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I’d hoped Rune would follow, perhaps promise to help without including the rest of the Samhain Shifters in Whelan business. But he didn’t. Instead, he dragged his heels in the backyard while I came to terms with the obvious flaw in my plan.
Storming off, I decided as I side-eyed Rune’s convertible, is considerably more effective with your own set of wheels.
But I wasn’t stuck waiting for a pack mate to pick me up if I didn’t want to continue accepting Rune’s chauffeur services. Airport garages weren’t within Natalie’s budget, so she’d returned home between dropping off the kids and rushing to catch her flight. It was cheaper, she’d told me, to take a cab.
Plus, her old junker didn’t always want to start.
It started for me, though. Started with the key Natalie left under the mat, the doors unlocked around it. “If someone’s desperate enough to steal Old Nellie,” she’d told me once, “they shouldn’t have to break a window first.”
Which meant I didn’t need to break a window either. The battery light stayed on as I pulled out onto the street, but the vehicle was moving. When I stopped at the end of the block, I wasn’t at all surprised to see a silver convertible on my tail.
Rune’s car peeled off to the left, though, when I turned right. My stomach lurched, although I couldn’t say why I was disappointed. Rune had his job to do and I had mine.
A job that included protecting my pack as well as finding Kale. The sullied glitter couldn’t be ignored, even if Kale was the more timely danger. Plus, I hadn’t specifically told Rune no about his non-alpha friend....
I drummed fingers on the steering wheel, considering. What were the chances one of my trusted pack mates was really a fae using glamour to fool us? Slim, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance.
Which meant I couldn’t contact any of my obvious lieutenants. After a moment, I chose a number off my phone.
When Caitlyn answered, she was breathless. As if she’d been running...or shifting. “Alpha.”
Remembering Rune’s admonition, I greeted the teenager by name before diving into business. “Caitlyn. I need to speak with you. Alone.”
I didn’t have to spell it out for her. During daylight, the youth pack was nearly always together. But Caitlyn was well equipped to send the others away.
“Go outside. Don’t come back until I call you.”
Her barked order was adorable. Possibly strong enough to bat Willa’s eyelash, but not much more.
Of course, the girl was speaking to other teenagers. No wonder a muffled stampede promised that her age mates had obeyed.
Then—“I’m ready, Alpha.”
But was she? Ready for a test so intense it would have turned an adult member of the pack against me? Because that’s why I’d chosen Caitlyn—she was still wet enough behind the ears that she’d do whatever I asked without realizing I was overstepping the line.
Well, that plus the fact that she was too young to have much likelihood of falling onto invading fae’s radar. Willa or Ash or even my secretary were obvious clan members to impersonate. But no fae was likely to take the place of a child.
Caitlyn, though, while a child in age was an adult where it mattered. “I have an important job for you,” I told her. “But first, I need to make certain of something. It will be painful. Are you game?”
Her response was instant. Trusting. “Of course, Alpha.”
I closed my eyes, then I tugged on the pack bond between us. Tugged...before clenching down hard with one fist.
“A...alpha.” Caitlyn’s response was a gasp, but I ignored it. Squeezing tighter, I let my mind fall down the connection between us. Pushing past the boundaries of personhood, I breeched the border only an Alpha could pass.
The pain—I knew from having this done to me by my own father—was excruciating. No wonder Caitlyn’s mind tried to skitter away from me for one split second.
But then she settled. As if we were in wolf form and I’d clenched my teeth down across her muzzle. She relaxed into my dominance, her mind opening beneath mine like a landscape viewed from a mountaintop.
From this vantage point, I could see everything. Caitlyn’s hopes and fears, dreams and insecurities unfurling beneath me. Her awe for her Alpha was borderline embarrassing. Her pain at my invasion was hard to stomach.
The complexity was beyond anything a fae could impersonate.
So I let go, soothing back over the rough edges I’d created in the process. Clearing my throat, I tried to think what I could say to make things right after such an intrusion.
All that came out was, “I need to know every single pack mate’s current whereabouts. You can start with the work schedule for the factory....”
I’d intended to relay further instructions, but Caitlyn interrupted me. Inappropriate but gutsy. And proof that I hadn’t caused any lasting harm.
Smiling, I let her talk.
“You don’t need to tell me how to do it, Alpha.”
“Okay. Report to me only if you notice inconsistencies. And if a werewolf named Athena shows up, let her in but stick to her like a burr.”
Because the more I thought about this non-alpha Athena the more I thought I should have agreed to her assistance. Whatever my father said, sometimes an Alpha could use a little help.
“I can do that, Alpha.” Caitlyn’s voice quivered, as if being entrusted with such authority was both heady and terrifying. As if that was worth the pain that came before it. Then, as the silence lengthened: “Is there anything else, Alpha?”
“Wolves don’t need to be coddled,” my father had told me. Still, what harm could it do to tell a pack mate the truth about herself?
So I did. Cleared my throat a second time then spat out words that felt awkward on my tongue. “I want you to know I notice your sacrifices. I’m proud of you, Caitlyn.”
Then, before our conversation could get any more soppy, I ended the call.
***
THE BUS LINE PASSED by nothing that screamed Kale at me. He’d always been such a good kid, though, that I had no idea where he might run if he’d decided to turn recalcitrant. Plus, if fae were involved, all bets were off.
Which meant I’d bulldoze my way through hunting Kale the same way I bulldozed through factory spreadsheets. Get out at each stop and sniff for his presence then speed like the dickens to make up for lost time.
Shifting in the backseat of Natalie’s car at the first location was suboptimal; inhaling scent from the pavement near the mall was even less effective. So many feet had passed by this point that I couldn’t be certain Kale’s weren’t among them. But I didn’t think he’d disembarked here.
Leaping back through the window I’d left open, I returned to humanity and continued to the next stop.
Here, the bus sign sat between a sex-toy store and a pawnshop. A neighborhood I really hoped Kale hadn’t chosen. Which, knowing tweens, made it twice as likely he’d hopped off at this point.
So I pulled into an alley and stashed the key on top of a tire. Despite Natalie’s laissez-faire attitude toward theft, I wasn’t about to leave her vehicle on the main drag with the window down. The alley definitely stunk enough to keep out thieves though. Crouching between the car and the wall, I could barely force myself to stop holding my nose long enough to shed clothes and shift into lupine form.
There, the stench materialized into...wolf. I blinked. It hadn’t smelled like that when I was human. But now I could make out the dark, oily aroma I associated with my father. A strong alpha had been here recently, trespassing on my land.
I growled. Even though I didn’t own this spot on human terms, it was most definitely part of Whelan territory. Everywhere within an hour’s drive was Whelan territory. The Guardian should have alerted me to the intrusion the moment a non-pack wolf set foot out of a car.
The fact that the Guardian hadn’t pinged me with that information lent weight to Rune’s hypothesis that fae might be involved in Kale’s disappearance. They were muddling our Guardian. Or our Guardian was too busy fighting them to do the usual job of pack protection.
Which meant my clan needed me. I hesitated, reining in my territorial nature and considering which thread to tug.
The obvious thread, I decided, was the one directly in front of me. It seemed like an unlikely coincidence that a powerful shifter had chosen to trespass at the same time non-Guardian fae impacted our clan and Kale went missing. I’d hunt down this wolf then I’d go from there.
To that end, I sniffed along the scent trail in one direction until I could tell it was growing colder. Turning around, I headed back the other way, past Natalie’s car and out onto the main street.
People here didn’t bat an eyelash at a wolf passing between them. They likely thought I was a dog even though I boasted no collar. But, if so, I was the kind of dog usually locked in a chain-link yard to keep intruders out of meth labs. It spoke to the toughness of the neighborhood’s human inhabitants that they didn’t see me coming and head to the other side of the street.
Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe they passed me by then called 911. That’s the only explanation I could give for the whoop that alerted me one second before a huge net came crashing down over my head.