Mick held Renny pinned to the pavement and struggled to control his temper. Damn it, he would die before he did anything to hurt his mate, but in that moment, he really, really wanted to strangle her. What the hell had she been thinking?
His heart had stopped the minute he’d heard her jump out of his truck, but when he’d seen that coyote dragging her away from him, he’d wanted to tear the world apart with his bare claws. He’d told her to stay in the fucking truck, and what had she done? She’d completely ignored him and leapt into the middle of a battle where she was outnumbered, outclassed, and very nearly out of luck.
He’d had the situation under control. Yeah, he’d been one wolf against four coyotes, but he hadn’t been in any real danger. He was bigger and stronger than any of his opponents, and he had an advantage they couldn’t hope to achieve—he was fighting to defend his mate.
He could have handled them. Sure, he might have gotten a cut or two, and if they got lucky, he might even be limping afterward, but Mick had no doubt that he’d be the one walking away from the confrontation. These fucking vermin had spent months stalking and terrorizing his female, one of them had dared to lay tooth and claw on her, and they thought they could take him down just because they had him outnumbered?
Like. Fucking. Hell.
They should be the ones relieved to hear the approaching sheriff’s deputies, because Mick would have torn out every one of their throats and then sent up a howl to celebrate. He had been out for blood, and his mate had denied him.
He growled again and tightened his jaws around her throat. Not enough to hurt her, just enough so that she could feel the noise and the heat and the sharpness of his teeth and think for one Goddess-damned second about what kind of danger she had just put herself in.
Damn it, he wanted her to shift back to her skin, so he could turn it bright red with the flat of his hand. If any female had ever earned a spanking, it was this one.
“Mick. You okay, buddy?”
Zeke’s voice reached him, as deep and steady as his steps as he approached them. Mick could hear the caution in the slow movements and wondered if the coyotes had circled back toward them.
“Dispatch said someone called in a coyote attack on the road out to your place, so I got the posse together and we came running. Only that doesn’t look like a coyote to me, and she sure doesn’t appear to be attacking anyone.”
Mick snarled, but he didn’t release his mate. He kept his eyes on his friend’s heavy black boots as the man inched closer.
“Uh, Mick, I don’t think Renny’s planning on going anywhere anytime soon. How about you let her go so I can make sure neither of you is hurt?”
His mate whined as if seconding the motion. He felt her quivering beneath him and abruptly realized he might be scaring her. Reluctantly, he released his grip and stepped back, waiting for her to spring to her feet and confront him. Instead, she just turned her head and licked the underside of his chin. She was reassuring him.
Mick retreated another step and reached for his humanity, drawing it forward until the wolf was swallowed up and he stood in his skin in the middle of the road, bathed in two sets of headlights. He had to struggle to control his anger, though control came easier than it had in his fur. He still had the urge to shake his mate and demand to know what the hell she had been thinking when she’d let herself out of the safety of his truck, but the violence behind the emotion was beginning to subside.
He took several deep breaths and ran a gaze over his mate. He saw a couple of tiny red stains in the fur around her ruff, but she didn’t appear to be seriously injured. The reassurance helped take him down another notch, and that was when he remembered he was standing in the middle of the road, bare-assed naked with four armed deputies watching him warily.
He glared down at his mate. “Don’t even think about shifting back.”
She wagged her tail and batted at the air with one paw like a puppy. Damn, she was cute.
Zeke relaxed a bit, holstering his weapon and giving his friend a quick once-over. “You don’t look dead, so I guess the emergency wasn’t quite so urgent. Care to tell me what happened?”
“Pants,” Mick growled, and stalked back to his truck to grab his jeans. He also snagged his shirt. Eventually, Renny would want to shift, and he’d be damned if she stood around naked in front of this bunch of perverts. His shirt would be big enough to make a minidress for her. It wasn’t a nice, thick pair of baggy flannel pajamas, but it would do.
He pulled on his jeans and rejoined Zeke in the glow of the red and blue emergency lights. Renny had rolled onto her belly but remained lying in the same spot where he’d left her.
For a change.
“It was an ambush,” he said, and gave Zeke a brief summary of the situation, beginning with the injured deer being driven out in front of their truck and following through to the moment when the sheriff’s department had arrived on the scene.
“You know, I’m getting damned sick of all the coyote stink around town,” Zeke said, his eyes glinting dangerously. “I think it might be just about time to open up hunting season. How about you?”
Mick let himself smile. “You gonna make me carry a permit?”
Once again, Renny found herself clad in nothing more than one of her mate’s shirts, struggling to make sure her ass and pussy both stayed covered at the same time. It was harder than it looked, especially when she had to climb into Zeke’s patrol car while gripping her purse and phone in her hands. And damn, but that nighttime breeze was chilly.
Mick had finally let her shift (behind the truck, while every other man present kept his back turned and his eyes shut, thank you very much) and immediately covered her up, while Zeke set his deputies to examining the scene and looking for evidence. She didn’t know what they expected to find, since she doubted any of their attackers had been carrying a map with the coordinates to their supersecret gang hideout. None of them had exactly had pockets when they attacked. But the deputy said knowing how they’d planned this attack could be useful, so Renny had just waited until someone escorted her to Zeke’s car and helped her inside.
She still didn’t know why she’d had to sit in the back, though. Mick got to ride up front, on the right side of the protective mesh barrier.
He and Zeke spoke in low voices, which seemed kind of insulting. She’d, you know, been there during the ambush, so it wasn’t like they needed to shield her from what had happened. Plus, since she was the target of all the trouble that had descended on Alpha, it seemed only courteous to include her in any discussions about it.
She opened her mouth, prepared to make her feelings known, just as Zeke rounded the curve in Mick’s long drive. The house came into view, and immediately, Renny knew that something wasn’t right. It just took a minute for her brain to catch up to what her eyes were taking in.
Forest litter extended from the tree line toward the front porch, bits of mud and twigs and pine needles decorating the grass and gravel. A distinct trail formed from the debris, showing where something limp and heavy had been dragged across the ground.
She followed the path and spotted it, draped with mocking contempt over the stairs leading up to Mick’s front door. The injured deer they had almost hit, now dead, had been left bloodied and vacant-eyed on the threshold, like a cat’s gifted rodent.
“Fuck!”
Zeke slammed on the brakes, but Mick didn’t wait for the car to stop before he shoved open his door and bolted toward the carcass. The deputy followed as soon as he’d shifted into park, leaving Renny trapped in the back with wide eyes and a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Renny’s sharp lupine sense could pick up their words, a bit muffled, from where she sat. It didn’t hurt that they hadn’t bothered to close the car doors when they’d leapt out.
“It’s the same one they drove out in front of the car. You can see the injuries on the hindquarters where they harassed it to make it move.”
Zeke hunkered down at the side of the steps and leaned in to sniff the dead animal. “Something doesn’t smell right, here.”
Mick bent in closer. The porch light caught the way he exposed his fangs in a snarl. “Poisoned.”
“The damned thing’s had its throat ripped out. Why the hell bother with poison?”
“Wasn’t to kill it. Take a whiff. The poison’s on the meat, not in the blood. The deer wasn’t poisoned. Someone put something on it when they left it here to poison anyone who decided on a snack.”
Zeke stood, his expression troubled. “That’s … kind of insane. And I mean that literally. What did the coyotes think? That you’d find a dead deer on your porch and just chow down without wondering where the fuck it came from? Who would do that?”
Geoffrey.
Or Will, Renny supposed. There was no shortage of mental imbalances among the coyote pack. But she knew this was Geoffrey’s work. Something inside just told her.
She lifted a fist to pound on the car window. They needed to let her out of here.
They didn’t.
The men continued to talk, lowering their voices until she could make out their tones but not the actual words being spoken. That, Renny concluded, was unacceptable.
Her first instinct urged her to break the glass on the rear window and let herself out that way, but she knew from pounding on it how sturdy the stuff was. She had a feeling that even a well-placed mule kick wouldn’t shatter the glass. A town full of shifters had apparently done some planning in the design of their police vehicles and had taken into account shifter strength. The grating separating the front and rear compartments of the vehicle appeared equally tamper resistant.
Renny considered her options and looked down at the phone in her hand. An idea formed.
Within seconds, she found what she needed, used the house’s Wi-Fi to download the correct file, then pressed her phone’s speaker up against the mesh and hit “play.”
An earsplitting shriek ripped through the air. With the volume set to maximum, the front doors of the patrol car open, and the device aimed away from her, even Renny wanted to cry at the pain the noise invoked, but it had the desired effect. Both men turned toward the car and shouted at her.
Well, she assumed they shouted. Their lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear a damned thing over the assaultive din of the siren she’d triggered on her phone. It took only seconds before Mick marched back to the car and wrenched her door open. He reached for the phone and she shoved it at him, darting past him straight to the front door.
She recognized the scent immediately and noticed it didn’t stop at the top of the stairs. She reached for the door.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mick grabbed her wrist before she could turn the knob. He glowered down at her even more fiercely than he had right before he ran the truck off the road.
“He’s here. I can smell Geoff on the deer. The others might have used the deer to waylay us on the road, but Geoffrey Hilliard made the kill, and I can smell him all over the door. What if he went inside?”
“Fuck! What if he’s still inside?” Mick demanded. “You plan to march in and hand yourself over?”
Renny scowled. “Of course not.”
“Then get your butt back in the car while Zeke and I check it out.”
“Really? You want me to wait out here in the dark, all alone, where we have evidence my stalker has recently been? With an unlocked police car still running for a convenient getaway?”
She folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. Her mate looked ready to strangle her.
Zeke cleared his throat. “How about you both stay here, and I check things out inside. I seem to recall that being part of my job.” He flipped open the latch on his weapon holster and waved the others back. “You two wait in the yard. Stay away from the door and windows. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Mick hauled her back down the steps and around to the other side of the squad car, as if he expected gunfire to erupt and wanted to make sure she was behind something solid when the bullets started flying. He didn’t bother to speak a word, though, and she couldn’t decide whether that scared her or pissed her off. She hadn’t forgotten the subject she’d brought up just before they were attacked, and she definitely hadn’t forgotten that he’d never given her an answer.
“Mick—”
“Quiet.” He didn’t bother to look at her, just stared at the open doorway through which Zeke had disappeared as if he could monitor the deputy’s progress through the unlit house.
“Um, excuse me?”
He spared her a glance full of temper. “We can fight this out later, once we know no one else is going to try to kidnap or kill you tonight. Right now, we’ve got bigger things to worry about than your sense of independence and the foundations of our relationship. All right?”
No. No, it wasn’t.
She took a deep breath and tried to get a handle on her anger before she did something irreversible, like castrating her mate with her bare hands. He might be acting like an asshole now, but later maybe he’d regain his senses and she’d consider letting those parts near her again.
“Look,” she bit out. “I get that you’re pissed off and outraged and worried and overprotective and drowning in alpha instincts right now. That’s fine. You get to feel how you feel, but you don’t get to dismiss me and my opinions and my concerns because of it. We need—”
Zeke appeared in the door with his police radio in his hand and a grim look on his face. Renny almost forgot what she’d been saying.
The deputy murmured something into his radio, then clipped it back on his belt and motioned them forward. “House is empty, but someone left you a present.”
She scurried to keep up with Mick’s ground-eating strides as he joined his friend on the porch and then followed the lion into the house.
It looked like a tornado had passed through—a very small, localized tornado that followed a direct and unvarying path from the front door of the house back to the bedroom she and Mick had been sharing. The path was easy to follow because of the destruction that littered it. Everything within arm’s reach of the center had been smashed, shattered, torn, broken, or crumbled in angry fists. Pictures had been yanked from the walls and ground beneath a heavy foot. A chair now looked more like kindling mixed with random shreds of fabric and upholstery batting.
Dirt, glass, wood, ceramic, plastic, and paper crushed underfoot as the trio made their way through the space to the master bedroom. The contrast between the chaos along the path and the untouched area at the edges of the rooms seemed almost surreal. It looked as if whoever had done this had been on a mission or a deadline, so they hadn’t spared the time to trash the whole house but simply grabbed and ruined everything within easy reach.
Renny could smell Geoffrey everywhere, but she noticed that the odor increased the closer they came to the bedroom door. When they reached it, Zeke stepped in front of them, blocking them from entering or even looking very far into the chamber.
He met Mick’s gaze and held it. “I want you to remember that things are just things, okay? They’re not important, but your reaction here is. I think this is Hilliard’s way of sending you a message, and that he’s deliberately taunting you. If you fly off the handle in reaction, you won’t be thinking straight and you’ll make mistakes. Hold it together. Understand?”
Mick nodded sharply, and Zeke reluctantly slid to the side, allowing the wolf to pass. Renny stayed hot on his heels.
Okay, she thought, trying to take everything in at once and winding up dazed by the attempt. This was where Geoffrey had decided to take his time. Obviously.
The room stank of coyote and looked like the site of a bomb blast. Every window, mirror, and glass in the place had been shattered, shards glistening all over the floor and making Renny wish she’d at least grabbed her shoes before she’d let the men haul her away from Mick’s wrecked car. No way could she get a closer look in her bare feet.
Every drawer had been yanked from the dresser and smashed. The closet had been emptied, bottles, glasses, lamps, and candleholders broken. The curtains and shades were torn from the walls, one of the rods dangling crookedly from a single nail still in the molding. Renny’s favorite shade of lipstick—a brand-new tube she’d bought on her shopping trip with Molly—had been used to scrawl a message across the wall behind the bed.
MINE
But it was what had been done to the bed that freaked Renny out.
The frame was broken, the side rails torn away from the headboard and the footboard cracked in two down the middle. The violence used to damage it had moved the entire piece of furniture away from the wall and angled it into the center of the room. The bedding had been torn away and tossed to the side. The mattress had slid off one side and flopped half onto the floor, its surface stained with that smelled—overwhelmingly—of coyote urine. Geoffrey Hilliard had destroyed the bed she and Mick shared and then marked it with piss for good measure.
Her stomach churned a little. Coyotes, like many canine species, used scent marking to establish territory, but coyotes in particular were also known to urinate on the remains of their prey in an effort to warn off other predators.
The message was clear. Geoffrey had not given up on catching her, and he wanted her to know that he wouldn’t let Mick or their mating stop him from taking what he wanted.
He really was out of his mind.
It looked like he’d driven Mick there, too.
Her mate took one look at the ruined mess, grabbed her around the waist, and physically hauled her back through the house. Renny couldn’t decide if she was too shocked to protest or if she really didn’t mind. She felt contaminated just by seeing Geoffrey’s message to them. It’s not like she wanted to stick around the scene.
Zeke followed them back to the front of the house. By the time they returned to the porch, they could hear sirens in the distance and see the first strobes of more emergency vehicles speeding down the drive. Mick didn’t even acknowledge them. He set Renny on her feet and climbed down three steps until their eyes were level.
“I don’t want to fight you on this, Renny.” His blue gaze seared into her, all heat and determination. “I won’t fight you. I need to get you someplace safe, and I need you to stay there while I find Hilliard and deal with him. Understand?”
Oh, she understood, all right. She understood that Mick was in a killing rage and that at this point, nothing would satisfy him but bloodshed. She had a harder time understanding why that didn’t really bother her.
She took a deep breath. “What did you have in mind?”
“Yeah, I’m interested to hear that, too.” Zeke stood just a few feet away, outwardly calm and stoic as he always was on duty. Renny could see the tells in his posture, though. He had his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move, and his arms hung relaxed at his sides, hands visibly clear of anything that might encumber a quick reaction. “I hope you don’t think you’re going off alone after this son of a bitch. Because that’s not happening.”
Mick turned cold eyes on his friend, his body all but vibrating with the tension of suppressed fury. “You saw what he did, Zeke. You saw the threat he implied against my mate, and this time he didn’t do it through a proxy or from a few hundred miles away. Hilliard is here, in Alpha, and I will go through anyone who tries to stop me from finding him.”
“I’m not trying to stop you. I’m just saying you aren’t doing it alone, you aren’t going off half-cocked, and you aren’t going anywhere until we can make sure that Renny will be safe till you get back. Or did you forget we’re still dealing with Hilliard’s pack, too? They’re still out there, and while you’re chasing after their boss, they could circle back after your mate.”
“She won’t be here. I don’t care if we have to lock her in a jail cell and post the entire sheriff’s department outside until this is over. Renny stays safe.”
“Yeah, well, I care about that.” Renny held up a hand and eased back a little. “I’m not down with the incarceration idea. I don’t want to get hurt any more than anyone wants to see me get hurt, but locking me up sounds a little extreme.”
Mick’s hand came up to grasp her chin. He leaned in close, tugging her forward to meet him, and his thumb traced the line of her jaw. “Don’t you get it, little red? Extreme is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I’ll do to protect you. I’d burn down this whole forest if I thought that’s what it took to keep you safe. And I wouldn’t think twice at who got caught up in the flames.”
Renny felt her breath stutter to a stop. Her whole world seemed to freeze as she read the truth in his eyes. He meant every single word he said, and even the most dubious, insecure parts of her couldn’t put that kind of vow down to lupine possessive instincts. Any wolf would die to protect its mate, but her mate was promising to take the world down with him.
That had to mean something, right?
Her heart leapt at the thought. What had Marjory said to her about the way men didn’t always express their feelings with words? Maybe this was one of those demonstrations she needed to pay attention to.
She leaned into his touch. “I get it, Mick. That’s how I feel, too. You think I can just sit and twiddle my thumbs while you go hunt down a lunatic? A lunatic with four best friends still out there? I need you to stay safe just as much as you need me to.”
His expression hardened. “I’m not the one in danger. Don’t forget, I’ve done this kind of thing before. Geoffrey won’t be my first hunt, or my first kill. And trust me, he’s not going to be half the challenge of my grandfather.”
It felt like he’d just erected a wall between them, and Renny wasn’t putting up with it. If he’d burn down forests for her sake, she’d buy herself a wrecking ball for his.
“You think I don’t know?” She reached up and grabbed his wrist, holding his hand in place when he would have pulled it away. “You think I don’t know exactly what you’ve been through? You’ve done everything you could not to talk to me about anything important, Mick Fischer, but don’t for one minute assume I don’t know your whole story. I thought we got this out of the way that first morning. I know about you and Beth Hilliard, about Abraham Garry, about how you dealt with everyone responsible for your first mate’s death. I’ve always known.”
“Then you should know that I’ll take care of this, too.”
“You think I care?” Goddess, sometimes she wanted to smack him upside the head to see if any sense would shake loose. “You still think I’m expecting you to solve my problems? To save me? Michael Kennedy Fisher, I would strip naked and offer myself to Geoff Hilliard on a silver platter if that’s what I needed to do to keep you safe. I don’t need you to kill for me, and I sure as hell don’t need you to die for me. You may have survived losing a mate, but that doesn’t mean I would.”
“I wouldn’t this time, red. I know it, even if you’re too blind to see it.”
His soft admission deflated her like a pin in a helium balloon. First, her heart melted, but then her outrage flickered to life.
Really? This was how he was going to admit that he cared about her? He’d spent two weeks basically shut up alone with her, fucking her brains out at every opportunity, with few interruptions and even fewer distractions, and he thought he’d use the threat of death to demonstrate his feelings for her?
Her free hand rose and cracked against the side of his head.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“It was to make sure you’re paying attention.” She narrowed her eyes at him and stuck out her chin. “Listen up, Mr. Alpha Wolf. You’re bigger than me and stronger than me and tougher than me, but you are not indestructible. I can’t stop you from going after Geoffrey, but I can damned well make sure that you don’t go running off unprepared and alone. You want to find Geoff? Fine. You want to stop him? Terrific. But you’re not dropping me off like a piece of mail and going hunting in the heat of the moment.”
Zeke shifted and cleared his throat as if he knew they’d nearly forgotten he was still there. “Your mate is right, you know. No one will argue that Hilliard has crossed the line and that he needs to be stopped. Hell, we all agreed on that even before tonight. But you won’t find him like this, hopped up on rage and adrenaline. We need to think this through and come up with a plan.” He stepped forward and laid a cautious hand on the other man’s shoulder. He made certain to keep the maximum possible distance from Renny while he did it. “We’ll get him, Mick. You have my word.”
Renny watched while anger, frustration, and denial raced across Mick’s features, then she saw when reason finally made its breakthrough. He clenched his jaw so tight, she expected to hear something snap, but then he took a deep breath and jerked his head in a brief nod.
“Fine.” His hand dropped from her face and hooked around her waist, dragged her against his side. “We’ll plan. But Hilliard is going down, and I’m the one who’s going to take him. I claim the rights to the kill.” He stared at Zeke until the lion inclined his head. “And we’ll need a ride into town. I’ll send someone out to clean up after that fucking dog, but there’s no way I’m letting my mate sleep in that house until his stench is gone.”
Renny snuggled into his side. “Sounds good to me.” Then she remembered something and she stiffened, turning a glare on both men. “But this time, I’m riding up front.”