Wild Nights with a Lone Wolf (11 page)

They’d already tried the lock. No dice. Ash didn’t know how to pop it without making too much noise or breaking down the door. Both would give a definite heads up to their departure.

“Hmm.” Sherri backed away and craned her neck, looking up toward the ceiling. Any idea how big the ducts are? Maybe I could climb up there.” She headed for the broken refrigerator, pointing to the vent up above.

Ash looked from her to the vent and back again. “No way. That’s not safe.”

“How do you know?”

He couldn’t believe she was even considering such a thing. She must be more desperate to leave than he’d realized. “Your shoulders are barely narrow enough. You’ll get stuck.”

“Barely narrow enough is still narrow enough.”

“Some of that duct work leads straight to a massive, hundred year-old furnace. I don’t know which. They don’t run it often, but it’s useful when they need to destroy certain things if you get my meaning. You could get hurt.” Or die.

“Some of them probably lead to other rooms. Empty rooms.”

“Absolutely not. I forbid you.” He shouldn’t say such things to her. He had no claim over Sherri. But he’d held her body in his arms, and he’d trusted her to touch his wolf. He could not let this go.

Somewhere down inside, part of him screamed that she’d been his from the moment she’d taken that glass from his hand. His wolf wanted to lay with its muzzle against her and listen to her murmur sweet words while she scratched behind his ears. The man in him wanted to get her naked again and make love to her until they both went blind.

Both halves of him insisted that standing aside while she risked her life had zero chance of happening. Zero. Not if Hell froze over, not if pigs and frogs and a million dollars rained from the sky.

No.

The impending full moon turned up the volume on his passion. Perhaps he could blame that for his unusual attachment. Perhaps.

Sherri stalked toward him. “Did you say ‘
forbid
?’”

Jojo chose that moment to burst into the room. “Now, now, what’s goin’ on in here, Ash? Trouble in paradise?” His half brother’s hand—that vile, mangy hand—reached toward Sherri. “Don’t you know you gotta teach a bitch her place or else she’ll walk all over you?”

Ash sprang forward. Blood thundered in his ears as he took Jojo to the floor. One knee to the balls, one palm strike to the nose, and Jojo was whimpering for his momma. “You don’t fucking touch her,” Ash growled. “I will make you sorry.”

To Sherri’s credit, she didn’t cower in the corner and shriek at the display like a lotta women would have. Sure as fuck though, she was giving him a look like she thought he might sprout horns any second, along with his tail. He couldn’t blame her.

“What the fuck is going on in there?” Pop lumbered in, carrying a shotgun. “
Cristo
, what the hell happened here?”

Jojo pushed to his feet, threatening Ash with a wet snarl. Ash growled back, sinking his weight into his heels in case he needed to attack again.

“I believe Ash was protecting my virtue,” Sherri said dryly.

“For fuck’s sake, can’t an old man take a piss without the two of you drawing blood? I need you both alive for tonight. Work out your shit already.” Ramon waved his arm toward Ash, and then toward the door. “Come on, you big mule. It’s time to make an honest woman of your bond mate here.”

Just like that, Ash’s palms got slick with sweat. His heart raced like a ghost wolf in the night. He stared across the room at Sherri, who gave him a small nod.

Yeah. Okay. We’re going through with this fiasco.

Nothing. It was nothing. A charade to trick the pack into thinking she belonged to him. He needed Sherri alive and unharmed, so he could go along to this sale tonight. So he could negotiate Sherri’s release and get them both home alive.

No matter what went down today, he might never see her again after tomorrow. So why in God’s name did he suddenly feel so fucking nervous?

***

T
ongue burning, Jett swallowed the scalding coffee and took another swig. He hadn’t gone to sleep since his close encounter with Kyle at oh dark thirty, and his mouth would heal. Right now, he needed all his brain cells alert to find Ash.

Surrounded by his partner and a half-moon of tactical guys, he pointed to the map in front of him. “We’re going to be looking for a tunnel. Probably around in this area.”

“Didn’t they shut that thing down?”

Jett looked at his partner. “They’ve shut several of them down. New ones get built all the time. They’re effective.” He held up a hand. “One thing I’ll say for my kind, we’re good at digging and we’ve got stamina. If the pack is running things across the border, this would be the way. I’ve notified Homeland Security, since it’s my understanding these tunnels fall under their domain.”

“What about your informant? How sure are you about your intel?”

Jett clutched his pen tighter. “The informant is human, male, aged twenty-five. He’s what we refer to as a ‘pack groupie,’ or a human member who pledges himself to the pack in exchange for shelter and protection. He’s close to them on a day-to-day basis and has been for some time. I have reason to believe his information is solid.”

It had better be, or Jett was going to kill the little shit for tracking him down and fucking with his brain.

“Moving on...” He placed some photos down on the table. “This is Jojo, rising alpha of Los Lobos Muertos. He’ll be in charge of the exchange tonight. Here are some of the others I expect may be present.”

He exhaled when he placed Kyle’s picture on the table. If the kid was there tonight, he knew what he was signing up for and it shouldn’t be Jett’s problem. That didn’t mean Jett wanted him hurt.

A shorter, jarhead-looking type raised his hand. “When are we doing this?”

“I believe they’ll go when the moon is high. I suggest we roll out early, find the tunnel, and try to get surveillance in place before sundown.

The tactical leader stepped forward. “With all due respect, Detective, it would be best if you let my team handle this. It’s not your area, and you’re too close to the case.”

Jett smacked his pen against his hand. “With all due respect, I’m the only species subject matter expert you have at this point in time. You need me. I know how these guys think and operate, and this close to the full moon, that may not be at all the way a human would behave. My being close is a good thing.”

“I’m only curious, but uh, if we’re so close to the full moon, how come you’re so calm?” The question came from a shorter guy in the back with a surprisingly sunny smile for a member of SWAT.

Jett returned the man’s smile. “I do what I can to stay relaxed.”
Usually that involves watching werewolves I don’t know fuck humans I don’t know in a semi-private warehouse and then going home to beat off until I’m comatose. Tonight we’re just gonna have to cross our fingers.
He clapped his hands together. “Any other questions?”

“Do we know who’s on the other end of the trade?”

“It’s a coke buy, so possibly The Devil Dogs pack. There’s also talk of a new player operating from right over the border, but we don’t have much information. Narco guys say the product is so good it’ll send you into orbit and then stop your heart.”

Mutters of “holy shit” and “Jesus” and various other expletives filled the room about how not good it was that a new supply of deadly drugs was coming on the market.

“Right. Let’s also remember there are women and young girls being taken over there, probably drugged until they’re too high to know their own names, and then sold to whatever asshole is willing to pay.”

At that, everyone clammed the fuck up. “Yeah. So.” Jett punched his fist into his palm. “Let’s get ready to do this thing.”

W
hen Sherri’s favorite aunt passed away at the age of seventy-two, she’d insisted on the service being a celebration. “No mourning for me,” Ingrid Walker proclaimed. Sparkling cider had been served, and balloons had been handed out. Aunt Ingrid, a retired school teacher, had requested that “Mr. Stringbean” and other songs for children be played. Many had left the service smiling, but many more had left disorientated.
That was different
, they’d mumbled in their confusion.

Such was Sherri’s experience preparing to walk into a fake werewolf wedding ceremony. Or whatever it was she was about to do. Reality had taken a vacation along with the actual vacation she was supposed to be taking.

She paused on the verge of entering a large, open room with its one oblong table pushed to the side. A handful of men, or what looked like men, stood around the perimeter. A couple held guns that she could see. A few wolves sat at attention in the center of the space. Most had dark gray fur, some reddish, some brown. The sight made her vision go double.

Ash squeezed her hand, she assumed again to provide assurance. Again, she took it with a hairy grain of salt. They were literally surrounded by a pack of wolves. She tried to think of what might get them out of this. Tear gas? Napalm? A truckload of quality T-bones?

Sherri grabbed at a younger-looking woman standing near the door. “Bathroom. I cannot do this without going to the bathroom.”

The woman’s eyes darted back and forth, accompanied with a nervous lip-chew. “I’ll have to go with you.”

“Fine. Whatever. I have to go.” She did the dance again for illustration, avoiding Ash’s look of concern.

“Quickly.” The woman tugged Sherri into a small room off to the side. She did indeed accompany Sherri inside, but turned her back for the proceedings.

“Hey,” Sherri said as she went to wash her hands, “I remember you. You took the girl who was brought in with me to get her cleaned up. Is she okay?”

“I stitched her cheek. Put salve on her bruises. She’s fine.” The woman put one hand to her lower back and the other to her forehead, rubbing as if anxious.

“I’m sure she’s grateful.” This lady had conflict about something. Maybe Sherri could use that, get her to open up. “Do uh, you know where they’re taking us? What’s going to happen?”

“Not really.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Are you all done over there? Either you are, or you got OCD to be scrubbing your hands so long.”

“I think you do know.” Sherri took a chance and edged closer. “You seem awfully unhappy about something. I wonder if maybe you know what they’re doing, and you know it’s not right. I mean we’re both women here, huh? Think about if you were the one in this situation. How would you feel?”

The woman rested her head against the door but didn’t answer.

Sherri touched one hand to the woman’s arm. “My name’s Sherri by the way. You know, I was taking some time off to recharge before starting a new job when that Jojo guy grabbed me. All I wanted to do that night was to go back to my hotel room, get some Advil for my headache, and get some sleep. I’d kind of like my life back, you know? I’d bet that other young woman wants the same thing.”

All at once, the other woman’s eyes flashed. With a jerk of her arm, she pulled away and grabbed the knob on the bathroom door. “Jojo is my mate.”

Oh. Shit. Well, talk about a miscalculation. “I’m sure he’s a wonderful mate, I’m only saying—”

“It’s time to go.”

Right. Probably best to shut the hell up at that point, especially since the door opened to the sight of Jojo pointing at Ash with a revolver. Jojo’s face displayed a swollen nose and a maniacal grin. Ash looked like he might try to go for the throat again.

Jojo smacked his lips at the sight of both of them emerging from the bathroom. “Well, well. You ladies do some nice female bonding in there? Don’t get too cozy. We have us a trip to take shortly.” The gun waved back and forth as he spoke, and a quiet threat rumbled from Ash’s throat.

Sherri put her arms around Ash, trying to make a good show of affection for the peanut gallery. She nuzzled against his ear, nipping his jaw and earlobe the way he had before with her. “He’s trying to piss you off, and it’s working. Let’s just get through this.”

Ash clenched his fingers around her waist, but some of the tension flowed out of his shoulders.

Until Jojo spoke again. “I guess you’re the kind who takes orders from your bitch. So sad, Asher.”

Ash snapped his teeth.

Okay, now even Sherri wanted to kill him. This guy was one piece of work. She glanced over to the woman who’d escorted her to the bathroom, but her eyes cast down to the floor. Poor thing. Sherri couldn’t fathom having a mate like Jojo.

The big man, Ash’s father, approached with a tall woman on his arm. “Everyone’s waiting. Time to start.”

Jojo pulled his downtrodden mate by the arm. “Come on, Zoe, time to take our place among the well-wishers.”

Sherri and Ash took their assigned positions at the front. Everyone settled around them on either side, some in wolf form and some not. Ash’s father stood before them, holding an ancient-looking tome that definitely was not a Bible. Sherri stood beside Ash, her stomach rolling like she’d eaten something she shouldn’t have.

She tried to get a read on the room, to pick out anyone who looked threatening. Frankly, the entire room looked threatening. She continued to sweep visually, but returned to Jojo each time. The deep, droning words of Ash’s father went in one ear and out the other. For all she knew, she’d just agreed to give Ash her kidney and her left arm. The mortgage to her DC condo. Dammit, he could have it all if they got out of this in one piece.

“And now...” Ramon’s voice rose to a louder volume. “Before we move to the blood rite, we ask the great Mother and Father to bless this union. Does anybody in this pack have any words of wisdom for the about-to-be mated pair?”

“Yeah, I got some words.” They all turned to see Jojo step forward with his gun aimed at Ash.

“Motherfucker.” Ash shoved Sherri to the floor.

As she went down, across the way so did... Zoe? Jojo’s quiet mate took a sudden tumble and knocked into Jojo, sending his shot wild. Above Sherri, Ash groaned through clenched teeth and slumped on top of her.

“Are you okay?” She tried to feel to find out, but her hand came away with blood.

***