Wolf Tales 11 (3 page)

“Who’s got her? What the fuck’s going on?” Tinker looked as if he might leap across the desk and go for Luc’s throat. Mik slung an arm over his broad shoulders and gave him a quick hug.

“Give Luc a chance, Tink. We’re all in this together. Luc?”

“Shit. I never expected anything like this. It didn’t seem like that big a deal.” Luc turned away and struggled to gather his racing thoughts. None of this felt real. It was too horrible a nightmare to be real. He took a deep breath and faced his packmates. “They’ve been kidnapped.”

“Fuck.” Tinker’s entire body sagged. Mik tightened his hold on the big man.

AJ grabbed the desk for support. “Who? What do you know?”

Luc hardly knew where to begin. “I turned down a job a couple of days ago. Very few details, but I didn’t like what I heard. I’ve never trusted the bastard who wanted to hire us. Honestly? I think he’s nuts, like certifiable, and what little he told me—and he told me damned little—didn’t make sense. That alone made me wary. I said Pack Dynamics wasn’t interested, especially without details. He insisted. I declined, told him he’d have to find someone else. Thought that was the end of it.”

“Who the hell’s behind this?” Tinker’s voice pulsed with anger. “How much do you know?”

“Not nearly enough. Not yet. The guy who called? He was once part of Bosworth’s team.” Luc walked over to the cabinet against the back wall and opened the cupboard. He pulled out an unopened bottle of Hennessy cognac. Their pack leader, Anton Cheval, had given the bottle to him almost exactly three years ago. The events of that time—when they’d rescued Tia’s father from kidnappers—felt like a fresh wound as he removed the stopper with shaking hands and poured a glass of the rich amber liquor for each of them.

Obviously confused by his actions, the other men took the glasses he handed to them. Then Luc held his glass up and faced Tinker, AJ, and Mik—three men he loved more than he’d ever imagined possible. “A promise, gentlemen. Anton Cheval gave this to me after we’d successfully brought Ulrich Mason home when he was kidnapped. We will bring our women home safely. There are no alternatives, no other possibilities. We will bring them home and the ones who took them will pay. I swear this to you.”

He sensed their joint resolve as each one took a sip of the smooth liquor, and he relished the heat as it slipped down his throat. Then he walked to the window and
stared out at the traffic passing by on Marina. He kept his thoughts open for any sign of Tia and felt the anger within him build. No more. He’d had it with constantly being on the defensive. It was time to take the offense.

“We need to go over everything. Every single detail. What have you got so far?” AJ stepped up beside him. His voice was steady now, and though Luc knew it had to be killing him, AJ obviously had his temper and his anger under control.

He stared into the liquor in his glass. “I got a call about twenty minutes ago. Same voice as the guy who’d wanted to hire us, telling me he had Lisa and Tala. No word on my wife, but he gave me details for the job. The president and First Lady are scheduled to attend a concert at the Civic Auditorium tonight at eight. Our job is to make certain the president doesn’t leave the building alive.”

“What the fuck?” Mik grabbed Luc’s shoulder and spun him around. “Are you fucking nuts? Assassinate the president? You’re fucking kidding me. This dick thinks he can hire us to …”

Luc nodded. “I didn’t know what the job was, originally. Only that I don’t like the politics of the man behind it, and when he came to me with a supposedly top-secret project, I knew I wasn’t comfortable taking orders from him. I had no idea in the beginning what he was proposing, but from the obscene amount of money he offered, I just …”

Shaking his head, he sighed and turned away from the window. “Once they snagged the women, I got the details, along with their promise that the minute the job is carried out, Tala and Lisa are free. No mention of Tia. Not a word.”

He glanced at the three men. “I called Anton first. I wanted him involved immediately, but Liana had already warned him. She sensed the kidnapping when it happened. I’d barely hung up the phone when Baylor called from
some small town on the Maine coast. He’d run into a guy from the agency he used to work for. The man warned him of a plan to kidnap your women. He’d heard mention of it within his agency. From the way he talked, Bay thought they were in on the deal, but he’s not positive. For all we know, they were offered the job and turned it down as well, but Bay didn’t think so. He thinks it’s their hit.”

Tinker softly asked him the question that had Luc close to breaking. “I don’t get it. Why no word of Tia?”

Luc shook his head. “The guy who called didn’t mention her. Neither did Bay. I can only assume they’ve got Tala and Lisa. I have no idea where my wife is. No idea if she’s even alive.”

“The babies?” AJ rubbed his shoulder, offering comfort.

He felt his voice break and cleared his throat. “Beth and Nick were babysitting the girls over at their apartment. I reached them mentally, the minute I got the call. Right now, they’re on their way here. I figure this is the safest place we’ve got. Better than the compound where you guys all live. The security’s not as good there. They’ve got orders to stay here, inside, out of sight until we get the women home safely.”

Mik stood close against his other side. “Did Anton have any ideas?”

Luc swallowed and nodded his head. “He does. He’s got a suggestion, but he wants me to run it by the three of you first. We know your women and babies are at risk. Obviously, there’s no way we can give in to these bastards. We don’t do jobs like this. We work for good, not against it. Hell, even if we hated the man leading our country, we don’t work that way. The problem is, if we don’t take the assignment, the women die. Anton has a plan. He’s still working out the details, but it sounds risky.”

Mik chuckled, but there was no humor behind his laughter. “Has Anton Cheval ever had a plan that wasn’t?”

Keisha Rialto stood in the doorway to her mate’s office. The wind howled outside. Part of her thoughts were with their sleeping daughter. Lily’d been fussy all morning, and Keisha hoped the blustering storm wouldn’t wake their little one from her nap. Her focus, though, her worry, and her love were for the man seated at the large oak desk near the big window.

Something had drawn her to him, a powerful sense of need she could no more ignore than she could her daughter’s cries. Anton raised his head, and the anguish in his eyes pulled Keisha across the room and into his arms in a heartbeat.

“What is it? I can’t see your thoughts, my love. There’s nothing but darkness and so much pain. What’s wrong?”

He pulled her into his lap and held her close. She felt his heart racing, sensed the subtle opening of his mind to hers, as if a dark cloud slowly faded away and allowed the light to pass.

But there was no light in this knowledge. Keisha gasped. “All three of them? Even Tia? But what of her babies? And Tala and Lisa? They’re both so close to their due dates. I don’t understand. Who? Why?”

Anton shook his head. “Tia’s little ones are safe with Nick and Beth. As far as who and why? We have an idea—a good idea, but it’s one that makes me sick inside.” He sighed and very softly kissed her cheek. “It appears I need to make a call. I’ve been searching for another way to help—our low profile is the most important thing we’ve got to keep us safe, but there’s no way around it. I have to share the knowledge of our existence and hope it goes no further than this one man, but it’s the only hope we have if we’re to prevent a terrible tragedy.” He chuckled. “At least I think the man’s trustworthy.”

He wrapped an arm about Keisha’s waist and held her close as he bent down and reached for a small panel in the
side of his desk, one hidden beside his right leg. Keisha felt her own heart race to match the pace of Anton’s. She’d known the panel existed—even knowledge as closely guarded as this was shared in the mating bond—but she’d never known Anton to release the secret catch, nor to remove the small box contained within.

He took what appeared to be a slim cell phone out of the box, plugged in a power cord, and attached it to a strip on the underside of his desk. There were no numbers on the phone—nothing more than a series of buttons across the top.

He pressed the red one and held the phone to his ear. Keisha heard it ring twice. A man answered. His voice was familiar, one she’d heard often on the nightly news. She’d even seen him once, in person at a distance, when she and Anton had attended an event in Washington, DC, many months ago.

Wind buffeted their sturdy home, yet even above the roar Keisha caught the sound of her daughter’s restless cry. She slipped off of Anton’s lap and headed for the door. As she closed it softly behind her, she heard her mate’s deep and steady voice.

“Yes, Mr. President,” he said. “My name is Anton Cheval. I had hoped never to have to call this number.”

Perfume filled the air, cloying and thick. Tia’s first thought was that it was a good thing she was in the bathroom, because she really felt as if she had to throw up right now, and that sickening sweet smell wasn’t helping her roiling stomach.

She blinked and the walls so close around her spun and shifted in and out of her blurred vision. The nausea went from bad to worse, but she was on the floor beside the toilet, thank goodness, and it was fairly easy to lean over the porcelain bowl and vomit the acidic contents of her stomach.

Oh, Goddess!
The pain was overwhelming. She cried out and pressed her hands to her belly. Forcing herself not to whimper, she took a few deep, calming breaths.

The nausea passed, but not the pain. Tia reached overhead, grabbed toilet tissue from the dispenser, and wiped her face. Then she blinked stupidly at the sticky tissue, confused by the crimson stains on the paper. She hadn’t vomited blood. No, there’d been nothing but bile, so obviously she hadn’t eaten in a while, but there was blood everywhere.

Her hands were covered. She must have smeared it
across her face. Blood was all over the toilet seat where she’d held on when she puked. Her jeans were soaked, as was the lower half of her shirt. Thank Goddess the pain had receded just a bit. Now it was a manageable throb in her lower right side, the same place that seemed to be the source of the coagulating blood.

Forcing herself to think, Tia leaned her head back against the metal wall and tried to remember how she’d gotten here. Then she realized she had no idea where
here
actually was. She studied her surroundings and saw pale green metal walls, a white toilet. The tile floor beneath her was clean, thank goodness, since she was obviously sitting on the floor in the stall of a public restroom somewhere.

The mall. The big one in Corte Madera.
She’d gone to the mall with Tala and Lisa, one last shopping trip before the babies arrived. Babies? Dear Goddess, were her little ones okay?

Panic lent her strength. She reached out with her mind and tried to find Luc.
Shit.
Pain knifed through her head, a blinding, agonizing headache that pulsed directly behind her eyes. Had blood loss and shock screwed up her mindtalking? There was no sense of Luc at all.

No sense of anyone. Where were Lisa and Tala?

Slowly, bits and pieces of the day filtered into coherency, until the pattern of the morning began to take shape. They’d been planning this shopping trip for days. Christmas was less than a month away and Tala and Lisa were almost eight months pregnant. Tia’s twins had come early—they’d agreed they were running out of time to do any shopping.

Tala had been determined to get at least one more trip in before she had two little ones to care for. Conversation filtered through Tia’s memories—Lisa teasing Tala, something about already having two big ones who were high maintenance.

Mik and AJ. Dear Goddess … did they know their mates were missing? Or were they okay and was she the only one not found?

Tia’s nausea ebbed and flowed with her memories—the beautiful drive across the Golden Gate, coffee at that neat little shop in Sausalito, arriving at the mall early.

Tala’d been so thrilled to get out of the city. Lisa, too. Tia and Luc had made a few trips to the mountains with the babies, so Tia hadn’t been nearly as frantic to escape, but she’d still been excited about a day with her girlfriends, especially knowing the twins were safely in Nick and Beth’s capable hands. They’d decided to shop at the big open-air mall just off the freeway, the one with the trees and fresh air between stores.

Poor Tala. She was big as a house from carrying twins fathered by Mik and AJ. This pregnancy had been a lot more difficult than she’d expected, but nothing would stop Tala.

Nothing stops Tala. Nothing.
Fading in and out of reality, Tia leaned her head back against the metal wall. Should she try reaching out for Luc again?
Damn. It hurts. Everything hurts.

Something terrible happened.
What?
She couldn’t recall much after they’d locked the car and walked to the mall. Lisa holding on to Tala’s arm, both of them cracking pregnant lady jokes. Tia prancing ahead of them, showing off her slim, trim, eight-months-post-baby self. Laughing about whether or not Tala would ever get her tiny waist back, or if Mik and AJ were really going to change diapers.

No one doubted Tinker. Lisa sounded so smug when she talked about her mate, but she had a right to. Tink was a gem. How many guys would willingly take on a woman’s labor pains? Tinker had, when Tia had her twins. Then he’d helped care for her babies once they got home to San Francisco, and they weren’t even his.

He’d been there for every second of Lisa’s pregnancy, whether she was hanging over the toilet puking her guts out or worried about peeing her pants when Tink’s unborn daughter practiced her soccer kicks.

Of course, Mik and AJ were just as terrific. Not quite as comfortable in the caretaking role as Tinker, but still wonderful and loving. No one could be like Tink—he was a natural. Still, the guys were there for Tala, worried and afraid, yet always supportive. As Luc had been for Tia.