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Tess took the damn burner phone into the shower with her, wishing she had Cole in her hands instead. She understood the need to be extra careful and did not want her father to get wind of what had happened yesterday.

He’d show up and wouldn’t leave until she returned home with him.

But that wasn’t her home. It hadn’t been since her mother died.

Her father loved her in his own distorted and demanding way, but she couldn’t live her life for him.

She couldn’t avoid being honest with him and have any kind of real relationship that would last. She’d allowed him to get away with too many things since her mother’s death. It was time he showed her the respect she deserved or they wouldn’t be able to move past a semi-polite relationship.

But what if her dad wouldn’t come around? She had to consider that possibility. Dammit. Just when Tess felt like she had a handle on how to deal with her father, her conscience began layering on one pile of guilt after another, warning her that he might never speak to her again.

And that he could die unexpectedly, just like her mother, if he and Tess couldn’t figure this out.

She didn’t understand nearly as much as she’d thought about the shifter world, but Cole could explain it as they took some time to get to know each other again. The way she saw it, she had three years to come up with a final plan so he never faced that witch’s mating curse.

Evil witch.

She opened her computer and ran through emails to see if anything significant had happened at work.

No. Not unless Brantley had broken the case wide open and was holding a party to celebrate his next step up over the top of her.

But what if he was this Cadell person Cole had talked about?

What if he wasn’t, and Tess was prejudging him on no evidence?

Tired from so many mental battles, she kept moving through her messages.

An email she didn’t recognize popped up. She clicked on it and read:

Ms. Janver -

I understand you want to speak with the alpha who was present when your mother died. Below is a number for you to call.

Tess looked for any other notation besides the phone number, but there was none.

Looked like Scarlett had come through.

She snatched up the burner phone and dialed.

A long night of robust sex had supercharged her. She was a woman on a mission to get answers. Even her energy was churning at a low hum, acting content.

The phone rang twice then she heard, “Is this Ms. Janver?”

No hesitating now. She said, “Yes, it is. Who is this?”

“Please hold for a moment.”

The sound of the phone being handed off followed. “Hello, Ms. Janver. I am Alejandro, the alpha of a small pride in eastern Tennessee. I understand you have questions for me.” He had the cultured voice and soft accent of a man from Spain.

Her request had been answered. “Thank you for contacting me, Alejandro. I would have contacted you sooner, but I only recently figured out how to find you.”

“I will assume your father doesn’t know, as he spent a lot of money to make sure you never spoke to me.”

Shock stole her voice.

“Ms. Janver?”

“Sorry, I was trying to figure out why my father would do that. As I understand it from reports I’ve read, you were never convicted of any wrongdoing.”

“That’s because I didn’t commit any crime.”

She had no way to smooth that over. “Would you tell me what happened the day my mother died?”

“Do you question the court records?”

“To be honest, I don’t have them. They’re sealed and I haven’t found a judge willing to issue the order to open them. I know from media articles that there was another shifter present who got away.”

“He was much worse than a rogue shifter. He belonged to the Black River wolf pack.”

Her heart hit her feet. Her father had never shared that. She managed to keep her voice even. “I didn’t know that. Did you two have a quarrel?”

“Not exactly. We didn’t know each other before that day. I was on my way to a meeting in Richmond when I heard a woman in distress. I went to investigate and found a wolf shifter threatening to change from his human form and attack her if she didn’t take him to an ATM and empty her account.”

Tess clutched her throat, envisioning her poor mother in terror. Where had her daughter been? Drowning in her despair over being a freak who couldn’t keep the man she loved. She’d been so angry at the world that day, her mobile phone had fried in her unshielded hand.

She hadn’t cared. Just threw it against a wall.

She didn’t hear the message from her mother until the day after her mother’s funeral when she’d had the phone replaced.

From that moment on, she’d pushed herself to rejoin the world, care about something other than her broken heart, and to wear gloves when she couldn’t get around it.

Clearing her suddenly thick throat, Tess said, “What happened next?”

“I intervened, intending to send him on his way and help your mother reach her destination safely. But the wolf shifted, right there in public, and attacked. I’m strong, but I had to release my animal to match his power or he’d have killed us both before any law enforcement showed up. I shifted and almost lost, but in the end I stopped him.”

“How?”

“I ripped his throat out.” Alejandro had said that with the simplicity of ordering a meal. “I’m sorry your mother had to witness the brutal battle, but I had no option and was trying to protect her at that moment. I shifted back to human form and went to her. She was still alive. I held her hand and waited for the EMTs to arrive.”

“She was alive?”

“Yes. We spoke briefly.”

Tess was strangling the phone. “What did she say?”

“This is the reason I contacted you. Your mother said to please tell you and her husband she loved you very much. She also said you must never blame yourself for her death or she will not be at peace. I tried to tell her she would survive, but she just smiled and said, ‘Tell Tess to follow her heart.’ The emergency team showed up at that second and we were separated.”

The world twisted and turned out of shape. Tess hurt thinking about her mother. It always hurt, but his words were a gift. She would have preferred to be the one holding her mother, but she was thankful this man had been there and for the words.

The year her mother died, shifters were automatically taken into custody if they shifted in public. No questions asked, just hauled off. There had been some allowances since then, but changing into an animal in public was still a bad idea for anyone who wanted to remain free.

“Did they arrest you, Alejandro?”

“Yes.”

“You went willingly?”

“Yes. If I had not, my pride would have suffered.”

Tess asked, “Where were you held?”

“In a death pit, but I am older and survived.”

Just as she’d thought. She sympathized with shifters who considered the subterranean holding facilities nothing more than a death pit. She’d never get over allowing Cole to be sent there. After all that had transpired, she would be working for changes.

“Why did you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Shift and fight the wolf when you knew how humans would treat you?”

“Because your mother needed my help,” he said as if he couldn’t understand Tess questioning his action. “First, I’m an alpha. As such, we protect. But above that, I had a sister who was a submissive. Three Black River wolf shifters attacked her when she was eighteen. No one lifted a finger to help. No one would help me find the pack responsible. If I ever do, I will deal with their punishment personally. She never recovered. She jumped from a cliff over a thousand feet high in her human form, which crushed her body beyond her animal’s ability to shift and save her. She was too humiliated as an alpha’s sister to come to me. That is my fault for not seeing what was under my nose. Since then, I have never failed another woman, human or otherwise.”

Tess cupped her mouth to keep a noise inside that shouldn’t be allowed out. A tear spilled down her face. When she could talk, she said, “I’m so very sorry. Thank you for being there for my mother.”

“Thank you.”

There were very, very bad shifters like the Black River pack and there were very, very good ones like this man and Cole.

She thanked him for speaking to her and assured him her father would not lift a finger against him. Then she told him of the position she had at SCIS and gave Alejandro her contact information. “If you ever need my help, please don’t hesitate to call me.” 

She put the phone down, thinking of the many things her mother had taught her. Her mother had once told Tess to choose her own way in life and not to let her father or anyone else stand in her way. Her mother loved her father, every irritating part of him, but she was a woman who had chosen him. She’d known just how overbearing he could be but never allowed him to prevent her from doing as she pleased.

When her mother fussed at her father, he’d grunt and make a comment about stubborn women. Two steps away, he’d smile when he looked back at his wife. He loved her so much that he never recovered from her death, which he blamed on shifters.

The story Tess had gotten was that her mother had been caught in the middle of two shifters fighting over territory, oblivious of humans present. Witnesses said her mother backed up, grabbed her chest and crumpled to the ground.

Of course, that had not been the whole story.

No one talked about how Alejandro had jumped in to be her mother’s savior, only that two crazed shifters had tried to kill a human. That had been front-page news for weeks and set the negotiations between shifters and humans back for months at the time.

That story hadn’t been the truth.

With his media contacts, her father could have had a hand in spinning it, because he wanted every shifter to pay for  his wife’s death.

Now she understood why her father had used his influence to keep her hands off the court records. He hadn’t wanted to give his only daughter reason to feel sympathetic toward that alpha, someone her father would never recognize as a real person.

Tess covered her face with her hands. “How am I going to keep Cole and my father, too?”

She dashed through the shower, feeling more normal in her own clothes and at ease in a pair of jeans and a pullover.

When she was dressed and ready to face the world, Tess checked her office voice mail. No one other than an IT person with authorization could pick up her messages without a code. She had told her father to call her office and leave a message there rather than on her cell phone. With so many things going on when she was on her mobile, she sometimes skipped his calls and later forgot to return them. Then he would be pissy for weeks.

There were a couple of messages from Brantley demanding to know where she was and claiming she was supposed to meet him Saturday morning. Not true.

Was he creating bogus situations to make her look bad at work?

Probably.

Then she heard a chilling message in an odd tone as if it spoken through a filter –

“You cost me three good jackals last night. We have your father. We know shifters are watching your apartment. Your father is of no use to me. He can’t do what you can. This time, you’re going to make it easy. I will give you one chance to meet without any trouble. If you do, I’ll exchange you for your father. If anyone follows you, we’ll know. If you contact anyone, we’ll know. I have a very simple way for you to leave the building without drawing the attention of the shifters keeping surveillance on you.”

This guy knew about Cole’s friends?

She paused the message so she wouldn’t miss anything, because her mind was about to explode.

They had her father.

Full-blown panic hit. Her breathing sounded like a horse run into the ground.

Grabbing a paper bag in the kitchen, she breathed into it and got a grip. No time for this crap.

She hit the play button.

“It’s your job to get away from those Gallize shifters, Janver. I want to be very clear. If someone follows you, even if you’re unaware of it, then I will give you one more chance, but only one.”

Great. Maybe she’d have time to find Cole.

“But know this, if you don’t come to me the first time, your father will be missing both hands when you see him. He doesn’t really need them to be a senator, so I consider that mercy. Call the number I give you at the end for final instructions and remember, we know everything that goes on.”

She listened for the number, clicked the message off and raced for the bathroom where she threw up until her stomach cramped. Sliding to the floor, she gasped for air, still clinging to the mobile phone Cole had wisely put in a thick, protective cover for her.

When she could breathe again, she lifted the phone and called her father. No answer, but that was not unusual when he was in a meeting. She called his assistant next who answered, “Hello, this is the office of Senator Janver.”

“Pete, this is Tess. I need to speak with my father.”

“He’s out of pocket for everyone until tomorrow.”

She wanted to scream over her dad and his ‘keeping the wheels of justice greased’ special meetings. “It’s an emergency, Pete.”

“Oh, I’ll find him at once. Are you at a number he has?”

“Just find out where he is and I’ll call him.”

Tess counted seconds dragging by on her watch until Pete came back on. “The Senator said for you to call this number.” Pete rattled off the digits quickly.

“Thank you.” Tess hung up and dialed.

A man answered and spoke before she could. “Now that you’ve confirmed we have him, get moving.”

She held the phone until the dial tone returned.

Cole was going to be so hurt that she broke her word, but she could not let this faceless man torture her father.

Struggling to her feet, she splashed water on her face and stared hard at the woman in the mirror. This was not the time to fold. “I’m going to make them regret ever screwing with me.” 

Not that she had any superpowers for backing up those words, but they made her feel better.

She twisted her neck back and forth, breathed deeply to calm down, then started planning before she made the call for instructions.