“The coyote’s dead.”
Mick stared at his friend for a minute, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, what?”
“He’s dead,” Zeke repeated grimly. “O. D. Nelson found him when he did rounds about an hour ago. He was already cold. There was nothing we could do.”
“How the fuck did that happen?” Mick snarled. Renny almost flinched at the viciousness in the sound. Her mate was seriously pissed. “He was in jail, for fuck’s sake. Where did he get enough drugs to overload a fucking shifter’s metabolism?”
The lion’s jaw tightened. He looked about as happy as Mick sounded. “We don’t know for sure, but he must have had them on him when he was booked. Somehow, the officer who did the search missed them during his processing.”
From Zeke’s expression, Renny was guessing the officer in question would be spending most of the rest of his day removing the boot from his ass. “Okay, so Jordan Heins is gone. What does that really mean, though? I mean, Bryce and the others are still out there. Has all that much changed?”
“No, and that’s the problem,” Zeke said. “If we’d gotten a chance to question Heins, we’d have an advantage. We’d know where the coyotes are hiding out in the area, possibly what plans they’ve dreamed up to get to you next time, and we might even have a way to track down Hilliard.”
Renny blinked. “Track him down? I can give you his address and phone number right now. Hell, I can draw you a map of Sawmill and mark in all his favorite hangouts, if you want. I had to know all about them if I was going to avoid them. Just give me a pen.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Beside her, she felt Mick stiffen. “Explain.”
“That’s the other reason I asked you guys to come into town.” Zeke ran a hand over his head, and judging from the state of his hair, he’d been doing that a lot in the last few hours. “On his intake form, Jordan Heins listed Geoffrey Hilliard as an emergency contact, so when they found him unconscious, they tried to reach Hilliard.”
Something told Renny she wouldn’t like what came out of the deputy’s mouth next. “And?”
Zeke’s lips compressed into a tight line. “And as far as we can tell, he isn’t in Sawmill, California, anymore.”
Mick let out a string of curses that should have made Renny blush, but she was too busy going numb. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why the news would make the sheriff’s department so uneasy. If Geoffrey wasn’t holding court in the town he controlled, treating the locals like his property, and generally causing misery wherever he went, it could mean only one thing—he’d decided to focus all his attention on Renny so he could find her and redefine the whole concept of “misery” for her from the ground up.
She swallowed hard and tried to fight back her instinctive panic response. She told herself that she wasn’t alone anymore, that she didn’t have to drop everything and run yet again in a futile attempt to stay ahead of her personal boogeyman. She was in Alpha now, and she had not just allies, but the authorities on her side. She didn’t have to be afraid that Geoff would find her isolated and vulnerable and snatch her away while the people around her remained unable and unprotected, or uncaring and unmoved.
Did she?
“What do you know?” Mick demanded, his voice harsh. His big hand closed around hers and squeezed. Until then, she hadn’t realized she was shaking.
“Not much yet, but we’re digging hard. The sheriff has reached out to the police and sheriff’s departments in that area, and we’ve got people making calls, combing through social media, anything we think could possibly tell us what he’s up to.”
Mick snorted. “You know damned well what he’s up to, and you don’t need to surf the Web to figure it out. He’s headed this way. I probably pulled the trigger when I answered Renny’s phone yesterday.” He looked down at her, and she could read the regret lurking beneath the anger in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have taunted him like that. I knew what kind of hotheaded bully I was dealing with, but I lost my temper.”
Renny leaned her shoulder against him and shook her head. “You can’t take that on. He’s been stalking me for months. If you hadn’t driven him to this point, something else would have. Eventually, he was always going to get tired of letting Bryce and the others hunt me down and come after me himself. That was a foregone conclusion.”
He didn’t look comforted. “Yeah, but I didn’t have to push it.”
“Let’s not waste time with the blame game,” Zeke said, leaning his hip against his cluttered desk.
Around them, the sheriff’s office buzzed with activity, some of which Renny now knew centered on keeping her safe. The knowledge made her feel guilty even as it offered her a level of reassurance she hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. She had people on her side now, and while she wished their help and protection weren’t necessary, she sure as hell wasn’t dumb enough to turn it down.
“Anyway, Renny’s right. Hilliard’s pattern of behavior already established that this was coming. A direct move on his part was inevitable. If anything, you just pushed the time line forward a little.”
Renny tried to look on the bright side. “And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, at least if he shows up now, it will bring things to a head, right? I’m all for anything that will put an end to this whole situation.”
“Yeah, but not if the end turns out to be him getting his fucking hands on you.” Mick’s snarl carried more wolf than she’d ever heard from someone still standing on two legs.
Renny snuck a glance at him just to make sure he hadn’t shifted into a wereform while she wasn’t looking. Most lupines avoided taking the half-human, half-animal shape because it played too much into the horror movie vision of werewolves that humans held in their heads. The Others still had to go out of their way to keep the larger “normal” population comfortable with their presence among them. No one wanted to encourage fear or panic, because those would just lead to persecution. Their kind still remembered the days of vampire slayings and werewolf hunts perpetrated by humans who had learned of them before the Unveiling. Those days needed to stay in the past.
Besides, holding a wereform took an insane amount of energy. Most lupines reserved it for ceremonial occasions, like Mate Hunt challenges, and even those almost never happened anymore. Thank the Moon. As far as Renny was concerned, some of the old ways in lupine culture had made human misogyny look like a tea party.
She tried to reassure her mate. “He won’t get to me, not now. Before, it was always a danger, because I was on my own and being constantly on the run meant I couldn’t form any ties to anyone long enough for them to notice or care if I just disappeared. But he’d be crazy to try and grab me now. Too many people know who I am, where I am, and what I’ve been up against. For Pete’s sake, I even have the police looking out for me now.”
Mick let go of her hand, but only so that he could wrap a tattooed arm around her and drag her even closer against his side. “I’m not convinced crazy isn’t a factor.”
Zeke nodded. “Me either. Stalkers are all unbalanced to one degree or another. Normal people don’t do this kind of crap. But Renny’s right about one thing. The fact that she’s here and we know about her situation means that we can protect her. We just need to put some safeguards in place.”
“She gets twenty-four-hour protection,” Mick immediately agreed. “A guard goes with her everywhere that I can’t. If the department can’t handle that, Jaeger will have to make arrangements himself. He’s the closest thing we have to a town alpha. People will take orders from him if he gives them.”
Renny thought about having a bodyguard dogging her heels every moment of the day and experienced an unexpected resurgence of her independence. That did not sound like fun.
“Let’s not get carried away, guys,” she said. “I’m not eager to get myself kidnapped, but don’t go overboard. How often would I be in real danger? Living with Molly means I’ll almost never be home alone—”
Mick growled. “Living with Molly is not happening. You’re moving in with me.”
She cocked her head to the side. “I’m what, now? I think I must have missed something, because I don’t remember us having this discussion at any point in the last two days.”
He scowled down at her. “What’s to discuss? We’re mated, with the marks to prove it. Did you think we wouldn’t be sharing a den?”
“I thought it was something we’d have to talk about, but I know for sure it hasn’t come up yet. I think it’s the kind of thing I’d remember.”
“Is it the kind of thing you want to fight about?” His tone offered a clear challenge, and his face told her he fully expected to come out on top.
Was it wrong that she experienced a little thrill of arousal at the show of dominance? She knew Alpha had a medical center, but she wondered if they had a psychiatrist on staff. Maybe it was something she should look into.…
She could admit that Mick was right, though. Once they had mated, living together became the inevitable consequence. Neither of them could stand to be parted now, so trying to assert her independence at this point would be like going blond—she could bleach her hair, but she’d still be a redhead underneath, and her roots would prove that to the world sooner or later.
“No, I don’t want to fight”—she sighed—“not about this. I’m pretty sure we’ll find another reason sooner rather than later. But I also don’t want to be left out of the discussion about my own safety. I’m not an idiot, and I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks, but I also won’t sit my meek little ass in the corner while you big, strong men rearrange my life for me.”
She thought she saw Mick roll his eyes, but he was smart enough to look away while he did. “Trust me, sweetheart, no one is going to start calling you meek.”
Zeke grinned. “Definitely not the word I’d attach to your ass, Renny.”
“My mate’s ass is not open for discussion, and you should keep your eyes off it.” Mick gave his friend a low rumble of warning, offering Renny her own excuse for an eye roll. Alpha wolves could be stupid possessive, especially considering how hard this one had fought to pretend they weren’t mates.
Zeke completed the eye-rolling trifecta. “Settle down, Fido. I’m not making eyes at your woman. I just don’t happen to be blind. I swear that any notes I may have made about your mate’s ass all happened before you claimed her and will not, under any circumstances, be repeated. Satisfied?”
Renny stepped forward. “Can we get back to the matter at hand, please?”
“The matter of placing you under guard, or the matter of you arguing about it?”
“I told you, I won’t argue, not as long as you at least include me in the discussions. I don’t think it’s too much for me to ask for a say.”
“Of course not.” Zeke nodded. “You can say exactly when you’ll be moving your things to Mick’s place.”
She blew out a breath. “Considering that my ‘things’ currently consist of the contents of your sister’s truck, I’d say as soon as she drops them off. I don’t think she’ll be lending me the truck itself after Mick stole it yesterday.”
“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it. She has it back now, doesn’t she?”
“You took it without permission, used it during the commission of a felony, and kept it overnight. And I think it’s an overstatement to say you returned it when you just drove it back to town this morning and sent her a text that it was parked outside if she wanted to come get it.”
“Felony?”
“You kidnapped me!”
“I rescued you.”
“Children.” Zeke couldn’t hide his amusement. “Don’t make me turn this car around. Let’s just assume that we can get Renny’s new things to your place sometime in the next day or so. Does that work?”
Renny nodded. “Please. I can only borrow so many things to wear. I want my clothes, even if most of them are secondhand.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure it happens. I think we can assume that Mick will take charge of your safety while you’re at his place, so that’s the night shift covered.” Zeke stepped around to sit behind his desk and started making notes. “We’ll just need to work out a rotation for the days, then. The department can make sure it sends patrols past your place a couple of times a day, but we don’t have the manpower to assign officers around the clock. I’ll touch base with Jaeger about rounding up some volunteers from the community.”
Mick grunted. “I’ll be with her day and night. It’s not like I have to leave home for work.”
Renny supposed that meant he kept a studio in the house where he produced the art and stories that made up Hounds of Hell. She practically salivated at the idea of getting to see it. She would love to take a peek into how he put together his graphic novels. As both a reader and a librarian, she found the notion fascinating and unutterably tempting. She could see his process, maybe even get a look at the production of a manuscript from beginning to end. That would be awesome.
Then she stopped to think beyond her fantasies of watching her mate work to what it would mean for her to never leave his side. She’d go stir-crazy.
“Hold on,” she said, shaking her head. “If you’re working, you can’t be in charge of my safety twenty-four seven. I’d never be able to go anywhere outside the house.”
“So?” He looked confused by her protest.
Renny gave him a dubious look. “So? The whole point of me running to Alpha was so that once I got here, I could have a life again. Not running anymore was supposed to mean settling down in the real sense—getting a job, shopping for groceries, going to the coffee shop. I can agree to having someone keep an eye on me, because I know Geoffrey hasn’t given up, but I don’t want to be under house arrest.”
“It wouldn’t be forever,” Mick said. “Just until we locate him and let him know where things stand now.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You mean the way you did over the phone yesterday? As I recall, you already explained to him that I was being protected from him, and how did that go? Oh, yeah. He sent his minions out to snatch me from a public parking lot. Doesn’t sound like he’s discouraged yet.”
His eyes flashed with a feral light. “Oh, I’ll discourage him. Trust me.”
She patted his shoulder. “Down, boy. I just mean that if we can spread out the responsibility for my protection, I think we should. I don’t want to be confined to your house like a parolee, but I don’t want you to have to change your life for me either. You need to be able to go about your business and do your work like you normally would.”
“Little red, you are my new normal.” He looked down at her, and his gaze heated. “You’ve already changed things for me, just by being you.”
Okay, that may have melted her insides a little. She licked her lips. “But I don’t want you to regret that.”
“Not going to happen.”
He kissed her, his mouth hard on hers, and Renny wrapped her arms around him without thinking. Already it had become instinct to hold on to her mate.
A sharp cough shattered the moment. “Hey, cut that out. Do you want me to have to cite you for public lewdness inside the sheriff’s office?” Zeke griped. “Keep it clean, please.”
Renny felt herself go red, but Mick just brushed his thumb across her lips and smiled. More melting ensued. This having a mate thing was hell on her knees.
“I’m still going to want to do the heavy lifting,” Mick said, his eyes never leaving her face. “I’ll be with her whenever it’s conceivably possible, but go ahead and talk to Jaeger. It can’t hurt to have backup, just in case something comes up.”
“I agree. We know Hilliard is obsessed, determined, and frickin’ persistent,” Zeke said. “The more eyes we can keep on your girl, the better.”
“I can also tell you from what I remember that he’s a devious, cowardly, backstabbing excuse for a male.” Mick grimaced, his distaste for the coyote clear. “He won’t give up because Renny is protected; he made that clear to me on the phone. But he won’t want to risk his own skin to get to her, either. He’ll do whatever he can to trick or threaten her into a vulnerable situation, and that includes trying to lure me away from her with some kind of ploy. Everyone needs to understand that she’s never to be alone. I don’t care if someone’s standing outside with their mama holding a gun to the old woman’s head. They don’t leave Renny until someone else comes to relieve them.”
She made a face. “Gee, won’t I be the popular new girl in town.”
Zeke nodded slowly, clearly running through scenarios in his head. “If that’s true, it’s even more important for us to find Hilliard’s little band of bullies. It’s a lot easier to guard against a single enemy than a handful of them. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to question Heins while he was in custody.”
“Got a Ouija board?” Renny joked, forcing a grin.
“Fucking addict,” Mick sneered. “What kind of shifter needs a high so bad, he’s got to kill himself to get it?”
“Apparently, one like Jordan Heins. He had a rap sheet going back almost a decade. And considering what kind of quantities of drugs it takes to get one of us high, he’s probably single-handedly responsible for financing one cartel or another.”
Renny wouldn’t doubt it. Shifter metabolisms ran so fast that it was nearly impossible for them to get drunk on anything less than several bottles of liquor, and most chemicals didn’t have time to take effect before they burned them off, including medications. It made them resistant to being unwittingly drugged, but it also made certain conditions difficult to treat. Good thing they healed so fast and were resistant to so many of the diseases that plagued humans.
“Too bad none of the others smelled like users,” Mick said. “We could just treat them to a night out and let them all off themselves for us. Save us the trouble.”
“Nothing’s that easy.” Zeke leaned back in his desk chair. “But we do need to find the rest of them. I got the scents of the four from the parking lot, but didn’t you say there were five of them in the hunting party?”
“Yes. Bryce wasn’t there yesterday when Molly and I got jumped, and since he’s the leader, I’m assuming Mick’s shot must have caused him more trouble than we thought. If he wasn’t hurt, he’d have definitely made a grab for me himself.”
Zeke nodded and reached for a pen. “Bryce. What’s his last name, honey?” He smirked when Mick audibly objected to the endearment.
“Landeskog.”
“Give me the names of the others, too. I can run them. Might as well get an idea of what we’re up against. Maybe I can also put out some feelers to see if anyone’s spotted them or their names in the area, like at the front desk of a motel or something. That’s probably too easy, but it doesn’t mean I won’t check it out.”
Renny reeled off the names of her four remaining pursuers. They already knew Geoffrey’s name. “Aside from Jordan, the ones there yesterday were Will and Tommy Molina and Eric Ayala. Will and Tommy are cousins. Tommy’s an asshole, but Will’s a little…” She paused, memories making her skin crawl. “He’s just not right. I mean, all of Geoff’s friends are nasty bastards, but Will takes it a step further. He doesn’t just get off on being one of the pack’s enforcers; he gets off on hurting people.”
Mick flashed a mouthful of fangs. “Oh, good. We’ve got a little sociopath to play with. Won’t that be fun?”
“Okay. I’ll start getting some information together. I’ll also talk to Jaeger,” Zeke said. “He can come up with a list of potential guards to have on standby. Renny, I know it won’t be fun for you to have a shifter shadow following you around everywhere you go, but hopefully it won’t be for long. I’d like to find these bastards as soon as possible. At the very least, the Northwest Council will need to hear about them.”
“I’ll deal,” she said with a reassuring gesture. “Trust me, a bodyguard will be a lot more fun than what Geoffrey has planned for me, and I know it. I can’t promise to be happy about living under constant surveillance, but considering the alternative? I’ll deal.”
Mick’s toothy grin took on an entirely new edge, one that had Renny’s thighs clenching together.
“I’ll do what I can to keep you occupied,” he promised in a voice that made her wonder which male in the room was really the feline shifter. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”
Renny felt her heart speed up. She was sure he could, too. And if not, maybe she could put her own twist on things. If he had trouble with ideas popping up, she knew the first thing she’d be happy to go down on.
With.
With. She cleared her throat and hoped Zeke would ignore the way her cheeks had just gone flaming red. She’d meant “down with.”
Really.