“That fanger is a grade A prick—a festering thorn in all our sides.”
The Grey Wolf packmaster grumbled the words from where he’d been poring over his desk once again, his head resting wearily in his hand. Malcolm leaned back in his chair, sinking into the soft leather cushion. Maverick’s desk was fashioned out of the trunk of an old oak tree, and it looked the part. But lately it’d been more disarrayed than usual with piles of documents towering at the edges that remained untouched. With the threats they faced, no one gave two shits about the ranch’s paperwork.
Slowly, the packmaster’s fingers made smooth circles across his own temple as if the movement could ease the tension there. When it didn’t appear to help, Maverick tore the gold-rimmed reading glasses from his face with a rough growl, tossing them into the nearby desk drawer before casting a ferocious look at Malcolm.
Malcolm knew without a doubt the ire wasn’t aimed at him but their enemies. Cillian, the master vampire of the Billings coven, in particular.
“It’s time to end those bloodsuckers once and for all. This has gone on too long now. The time for limited strikes against them ended the moment they chose to help the Volk.” Maverick’s eyes flashed golden, underscoring the seriousness of his words as he looked at Malcolm. “This is war.”
The weight of his alpha’s gaze meant Malcolm’s own wolf was instantly stirring, eager to break free of his skin. Their kind didn’t always need words. A single look could create a silent understanding between them.
Hunt. Maim. Kill. Whatever he had to do.
As long as Malcolm ended this. Struck back. That was his sole task. For all of them.
Malcolm nodded in silent agreement. For once, he couldn’t say he disagreed. The bloodsuckers had more than dug their own grave over the last few years, and Cillian, their leader, had been at the helm of all of it. Their assistance had led to the Volk nearly annihilating the Grey Wolves. To the death of Austin and the lost lives of too many.
For the past hour, Malcolm had been sprawled in a chair in the far corner of Maverick’s darkened office, having recounted the information Trixie had given him for the umpteenth time as the Grey Wolf packmaster and Blaze, the pack’s security specialist, volleyed ideas. All Malcolm needed were his orders, and then he could get to work. He was an executioner, good with his hands. Not an idea man like Blaze.
The Grey Wolves had the best defense any pack of shifters had to offer, along with the protection and alliance of the other shifter clans of the Seven Range Pact, but nevertheless, the events of the past two months had aged all of them, their packmaster most considerably.
The lines near Maverick’s eyes had deepened, a result of all the recent death the pack had experienced at the hands of the Volk and the vamps. Mav was still young for a wolf, as vibrant and lethal as ever, but Malcolm could see how the pack’s devastation weighed on him. He’d never been envious of the other shifter’s position. It was more responsibility than a single wolf should ever bear.
Maverick released a long sigh, shaking his head again, his long hair moving. “First the half turned, the serum, the Volk, and now this. Where does it end?”
“It ends here. Swiftly,” Blaze answered, uncharacteristically serious. When it came to the Volk, he always was. He leaned against one of the office’s many chairs on the opposite side of the room. “We’ll find the right plan.”
Maverick was shaking his head again. “What I can’t wrap my head around is what a group of supernatural Mafia wannabes from Chicago are doing all the way out here?” Maverick’s gold eyes flashed again. “What purpose would partnering with the bloodsuckers and the few remaining Volk serve?”
Their agreement to protect humanity, to keep the bloodsuckers in check in exchange for immunity from the human hunters of the Execution Underground, was always reason enough. The bloodsuckers didn’t like being controlled, policed so that they didn’t slaughter humans indiscriminately.
Blaze shrugged. “Do they need a reason?” Today he was wearing one of his signature graphic T-shirts, which aptly read You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me, Not Again. “Aside from fucking us over?”
Malcolm smirked in mild amusement.
“Aside from that.” Maverick leaned back in his desk chair, considering for a moment while he stared at the dark wood of the bookshelves, as if the large tomes that lined the walls, detailing the Grey Wolves history, would hold an answer for him. The office fell silent, with only the tick of the clock on the wall cutting through the quiet.
After a long beat, the packmaster said, “You don’t think it could have anything to do with…?” His voice trailed off, but his gaze fell pointedly on Malcolm.
“No,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “I’m certain of it.”
Hell, he hadn’t shown his face in Chicago in years. Hadn’t made any mistakes or stepped out into human territory, not without being in his assassin blacks or having his face hidden beneath the shadows of his Stetson. He knew the rules. He was a wanted man, and Wolf Pack Run was his prison.
Save for a single outing to the Midnight Coyote once a month, a luxury only afforded because there weren’t any humans aside from the occasional feeder. He’d been more than careful. Following the exact protocols their front of house, Dean Royal, set out for him.
Not that Malcolm cared to interact with humanity anyway. Not like Dean did. After Bo, as far as he was concerned, there was no redemption for the monsters. At their worst, humans only knew hate, fear, and bloodshed, especially toward anyone or anything different from them.
He’d learned that lesson the hard way, harder than most, in his childhood.
For Bo, that same lesson had ended with him dead and buried beneath the cavern rock and had left Malcolm alone once again. Nothing but the ghost of the man he’d loved to keep him warm.
“There’s no connection,” Malcolm said again, reassuring both himself and Maverick. “I’m certain.” The Triple S’s Chicago home base was pure coincidence. Nothing more.
A moment later, as if his packmate’s ears had been burning, the door to the office swung open and Dean stepped in. He smiled at them. The pale tan of the Stetson perched atop his long locs contrasted handsomely with his dark skin.
The Grey Wolf front-of-house director was nearly as quietly charming as he was lethal. That charm played well in his position, since for all intents and purposes, he was the face of Wolf Pack Run, their spokesperson. Only he interacted regularly with humanity, ensuring the ranch’s outside business and coordinating their interests beyond the packlands with their ranching contacts as near as Billings and as far as Bozeman, and farther, to the rangers at the ranch’s Yellowstone border. He and Malcolm worked closely together, since Dean was in charge of selling and purchasing operations and Malcolm ran the bunkhouse, two jobs that went hand in hand.
Malcolm had always thought Dean was handsome, respected him. He was kind and good-hearted in a way many in the pack weren’t, but he was also heterosexual and happily mated. A safe, unexciting attraction when there was no actual risk of his feelings being reciprocated. Not like with Trixie. Nothing about her was safe.
Malcolm cleared his throat, pushing the thought from his mind and redistributing his weight in the chair where he sat. He wasn’t about to examine that thought too closely. Not now.
Not with everything the pack had at risk.
The moment the door closed behind Dean, Maverick’s eyes turned to their packmate. “How are things looking from the front? With the humans?”
Internally, Malcolm bristled. At least he’d been wrong about that. He supposed a human and a witch weren’t the same, but they were still too damn close for comfort. There was something special about shifters, about living more than half a life as beasts that men feared. A man didn’t become animal without being humbled, without his voice and all the things that gave him power being stripped away from him. When they were wolf, they were wild, one with the nature around them, powerful in jaws and claws, but also vulnerable. The kind of vulnerability most human males never had to fear.
Not if they were white and heterosexual anyway.
“They’re none the wiser. Still ignorant.” Dean took a seat not far from Blaze on the opposite side of the room, nowhere near Malcolm. The choice was unconscious, but it didn’t escape Malcolm’s notice. They all shied away from him.
Even their wolves knew he was a killer.
“The noise didn’t carry?” Maverick asked.
Their recent round of battle with the Volk had required the pack to use machine guns instead of their usual handhelds. Volk were more difficult to kill than vampires, but the bloodsuckers had numbers and a hometown advantage on their side. Wolf Pack Run was relatively isolated, the sheer size of the pack’s ranchlands ensuring privacy, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still risk living out in plain view, if anyone looked too closely.
That was where Dean came in.
“Nothing to be concerned about. We’ll need to be careful, as always. But we’re in the clear for now. I’ve smoothed any questions over.”
“Good.” Maverick nodded his approval. “That leaves us more room to figure out how to strike against Cillian.”
Blaze leaned his shoulder against the adjoining door to the security office. “The MC is on board. They’ll be here to fight beside us soon enough. When the bloodsuckers come again, we’ll be ready for them.”
Maverick shook his head. “We can’t wait for them to attack first. Not this time. Not without knowing what the Triple S have planned. We need to understand what they’re bringing to the table, and the vamps already dug their own graves by assisting the Volk. This is war now. We strike first.”
Dean removed his Stetson from his head. “Still best not to operate without full information.”
“Could you press Trixie more?” Maverick asked Malcolm. “See what else she knows?”
Blaze smiled a cheesed-up, teasing grin. “I’m certain he’d love to press Trixie.”
Without warning, something inside Malcolm snapped, something protective and territorial. He was across the room before he could stop himself.
“Don’t talk about her like that.” He rounded on Blaze, eyes flashing to his wolf. He snarled, canine teeth bared, drawing up on Blaze inches from the other wolf’s face. “Do it again and I fucking end you,” he promised.
It surprised even him that he meant it.
Blaze and his other packmates stilled. The threat hung heavy in the charged air.
“Duly noted.” Blaze lifted his hands in surrender before he inched a step back. “I’m happily mated, Malcolm. To Dakota. Remember?”
Malcolm wasn’t entirely certain why Blaze chose that moment to remind him. But Malcolm backed off, turning his attention toward Maverick again. From the corner of his eye, he saw Blaze mouth a silent wow while Dean let out a pretend whistle.
Let them think what they would of him, but he wouldn’t let Blaze joke about Trixie. He’d promised her his protection and he meant it fully. The only reason he hadn’t dragged her here the moment she’d left Yellowstone was because he was trying to give her space, be respectful of her wishes. She was used to independence. Not him following her every move like a needy bloodhound. What happened between them hadn’t changed things.
“She doesn’t know anything else. I’m certain,” he said to Maverick, refusing to look in his other packmates’ direction again.
Maverick was watching him with careful, smiling eyes, like he was seeing Malcolm for the very first time, but the packmaster didn’t comment. “Another way then.”
Blaze nodded in agreement. “I’ll do some reconnaissance. See what I can find, but I don’t think it will prove fruitful. They’ve gone mostly off-line.” He shrugged. “Apparently, they didn’t like me using the Volk leader’s social media accounts to locate them.”
Since Blaze was a former MAC-V-Alpha soldier, they all knew he had done more than simply locate them. Apparently, the ordeal had involved several pipe bombs and a planted cyanide pill. Blaze cast the room a charming, wry grin, lightening the mood.
Malcolm rolled his eyes.
Killing wasn’t supposed to be showy. It was supposed to be efficient, clean. Not bombastic. Cold and distant was his preference, and in his profession, he did have a preference.
“Then we do this the old-fashioned way,” Maverick said, ignoring Blaze’s joking.
Dean’s gaze narrowed on the packmaster, questioning. “What are you suggesting?”
“We find one of those bloodbags and squeeze it until it bursts like a fucking oversize mosquito.” Maverick’s wolf eyes burned. His heated gaze turned toward Malcolm. “Do you think you can do that?”
Malcolm nodded. “It’d have to be someone lower level. Who they wouldn’t notice is missing for a few days.” That was one thing he was good at—making people disappear.
“You think someone that far down the ranks would have knowledge of this?” Dean lifted a brow.
“If word’s gotten out to Trixie and Boss, then I’d say half the supernaturals this side of Appalachia know. Just not our people, and that’s deliberate.” Maverick stood, pushing back his desk chair.
Blaze opened the joining door to the security office, ducking inside as he called over his shoulder. “So Malcolm targets and shakes down some low-level vamp to see what info he can get out of him. In the meantime, I gather reconnaissance. And then? Once we have the information we need?”
“Not a shakedown. Get the information and then end him if you have to. It’ll send a message. A life for a life. For Austin.” Maverick placed both his hands on his desk, supporting his weight there. “We do whatever it takes to put an end to this.”
A moment later, Blaze ducked back in, a coy grin spread across face. Malcolm lifted a brow because his packmate was directing the full wattage of his smirk at him. “Things just got more interesting,” Blaze said, both to Malcolm and the room as a whole.
“What?” Malcolm growled. He’d had enough of Blaze’s teasing for one day.
Blaze whipped out his phone and pressed the app that pulled up the pack’s security screens, turning it toward Malcolm. “Trixie’s here.”