Chasing a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Four (9 page)

“
G
et out of there
!” Tomás yelled, running for his mate with his heartbeat racing.

Lani scrambled away from the feasting wolf, dragging her mother behind the chair.

Maggie’s wolf shimmered not a second later and jumped at Adrian’s wolf, but he flashed his teeth and tore into her shoulder. She yelped and yipped back at him. With one snap of his thick neck, he threw her across the room.

Tomás reached Lani, gripping her wrists and pulling her into his body. She was sobbing and shaking, clutching at her mother and at him, and screaming Zolin’s name. But the large warrior lay in the middle of the light wood floor, his blood forming a small lake between all of the fighters.

Adrian’s wolf fixed his glowing eyes on the corner of the room near the shackles. Tomás got to his feet, holding out the gun and screaming. “You stay back or I’ll kill you.”

The wolf’s ears bent back and it crouched, then lunged.

Tomás pulled the trigger, but the animal kept coming. Shards of pain ripped through him as the wolf’s teeth tore into his arm. The force of the bite shocked him and the leverage of the wolf’s jaw knocked him across the room. He slid through the pool of Zolin’s blood and knocked into the man’s lifeless body.

A howl loosed itself from Tomás’ throat and he was on the edge of shifting when he heard Alex shout. “Look out, Lani!”

Two loud gunshots bounced through the room and the wolf yelped.

Tomás jumped up, ignoring the pain in his arm, and raised the gun, only it wasn’t there. He must have dropped it when Adrian had tried to rip his arm off.

Alex was on his feet walking toward the wolf, firing off shot after shot into the big body. Each bullet landed and the wolf yowled, but did not drop. When he started clicking the trigger, Alex yelled for the other gun.

Tomás wasn’t sure where it was. But it didn’t matter. He had to get to Lani.

Adrian’s wolf let out a low moan and collapsed to the floor. Tomás reached for Lani and circled his good arm around her.

Alex ran to Zolin and then followed the blood trail up to Tomás. The look of disgust on his face hit nuclear levels when his eyes landed on Maggie. She was crumpled in the corner, her throat similarly slashed, but she was still in her wolf form, and whimpering.

“She’s alive.” He ran across the room and slid beside her, running his hands over her body. “Tomás, help me. She’s still alive.”

Tomás stood, pulling Lani up with him, and avoiding Zolin’s blood as his mate whimpered beside him. The pain inside her swelled so quickly, Tomás had to calm himself before he could work on calming her.

She felt responsible.

He deposited her next to Alex and knelt in front of her, holding her cheek in his good hand with a groan. His other arm just wasn’t usable at the moment. “This is not your fault, Lani. Do you hear me?”

“But…” she sobbed. “Zolin. He’s…”

“Yes, he’s gone.” He hugged her to his chest and held her there as long as he dared. His arm was bleeding and throbbing and he needed to get himself and Maggie to a hospital. “But it was
not
you who killed him. It was the bastard.”

“Maggie,” Alex whispered, getting close to the long, graceful snout of her wolf. “Maggie, can you hear me?”

The wolf whimpered and flicked out her tongue.

“I need you to shift back so we can take you to the hospital.” He whipped his head around. “Tomás, get me that blanket. Let’s cover her up so she can shift.”

“She’s too injured,” Tomás argued, holding Lani close. “We need to wait and let her wolf heal her. Besides, how will we ever get her past the front desk? Let alone whatever security is there?”

“You’re right. Dammit, you’re right.” Alex slid his hand along Maggie’s cinnamon-colored fur, avoiding the gaping wound on her neck.

A shimmer of magick sounded through the room and they all looked around to see the source. But before they could quite place what’d happened, a flash of naked skin moved across Tomás’ peripheral vision. He looked up from Maggie at the wail of Lani’s mother.

Over near the other corner of the room, the elevator door opened and Adrian stood in front of it with his hand on a big white pad that lit on the wall. He was naked and bloody, with holes in his body, and he sagged against the door, but in his other hand, he had Lani’s mother.

“Mama!” Lani screamed.

Tomás lunged toward the elevator, but before he could reach into the door, it had closed, with Adrian and his captive inside. He stood, panting, in front of the silver door.

“No!” Lani’s wail tore through him like a machete. She scrambled across the floor and clawed at the elevator door beside him.

Tomás pounded on it and yelled, but nothing would make it open.

The door was smooth and held together despite their efforts.

“What the hell?” Alex’s voice, full of incredulity, was low and dark. Angry. He came to stand on Tomás’ other side.

Lani sank to her knees, pounding one last time on the door. “No,” she cried. “No, no. Please. No.”

Tomás knelt, pulling her against him so she could pound on his chest instead. Better anger at him than at herself.
He
could handle it.

“How in the hell did that happen?” Alex fixed his eyes on the floor. “I shot him… so many times. How did he survive?”

“He has my mother. We have to go after him.” She pulled back and pinned Tomás with angry eyes. “We can’t leave her with him.”

“We won’t.” He glanced over at Maggie, who was trying to stand. He nodded at Alex. “Help her. We should get out of here.”

“We can’t leave like this.” Alex gestured at Tomás. “You’re covered in blood. Lani’s covered in blood. We’ve all been injured. He may not have wolves for his security, so who knows if they know his secret—and he sure doesn’t have cameras in here—but how are we going to explain the dead security guards?”

Tomás shook his head. He couldn’t take it all in. Everything had happened so fast, and Lani was practically in shreds. They had to find a way to get out of that room and get Maggie to a hospital.

He sighed and leaned against the door, taking his sobbing mate with him. His eyes landed on Zolin. The large warrior lay sprawled in his own blood, his gaze wide and angry and fixed on some point far away, where it would never land. Maggie was practically at death’s door. Tomás and Lani had both been injured, and for what? To capture Adrian?

The ball of rage that bubbled inside him was so hot and grew so fast, it threatened to overtake him. But suddenly, he felt a small press of comfort oozing through him.
Lani.

She was trying to send emotions to him.

His arm itched and throbbed as it healed, and he tried to wrap it around her. It wasn’t quite so useless as it had been. Pictures flooded his mind—the flashes of what had just happened in this room. The one thing he had never considered was they would have to get away. How would they ever get past the security guards without alerting the police?

“She’s healing,” Alex said. He had his hands on Maggie’s coat. “It’s taking time, but I can see the blood stopping.”

“Will she make it?” Tomás couldn’t bring himself to meet his teammate’s eyes, and he buried his face in Lani’s neck when Alex answered ‘
yes
.’

This had been such a disaster. Running into an uncontrollable situation. He wasn’t typically this impulsive. They’d let themselves get carried away.

“We will find your mother,” he whispered into Lani’s ear, through the thick curtain of her hair. He just wanted to bury himself in her and never let go. Every part of his body hurt or bled, but he could imagine the bliss of Lani’s body comforting him in a heartbroken way—the way other men sought solace in the bottom of a bottle. He would seek solace in Lani. And she in him.

She sighed against him and shook her head. “We must get you to a healer. And your friend.” Lani sniffed. “I know where he is taking my mother. We will find her.”

Tomás levered himself to his feet, pulling her up with him. “The island?”

“This island your mother spoke of,” Alex said from the opposite corner of the room. “She insinuated… I mean, she said…”

“I heard it, too.” He stretched his back and leaned against the wall next to the elevator. His body was exhausted. He needed a shower. He needed sleep.

Tomás needed Lani.

“Does that mean…Is he taking her?”

“We might as well say it out loud,” Lani’s voice cut through the room, strong, stark and loud. “This brothel you say he started in Guadalajara. He has one in Choaca, on this island, and that’s where he’s taking my mother.”

“Given how wounded he was, and given the fact that we are waiting in his home with guns, I’d say that’s a fair bet.” Alex stroked Maggie’s fur with a sad droop to his eyes. “Even if only two of us left can fight.”

“I don’t feel him trying to choke you,” Tomás said, pulling Lani back so he could look into her eyes. “Do you feel him?”

“I don’t know what I feel anymore.” She closed her eyes. “Too much feeling, and I’m numb.”

He pushed off the wall. “At least, for now, you’re safe.”

“Come and help me,” Alex said. “We really should get her to a bed and let her shift. This wound is pretty bad.”

Tomás and Lani stepped away from the elevator just as an electric whirring noise came from it. The doors slid open and everyone’s breath caught. But the silence that had become so precious was cut when Lani’s yelp rent the air.

The bloodied, scarred, lifeless body of her mother slid out of the elevator and lodged itself in the open door, preventing it from closing. The entire inside of the elevator was covered in splattered blood and pieces of flesh, and on the mirror in the back was a giant, bloody handprint, right in the middle.

The handprint of a sadistic murderer, and the only family Lani had left in the world.

T
omás let
the nurse wrap his arm for the second time, but he kept Lani in his hospital bed, curled up against his side.

She’d been almost catatonic since they’d found her mother in the elevator, and he kept trying to minimize his own pain so she wouldn’t be bombarded with every hard thing in the world at one time.

When they’d all had to climb into that elevator, with Zolin’s body and her mother’s body, and ride down to the midnight-dark parking garage, Lani had almost crawled inside herself to get away from the emotion and Tomás had resolved to just hold her and keep her close. Not ask more than she could handle.

He just wanted to take back the last two days.

If Tomás could rewind time, to before she’d come to him in the sex tent, he could’ve convinced her to stay in the village with Zolin and to stay the hell away from him. He’d brought nothing but pain to her since they met.

Tomás winced as they secured the bandage. The kind-eyed nurse patted his leg when she finished.

“You’ll heal. She,” she said, pointing to Lani, “won’t need stitches, but I should change her dressing as well, before you’re discharged.”

“Thank you.” He glanced down at his mate. The gunshot had grazed her arm and healed just enough that they could pass it off as having been the same
mad dog
. As long as no one thought too long and hard about why a dog that practically tore out Maggie’s throat and tried to bite off Tomás’ arm only took a small nip at Lani before running away. So far, no one seemed suspicious.

“This dog, who attacked you, it seems like a dangerous animal. I hope someone catches it, or it disappears into the mountains.”

“I’m sure the police will be on the lookout.” Tomás turned up the corners of his mouth and Lani stirred beside him. Her insides were still empty and her eyes hollow.

Adrian’s suit pants that Tomás had stolen from his closet itched like wool, and the shirt was too big in the chest. It felt like a betrayal to be wearing this man’s clothing, but there’d been no choice. His had been soaked in blood. So had Lani’s.

It was the first time he’d seen her in a real dress. Adrian’s closets had been full of strange clothing. The blue silk dress was far too big for her, but it looked bohemian enough, she could pass it off as her own. It brought out the golden flecks in her eyes. Those sad eyes.

“My friend?” Tomás called after the nurse just as she left his curtained-off room. “The woman who came in with us. Can I see her now?”

“The doctor is just finishing with her.” The nurse drew heavy eyebrows together. “She was the worst of the three of you. But she does appear to be recovering. We gave her a room and she will need to rest tonight.”

“Can we see her before she sleeps?” Tomás shifted his legs off the side of the hospital bed and Lani plopped down onto the space he’d vacated. “I just want to make sure she’s okay, with my own eyes.”

“You can. She has a visitor right now, but you can go in, as long as she remains stable.” The nurse held up a finger and wagged it at him. “Don’t you go upsetting her, now. She’s been through quite a trauma.”

“We all have.” Tomás swallowed and walked around the bed, taking Lani’s hands and pulling her to her feet.

She still didn’t speak, and he still didn’t push.

“She’s just this way.” The nurse led them through the bustling row of curtains, and the noise level ratcheted up with the influx of more people. Their little corner had been quiet enough, minus the occasional rustle of emergency room intake, but as they got closer to the nerve center, Lani’s attention began to perk up.

He held her closer, feeling for any signs of emotion or pain, but there was still nothing. Shock, Tomás was certain. But even when she’d been getting stitched up by the nurses, she wasn’t feeling any pain.

A little numbness could be a good thing. Too much, and he was afraid she might never recover. But he’d never lost his mother, so he couldn’t say what he would’ve done in her place.

The nurse deposited them in a small, sparse room, where Maggie lay almost flat on the hospital bed.

Alex sat at her side, with both Maggie’s and Tomás’ packs at his feet. He waited for the nurse to give instructions and vacate, and then he bounded up to close the door behind Tomás and Lani. “It’s done.” He returned to his seat and clasped his hands over his mouth.

“Where are they?” Tomás asked.

“In the rental car.” He held up the ring of keys they’d taken from Adrian at the penthouse. “I tried to get back up to the penthouse after we finally let the elevator door close, but you need a keycard and I couldn’t get Maggie’s thing to work again. I don’t know what else these open, but it’s not the elevator.”

“So what are we going to do about the dead guards?”

Alex shrugged. “Hope they don’t have us on camera and let the police sort it out.” He barked out a laugh. “Maybe they’ll put Adrian in jail.”

Maggie groaned and shook her head. “You obviously haven’t spent much time in Mexico. Money greases the wheels around here.”

“Hey, you should rest.” He reached for her and rested his hand on the edge of the bed, his eyes going dark. “You’ve done enough.”

“But none of you can do what I can do.” Her laugh sounded chunky, like a cold engine trying to turn over. “Why don’t you get me my tablet?”

Alex raised his eyebrows and Tomás nodded. The tablet was reluctantly handed over, and her fingers went to work.

“How’s the princess?” Alex’s voice was dark and low. None of them had spoken to or about Lani since they got in that elevator.

While Alex had cleaned up Maggie and gotten her into a dress, Tomás had done the same for Lani, and with the new clothes and new mission, it’d almost seemed possible to leave the grisly scene behind them.

Except for the fact that they’d had to ride that elevator with the dead bodies of the two people Lani had been the closest to in all the world.

No one had wanted to touch the subject, and Tomás didn’t blame them.

“I don’t know, honestly.” Tomás took the chair beside Alex and pulled Lani into his lap. “She isn’t feeling anything. I mean, nothing.”

Alex nodded, pulling his lips together in a tight line. He blew out a breath. “Do you think she’ll make the trip back up the mountain?”

“She’ll be fine.” Tomás repeated the mantra he’d been saying to himself for hours.

She will be fine
.

“She will.” Maggie croaked from the bed. “She’s in shock, but she’ll be fine.”

But they didn’t know Lani. They hadn’t seen the way she’d blocked off her emotions, kept from
feeling
. They didn’t know how she’d been imprisoned with her mother for years and kept from men and the world.

She was resilient enough to survive thirty years of emotional battles, but the bloody end of that battle…would it make her retreat? Or emerge?

“I think if we can make the
travois
at the edge of the mountain, Alex and I can pull it, and Lani can walk beside us.”

“What about me?” Maggie asked, looking over the edge of her tablet.

“You’re staying in the hospital.” Alex’s voice was firm. “You almost died, Mag. I’m not going to take you up a mountain.”

“I’m going with you.” She matched the assurance in his tone. “I’ve jumped off bridges, Alex. I’m not afraid of a little pain.”

The Cuban wolf shook his head. “Someone has to wait for the rest of the team. We’ll be out of communication when we’re up by the volcano.”

The room was silent for a long moment and Tomás felt a tiny movement in Lani’s emotion.

She raised her hand and made the sign her people used to mark their devotion to the god who lived in the volcano. When her wrist popped, she looked up at it, surprised, almost as if she’d been unaware that she made the gesture at all.

Emotion caught in his throat and he tried to tamp it down, but he couldn’t. He was full of so much relief that they had escaped with her in tact, he didn’t care how long it took for her to feel again. He was just grateful she was alive and with him.

Tomás took her hand out of the air and kissed it.

She snuggled into his chest and the faintest glow of warmth lit inside her. It wasn’t nameable, and it wasn’t big, but it was there.

“I don’t want to be the one who waits.” Maggie’s voice was improving every time she used it, and Tomás smiled at her.

“Then be the one who works.” He kissed Lani’s hand again and she threaded her fingers through his, resting on his shoulder.

Maggie’s mouth quirked up at one corner. “You two are aligned against me.”

Alex dug around in Maggie’s pack and pulled out something black and square. Her phone? It was giant, almost as big as her tablet. The screen read a number from North Carolina, where it was about dawn-o’clock.

“Is this Rain?” Alex handed the phone across the bed.

Maggie raised an eyebrow and answered the phone. Her features relaxed. “He’s calling from a secure line.”

She paused, listening for a long moment, then answered, “I’ll tell them. We’ll check in when the rest of the team is here.”

“I’d called him yesterday when I figured out there was a part of the hotel’s security system that had bypassed the others.” She turned her tablet so they could see a grid of camera views that rotated back and forth. “See what’s missing on this grid?”

Both Alex and Tomás watched the cameras for a long moment as they cycled through the different views of the hotel. Then, each one went back to its first position. Alex scoffed.

“The Penthouse.”

Maggie nodded and turned the tablet back to herself. “The Penthouse, the hallway, the secret entrance.” She moved her fingers around. “My guess is, there’s a phantom system hidden somewhere behind this one, where he has a private security person who monitors them.”

“That’s why only three guards came after him. And no police.”

“And no police,” Alex finished with him.

Maggie let her giant phone drop onto the bed and she pressed a button on the side of the plastic that levered her up into a semi-sitting position.

Alex shifted in his chair as she moved, and Tomás saw the moment he wanted to order her around, but held back. It was like he was growing as a person.

Or learning. Maggie was a badass. Forget the nearly-fatal neck wound, it was time to get back to work.

“Are you gonna tell him about…Adrian? And…the island?” Alex’s features were so strained, Tomás steeled himself for an outburst, but it never came. The Cuban wolf closed his eyes. “We have to tell him.”

“We have to tell the alpha council, too,” Tomás said.

“First things, first.” Maggie typed something into her tablet. “Rain has a guy on base who…let’s just say, he has the government behind him.”

She turned the tablet again. “He gave us access to a mainframe that even the hotel system doesn’t know existed. Just like I thought.”

The screen had five boxes, lit in red. One was the exterior of the main Penthouse elevator, in the hallway, showing the busted door. The foot of one of the dead guards was still visible in the gray corner of that screen.

The second was the exterior of the private elevator. All was dark, but Tomás could see swaths of black on the edges of one side of the door, where Lani’s mother had fallen out, and where Alex had held the door open with one bloody hand.

The other three, he didn’t recognize, but they weren’t from the interior of the Penthouse, which he’d seen extensively.

“No shots inside the place,” Alex whispered. “That’s telling.”

“This man is not only high-tech, and evil, but he’s hiding something from everyone.” Maggie swiped at the screen. “They think there are more feeds, but they’re only able to remote access these five.”

“The island?” Tomás asked with a heavy sigh. “This means someone’s going to have to go to the island.”

They sat in silence for a long moment.

Maggie kept swiping at things on her tablet screen, but Alex and Tomás just sat, flexing their hands, Tomás with his arm around Lani, and let that sink in.

“For now,” Alex finally said, “We need to focus on the mission. We have to tell Rain, and the council, and we need to figure out a way to get to that island.”

“And you have to go up the mountain,” Maggie said, glancing at Lani. “You have to take her home.”

A tight fear clutched at Tomás’ throat. This wasn’t her emotion, it was his. What would happen if they took her back to her home?

Would she disappear, catatonic, into her people, never to return? Would she wake her emotions again?

He wanted to whisk her away to Las Vegas and take her away from her father and…for the first time, he understood why Marco’s and Elise’s mothers had abandoned everything to get as far away from Adrian as possible. Tomás wanted the same thing for Lani—freedom from this madman.

But did he want it enough that he’d leave her on the mountain? Or that he’d stay there with her, and never see his family again?

Tomás licked his lips and took a long breath through his nose. “You’re right. We have to do that, and we need to get a jump on it tonight, while it’s still dark. We have work to do yet, and we need to get into the woods before the sun rises.”