Chapter 36

Kyp

Sam hadn’t said what was wrong on the phone, but his voice had been tight, and it hadn’t been a request to come.

“I need you to come to the house. Now,” he’d said. Wolf pricked his ears forward and sent all my new Alpha senses to high alert as we exited the back of the school. Some of my hearing and smelling had improved as my body changed and adapted to my new role.

“Kyp, what’s wrong?” Rachel asked as she walked beside me to the truck.

“I don’t know. Sam just said we need to get to Dominic’s house immediately. I was listening and scenting.”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said quietly and grabbed my hand. I glanced at her, relishing the feel of her skin against mine. Her eyes were distant, and I could tell her wolf was coming to the fore to do her own perimeter check.

I opened the truck for her and smiled when I realized she’d scooted over to the middle seat rather than sitting by the door. I wanted to kiss her again, but I was still feeling insecure about a lot of things, and Wolf was pulling me to hurry to get to Sam.

Duty won and the truck rumbled to life.

A few minutes later we were parked in Dominic’s driveway. Another dark SUV was already there next to his car.

“Do you know who that SUV belongs to?” Rachel asked.

“No, I don’t. Maybe someone from the Thornehill pack?”

“Probably. Maybe it’s Austin Thornehill’s. Megan said they were coming down today.”

I knocked on the door, my arm touching Rachel’s and filling me with heat, despite what were probably grave circumstances waiting for us inside.

“Kyp, I’m glad you’re here. Hi, Rachel,” Sam said in a rush as he ushered us into the house and toward the living room.

Dominic, Austin Thornehill, and his daughter, Sarah, were seated.

“Austin,” Dominic said rising, “I don’t know if you’ve met our other allied Alpha, but this is Alexander Kypson.”

Austin rose, as did Sarah.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Austin said, his blue eyes shining genuinely. I had met Sarah at HarvestFest but had only seen the Thornehill Alpha from a distance. I understood now where she got her light-colored hair, though her eyes were green like celery.

“Just Kyp is fine,” I answered as I crossed the room to exchange customary scenting. I glanced back at Rachel. “This is Rachel. She’s my pack.” I couldn’t help the note of pride that crept into my voice. I could tell Rachel was uncomfortable, but she came forward and exchanged scents with Austin.

“I think you’ve already met my daughter, Sarah?”

“We did meet briefly at HarvestFest. It’s nice to see you again, Sarah,” Rachel said with a smile.

“You, too. I’ve never had a better Russian Teacake than the one I had at your booth,” Sarah commented with a smile, curiosity lighting her green eyes. Rachel had been fully human the last time Sarah had met her. Neither Sarah nor Rachel said anything. I didn’t know if Dominic had told them anything or if he’d left it to me to handle my own pack business. Such as it was.

“I’m glad you liked it.” Some of the unease dropped from Rachel’s shoulders.

“We’re here because there’s been another development,” Dominic broke in, ending all pleasantries before Sarah had even exchanged scents with either Rachel or me. “Victor Atwood has killed again.”

The blood froze in my veins as Wolf stood fully, his chest puffing, every instinct driving me to protect Rachel. My finger began to worry over my thumb to keep myself still and not physically reach out and grab Rachel. I held back a shiver of relief when she stepped closer so that her shoulder touched mine.

“Who was it?” Rachel asked, her voice hushed.

“Sharon Murdock,” Sam said. “He left her driver’s license right on top of her slashed chest, though part of her face was missing like Mr. Steinbach’s.”

The floor began to spin and for a second I thought I was going to throw up. Wolf snapped his jaws.

“Mom.” The word left my lips in a frozen hush as I scrambled to get my phone out of my pocket.

“Kyp? What’s wrong?” Several voices spoke over one another, but I ignored them, holding Rachel’s hand like a vice and praying for my mom to pick up her phone. I only called her at work if I meant it, so she’d pick up if she was able.

“Alexander? What’s going on?”

“Mom, where are you?”

“I just got back from a call out. I’m getting ready to walk into the lounge.”

“Listen to me. You are sick. Too sick to continue your shift. I want you to go to the ER waiting room. There are always people there and there’s a guard on duty by the metal detectors. You wait there until either Jonathan or I come to pick you up. Do you understand?” If I hadn’t been nearly panicked out of my mind at that moment, it would have been bizarre to hear myself ordering my mother around. But she didn’t question it. She accepted it and my judgment.

“All right. Are you safe?” She breathed heavily.

“I’m fine. I need you to be, too.”

“Love you. I’m feeling aches and pains coming on now.”

“Love you, too. See you soon.”

I clicked the call off, my heart still racing in my chest.

“You know Sharon Murdock?” Dominic questioned, one black bushy brow raised in surprise.

I shook my head. “No. But she’s on Mom’s crew. She called in sick this week. Mom has been covering some of her hours.” I gulped. “I either need to go get her or call Jonathan.” My voice held a finality that surprised even me. And I realized that I was placing a lot of trust in a werewolf I didn’t know overly well. But Mom trusted him. I reminded Wolf that Mom had good instincts.

“Of course.” Austin nodded, gaining a rapid understanding of the situation. “That may mean that Atwood is abducting his victims and holding them before committing the murders.”

My gut rolled again as I punched Jonathan’s number.

“This is Stone.”

“Jonathan. It’s Kyp. Can you go pick up my mom at the hospital? Right now?”

“I’m leaving as we speak. Can I ask what’s wrong?” I glanced at Dominic who nodded, his wolf-enhanced hearing having no problem picking up the phone conversation in the otherwise silent room.

“Atwood has murdered a member of my mom’s crew.”

I hung up the phone and realized my hand was shaking. I stuffed the phone back in my pocket and raised my eyes to meet the concerned gazes of everyone else in the room. Wolf nudged me and I straightened. Rachel squeezed my hand, and I felt my heart slow down a notch.

“Who found her?” I asked, glad there was no tremor in my voice.

“I did,” Dominic answered stiffly. “Sam, too.”

I glanced at Sam. His face was grim.

Dominic cleared his throat. “We are going to have to go on the offensive. I’m not sure yet how, but this cannot continue.”

There was a murmur of agreements.

“Who’s with the body now?” Sarah asked.

“One of our boys from the police. We have to let the police handle it officially, but at least we’ll have a hand in it and all the police knowledge.”

“Who’s your man?” Austin asked.

“Gordon Rockwell,” Dominic answered.

Sarah’s eyebrows creased, trying to place the name.

“You remember Jake? You probably met Jake and Cindy at HarvestFest,” Sam interjected.

“Oh! Gordon Rockwell is Jake’s dad,” Sarah clarified. Sam nodded.

Sudden images of Sam’s cabin flitted across my brain. I blinked, then glanced at Rachel as I realized she was using our link. I focused and my mind saw Rachel sitting at the cabin table with Megan. Her emerald eyes were huge in her pale face. I bobbed my head, understanding this was too much for Rachel right now. I got it.

“Sam, is Megan at the cabin right now?”

He nodded. “Amalie Rivers is with her.”

“I think I need to join them,” Rachel said. Her freckles stood out against the paleness of her skin.

****

Once Rachel was snugged away with Megan and Amalie, the two Alphas, their Betas, and I set off to the location Gordon Rockwell had sent us. We needed to go on the offensive, and to do that, we had to find more information.

The plan was to split up and track back toward Victor’s pack without getting too close. We needed evidence.

The place Sharon had been dumped reeked of blood. My stomach heaved as Wolf took in the tangy odor. It woke a place inside me that demanded power and my newly onset Alpha genes seemed to enhance that darker part. And that concerned me. I gave Wolf’s will a good shake to remind him that I was in charge, even as an Alpha pair, I was still the Alpha. Insecurity gripped me afresh. Shaking my head to rid it of the inept feeling, I focused my senses back on my surroundings.

We spread out, noses to the ground. The police had been all over this area already when they’d taken the body, and it was hard for me to pick up a clean scent of wolf. The other wolves found it before I did.

Sarah’s snowy wolf gave a quick yip and pawed the ground in front of her. The rest of us quickly moved over to where her white paw scratched at the dirt. I sniffed and caught the muskiness of wolf buried under the wet dirt and blood that seeped into everything. Dominic nudged me over and ran his nose across the whole area. His hackles raised. He must have recognized the scent. Sam growled low in his chest. Dominic looked up sharply at Sam who pointed with his nose to a small cluster of trees in the opposite direction. Austin and Sarah veered over and sniffed. Glancing at each other, they nodded and turned to the rest of us.

Wolf grumbled silently inside. I wished I had a working link. Although it was getting better with Rachel. I still felt alone out here, Alpha though I was, among these two established wolves with their pack mates. Technically, Rachel was my Beta, since she was the only other one in my pack. But I was glad she hadn’t come for this. This was too much for her on top of everything else she was dealing with.

The wind whistled through another knot of trees to my right and a smell caught my nose. I couldn’t identify exactly what it was, it just smelled off. It wasn’t a normal forest odor. Barking, I got the others’ attention and lifted my nose into the air, indicating they should scent as well.

The wind gusted again, and this time I got a nose full. What I smelled sent Wolf cowering and my blood turning to ice. I backed up, whimpering before I could stop myself.

Unable to communicate the full scope of my terror with the others, I did the only thing I could. I shifted.

“Run. It’s a trap,” my strangled voice choked out.

That smell was poison. I’d had it used on me once in the Kentucky pack after I lost a fight. As punishment, I’d had my hands dipped in a tar-like substance laced with wolfsbane and who knew what else. It had blistered my skin for days and separated me from my wolf until the blisters healed. It was excruciating. If they’d laid the stuff on the ground and one of us stepped on it, I had no doubt the same thing would happen. We’d be hobbled. Literally and figuratively. Victor could swoop in and snatch us up like a fat prize as we wallowed around in misery and pain, unable to shift to our wolves.

Dominic didn’t waste time. He bulled his nose into Sam’s side back the direction we’d come. Austin and Sarah turned as one and together we fled, careful to stay to our own scents so we stepped nowhere unnecessarily.

Back on Wolfe land, we slowed our frantic run, but not by much. Once we were seated in Dominic’s living room, the moon was rising. My belly rumbled, and I realized I never ate dinner.

“Kyp, how did you know what that smell was?” Austin asked.

“I’ve had an unpleasant experience with it.” I gave them a brief description of what had happened to me.

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. “He’s a mastermind. If he could have taken us all out tonight, the rest of the packs would have been easy pickings.”

“Did Jordan ever say any more about how Victor uses his mind control on his pack?” Dominic asked Austin about a prisoner from Victor’s pack who had broken away from the maniac and taken refuge with the Thornehill pack.

“He didn’t know how it worked, only that it did. Jordan said he wasn’t even aware most of the time that he had been controlled but would sometimes find himself in strange situations or some place he knew he hadn’t wanted to go. Sometimes he could feel it like a nudge and was still aware of what he was doing, and other times Victor just outright used command.”

Ice chilled my blood once more. “How many people can he do this to at once?”

“His entire pack. All at the same time.”

Sarah shifted in her seat, her eyes radiating hatred.

How were we supposed to defeat an invincible enemy?