fuck. I think he might be high right now. Declan really wants me to die.
I make sure Patrick meets my gaze. “Because they’ll be expecting us to ambush them as a unit.
You three are going to distract them whilst I grab one of them to get the information we need.
I can’t do that as my wolf, so I need you to keep the rest of the pack occupied whilst I find out where Cas, Adrian, and Niall are. ”
Patrick gives me a firm nod. “Got it.”
Before everything that’s happened in the past few weeks, I wouldn’t have considered touching another alpha that isn’t Kato.
I’m inclined to give Patrick the type of acknowledgement he should get from his pack leader, though, so I reach out and squeeze his shoulder.
He glances at my hand as if he doesn’t quite know what to do in response to the friendly, reassuring touch.
A glance at Rabbie out of the corner of my eye tells me he’s also unsure, eyeing my hand like it might explode at any second.
I lift my hand slowly from Patrick’s shoulder, almost like how I’d act around a spooked horse. Rabbie’s still watching me, so I beckon him with two fingers. “Want to be scent marked, too?” I ask.
He gnaws on his lip before nodding and stepping close to me, exposing his neck like he’s submitting to his alpha.
I suppose, for today, the title fits. I reward his bravery—and it is bravery, trusting me to touch him on his vulnerable neck—with a firm hold, my thumb rubbing a soothing circle into his skin.
I don’t touch him for long, just enough to scent him so he smells of me.
Like a member of my pack would.
Don’t think too hard about that, Nathan, I tell myself.
So I don’t think about how showing affection to these alphas makes me feel ten feet tall, or how seeing the pride on Kato’s face makes my chest puff out, or how it fuels the strength and conviction in me that I could destroy Bash’s pack without batting an eye.
No. I don’t think about any of that at all.
A howl rends the air, right on time to stop my racing thoughts.
“Showtime,” Kato says. “Let’s get our little ghost back.”
Sneaking around the back of the farmhouse in my fur is easy once Bash’s shifters are preoccupied with chasing the three interlopers sowing chaos in the fields of sheep.
There are so many competing scents—farm animals, unknown shifters, the feed and manure and diesel exhaust from the machinery.
I swear I get a whiff of Cas’s snowdrop scent on the breeze, but it’s too faint to discern where it’s coming from.
My wolf whines at me to follow, but there are too many buildings, too many possible places for Bash to have secreted Cas, Adrian, and Niall away.
For all I know, they’re not even on the pack lands anymore.
I need solid answers, and that means getting them out of someone.
When I enter the home via a conveniently unlocked door, I don’t sense anyone else in the immediate vicinity. I edge towards the heart of the building, following my nose to where the scent of shifter is the strongest.
At the end of a long hallway is an arch that leads into the kitchen. As far as I can tell, there’s only one person occupying the room. I move on light feet, flattening myself to the wall to look inside.
An older omega, around fifty or so, is standing at the window. He’s watching the melee outside, his arms hugged around himself. Mated, by the smell of him. He’s so distracted that it takes me stepping into the room before he whirls around.
The omega’s eyes go wide with fear. “Please don’t hurt me,” he cries, backing up towards the counter.
I raise my hands, palms up. “I won’t,” I promise. “I just need information.”
His fear wanes a little, and he looks at me warily. “You’re one of Casper’s alphas?”
I clench my teeth, unsure as to whether his knowledge of Cas is a good or bad thing. “I am,” I reply, cautious.
His shoulders slump with relief. “That poor boy. Alpha Harrington will have taken him to the barn on the west side. It’s where...” he trails off with a nervous swallow. “Well. You know what happened, I imagine.”
My wolf tells me to go to Cas immediately, but I can’t risk this omega alerting the rest of his pack that I’m going for him alone. “You knew what your alpha was doing?” I ask, my anger rising even as I try to contain it. “Why didn’t you do anything to help Cas?”
The omega shakes his head vehemently. “I knew nothing until after your mate escaped. Our alpha got drunk and spilled the entire sordid tale. And he returned here today crowing about taking his omega back from his alpha mates. I thought Casper had made it far enough away that Alpha Harrington wouldn’t have found him. ”
My fault, really. Once I knew Cas’s abductor was still out there I should have taken him abroad. We could have gone to Alaska, sought sanctuary with Kato’s father. Instead, I was selfish and kept him here.
“You must go get him and the other shifter,” the omega says.
“There’s three of them,” I say with a frown.
His Adam’s apple bobs. “I caught sight of only two.”
Dread settles in my gut like a heavy stone. “And you won’t send the others after me when I leave here?”
“No.” He smells of nothing but honesty and earnestness. My instincts tell me I can trust him, my certainty growing as he speaks. “My mate is one of the alphas chasing your shifters out there. I’ll get him to call everyone off if you promise me one thing.”
I incline my head in agreement.
The omega takes a deep breath, his skinny chest rising and falling. “Kill my alpha. Make sure he can’t do this to anyone else ever again.”
I flash my sharp teeth. “Don’t worry, I intend to.
” I nod to the window. “Get them to stop fighting over a lost cause and tell my other mate to follow me. He’s the all-black wolf.
Say I’m going to get our little ghost.” I turn to retreat through the archway, stopping when something occurs to me. “Oh, and what’s your name?”
“Robin,” he replies, voice soft.
“Thank you, Robin. I won’t forget how you’ve helped today.” With that, I’m running to the barn, hoping that I’m not too late, that my instincts weren’t wrong in trusting the omega.