Wolf Pack (14 page)

It was still hard to believe how much land the pack owned. Lake Worth had quickly been established as a shifter-friendly city when the shifters had first announced their presence to the world. Even though Cole had lived in Phoenix at the time he’d still heard about how Taylor was one of the best Alphas in the country.

All of this could be Cole’s. All he had to do was say yes. His entire life, he’d never imagined that becoming Alpha would be so simple.

Not that the position would be easy, but Cole had always feared that he’d have to fight, literally, if he ever wanted a pack of his own. That was why he had tried to convince himself he never wanted one.

Now that the possibility was close he ached to grab at the chance.

“What are you thinking about?”

He jumped, not having heard Kendra get out of bed or walk down the hall.

She smiled as she strolled closer. “You were grinning.”

“I never thought I’d have a pack again,” he confessed. Cole dropped the second folder and opened his arms.

She came right to him. “One of the first things that Taylor taught us was to trust our instincts. We’re lucky being born shifters. We have so many gifts that a normal human doesn’t even know they’re missing,” Kendra said quietly. “I sensed your power right away. That first night as my wolf. I wanted to submit to you in a way that I’d never craved toward Taylor.”

He scoffed. “I hope you didn’t. Taylor is quite a bit older than you.”

She smacked his chest. “I’m serious.”

“I know,” he replied.

“So listen,” she chided.

“Sorry.”

“Maybe you needed to be on your own for a while to appreciate the pack. Taylor believes in fate, and I’ve always gone along with him. For the first time I understand what he’s talking about. I believe in you,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

She lifted an eyebrow. “How can I help you go back to sleep?” she asked while wriggling on his lap.

His cell phone ringing stopped what he was about to say. “Shit.”

Kendra laughed but got up from his lap. Then another phone joined his in going off. She frowned. “That can’t be good news.”

Cole nodded before he picked his cell up from the coffee table.

“Hello?” her voice was soft as she answered her call.

Jamie’s name flashed up on the screen. “Now, I promised Brandy not to call you. I expected the same courtesy.”

“Sorry, man, but we received a call from the Alpha house to the emergency line,” Jamie told him.

“What happened?” He stood and headed into the bedroom so he could check on Kendra.

“Attack,” Jamie said.

“Fuck! Was anyone hurt?” he asked.

Kendra was already pulling on the clothes that she’d taken off only a couple of hours earlier.

“Not any of the good guys,” Jamie said and laughed. “But we’ve got most, if not all of, Shawn’s pack that attacked, waiting to be picked up.”

“Really?” he questioned as Kendra ended her call and tossed the phone on the bed. She was pale and when she glanced at him her eyes were huge.

“We’re on our way,” he told Jamie.

Kendra nodded at his words.

“I figured. I’m about ten minutes out myself,” Jamie replied.

“See you soon,” Cole said and ended the call. “Is everyone okay?” he asked her even though Jamie had already told him that they were.

“That was Taylor—there was an attack tonight on the main house,” she said. “Everyone is okay but I need to get there fast.”

“No problem.” He headed to his closet. He yanked out a sweatshirt before rushing to his dresser for a clean pair of jeans and underwear. “It was Shawn’s pack?”

“I have to grab my shoes. If you drive I’ll explain in the truck.”

“I’ll be ready in two minutes,” he promised.

“Thanks,” she called out as she ran into the hall.

Cole pulled on his clothes, socks and shoes, and was in the living room as Kendra turned toward the door. He grabbed his wallet and keys. “Let’s go.”

”Okay,” she said before she opened the door.

“I’ll be back.” Cole patted each dog on the head now that they’d woken and were watching. He followed Kendra out, stopping to lock the door before he jogged to his truck. Kendra was already in the passenger seat.

“Tell me,” he said after he’d started the truck and backed out of the drive.

“Taylor had put extra guards on the house because Trent was staying there,” she said.

“I didn’t know that,” Cole commented.

“They were hidden and he didn’t want to upset Trent. Taylor was sure that if Trent knew, he’d feel bad,” she explained.

“Makes sense,” he agreed.

“Well, he didn’t pull them even though I took Trent to the safe house tonight. Since Taylor is considering taking the Wolf Council position he’s been having extra guards trained. He’ll be taking some of his own with him. The numbers have doubled and we needed to give them something to do so watching the main house was a good idea,” she said.

“Okay,” he replied.

“One of the hidden guys spotted some activity and called it in,” Kendra told him. “It was lucky that he did. There were eleven shifters that tried to break into Taylor’s. They didn’t get in.”

Finally he took a deep breath. Taylor was okay. They’d be at the Alpha house soon. “That’s good.”

“Yes,” Kendra responded. “I don’t even know why I’m freaking out. My heart is beating so fast and my hands are sweating.”

“You’ll feel better once you can actually see Taylor and your pack mates,” he assured her.

“You’re probably right,” she agreed. But she turned her head to look out of the window.

Cole stepped harder on the gas. He was speeding but still safe enough. There was no way that he’d ever put Kendra in danger. No matter how fast she wanted to get there.

He fishtailed a little when he turned onto the dirt road from the main highway. Kendra grabbed the dashboard but didn’t comment. As he slammed on the brakes when he reached the main house, Kendra was already undoing her seatbelt.

“Slow down,” he ordered as put the truck in park.

She didn’t listen. The door was open and Kendra was out and running toward Taylor, who stood on the porch. Taylor spread his arms before he caught her up in a hug.

Since she was taken care of for the moment, Cole looked around at the chaos. Blue and red flashing lights filled the entire area from the local police department. He wasn’t sure if they’d arrived before or after the Coalition but it didn’t matter. The Coalition had jurisdiction.

He spotted Zak and Jamie standing between the cop cars and the assembled pack next to Taylor. Cole walked over to his fellow agents.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he joined them. He grew worried as they stood scowling.

“They didn’t even leave us one to have any fun with,” Zak complained.

Cole barely held in his laugh, not wanting Zak to turn his crankiness on him.

Jamie grinned at the tiger shifter. “Ignore him. Zak’s just mad that he had to get out of bed and he didn’t get to chase or bite anyone.”

Zak punched Jamie in the arm. “So are you.”

“No,” Jamie replied then grinned. “I hadn’t gone to sleep yet.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Cole and Zak groaned.

“TMI,” Cole told him.

Jamie only shrugged.

“Anyway,” Zak said loudly. “We’ve got seven male and three female wolf shifters being transported to the office holding cells so we can interrogate them. Luca, Abilene and Jade are there to get them processed and see if we can match them up with the names and descriptions from Trent. If we have to bring him in we’re going to ask your girl to handle that.”

Cole glanced over his shoulder to where Kendra was talking animatedly to Taylor. “I’ll talk to her about it. She’ll want to come in and see them anyway.”

Zak nodded. “I figured. We’re taking lead on the case since the Marshals were only here for Trent. I’ve already informed Taylor and he was okay with it.”

“Yeah,” Cole agreed.

Jamie motioned to the two young men that were being put in separate police vehicles. “Those are the last ones. We’re going to follow them in but take your time. We’ll meet up once you both get there. Abilene was setting up a conference room for us to organize what to do next since that’s the only area large enough for all of us.”

“Good idea,” Cole said. “Let me talk to Kendra and Taylor.”

Zak slapped him on the back before he pulled Jamie away. “Once we get there we’ll send Luca for some food,” Zak called out.

“Are you sure you want to do that? There’s no telling what he’d bring back,” Cole reminded him as he walked backwards.

“Good point,” Zak agreed. “Maybe I can talk Abilene into it.”

“And get accused of sending her out for women work?” Cole asked.

“Shit!” Zak threw his hands up. “I can’t win! Fine, I’ll get it on the way in.”

“Gotcha.” Cole winked before he turned around.

Kendra saw him coming and stopped saying whatever she had been to Taylor. She straightened her shirt, although Cole didn’t see anything wrong with it.

Cole smiled as he approached. “Everything okay here?” he questioned.

“Yes,” Taylor stressed the word, and Cole figured Kendra had been giving Taylor a hard time. “The cops are gone and I’m going to check in with the guys. Then I’m heading to bed.”

“I’ll call you in the morning with an update,” she promised.

“Don’t work too hard tonight. You need some sleep too,” Taylor advised.

“Lock your doors,” Kendra responded back.

“Yes, honey.” He kissed her forehead before he motioned to the other wolf shifters around him to follow him into the house.

She was frowning.

“Do you want to stay?” he asked.

Kendra shook her head. “I do, but Taylor would kill me. And we’ll be spending the weekend here, right?”

“Right,” he agreed. “So, you want to head into the office with me?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Do you think I should call Trent?”

Cole placed his hand on the small of her back to navigate her toward the truck. “How about we let him get a little more sleep? It is still the middle of the night. That’ll give us time to put names to who we have and we’ll be able to give him more information.”

“Yeah, no point of getting his hopes up that this is over if we run into any snags,” she agreed.

He opened the door to the truck and helped her climb up. Taking a chance, he gave her a quick kiss. She smiled before she reached for him and drew him back for a deeper, dirtier kiss. “There. I feel better.”

“Good.” He waited until she was putting her seatbelt on then closed the door. He needed coffee, lot and lots of coffee.

* * * *

There was coffee, huge sub sandwiches and bags of chips on the table when they arrived. He’d taken Kendra up to the largest conference room at his office. This area was a lot more plush and had enough room for everyone to spread out. He was proud of his team for already being set up and working while they ate by the time he showed up.

Luca and Jade sat on the end of the table with Adam, Brady and Mitch across from Jamie, Zak and Abilene. That left a couple more chairs at the head of the table. He noticed his laptop already set up. He’d stopped by his place so Kendra could grab her bag while he let the dogs out for a minute and fed them breakfast. It was going on two in the morning but he was sure that Brandy wouldn’t mind picking them up later.

“Have we gotten anything yet?” he asked as he pulled out Kendra’s chair.

“Thanks,” she murmured as she sat, then began to take things out of her bag.

“We’ve already got some of them talking. No request for a lawyer or anything. I don’t think all the people we picked up tonight were with Shawn by their own free will,” Zak said.

“We might have to work some deals,” Jade spoke up. “I think after we complete all the interviews we’ll have a better idea who’s responsible for what.”

“Commander Green will be in a little later,” Cole said. “I’ll run it by him.”

“Should we split up for the initial interviews? Get those out of the way?” Luca questioned.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Cole stated. “There’s ten of us, so if we break up into five teams of two we can all get two interviews done and we’ll be able to compare notes.”

Zak nodded. “That will still take a couple of hours. Why don’t you two grab some food and I’ll get some agents to start setting up the interviews.”

“Thanks,” Cole said sincerely. He glanced over at Kendra, who was already typing on her laptop. She was probably typing an update for her boss so he grabbed a couple of sandwiches and a bag of chips from the middle of the table. “Drink?” he asked.

“Coffee?” she looked up at him.

“We’re on the same page.” He grinned.

He strolled over to the refreshment center where the Keurig was. He chose a bold pod and popped it in. As he made his and Kendra’s drinks, he peered back at the agents around the table. Even though they were all hard at work there was a real sense of fun and teamwork.

Zak slapped Jamie in the back of the head while still talking on his cell phone. The bear shifter was teasing Luca and Jade. Abilene reached over and grabbed a bag of chips but tossed another to Brady before she settled back in her chair.

Kendra smiled and answered Adam as he leaned over to ask her a question.

When the coffee was done he carried both cups with him and set one beside Kendra before he sat down. He powered on his computer then looked over at Kendra’s screen. She had some kind of spreadsheet up.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

“I made an Excel sheet to keep up with who belongs to Shawn’s pack and their positions. I added in the rogues that we’ve rescued. I’m hoping if we do have some of Shawn’s unwilling pack members we can get the locations for the rest of the rogues,” she explained.

“Huh,” Cole grunted. He’d written a list on a legal pad but he liked Kendra’s report. “That’s cool.”

“Would you like me to email it to you?” she asked, laughing.

Okay, he was a little jealous of her organization. “If you would be so kind.” He could add in his own notes then pass it on to the others.

Cole unwrapped his sandwich and got to work emailing the commander on the earlier excitement and the plan for the next step. He also requested a meeting for eight a.m.